Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

Former Kentwood, Michigan, police officer Dan Boelens, another Blackwater contractor who had been to Iraq before deploying to New Orleans, was assigned by Blackwater to guard Bell South workers in New Orleans. 6He said that for several days after he arrived, he and other Blackwater contractors had patrolled the streets in SUVs and armed with assault rifles. “The only difference between here and Iraq is there are no roadside bombs,” he said. “It’s like a Third World country. You just can’t believe this is America.” Boelens added, “We keep having this little flashback, like what we were doing in Iraq.” 7The only kill Boelens claimed in New Orleans was a pit bull he shot before it could attack him.

Blackwater was among a handful of well-connected firms that immediately seized the business opportunity not just in the rubble and devastation in the Gulf but also in the media hysteria. As the federal, state, and local governments abandoned hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims, the images that dominated the television coverage of the hurricane were of looting, lawlessness, and chaos. These reports were exaggerated and, without question, racist and inflammatory. If you were watching from, say, Kennebunkport, Maine, you might imagine New Orleans as one big riot—a festival of criminals whose glory day had finally come. In reality, it was a city of internally displaced and abandoned people desperate for food, water, transportation, rescue, and help. What was desperately needed was food, water, and housing. Instead what poured in fastest were guns. Lots of guns.

Frank Borelli, a former military policeman who worked for Blackwater in the early days of the operation, recalled that when he arrived at the Blackwater camp in Louisiana, “I was issued a Glock 17 and a Mossberg M590A shotgun. I was also issued a shotshell pouch with ten rounds of slug and ten rounds of 00 Buck. There was (at that time) no 9mm ammo available, but I was blessed to be in a camp full of trigger-pullers. Before I racked out I had fifty-one rounds of 9mm ammo loaded into three magazines for the G17.” 8Clearly well armed, Borelli observed, “The logistics effort to support the operation is awesome, and I know ammo was just flown in on Monday. More came in on Wednesday. It is a comment on the spirit of the American cop/warrior that Blackwater can put so many men on the ground so fast . Supporting them is a daunting challenge.”

In the early days of the hurricane, even with heavily armed Blackwater men openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans, a spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington Post he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security. “We believe we’ve got the right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of public safety,” Knocke said on September 8. 9But the very next day, the Blackwater troops on the ground put forward a very different narrative. When asked what authority they were operating under, one Blackwater contractor said, “We’re on contract with the Department of Homeland Security.” Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, “He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary.” The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. Blackwater spokesperson Anne Duke also said the company had a letter from Louisiana officials authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons. 10Some of the men said they were sleeping in camps set up by Homeland Security.

“This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, upon learning Blackwater forces were deployed in the hurricane zone. “These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal.” A statement on Blackwater’s Web site, dated September 1, 2005, advertised airlift services, security services, and crowd control and said the company was deploying its SA-330 Puma helicopter “to help assist in evacuating citizens from flooded areas.” 11The press release claimed “Blackwater’s aerial support services” were being “donated” to the relief effort. “At this time, all Americans should band together and assist our countrymen who have been struck by this natural disaster,” said founder Erik Prince. “Blackwater is proud to serve the people of New Orleans,” said Blackwater’s executive vice president Bill Mathews on September 13. “First and foremost, this is about Americans helping Americans in a time of desperation.” 12Cofer Black spun Blackwater’s operations in Katrina as strictly humanitarian-motivated. “I think it’s important to underscore that companies like ours are in servitude,” Black later said, adding that when Katrina hit, “Our company launched a helicopter and crew with no contract, no one paying us, that went down to New Orleans. We were able to find out how to put ourselves under Coast Guard command—we got a Coast Guard call sign and we saved some 150 people that otherwise wouldn’t have been saved. And as a result of that, we’ve had a very positive experience.” 13“We’re always anxious to help our fellow citizens,” Black said, “whether we get paid or not.” But the fact is that Blackwater was indeed getting paid in New Orleans—big time.

On September 18, Blackwater estimated that it had 250 troops deployed in the region; a number Mathews said would continue to grow. “We are people who want to make a difference and help,” he said. “It’s time to set the record straight: We are not… skull-crushing mercenaries. We don’t believe we will make a profit here. We ran to the fire because it was burning.” 14In another interview Mathews said that because Blackwater had donated more than $1 million in aviation services, “If we break even on the security services, our company will have done a great job.” 15By then, the company was aggressively recruiting for its New Orleans operations. It required applicants to have at least four years of military experience “with duties involving carrying a weapon.” A Blackwater advertisement said, “This opportunity is for immediate deployment. Earning potential up to $9,000 a month.” 16Meanwhile, Blackwater floated a proposal to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that it set up a training facility to prepare local workers for security-industry jobs in New Orleans, either with Blackwater or other firms. “Security is going to be an issue during the entire reconstruction,” said Mathews. 17

While Blackwater may indeed have donated some “services” in New Orleans, its claims about rescuing people with its helicopter have been called into serious question by the U.S. Coast Guard, under whose direction Blackwater boasted it was operating. In early 2006, Erik Prince bragged that “after Hurricane Katrina hit, we sent one of our Puma helicopters…. I said, ‘Start flying.’ We got ourselves attached to the Coast Guard, actually became a Coast Guard call sign, and we flew, rescued 128 people.” 18That story doesn’t appear to add up. “[Blackwater] offered to do rescues, but there were legal concerns. What if someone got hurt? So we asked them not to engage in pulling people out,” said Coast Guard Cmdr. Todd Campbell, who directed a large part of the rescue operations. He told the Virginian-Pilot that Blackwater “debriefed me at the end of every day, and no one ever mentioned doing any rescues. If they were out there doing them, it was solely on their own.” 19

Moreover, despite its moralistic boasts, Blackwater hardly ran a pro-bono humanitarian operation in New Orleans. In addition to its work guarding private companies, banks, hotels, industrial sites, and rich individuals, 20Blackwater was quietly handed a major no-bid contract with the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, ostensibly to protect federal reconstruction projects for FEMA. According to Blackwater’s government contracts, from September 8 to September 30, 2005—just three weeks—Blackwater was paid $409,000 for providing fourteen guards and four vehicles to “protect the temporary morgue in Baton Rouge, LA.” 21Documents show that the government paid Blackwater $950 a day for each of its guards in the area—some $600 more per man per day than the company was allegedly paying its men on the ground. 22That contract kicked off a hurricane boon for Blackwater; by the end of 2005, in just three months, the government had paid Blackwater at least $33.3 million for its Katrina work for DHS. 23All of these services were justified by the government’s claim of not having enough personnel to deploy quickly in the hurricane zone, though spokespeople carefully avoided drawing a connection to the various U.S. occupations internationally. “We saw the costs, in terms of accountability and dollars, for this practice in Iraq, and now we are seeing it in New Orleans,” said Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, one of Blackwater’s few critics in Congress. “They have again given a sweetheart contract—without an open bidding process—to a company with close ties to the Administration.” 24By June 2006, the company had raked in some $73 million from its Katrina work for the government—about $243,000 a day. 25