Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

In a 2007 interview on the cable TV business network CNBC, Black was brought on as an analyst to discuss “investing in Jordan.” 58At no point in the interview was Black identified as working for the Jordanian government. Total Intelligence was described as “a corporate consulting firm that includes investment strategy,” while “Ambassador Black” was introduced as “a 28-year veteran of the CIA,” the “top counterterror guy” and “a key planner for the breathtakingly rapid victory of American forces that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan.” During the interview, Black heaped lavish praise on Jordan and its monarchy. “You have leadership, King Abdullah, His Majesty King Abdullah, who is certainly kind towards investors, very protective,” Black said. “Jordan is, in our view, a very good investment. There are some exceptional values there.” He said Jordan is in a region where there are “numerous commodities that are being produced and doing well.”

With no hint of the brutality behind the exodus, he argued that the plight of Iraqi refugees, fleeing the violence of the U.S. occupation, was good for potential investors in Jordan. “We get something like six, 700,000 Iraqis that have moved from Iraq into Jordan that require cement, furniture, housing, and the like. So it is a—it is an island of growth and potential, certainly in that immediate area. So it looks good,” Black said. “There are opportunities for investment. It is not all bad. Sometimes Americans need to watch a little less TV…. But there is—there is opportunity in everything. That’s why you need situation awareness, and that’s one of the things that our company does. It provides the kinds of intelligence and insight to provide situational awareness so you can make the best investments.”

Black and other Total Intelligence executives have turned their CIA careers, reputations, contacts, and connections into profitable business opportunities. What they once did for the U.S. government, they now do for private interests. It is not difficult to imagine clients feeling as though they are essentially hiring the U.S. government to serve their private interests. “They have the skills and background to do anything anyone wants,” said Hillhouse. “There’s no oversight. They’re an independent company offering freelance espionage services. They’re rent-a-spies.” 59

In 2007 Richer told the Post that now that he is in the private sector, foreign military officials and others are more willing to give him information than they were when he was with the CIA. He recalled a conversation with a general from a foreign military during which Richer was surprised at the potentially “classified” information the general revealed. When Richer asked why the general was giving him the information, he said the general responded, “If I tell it to an embassy official I’ve created espionage. You’re a business partner.” 60

In 2008 Iraq was a leading issue in the U.S. presidential election. While the Democrats campaigned on a pledge to end the war, the Republican nominee, John McCain, suggested U.S. forces could remain in Iraq for “maybe a hundred” years, a scenario that he said “would be fine with me.” 61But hidden behind the rhetoric of political speeches, often framed as pro- versus anti-Iraq War, was a stark reality: the Iraq occupation will continue for years to come regardless of who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Erik Prince, who had previously donated more than $250,000 to Republican campaigns and causes, seems to have determined that his publicly traceable campaign contributions are a liability. “I don’t know that I’ll have much political involvement in either party going forward,” he said in late 2007. 62Whether that is a business decision or a political one, his company and the highly profitable industry in which it operates are so deeply embedded in the U.S. political system that they are here to stay.

Mercenary companies clearly have little to fear from Republican-dominated governance in Washington. But what about the Democrats? Despite their stated antiwar claims, the Democrats’ dominant Iraq plan would keep in place tens of thousands of U.S. troops for an unspecified time, while escalating U.S. action in Afghanistan. For military contractors like Blackwater, this is welcome news. “Nobody is going to be able to throw the contractors out,” said David Isenberg of the British-American Security Information Council. “They’re the American Express card of the American military. The military doesn’t leave home without them, because it can’t.” 63

The 2007 Iraq supplemental spending bill opened a window onto what could happen in the first term of a Democratic administration. Along with the findings of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group analysis, it formed the basis for the Iraq plans of the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency. The bill was portrayed as the Democrats’ withdrawal plan, and Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton passionately supported it, with Obama saying it meant the country was “one signature away from ending the Iraq War.” 64But upon a careful reading of the legislation (which was vetoed by President Bush), that claim rings hollow. The plan would have redeployed some U.S. forces from Iraq within 180 days. But it also would have provided for 40,000-60,000 troops to remain in Iraq as “trainers,” “counterterrorist forces,” and for “protection for embassy/diplomats,” according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies. 65“There was nothing in the legislation about contractors or mercenary forces,” said IPS analyst Erik Leaver. 66The truth is that as long as there are troops in Iraq, there will be private contractors.

In part, these contractors do mundane jobs that traditionally have been performed by soldiers, from driving trucks to doing laundry. These services are provided through companies such as Halliburton, KBR, and Fluor, and through their vast labyrinth of subcontractors. But private personnel, as Blackwater’s history in Iraq has shown, are also consistently engaged in armed combat and “security” operations. Contractors interrogate prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights, protect senior occupation officials—including some commanding U.S. generals—and in some cases have taken command of U.S. and international troops in battle. In an admission that speaks volumes about the extent of the privatization, Gen. David Petraeus, who was charged with implementing the “surge,” admitted that he has, at times, not been guarded in Iraq by the U.S. military but by “contract security.” 67At least three U.S. commanding generals have been guarded in Iraq by hired guns, including the general who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. 68

In 2008 the number of private contractors in Iraq was at a one-to-one ratio with active-duty U.S. soldiers, a stunning escalation compared with the 1991 Gulf War. “To have half of your army be contractors, I don’t know that there’s a precedent for that,” said Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 69

Some estimates actually put the number of contractors at higher than active-duty soldiers in Iraq, but exact numbers are nearly impossible to obtain. 70According to a March 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon “does not maintain departmentwide data on the numbers of contractor employees working side-by-side with federal employees.” 71But in a review of twenty-one Defense Department offices, the GAO found that at “15 offices, contractor employees outnumbered DOD employees and comprised up to 88% of the workforce. Contractor employees perform key tasks, including developing contract requirements and advising on award fees for other contractors.”