Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

Beyond the issues raised by private contractors hired by the Pentagon lies the more troubling problem of the State Department’s private armed forces. A major part of the Democrats’ plan calls for maintaining the massive U.S. Embassy, the largest embassy in world history, as well as the Green Zone. At present, much of the security work required by the embassy and the travel of U.S. officials into and out of the Green Zone is done by three private security firms: Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and DynCorp. This arrangement reflects the simultaneous militarization and privatization of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Created in the mid-1990s, the department’s Worldwide Personal Protective Services was originally envisioned as a small-scale bodyguard operation, comprised of private security contractors, to protect small groups of U.S. diplomats and other U.S. and foreign officials. In Iraq, it has been turned into a sizable paramilitary force. Spending on the program jumped from $50 million in 2003 to $613 million in 2006. 72

The looming question is: who would protect the Democrats’ army of diplomats in Iraq? Some insist that it is possible to continue to rely on private forces to do this work as long as they are held accountable. As of March 2008, these private forces enjoyed a de facto “above the law” status, which both Obama and Clinton have decried. But it is hard to see how “accountability” is going to be achieved, at least in the short term.

In late 2007, in the aftermath of Nisour Square, the House overwhelmingly approved legislation that would ensure that all contractors would be subject to prosecution in U.S. civilian courts for crimes committed on a foreign battlefield. 73The idea is: FBI investigators would deploy to the crime scene, gather evidence, and interview witnesses, leading to indictments and prosecutions. But this approach raises a slew of questions. Who would protect the investigators? How would Iraqi victims be interviewed? How would evidence be gathered amid the chaos and dangers of a hostile war zone like Iraq? Given that the federal government and the military seem unable—or unwilling—even to count how many contractors are actually in the country, how could their activities possibly be monitored? Apart from the fact that it would be impossible to effectively police such an enormous deployment of private contractors (such as in Iraq, where it is equal in size to the military presence), this legislation could give the private military industry a tremendous PR victory. The companies could finally claim that a legally accountable structure governed their operations. Yet they would be well aware that such legislation would be nearly impossible to enforce. Perhaps that is why the industry has passionately backed this approach. Prince called its passage in the House, “Excellent.”

Others have proposed to address the problem simply by expanding the official U.S. government forces responsible for securing the embassy and Green Zone, thus reducing the market for mercenary companies. In an October 2007 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Senator Joe Biden, chair of the influential Foreign Relations Committee, suggested the United States should examine “whether we should expand the ranks of Diplomatic Security rather than continue to rely so heavily on contractors.” 74He called for hiring more agents, saying, “The requirement for extensive personal security to protect the employees of the U.S. mission will continue for several years to come—regardless of the number of U.S. forces in Iraq.”

While an increase in funding to the Diplomatic Security division would ostensibly pave the way for a force made up entirely of U.S. government personnel, there are serious questions about how quickly that could happen. As of October 2007, the State Department had only 1,450 Diplomatic Security agents worldwide who were actual U.S. government employees and only thirty-six deployed in Iraq. 75In contrast, as of March 2008, Blackwater had nearly 1,000 operatives in Iraq alone , not to mention the hundreds more working for Triple Canopy and DynCorp. The State Department has said it could take years to identify prospective new agents, vet them, train them, and deploy them. 76In short, this would be no small undertaking and, even if the political will and funding was there, would take years to enact.

If the Democrats attempted to make diplomatic security a military operation, that would pose serious challenges as well. As the New York Times reported in late 2007, “the military does not have the trained personnel to take over the job.” 77Even if the military trained a specialized force for executive protection and bodyguarding in Iraq, this arrangement would mean more U.S. military convoys traveling inside Iraq, potentially placing them in deadly conflict with Iraqi civilians on a regular basis.

Realizing the practical challenges any transition away from private security forces in Iraq would entail, during the 2008 election campaign, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama said, “I can’t rule out, I won’t rule out, private security contractors.” 78This must have been a difficult admission. While Obama has been at the forefront of attempts to legislate accountability for contractors on the battlefield—he introduced a contractor reform bill eight months before Nisour Square—his foreign policy team clearly understood that their support for maintaining a sizable U.S. presence in Iraq had painted them into a corner. On February 28, 2008, a day after I reported Obama’s position in an article in The Nation , Hillary Clinton announced she would sign on to legislation to “ban the use of Blackwater and other private mercenary firms in Iraq.” 79The timing, in the middle of their hotly contested campaign for the Democratic nomination, was curious—Clinton, during her five years on the Senate Armed Services Committee, had been largely mute on the issue before the September 16 Blackwater shooting and did not issue her statement for a full six months after the massacre. How exactly she envisioned carrying out her Iraq plan without such private forces was also unclear.

Both Clinton and Obama indicated they supported increasing funding of Diplomatic Security, as advocated by Senator Biden in 2007. In the bigger picture, however, firms like Blackwater operate in a demand-based industry, and it is this demand, which derives from offensive, unpopular wars of conquest, that must be cut off. Even if a U.S. president determined to completely transfer diplomatic security jobs from companies like Blackwater to official U.S. government agents, which would be a major undertaking, the State Department has said it could take years to implement. The reality is that short of dramatically shrinking the size of the U.S. civilian and diplomatic presence in Iraq, which necessitates such a large “diplomatic” security force, the next president may have no choice but to continue the current contracting arrangements. And that is good news for Blackwater and other private security companies.

But Iraq and diplomatic security are only part of the picture. There is almost no discussion in Congress about the stunning growth of the operations of companies like Blackwater globally and at home. Their expansion into private intelligence, homeland security, military weapons, surveillance technology, the “war on drugs,” and peacekeeping operations continues, largely free from the scrutiny of lawmakers and the media. Long ago, these companies began to stake out their role in future conflicts and a greater presence in highly sensitive and increasingly privatized government programs. It is in large part because of the lack of intense scrutiny by the media and Congress that their future appears both secure and bright.

Erik Prince certainly isn’t losing sleep these days, not over the killings of Iraqi civilians by his forces or over his company’s future status in the U.S. war machine and national security apparatus. Shortly after Nisour Square and facing a slew of Congressional, military, and Justice Department investigations over his company’s actions, Prince said, “How can I sleep? Because I’m comfortable, and I know what we’re doing. We’re doing the right thing, so beyond that, I can’t worry. I sleep the sleep of the just. I’m not feeling guilty.” 80