Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS MY BITCH

And here is why [story link]

Fucker wants me dead now. 96

As mercenaries roamed the country freely, there was no official explanation given to Iraqis as to who these heavily armed, often nonuniformed forces were. It would be a year before Bremer would officially get around to issuing an order that defined their status—as immune from prosecution. Iraqis killed or wounded by these mercenaries had no recourse for justice. Many Iraqis—and some journalists—erroneously believed that the mercenaries were CIA or Israeli Mossad agents, an impression that enraged citizens who encountered them. The mercenaries’ conduct and reputation also angered actual U.S. intelligence officers who felt the mercenaries could jeopardize their own security in the country. 97As 2003 neared its end, much of Iraq lay in ruins, while the oft-promised “reconstruction” projects, ostensibly to be funded by Iraqi oil revenue, were overwhelmingly nonexistent or flat-out failing. For mercenary companies, though, business was booming. In early 2004, the situation in Iraq would begin to descend even further into chaos, bringing more business for private military companies.

In February 2004, Bremer’s office engaged in an incredible act of either vast miscalculation or wanton (and deadly) disregard for reality. According to a report at the time in the Washington Post , “U.S. officials courting companies to take part in the rebuilding insist that security is not an issue for contractors and said accounts have been overblown. ‘Western contractors are not targets,’ Tom Foley, the CPA’s director of private-sector development, told hundreds of would-be investors at a Commerce Department conference in Washington on Feb. 11. He said the media have exaggerated the issue.” 98On the contrary, Foley asserted, “The risks are akin to sky diving or riding a motorcycle, which are, to many, very acceptable risks.” 99By mid-March 2004, mercenary firms were basking in what had become a tremendous “sellers’ market” in Iraq. “What it cost to hire qualified security personnel in June (2003) is a fraction of what it costs today,” said Mike Battles, founder of the U.S. firm Custer Battles, 100which was contracted to guard the Baghdad airport.

On March 18, word hit the streets that the United States was putting up a contract worth $100 million to hire private security to guard the four-square-mile Green Zone and its three thousand residents. 101“The current and projected threat and recent history of attacks directed against coalition forces, and thinly stretched military force, requires a commercial security force that is dedicated to provide Force Protection security,” read the solicitation. 102As Blackwater’s Bremer detail succeeded in keeping its high-value “noun” alive, the company’s management seized opportunity in the chaos of Iraq. They opened several new offices, in Baghdad, Amman, and Kuwait City, as well as headquarters in the epicenter of the U.S. intelligence community in McLean, Virginia, that would house the company’s new Government Relations division. Plans were under way to expand Blackwater’s lucrative business in the war zone in a profit drive that would end with four American contractors dead in Fallujah, Iraq in flames, and Blackwater’s future looking very bright.

BY EARLY2004, Blackwater was firmly entrenched in Iraq, while Erik Prince, Gary Jackson, and other Blackwater executives were aggressively exploring new markets and contracts for their thriving business. Its men were guarding the head of the U.S. occupation and several regional CPA offices around Iraq, giving Blackwater a pole position for prime contracts, and its forces were the envy of the burgeoning private security business in Iraq. This was made possible by the ever-worsening security situation in the country. In January 2004, the Financial Times reported, “Contractors say there have been more than 500 attacks on civilian and military convoys in the last two months alone.” That month, Blackwater executive Patrick Toohey “advised” businesses looking to operate in Iraq, “You should be adding a further 25 percent for security.” 1Some began comparing the mercenary market in Iraq to the Alaskan Gold Rush and the O.K. Corral. As The Times of London put it, “In Iraq, the postwar business boom is not oil. It is security.” 2Almost overnight, a once-despised industry was emerging from the shadows and thriving, and Blackwater was at the head of the pack. Eager to expand its business and profits, the company quickly put the word out that it was looking for highly qualified ex-Special Forces guys to deploy in Iraq. The company offered wages to “qualified” candidates that dwarfed basic military pay—and almost any other job’s salary. A contractor with Blackwater could make $600 to $800 a day, in some cases even more. Plus, the short-term contracts the company offered—two months—meant that a small fortune could be made quickly in a defined number of days. In many cases, contractors could extend for more terms if they wished. There were also major tax breaks offered to would-be mercenaries.

The privatization of the occupation also offered a chance for many combat enthusiasts, retired from the service and stuck in the ennui of everyday existence, to return to their glory days on the battlefield under the banner of the international fight against terrorism. “It’s what you do,” said former Navy SEAL Steve Nash. “Say you spend twenty years doing things like riding high-speed boats and jumping out of airplanes. Now, all of sudden, you’re selling insurance. It’s tough.” 3Dan Boelens, a fifty-five-year-old police officer from Michigan and self-described weapons expert, went to Iraq with Blackwater because it was “the last chance in my life to do something exciting,” saying, “I like the stress and adrenaline push it gives me.” 4

“When a guy can make more money in one month than he can make all year in the military or in a civilian job, it’s hard to turn it down,” said ex-SEAL Dale McClellan, one of the original founders of Blackwater USA. “Most of us have been getting shot at most of our lives anyway.” Their skills—urban warfare, sniping, close-quarter combat—McClellan said, are “all worthless in the civilian world.” Plus, there’s an added bonus McClellan calls the “cool-guy factor.” “Let’s face it,” he said. “Chicks dig it.” 5

“You’re not trained for a lot of other things,” said Curtis Williams, another ex-SEAL. “That adrenaline rush is addicting. It’s something that never goes away.” 6Many Special Forces soldiers who served in the “peacetime” of the 1990s also felt robbed of the overt combat of different eras and viewed the war on terror as their chance at glory. “We are trained to serve our country in an elite fashion,” said Williams. “We want to go back and kill the bad guy. It’s who we are.” 7A Blackwater contractor who served in Afghanistan admitted that money is a major factor. “But that’s not all of it,” he said. “After 9/11, I wanted some payback.” 8Among those lured to Iraq by Blackwater’s offer was a thirty-eight-year-old former Navy SEAL named Scott Helvenston. 9

A tan, chiseled, G.I. Joe action figure of a man, Helvenston was like a walking ad for the military. Literally. His image—shirt off, running on a beach at the head of a pack of jogging SEALs—once graced the cover of a Navy promotional calendar. He came from a proud family of Republicans, and his great-great-uncle, Elihu Root, was once the U.S. Secretary of War and a winner of the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize. Helvenston’s father died when he was seven, and he helped raise his younger brother, Jason. Scott Helvenston was, by all accounts, a model soldier and athlete. He made history by becoming the youngest person ever to complete the rigorous Navy SEAL program, finishing it at seventeen. He spent twelve years in the SEALs, four of them as an instructor. “It’s the longest and most arduous training of its kind in the free world,” Helvenston said of the SEAL program’s Basic Underwater Demolition School. “When you make it through, you say, Hey, I think I can handle anything.” 10But, like many ex-Special Forces guys, Helvenston struggled to figure out what to do with his life after he left the service in 1994. His combat skills didn’t exactly transfer into the “real world” all that well, and he had no interest in being anybody’s rent-a-cop. His real passion was fitness: he had made several workout videos through his company, Amphibian Athletics, and had dreams of opening his own fitness center.