Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

After three years working with Unitas and the U.S. Southern Command, Pizarro decided to take his experience to the private sector. In 1999, he said, he “offered my services” to the U.S. weapons manufacturer General Dynamics. He said the connections he made during his work with the U.S. military in Latin America put him in a prime position to help General Dynamics expand its sales and marketing in the region. “I knew [Latin American governments’] needs for helicopters, weapon systems, etc.,” Pizarro recalled. “I believe I grasped a certain degree of understanding of their needs, their budgets, their budget culture, etc.” General Dynamics hired Pizarro and, he says, made him the head of its Latin American division. “I was in charge of sales of Mark 19, MK19, GOA19, which is automatic grenade launchers, rockets, and electric airborne, helicopter-borne, electric helicopter-borne machine guns,” said Pizarro. He worked with General Dynamics for a year and a half and said he made so much money in salary and bonuses pushing weapons to Latin American governments that he was able to start his own company. “I realized, hey, I have enough money to, you know, create my own company and work for me instead of working for somebody else.”

In 2001, Pizarro started Red Tactica (Tactical Network), a company that would serve as a liaison between Latin American governments and U.S. weapons manufacturers. “Because every single Latin American Government has a military attaché, a naval attaché, an air force attaché, and a police attaché on separate buildings actually, times sixteen countries, sixteen countries times four military attachés, that was a major, major market for me,” Pizarro said. “So we went, for example, to the Argentinean Embassy. ‘Good morning, my name is Mike Pizarro. I’m a U.S. citizen, and I’m also a Chilean citizen. I’m bilingual. I’m bicultural. I know exactly, sir, Admiral, what you’re looking for. You’re looking for submarines, torpedoes, radars, electronic communication system,’ etc., etc.” Eventually, Pizarro struck up a relationship with virtually every defense and military attaché from “friendly” Latin American nations and earned a reputation as a go-to guy for Latin American countries seeking to purchase specialized weapons systems from major defense companies.

Pizarro hotly denied that he was an arms dealer and scoffed at the label. Instead, he said, he was selling “business intelligence” to Latin American officials he characterized as essentially paying him to do their jobs. “A military attaché by definition is a gift, is a reward, is a promotion, is a vacation in Washington. You’re not supposed to actually work,” Pizarro said. “That is in the Latino world. For us, if you’re a general and you get promoted to a senior general, you get a year of vacation, a paid vacation with your entire family in Washington, D.C. So having—and because I knew this—having a guy who can actually do the job for you for a few thousand dollars a month or less than that, it was a major advantage. It was very attractive to them.” Pizarro says he worked with the military attachés from “every single” Latin American nation in good standing with the United States, “selling the information” to them on where they could purchase various weapons systems, military hardware, radars, spare parts—even rifles. Pizarro also sold his services to defense and weapons companies—in both the United States and in Europe—seeking to break into Latin American markets. He would tell these companies, “Well, let’s say you pay me $10,000 a month times three months, I will provide you with enough information and enough business intelligence so your sales-people will know exactly which doors to knock, to which officers they’re supposed to address, and how and when and for how much and for how long.”

Pizarro said he made enough money selling “business intelligence” that he decided in early 2003 to “step away from the company and enjoy the money, enjoy my free time.” Leaving the day-to-day operations of Red Tactica to his business partners, Pizarro began writing for a German magazine focused on military technology. In February 2003, as the United States prepared to invade Iraq, a producer at CNN’s Spanish-language channel contacted Pizarro and asked him to come to the network’s Washington bureau to apply for a possible position with the network as a commentator on the war. Pizarro said after testing him out, “They offered me a full-time job for the time of the war. So they put me in a hotel, at the CNN Hotel, at CNN headquarters in Atlanta for a month, plus the previous month in Washington, close to my house. I mean, I was showing up so many times per day that they thought it was necessary for me to be on call. So they provided [me] with a full salary.” All the while, Red Tactica was on “auto pilot.” Pizarro said that during his time in Atlanta, he struck up a friendship with retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and future 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, who was doing commentary and analysis for CNN as well. “I’m so embarrassed to say this,” Pizarro recalled, “but if I needed to ask, if I have a question from the public or a major question from common sense, I just went to the coffee shop of CNN in English,” where he would ask Clark for advice on what analysis to offer on air. Pizarro would then use Clark’s analysis in his own commentary on CNN en Español. “Love the guy,” Pizarro says of Clark. “Love the guy.”

Pizarro’s full-time job with CNN en Espanol lasted until the end of April, when he turned his attentions back to Red Tactica. With the Iraq occupation underway, he began going to military shows and expos looking for new business. In July 2003, Pizarro went to the Modern Marine Expo in Quantico, Virginia, when a “very good-looking” woman at one of the booths caught his eye. It turned out she was a rep for Blackwater USA, Pizarro said, a former police officer in charge of selling Blackwater’s target systems. Pizarro had never heard of Blackwater and struck up a conversation with the attractive representative about Red Tactica helping to market Blackwater’s systems. Pizarro recalled that the Blackwater system was “fantastic. It’s absolutely fabulous. I told them, I can help you to sell that in Latin America.” After questioning Pizarro about his credentials, the Blackwater representative suggested that Pizarro travel down to Blackwater’s compound in Moyock. What he would see on that trip would change Pizarro’s life.

In describing his first visit to Blackwater in the summer of 2003, just as the mercenary boom was getting under way in Iraq, Pizarro speaks with the enthusiasm of a child describing Christmas presents to his friends at school. “My hair was on fire,” he recalled. “It’s a private army in the twenty-first century. A private company with their own training, their own private forces to protect U.S. government facilities in a war zone. It was like out of a Dr. No movie…. It’s like a movie. It’s a gigantic facility with a military urban terrain. It’s a mock city where you can train with real-life ammunition or paintball, with vehicles, with helicopters. Gosh, impressive, very, very impressive.” Pizarro thought he was essentially going to a souped-up firing and training range, but when he got there, “I saw people from all over the world training over there—civilians, military personnel, army personnel, naval, navy personnel, marines, air force, para-rescue. Wow, it was like a private military base.”

Pizarro said that “within five seconds I dropped the idea of helping them in selling target systems” and began to dream of how he could fit into this incredible movie set. Pizarro said that he didn’t want to blow his opportunity, so “I kept my mouth shut.” In his head, though, he envisioned providing Chilean forces to Blackwater. “I didn’t want to look like a walking suitcase,” he said. “It was a hunch. Like maybe, maybe if I can get enough Chilean Navy SEALs, enough Chilean Army paratroopers, enough Chilean Marine Corps commandos, I know how professional they are, they’re super-young, they’re recently retired, with twenty years or fifteen years of active duty, and working as a supermarket security guard—I mean, I should, in theory, I should be able to create something.” Pizarro said after his first visit to Blackwater, he “spent a few weeks talking to people on the phone back in Chile. I called them from Washington. I hooked up with a few lieutenant colonels, a few retired majors. ‘Can you get a hundred commandos?’ ‘Can you get a hundred paratroopers?’ ‘Can you get Navy SEALs, bilingual within a couple of weeks?’ ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘OK.’ ‘I can get twenty.’ Another guy: ‘I can get seven.’ ‘I can get twenty-five.’” The phone calls led to meetings in Santiago with military officials, but Pizarro said the reception was hardly enthusiastic. He heard the same things over and over: “That sounds illegal”; “That sounds dirty”; “That doesn’t sound right”; “No, we’re not interested”; “You’re going [to] fail.” But Pizarro said these responses “were actually fueling me more. I was convinced that I was doing the right thing.”