Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

Two weeks later, George W. Bush claimed victory in the 2004 presidential election. Blackwater executives, led by Prince, had poured money into Bush and Republican Party coffers and clearly viewed the reelection as great for business and necessary for the unprecedented expansion of the mercenary industry. On November 8, Gary Jackson sent out a celebratory mass e-mail with a screaming banner headline: “BUSH WINS FOUR MORE YEARS!! HOOYAH!!” 38The U.S. military had just launched the second major siege of Fallujah, bombing the city and engaging in violent house-to-house combat. Hundreds more Iraqis were killed, thousands more forced from their homes, as the national resistance against the occupation grew stronger and wider. Despite the fierce attacks on the city, the killers of the Blackwater men were not apprehended. 39On November 14, the Marines symbolically reopened the infamous bridge running over the Euphrates in Fallujah. It was then that the Marines wrote in black bold letters: “This is for the Americans of Blackwater that were murdered here in 2004, Semper Fidelis P.S. Fuck You.” 40Gary Jackson posted a link to the photo on Blackwater’s Web site, saying, “OOHRAH… this picture is worth more than they know.” 41The families of the dead men, though, found little solace in revenge attacks or sloganeering.

When Katy Helvenston-Wettengel started complaining about Blackwater’s conduct and lack of transparency about the Fallujah ambush, Scott’s godfather, Circuit Judge William Levens, put her in touch with a lawyer who, he said, would help her seek answers. Eventually, a friend of Scott’s, another Blackwater contractor who had been overseas with him, brought the case to the attention of the successful Santa Ana, California, law firm Callahan & Blaine, whose owner, Daniel Callahan, was fresh off a record-setting $934 million jury decision in a corporate fraud case. 42Callahan jumped at the case. In North Carolina, Callahan enlisted the local help of another well-known lawyer, David Kirby—the former law partner of 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards. The new legal team began compiling evidence, talking to other Blackwater contractors, scouring news reports for every detail about the ambush, watching the precious few moments of the scene captured by insurgent video and news cameras. They got a hold of the Blackwater contracts the men were working under and also some contracts between Blackwater and its business partners in the Middle East. It took only a matter of weeks before they felt they had enough of a case to take action.

On January 5, 2005, the families of Scott Helvenston, Jerry Zovko, Wes Batalona, and Mike Teague filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Blackwater in Superior Court in Wake County, North Carolina. “What we have right now is something worse than the wild, wild west going on in Iraq,” said Dan Callahan. “Blackwater is able to operate over there in Iraq free from any oversight that would typically exist in a civilized society. As we expose Blackwater in this case, it will also expose the inefficient and corrupt system that exists over there.” 43The suit alleged that the men “would be alive today” had Blackwater not sent them unprepared on that fateful mission. 44“The fact that these four Americans found themselves located in the high-risk, war-torn City of Fallujah without armored vehicles, automatic weapons, and fewer than the minimum number of team members was no accident,” the suit alleged. “Instead, this team was sent out without the required equipment and personnel by those in charge at Blackwater.” 45

After the suit was filed, the families felt empowered to begin publicly voicing their anger at the company. “Blackwater sent my son and the other three into Fallujah knowing that there was a very good possibility this could happen,” charged Katy Helvenston-Wettengel. “Iraqis physically did it, and it doesn’t get any more horrible than what they did to my son, does it? But I hold Blackwater responsible one thousand percent.”

At first glance, the lawsuit may have seemed like a stretch. After all, the four Blackwater contractors were essentially mercenaries. All willingly went to Iraq, where they would be well paid, knowing that there was a solid chance they could be killed or maimed. In fact, it was all laid out very plainly in their contract with Blackwater in macabre detail. It warned that the men risked “being shot, permanently maimed and/or killed by a firearm or munitions, falling aircraft or helicopters, sniper fire, land mine, artillery fire, rocket-propelled grenade, truck or car bomb, earthquake or other natural disaster, poisoning, civil uprising, terrorist activity, hand-to-hand combat, disease, poisoning, etc., killed or maimed while a passenger in a helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft, suffering hearing loss, eye injury or loss; inhalation or contact with biological or chemical contaminants (whether airborne or not) and or flying debris, etc.” 46In filing its motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Blackwater quoted from its standard contract, insisting that those who signed it “fully appreciate[d] the dangers and voluntarily assume[d] these risks as well as any other risks in any way (whether directly or indirectly) connected to the Engagement.” 47

Callahan and his legal team did not deny that the men were aware of the risks they were taking, but they charged that Blackwater knowingly refused to provide guaranteed safeguards, among them: they would have armored vehicles; there would be three men in each vehicle (a driver, a navigator, and a rear gunner); and the rear gunner would be armed with a heavy automatic weapon, such as a SAW Mach 46, which can fire up to 850 rounds per minute, allowing the gunner to fight off any attacks from the rear. 48“None of that was true,” said Callahan. Instead, each vehicle had only two men and allegedly had far less powerful Mach 4 guns, which they had not even had a chance to test out. 49“Without the big gun, without the third man, without the armored vehicle, they were sitting ducks,” said Callahan. 50

The contract the four men were working on the day they were killed in Fallujah was a newly brokered one between Blackwater and the Cypriot-registered company Eurest Support Services (ESS), a division of the British firm Compass Group. As previously discussed, Blackwater had teamed up with a Kuwaiti business called Regency Hotel and Hospital Company, and together the firms had won the job of guarding convoys transporting kitchen equipment to the U.S. military. Blackwater and Regency had essentially won the ESS contract over another security firm, Control Risks Group, and the lawsuit alleged Blackwater was eager to win more lucrative contracts from ESS in its other division servicing construction projects in Iraq. 51“The ill-fated March 31, 2004 mission was an attempt by Blackwater to prove to ESS that it could deliver the security detail ahead of schedule, even though the necessary vehicles, equipment and support logistics were not in place,” the suit alleged. 52

Like many of the operations of private contractors in Iraq, the mission the four Blackwater men were on that day in Fallujah was shrouded in layers of subcontracts. In fact, determining whom they were ultimately working for remained a source of contention years after the ambush. Initially, it seemed as though the men were operating under ESS’s subcontract with Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which was reported to be billing the federal government for Blackwater’s security services. 53In the primary contract between Blackwater /Regency and ESS, ESS reserved “the right to terminate this Agreement or any portion hereof, upon thirty (30) days prior written notice in the event that ESS’s is given written notice by Kellogg, Brown & Root of cancellation of ESS’s contracts, for any reason, or in the event that ESS receives written notice from Kellogg, Brown & Root that ESS is no longer allowed to use any private form of private security services [ sic ].” 54After the Fallujah ambush, KBR/Halliburton would not confirm any relationship with ESS, despite the clear reference to KBR in the contract.