Jeremy Scahill: Blackwater

Winner of the George Polk Book Award

Winner of the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism

“A crackling exposé of the secretive military contractor Blackwater.”

“The biggest book of the year is Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army . Long before the mainstream media and Congress were paying attention, Scahill exposed the workings of this lawless private army. It’s an amazingly researched and well-told story of the nexus between far-right fundamentalists, the Bush-Cheney war machine, privatization, and profiteering.”

“Scahill provided me information … which I have not been able to get from the U.S. military…. I have read more from Mr. Scahill, than I’ve got from our own government.”

“[T]his is no uninformed partisan screed… Meticulously documented and encyclopedic in scope … it’s a comprehensive and authoritative guide … this book serves as a provocative primer for advancing the debate.”

“The utterly gripping and explosive story of how the Bush administration has spent tens of millions of dollars building a parallel corporate army that functions in Iraq outside the law… When Blackwater first came out, it was barely reviewed and TV news was so afraid of lawsuits that the book was nearly shut out. Fast-forward to this autumn, when the Iraqi government accused Blackwater of massacring civilians in downtown Baghdad. Suddenly the book looked prescient and we learned that the same press corps that had cheered on the war had also missed the biggest story in the war zone: that Iraq is more than a failed occupation; it’s a radical experiment in corporate rule.”

“Andy McNab couldn’t have invented this prescient tale of the private army of mercenaries run by a Christian conservative millionaire who, in turn, bankrolls the president. A chilling expose of the ultimate military outsource.”

“Fascinating and magnificently documented… Jeremy Scahill’s new book is a brilliant exposé and belongs on the reading list of any conscientious citizen.”

“Scahill is rightfully concerned about the moral and policy ramifications of such a powerful and unaccountable surrogate military, let alone the effect that its forces—who are paid six-figure salaries—have on the morale of normal soldiers. But the sternest message of this book has to do with the dangers a mercenary army poses, and always has: that it can always be turned on its host.”

“[Scahill’s] book is so scary and so illuminating.”

“Jeremy Scahill’s account of the increasing governmental dependence on private contractors who make massive profit via death and destruction reads like a futuristic page-turner. Only he is not writing about the future; he is writing about the present, and his research is encyclopedically documented.”

“At Blackwater USA, Jeremy Scahill’s is the face they love to hate… [He is] perhaps the private military company’s most dogged critic.”

“Jeremy Scahill’s exhaustive Blackwater appears with perfect timing… Dwight Eisenhower warned decades ago against the emergence of a military-industrial complex. Scahill sees in the rise of Blackwater the fulfillment of that dark prophecy.”

“Blackwater being rarely out of the news lately, this is a very useful survey of modern mercenaries—or, as they prefer to be called, ‘private security contractors’ in the ‘peace and stability industry’… Scahill is a sharp investigative writer.”

“It should be mandatory reading. It’s very interesting—and scary.”

“Jeremy Scahill actually doesn’t know anything about Blackwater.”

THIS BOOKwould not have been possible without the tireless efforts of my colleague Garrett Ordower. Garrett is a remarkable investigative journalist who spent countless hours filing Freedom of Information Act requests, researching complicated people and events, digging up facts and figures, and interviewing sources. He also wrote solid first drafts of some chapters for this book. I am forever grateful to Garrett for his diligent and careful work on this project and his unflinching dedication to old-fashioned muckraking. This book is as much his as it is mine. I look forward to Garrett’s future endeavors in law and journalism and would be honored to work with him again.

Additionally, I would like to thank Eric Stoner who provided research assistance in the paperback updates of this book. I also wish to alert the reader to the fact that Blackwater refused to grant me interviews with company executives. A spokesperson did write to “thank” me for my “interest in Blackwater” but said that the company was “unable to accommodate” my request for interviews with the men who run Blackwater. I am indebted to the solid reporting of Jay Price and Joseph Neff of the Raleigh News & Observer and Bill Sizemore and Joanne Kimberlin of the Virginian-Pilot newspapers. These reporters and their groundbreaking work have done the public a great service in chronicling the Blackwater story and the explosive growth of the private military industry. Special thanks also to T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times and Anthony Shadid and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post , as well as authors P. W. Singer and Robert Young Pelton. I would encourage readers to read the acknowledgments at the end of this book for a more comprehensive understanding of the number of people who contributed to this process.

October 2, 2007

Washington D.C.

ERIK PRINCE, the boy-faced thirty-eight-year-old owner of Blackwater, marched confidently into the regally decorated chamber of the Congressional hearing room and was immediately swarmed by a mob of paparazzi. Cameras flashed and heads turned inside the packed room. The man at the helm of a small army of mercenaries was escorted not by his elite squad of ex-Navy SEALs and Special Forces operators but by an army of lawyers and advisers. Within minutes, his image would be beamed across the globe, including onto television screens throughout Iraq, where rage against his men was building by the moment. His company was now infamous, and for the first time since the occupation began, it had a face.

It was a moment Prince had long resisted. Before that warm October day in Washington in 2007, he had shunned the spotlight, and his people were known to stifle journalists’ attempts at taking his picture. When Prince did appear in public, it was almost exclusively at military conferences, where his role was to extol the virtues of his company and its work for the U.S. government, which consisted, in part, of keeping alive the most hated officials in Iraq. Since September 11, Blackwater had risen to a position of extraordinary prominence in the “war on terror” apparatus, and its contracts with the federal government had grown to more than $1 billion. On this day, the man in control of a force at the vanguard of the Bush administration’s offensive war in Iraq would be on the defensive.