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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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September 20, 2007
- Who Watches US Security Firms in Iraq? News article by the Associated Press 1st news article by the
New York Times |
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Who Watches US Security
Firms in Iraq? By Richard Lardner Associated Press September 20, 2007 Washington - The fog of war
keeps getting thicker. The Iraqi government's decision to temporarily ban the
security company Blackwater USA after a fatal shooting of civilians in Baghdad
reveals a growing web of rules governing weapons-bearing private contractors
but few signs U.S. agencies are aggressively enforcing them. Nearly a year after a law
was passed holding contracted employees to the same code of justice as
military personnel, the Bush administration has not published guidance on how
military lawyers should do that, according to Peter Singer, a security
industry expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. A Congressional Research
Service report published in July said security contractors in Iraq operate
under rules issued by the United States, Iraq and international entities such
as the United Nations. All have their limitations,
however. A court-martial of a
private-sector employee likely would be challenged on constitutional grounds,
the research service said, while Iraqi courts do not have the jurisdiction to
prosecute contractors without U.S. permission. "It is possible that
some contractors may remain outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, civil or
military, for improper conduct in Iraq," the report said. Blackwater and other private
security firms long have been fixtures in Iraq, guarding U.S. officials and
an international work force helping to rebuild the war-torn country. Prior to the March 2003
invasion, however, U.S. officials paid little attention to how prevalent
these security firms would be in combat zones and the difficulties their
presence could cause, according to Steve Schooner, co-director of the government
procurement law program at George Washington University. "The real problem is
when we went into Iraq none of this had been worked out," Schooner said.
"We hadn't thought it through." The result is
dissatisfaction on multiple fronts that is tempered by the acknowledgment
these hired hands have become an important part of the long-running effort to
stabilize Iraq. "This is what happens
when government fails to act," Singer wrote on the Brookings Web site of
the incident Sunday involving Blackwater. Iraq's government said
Tuesday it would review the status of all security firms working in Iraq to
ensure each is complying with Iraqi laws. But Iraqi government
representatives also said they probably would not rescind Order No. 17, which
was issued more than three years ago by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional
Authority. The order gives American security companies immunity from Iraqi
prosecution on issues arising from their contracts. "We don't want to do so
because we don't have the services they are providing for the diplomats and
for the American Embassy here in Iraq," government spokesman Ali
al-Dabbagh told CNN. Blackwater, based in Moyock,
N.C., is one of three private security firms employed by the State Department
to protect its personnel in Iraq. The two others, both of which are
headquartered in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, are Dyncorp, based in Falls
Church, Va., and Triple Canopy of Herndon, Va. The State Department has
provided little information on Sunday's incident, which began after a car
bomb attack against an American convoy guarded by Blackwater employees turned
into a firefight that left eight Iraqis dead. The department's Bureau of
Diplomatic Security is conducting an investigation with assistance from the
U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. The Iraqis are conducting their own inquiry,
although it seems unlikely the Iraqi government would revoke Blackwater's
license and order the company's 1,000 personnel to leave the country. Blackwater spokeswoman Anne
Tyrrell said the guards acted "lawfully and appropriately" after
being "violently attacked by armed insurgents." In a separate development, a
congressional committee is questioning how aggressively the State Department
has looked into allegations that Blackwater illegally brought weapons into
Iraq. In a letter to Howard
Krongard, the State Department inspector general, the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee said Krongard impeded a Justice Department probe
into claims that a "large private security contractor was smuggling weapons
into Iraq." Although the security
company was not named in the letter, several senior administration officials
confirmed it was Blackwater. In an e-mailed response to
the committee's charges, Krongard said Tuesday he made one of his "best
investigators" available for the probe. Tyrrell declined to comment. For Democrats in Congress,
the Blackwater shooting incident has reinvigorated an effort to pass
additional regulations on how security contractors operate. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.,
a longtime critic of Blackwater, is pushing legislation requiring the
Pentagon and State Department to provide details about security contractors
it has hired, including any disciplinary actions taken against them. "I think we have to
have some uniform rules, particularly when these security guys are walking
around fully armed," Schakowsky said Tuesday. "Who are they
accountable to?" But that's not because there
is a shortage of laws, according to Laura Dickinson, a law professor at the
University of Connecticut who has studied the use of private contractors on
the battlefield. "There are plenty of
laws that apply to them," said Dickinson, who is working on a book
called "Outsourcing War and Peace." The problem is enforcement,
she said. The Pentagon and State
Department have their own contracting officers and separate systems for
ensuring performance and accountability. Dickinson said a single
government office is needed to monitor contracts and keep Congress informed. "I don't think there's real
clarity about what the rules of the game are either," said Schakowsky, a
member of the House Intelligence Committee. "It's a very murky
area." The International Peace
Operations Association, a trade group that represents Blackwater and other
companies doing business in Iraq, is not opposed to better oversight of the
industry, according to Doug Brooks, the group's president. That begins with the federal
government having a deeper pool of experienced contracting officers who can
properly monitor the work that's being done, he said. "The companies try to
operate within their contracts," Brooks said. "It's a problem when
you can't get a hold of a contracting officer, or when the contracting
officers don't understand how the contracts work." External link: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hx3jn-1MgXROlML7o_ifsoa8E60g Armed Guards in Iraq Occupy
a Legal Limbo By John M. Broder and James Risen New York Times September 20, 2007 Washington, Sept. 19 - The
shooting incident involving private security guards in Baghdad on Sunday that
left at least eight Iraqis dead has revealed large gaps in the laws applying
to such armed contractors. Early in the period when
Iraq was still under American administration, the United States government
unilaterally exempted its employees and contractors from Iraqi law. Last year, Congress
instructed the Defense Department to draw up rules to bring the tens of
thousands of contractors in Iraq under the American laws that apply to the
military, but the Pentagon so far has not acted. Thus the thousands of
heavily armed private soldiers in Iraq operate with virtual immunity from
Iraqi and American law. There have been numerous cases
of killings or injuries of Iraqi civilians by employees of private military
contractors, including Blackwater USA, the company involved in the shooting
on Sunday. Last December, a Blackwater
gunman was reported, during an argument, to have killed a bodyguard for Vice
President Adel Abdul Mahdi. He was whisked out of the
country and has not been charged with any crime, said Peter W. Singer, a
Brookings Institution scholar who has written extensively about contractors
in Iraq. On Wednesday, Prime Minister
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq complained of killings of Iraqis “in cold blood”
by American armed contractors. He said Sunday’s shooting was the seventh such
case involving Blackwater. Iraq’s government is threatening to throw
Blackwater out of the country, a move that would have a striking impact on
American operations inside the country. Publicly, the Bush
administration has not said how it would respond if the Maliki government
tries to carry out its threat to evict Blackwater, but administration officials
and executives in the security contracting industry both said Wednesday that
they believed that the White House and the State Department would seek to
block any move by Iraq to force the company out. The issue is already leading
to sharp tensions between the governments, and any effort by the United
States to force Iraq to keep Blackwater could make the Maliki government
appear to be a weak puppet. For years, government
officials and members of Congress have debated what has become in Iraq the
most extensive use of private contractors on the battlefield since
Renaissance princes hired private armies to fight their battles. The debate
flares up after each lethal episode in Iraq, but there has been no agreement
on how to police the private soldiers who roam Iraq in the employ of the
United States government. Sunday’s shooting, which
Iraqi officials have branded “a crime,” has led American authorities to
suspend temporarily most uses of private contractors as traveling bodyguards,
and it has put the issue of security contractors back on the front burner in
Washington. A Blackwater spokeswoman
declined to comment Wednesday, but in an earlier statement, the company said
that its employees “responded legally and appropriately to an attack by armed
insurgents.” Several members of Congress
and nongovernment analysts said that the oversight of thousands of private
military personnel was plainly inadequate and were urging passage of new laws
governing contractors, particularly those carrying weapons. The laws
governing contractors on the battlefield are vague and rarely enforced.
Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Lindsey Graham,
Republican of South Carolina, successfully sponsored an amendment to a
Pentagon budget bill last year to bring all military contractors in Iraq
under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The bill did not include
State Department contractors, like the Blackwater gunmen involved in Sunday’s
shooting, but Senator Graham said Wednesday that he intended to try to extend
its reach to all civilian contractors in Iraq and other war zones. While
contractors are not subject to the military code, some argue they could be
prosecuted for crimes abroad under civilian law, but in the case of Iraq,
that has not been tested. “If we go to war with this
number of contractors in the war zone, thousands of them armed, you need
application of U.C.M.J. to maintain good order and discipline,” said Senator
Graham, who serves in the Air Force Reserve Judge Advocate General Corps. “This is a real gap in
discipline,” he added. “These people are on a legal island.” In the House, meanwhile,
Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, is pushing legislation that would
require the secretary of defense to set new personnel standards for
contractors and to establish clear rules of engagement for security
contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Murtha’s panel noted that
“the oversight and administration of contracted security services is woefully
inadequate.” Even the trade association
representing armed contractors called for new regulations to rein in
contractors who abuse Iraqi civilians or violate the terms of their contracts
with the United States government. “If you’re going to be outsourcing this
much of our war-fighting capability, you have to have appropriate oversight,”
said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations
Association, which represents private military contractors including
Blackwater. Between 20,000 and 30,000
civilians work for the United States in Iraq as private military contractors,
part of a civilian work force that equals or exceeds the more than
160,000-person military force there. The State Department employs about 2,500
private military personnel, chiefly to guard American diplomats and sensitive
facilities there. The three prime security contractors for the State
Department are Blackwater, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy. Many of
their workers are former military Special Forces troops such as Navy Seals
and members of the Army’s elite Delta Force. Officials with other
security companies said Wednesday that Blackwater now was the dominant
contractor for State Department diplomatic security in Iraq, making it all
but impossible for the State Department to operate without the company, at
least in the short term. For the moment, the military will provide any
security needed by the State Department in Iraq. But officials at other firms
said that the State Department has in recent weeks awarded Blackwater another
major contract, for helicopter-related services, a strong signal of the close
relationship between the department and Blackwater. “If all Blackwater personnel
had to leave the country, there would be no one to provide security for the
diplomatic mission in Baghdad, except the U.S. Army,” said an executive at
another security firm, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a
competitor. “My guess is that they will try to find a way to work this out.
But there is no doubt there is a lot of raw feelings with the Iraqis.” The United States government
and the Iraqis on Wednesday formed a joint commission to review the case and
propose steps to avoid a repeat. But a State Department official in
Washington said Wednesday that it may be difficult to reconstruct the event
and assign blame because of the unreliability of witnesses and the difficulty
of conducting forensic studies in the midst of a war zone. Tom Casey, a State
Department spokesman, said at a briefing for reporters that he could not say
what laws might apply to the Blackwater guards who fired until the facts are
established. “Until we have results of
the investigation and know what facts we’re dealing with and know whether, in
fact, any activities that might have violated laws occurred,” Mr. Casey said,
“you can’t really deal with the question of who would have specific
jurisdiction or how you would resolve issues of competing jurisdiction that
might be out there.” Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/world/middleeast/20blackwater.html Maliki Alleges
7 Cases When Blackwater Killed Iraqis By Sabrina Tavernise New York Times September 20, 2007 Baghdad, Sept. 19 - Iraq
brought fresh criticisms of the private security company Blackwater USA on
Wednesday, with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki saying that his government
had registered a total of seven cases in which the company’s guards had
killed Iraqis. A lethal shooting on Sunday
that involved an American diplomatic convoy and left at least eight Iraqis
dead infuriated the Iraqi authorities and has prompted them to threaten to
evict Blackwater, the company that provides security for the most senior
American diplomats here. On Tuesday, the United States Embassy said all trips
outside the Green Zone had been suspended. At a news conference on
Wednesday, Mr. Maliki reiterated Iraq’s intentions to prohibit the company
from working in the country, saying the United States should drop it as a
protector. “This act, which I call a
crime, has created a state of tension and anger among all of us,” he said.
“It is better for this company to freeze its activity, and the embassy can
drive out with other companies.” The Ministry of Interior has
registered seven cases of Blackwater’s guards’ killing Iraqis, including the
one on Sunday, he said, without providing details. He said the government was
working to rewrite the rules that regulate private security companies, which
have immunity from Iraqi law. “This company should be held
accountable for these violations,” Mr. Maliki said, “because we will never
allow Iraqi citizens to be killed in cold blood by this company that is
playing with the lives of the people.” A Blackwater spokeswoman did
not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but the company has
previously defended its employees, saying they were responding to an
insurgent attack. The State Department, helped
by the American military, is conducting an investigation, and American
investigators, military and civilian, have been intensively questioning
witnesses. Late on Tuesday, an Iraqi official said the investigation would be
a joint effort between the governments. Tom Casey, a spokesman for the State
Department, confirmed that on Wednesday, saying the commission would have
equal representation from the American and Iraqi sides. “The commission’s goal is to
make joint policy recommendations, including specific suggestions for
improving U.S. and Iraqi procedures regarding government-affiliated personal
security details,” he said at a briefing in Washington. Dana Perino, the White House
press secretary, said that President Bush “was concerned” about the
Blackwater shooting, and that “he was glad that Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice called Prime Minister Maliki to express a deep regret for
the innocent loss of life.” Several traffic policemen in
Nisour Square, the site of the shooting on Sunday, said two sets of American
soldiers in two days had come to ask questions. The first came on the
afternoon of the shooting. A day later, soldiers in four Humvees drove up to
their small building and talked for about half an hour to two witnesses. The policeman who stopped
traffic on the day of the shooting to allow the convoy to pass was taken into
the Green Zone to speak to embassy workers, one of the police officers said. The officer gave a similar
version of events as other Iraqi witnesses, saying the convoy began shooting
when a car did not stop. The convoy was leaving a secured military area,
driving on the wrong side of the road through part of a traffic circle, and
headed in the direction of the airport, said the police officer, who would
not give his name. In Baghdad, two prominent
lawmakers said Wednesday that they were withdrawing from the moderate,
secular political bloc of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Safia Suhail and
Hachim al-Hasani, both members of Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, said they were
quitting because the party’s focus had changed from “looking for a way to
reach political agreements” to competing over power. Mr. Allawi has been reaching
out to Iraqi political leaders of all sorts, looking for supporters to form
an alternate government, saying Mr. Maliki’s government is beyond repair. Mr. Maliki, for his part,
expressed disbelief that Mr. Allawi was advocating contacts with former
members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, which is outlawed in Iraq. “I feel
bewildered of Ayad’s conduct,” he said. “What does brother Ayad want? Does he
want the Baath to return to Iraq?” One American soldier was
killed in southern Baghdad on Tuesday, the American military said. In Baquba,
a restive city north of Baghdad, the Iraqi Army began a broad operation
against Sunni insurgents, an army officer said, killing 13 gunmen. Khalid al-Ansary, Ahmad
Fadam and James Glanz contributed reporting. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html |