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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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June 5th,
2008 - Blackwater’s Private Spies |
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By Jeremy Scahill The Nation June 5, 2008 This past September, the
secretive mercenary company Blackwater USA found its name splashed across
front pages throughout the world after the company's shooters gunned down
seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square. But by early 2008,
Blackwater had largely receded from the headlines save for the occasional
blip on the media radar sparked by Congressman Henry Waxman's ongoing
investigations into its activities. Its forces remained deployed in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and business continued to pour in. In the two weeks directly
following Nisour Square, Blackwater signed more than $144 million in contracts
with the State Department for "protective services" in Iraq and
Afghanistan alone and, over the following weeks and months, won millions more
in contracts with other federal entities like the Coast Guard, the Navy and
the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Blackwater's Iraq contract
was extended in April, but the company is by no means betting the house on
its long-term presence there. While the firm is quietly maintaining its Iraq
work, it is aggressively pursuing other business opportunities. In September it was revealed
that Blackwater had been "tapped" by the Pentagon's Counter
Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office to compete for a share of a
five-year, $15 billion budget "to fight terrorists with drug-trade
ties." According to the Army Times, the contract "could include
antidrug technologies and equipment, special vehicles and aircraft,
communications, security training, pilot training, geographic information
systems and in-field support." A spokesperson for another company
bidding for the work said that "80 percent of the work will be
overseas." As Richard Douglas, a deputy assistant secretary of defense,
explained, "The fact is, we use Blackwater to do a lot of our training
of counternarcotics police in Afghanistan. I have to say that Blackwater has
done a very good job." Such an arrangement could
find Blackwater operating in an arena with the godfathers of the war
industry, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. It could
also see Blackwater expanding into Latin America, joining other private
security companies well established in the region. The massive US security
company DynCorp is already deployed in Colombia, Bolivia and other countries
as part of the "war on drugs." In Colombia alone, US military
contractors are receiving nearly half the $630 million in annual US military
aid for the country. Just south of the US border, the United States has
launched Plan Mexico, a $1.5 billion counternarcotics program. This and
similar plans could provide lucrative business opportunities for Blackwater
and other companies. "Blackwater USA's enlistment in the drug war,"
observed journalist John Ross, would be "a direct challenge to its
stiffest competitor, DynCorp--up until now, the Dallas-based corporation has
locked up 94 percent of all private drug war security contracts." The
New York Times reported that the contract could be Blackwater's "biggest
job ever." As populist movements grow
stronger in Latin America, threatening US financial interests as well as the
standing of right-wing US political allies in the region, the "war on
drugs" is becoming an increasingly central part of US counterinsurgency
efforts. It allows for more training of foreign security forces through the
private sector--away from Congressional oversight--and a deployment of
personnel from US war corporations. With US forces stretched thin, sending
private security companies to Latin America offers Washington a "small
footprint" alternative to the politically and militarily problematic
deployment of active-duty US troops. In a January report by the United
Nations working group on mercenaries, international investigators found that "an
emerging trend in Latin America but also in other regions of the world
indicates situations of private security companies protecting transnational
extractive corporations whose employees are often involved in suppressing the
legitimate social protest of communities and human rights and environmental
organizations of the areas where these corporations operate." If there is one quality that
is evident from examining Blackwater's business history, it is the company's
ability to take advantage of emerging war and conflict markets. Throughout
the decade of Blackwater's existence, its creator, Erik Prince, has
aggressively built his empire into a structure paralleling the US national
security apparatus. "Prince wants to vault Blackwater into the major
leagues of U.S. military contracting, taking advantage of the movement to
privatize all kinds of government security," reported the Wall Street
Journal shortly after Nisour Square. "The company wants to be a one-stop
shop for the U.S. government on missions to which it won't commit American
forces. This is a niche with few established competitors." In addition to providing
armed forces for war and conflict zones and a wide range of military and
police training services, Blackwater does a robust, multimillion-dollar
business through its aviation division. It also has a growing maritime
division and other national and international initiatives. Among these,
Blackwater is in Japan, where its forces protect the US ballistic missile
defense system, which, according to Stars and Stripes, "points
high-powered radio waves westward toward mainland Asia to hunt for enemy
missiles headed east toward America or its allies." Meanwhile, early
this year, Defense News reported, "Blackwater is training members of the
Taiwanese National Security Bureau's (NSB's) special protection service,
which guards the president. The NSB is responsible for the overall security
of the country and was once an instrument of terrorism during the martial law
period. Today, according to its Web site, the NSB is responsible for
'national intelligence work, special protective service and unified
cryptography.'" Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
reportedly tried to hire Blackwater to protect her as she campaigned for the
presidency in 2007. Conflicting reports indicated that either the US State
Department or the Pakistani government vetoed the plan. She was assassinated
in December. What could prove to be one
of Blackwater's most profitable and enduring enterprises is one of the
company's most secretive initiatives--a move into the world of privatized
intelligence services. In April 2006, Prince quietly began building Total
Intelligence Solutions, which boasts that it "brings CIA-style"
services to the open market for Fortune 500 companies. Among its offerings
are "surveillance and countersurveillance, deployed intelligence
collection, and rapid safeguarding of employees or other key assets." As the United States finds
itself in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in its history,
few areas have seen as dramatic a transformation to privatized services as
the world of intelligence. "This is the magnet now. Everything is being
attracted to these private companies in terms of individuals and expertise
and functions that were normally done by the intelligence community,"
says former CIA division chief and senior analyst Melvin Goodman. "My
major concern is the lack of accountability, the lack of responsibility. The
entire industry is essentially out of control. It's outrageous." Last year R.J. Hillhouse, a
blogger who investigates the clandestine world of private contractors and US
intelligence, obtained documents from the office of the Directorate of
National Intelligence (DNI) showing that Washington spends some $42 billion
annually on private intelligence contractors, up from $17.5 billion in 2000.
That means 70 percent of the US intelligence budget is going to private
companies. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that the head of DNI is Mike
McConnell, the former chair of the board of the Intelligence and National
Security Alliance, the private intelligence industry's trade association. Total Intelligence, which
opened for business in February 2007, is a fusion of three entities bought up
by Prince: the Terrorism Research Center, Technical Defense and The Black
Group--Blackwater vice chair Cofer Black's consulting agency. The company's
leadership reads like a Who's Who of the CIA's "war on terror"
operations after 9/11. In addition to the twenty-eight-year CIA veteran
Black, who is chair of Total Intelligence, the company's executives include
CEO Robert Richer, the former associate deputy director of the agency's
Directorate of Operations and the second-ranking official in charge of
clandestine operations. From 1999 to 2004, Richer was head of the CIA's Near
East and South Asia Division, where he ran clandestine operations throughout
the Middle East and South Asia. As part of his duties, he was the CIA liaison
with Jordan's King Abdullah, a key US ally and Blackwater client, and briefed
George W. Bush on the burgeoning Iraqi resistance in its early stages. Total Intelligence's chief
operating officer is Enrique "Ric" Prado, a twenty-four-year CIA
veteran and former senior executive officer in the Directorate of Operations.
He spent more than a decade working in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and
ten years with the CIA's "paramilitary" Special Operations Group.
Prado and Black worked closely at the CIA. Prado also served in Latin America
with Jose Rodriguez, who gained infamy late last year after it was revealed
that as director of the National Clandestine Service at the CIA he was
allegedly responsible for destroying videotapes of interrogations of
prisoners, during which "enhanced interrogation techniques,"
including waterboarding, were reportedly used. Richer told the New York Times
he recalled many conversations with Rodriguez, about the tapes. "He
would always say, 'I'm not going to let my people get nailed for something
they were ordered to do,'" Richer said of his former boss. Before the
scandal, there were reports that Blackwater had been "aggressively
recruiting" Rodriguez. He has since retired from the CIA. The leadership of Total
Intelligence also includes Craig Johnson, a twenty-seven-year CIA officer who
specialized in Central and South America, and Caleb "Cal" Temple,
who joined the company straight out of the Defense Intelligence Agency, where
he served from 2004 to '06 as chief of the Office of Intelligence Operations
in the Joint Intelligence Task Force--Combating Terrorism. According to his
Total Intelligence bio, Temple directed the "DIA's 24/7 analytic
terrorism target development and other counterterrorism intelligence
activities in support of military operations worldwide. He also oversaw 24/7
global counterterrorism indications and warning analysis for the U.S. Defense
Department." The company also boasts officials drawn from the Drug
Enforcement Agency and the FBI. Total Intelligence is run
out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of
Arlington, Virginia. Its "Global Fusion Center," complete with
large-screen TVs broadcasting international news channels and computer
stations staffed by analysts surfing the web, "operates around the clock
every day of the year" and is modeled after the CIA's counterterrorist
center, once run by Black. The firm employs at least sixty-five full-time
staff--some estimates say it's closer to 100. "Total Intel brings
the...skills traditionally honed by CIA operatives directly to the board
room," Black said when the company launched. "With a service like
this, CEOs and their security personnel will be able to respond to threats
quickly and confidently--whether it's determining which city is safest to
open a new plant in or working to keep employees out of harm's way after a
terrorist attack." Black insists, "This is
a completely legal enterprise. We break no laws. We don't go anywhere near
breaking laws. We don't have to." But what services Total Intelligence
is providing, and to whom, is shrouded in secrecy. It is clear, though, that
the company is leveraging the reputations and inside connections of its
executives. "Cofer can open doors," Richer told the Washington Post
in 2007. "I can open doors. We can generally get in to see who we need
to see. We don't help pay bribes. We do everything within the law, but we can
deal with the right minister or person." Black told the paper he and
Richer spend a lot of their time traveling. "I am discreet in where I go
and who I see. I spend most of my time dealing with senior people in governments,
making connections." But it is clear that the existing connections from
the former spooks' time at the agency have brought business to Total
Intelligence. Take the case of Jordan. For
years, Richer worked closely with King Abdullah, as his CIA liaison. As
journalist Ken Silverstein reported, "The CIA has lavishly subsidized
Jordan's intelligence service, and has sent millions of dollars in recent
years for intelligence training. After Richer retired, sources say, he helped
Blackwater land a lucrative deal with the Jordanian government to provide the
same sort of training offered by the CIA. Millions of dollars that the CIA
'invested' in Jordan walked out the door with Richer--if this were a movie,
it would be a cross between Jerry Maguire and Syriana. 'People [at the
agency] are pissed off,' said one source. 'Abdullah still speaks with Richer
regularly, and he thinks that's the same thing as talking to us. He thinks
Richer is still the man.' Except in this case it's Richer, not his client,
yelling 'show me the money.'" In a 2007 interview on the
cable business network CNBC, Black was brought on as an analyst to discuss
"investing in Jordan." At no point in the interview was Black
identified as working for the Jordanian government. Total Intelligence was
described as "a corporate consulting firm that includes investment
strategy," while "Ambassador Black" was introduced as "a
twenty-eight-year veteran of the CIA," the "top counterterror
guy" and "a key planner for the breathtakingly rapid victory of American
forces that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan." Black heaped lavish
praise on Jordan and its monarchy. "You have leadership, King Abdullah,
His Majesty King Abdullah, who is certainly kind towards investors, very
protective," Black said. "Jordan is, in our view, a very good
investment. There are some exceptional values there." He said Jordan is
in a region where there are "numerous commodities that are being
produced and doing well." With no hint of the
brutality behind the exodus, Black argued that the flood of Iraqi refugees
fleeing the violence of the US occupation was good for potential investors in
Jordan. "We get something like 600, 700,000 Iraqis that have moved from
Iraq into Jordan that require cement, furniture, housing and the like. So it
is a--it is an island of growth and potential, certainly in that immediate
area. So it looks good," he said. "There are opportunities for
investment. It is not all bad. Sometimes Americans need to watch a little
less TV.... But there is--there is opportunity in everything. That's why you
need situation awareness, and that's one of the things that our company does.
It provides the kinds of intelligence and insight to provide situational
awareness so you can make the best investments." Black and other Total
Intelligence executives have turned their CIA careers, reputations, contacts
and connections into business opportunities. What they once did for the US
government, they now do for private interests. It is not difficult to imagine
clients feeling as though they are essentially hiring the US government to
serve their own interests. In 2007 Richer told the Post that now that he is
in the private sector, foreign military officials and others are more willing
to give him information than they were when he was with the CIA. Richer
recalled a conversation with a foreign general during which he was surprised
at the potentially "classified" information the general revealed.
When Richer asked why the general was giving him the information, he said the
general responded, "If I tell it to an embassy official I've created
espionage. You're a business partner." In May, Erik Prince gave a
speech in front of his family and supporters in his home state of Michigan.
Security was extremely tight, and Blackwater barred cameras and tape
recorders from the event. "The idea that we are a secretive facility,
and nefarious, is just ridiculous," Prince told the friendly crowd of
750 gathered at the Amway Grand Plaza. In Iraq, Blackwater has banked on the
idea that it is a sort of American Express card for the occupation. But for
the future, Prince has a different corporate model, as he indicated in his
speech. "When you send something overseas, do you use FedEx or the
postal service?" he asked. There are serious problems
with this analogy. When you send something by FedEx, you can track your
package and account for its whereabouts at all times. You can have your
package insured against loss or damage. That has not been the case with
Blackwater. The people who foot the sizable bill for its "services"
almost never know, until it is too late, what Blackwater is doing, and there
are apparently no consequences for Blackwater when things go lethally wrong.
"We are essentially a robust temp agency," Prince told his fans in
Michigan. He's right about that one. A temp agency serving the most radical
privatization agenda in history. About Jeremy Scahill: Jeremy
Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the
author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful
Mercenary Army, published by Nation Books. He is an award-winning
investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV
program Democracy Now!. Copyright © 2008 The Nation External link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080623/scahill |