|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
June 19th,
2008 - Blackwater States its Case |
|
By Jay Price & Joseph Neff The News & Observer June 19, 2008 Raleigh - Blackwater
Worldwide, the North Carolina company that is famous - and in some quarters
infamous - for its security work in Iraq, has been misunderstood and
misrepresented, says the company's owner, Erik Prince. Prince, company President
Gary Jackson and spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell came to Raleigh on Wednesday as
part of a public relations campaign. The effort began last fall after
Blackwater guards were accused of killing 17 civilians in Baghdad while
guarding a State Department convoy. That incident, which elicited furious
protests from the Iraqi government, is still under federal investigation. The executives, who had
requested the meeting with a group of News & Observer editorial board
members, editors and reporters, defended their company's reputation
Wednesday. The company, which guards
diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan, burst into the national consciousness in
2004 after an Iraqi mob massacred four of its contractors and hung some of
their corpses from a bridge in Fallujah. In the years since, Prince
said, Blackwater has been treated unfairly in the media and by politicians
who paint it as a poorly regulated outfit raking in no-bid contracts thanks
to cronies. Descriptions of their guards as arrogant cowboys are out of date,
and if anything, the company is heavily regulated, they said. Prince, whose family has
long been associated with the Republican Party, said politics hasn't helped
the company gain contracts. "Ninety-five percent of
our revenue comes from competitively bid contracts," he said. Jackson gave a lengthy list
of federal, state and local agencies that have investigated or audited the
company, from the U.S. Defense, State and Justice departments to the city of
San Diego and the N.C. Department of Transportation. "The idea that we are unaccountable,
unaudited, we beg to differ," Prince said. Blackwater guards gained a
reputation in Iraq for acting aggressively and without regard for civilians -
and even the U.S. military. Prince declined to say
whether he thinks the government didn't have enough control over private
security details in Iraq early in the war, but he said such oversight has
increased greatly in the past three years. He and Jackson repeatedly
referred to Blackwater's safety record at its U.S. facilities, where it
trains several hundred troops and law enforcement officers every day -
without a serious injury. He also cited its record in flying more than 11,000
cargo and passenger missions for the military in Afghanistan and its never
having lost a diplomat on the dangerous roads of Iraq. Such successes and the
company's good deeds, such as donating time on shooting ranges to a host of
local law enforcement agencies, mostly go unreported, the executives said. At home in Moyock The company is based on a
7,000-acre compound in Moyock, in the state's northeastern corner, with
elaborate shooting ranges and a driving track. Blackwater calls it the
nation's largest privately owned weapons training facility. It now has training sites in
Illinois and San Diego, has branched out to offer a range of services from
aviation to construction management, and has begun building armored vehicles
and small blimps. It has become one of Eastern North Carolina's largest
employers. Security contracting will
likely play a shrinking role in its income, the executives said. Security
work is tapering off, and the company's future is mostly in one of its other
lines of work - training troops and law enforcement officers, the men said.
It is set up to train 1,250 people a day. Prince and the company have
repeatedly come under attack from Democrats in Congress. The State
Department, though, recently renewed its contract with Blackwater to guard
diplomats in Iraq, despite the shooting last fall and Iraqi government
protests. Asked what he thought would
happen to the company's federal contracts - more than $1 billion in revenue
to date - if a Democrat is elected president, Prince replied that Blackwater
was doing great work and that was the best way to keep getting contracts. Critic on the Hill Among the most frequent
congressional critics of security contractors has been Rep. David Price, a
Democrat from Chapel Hill. Price has introduced bills and amendments to
tighten regulations on the industry. He recently added an amendment to bar
contractors from interrogating prisoners for the military. Blackwater doesn't
interrogate prisoners, Prince said. Price also has filed a bill
designed to make sure that contractors working for the U.S. government in a
war zone can be brought to justice for committing crimes. The bill would
mandate that Justice Department investigators be positioned in war zones so they
would be able to quickly gather evidence and start prosecutions. Prince has said he supports
this bill and said Wednesday that contractors should be held accountable for
breaking the law and that a good system of doing so would be good for his
industry. No publicity hound Until the Baghdad killings
in the fall, which damaged the company's reputation and imperiled
multimillion-dollar federal contracts, Prince had been publicity shy. N&O reporters had sought
an interview with Prince since March 31, 2004, when four of the company's
security contractors were killed by insurgents and mutilated in the city of
Fallujah, Iraq. Prince said Wednesday that the State Department contract has
prohibited the company from speaking out, even when it disagreed with information
in stories about it. Prince opened the meeting
Wednesday by saying that the Blackwater officials had come not only to answer
questions but also to correct errors in the newspaper's reporting. "I think we've had a
lot of misunderstanding from this newspaper, and I'm happy to clarify what is
truth versus lies, slander and downright libel," Prince said. The newspaper routinely
writes about the company. An N&O series in 2004 on the Fallujah incident
highlighted problems with the oversight of contractors on the battlefield and
led to a congressional investigation. External link: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1113171.html |