Pentagon gives Blackwater new contract By Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON - A United States-based private security firm received a contract
worth up to US$92 million from the Department of Defense amid hard questions
about its involvement in two separate violent incidents in Iraq.
"Blackwater [USA] has been a contractor in the past with the department and
could certainly be in the future," said the US's top-ranking military officer,
General Peter Pace, last week.
The future arrived just two hours later when the Pentagon released
a new list of contracts - Presidential Airways, the aviation unit of parent
Blackwater, was awarded the contract to fly Department of Defense passengers
and cargo around Central Asia.
The announcement comes as a cloud of suspicion gathers around the "professional
military" firm for its actions as a State Department security contractor in
Iraq in which at least eight Iraqis and possibly as many as 28 were killed,
including a woman and child.
The Iraqi government initially announced that it had revoked Blackwater's
license to operate in the country. The initial report on the incident by the
State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security was put together by the US
Embassy in Baghdad and details of the event in which a car bomb exploded near a
meeting attended by officials from the US Agency for International Development.
Some of the Blackwater team members hired as security for the officials were
involved in the shootout while apparently trying to clear an evacuation path.
In a statement issued last week, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell denied
any wrongdoing and said, "Blackwater's independent contractors acted lawfully
and appropriately in response to a hostile attack in Baghdad on Sunday.
Blackwater regrets any loss of life but this convoy was violently attacked by
armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job to defend human
life."
However, an official with knowledge of the investigation told the New York
Times that the evacuation effort was marked by confusion and chaos - the
Blackwater employees believed they were being fired on, but this contradicted
the initial Iraqi report on the incident that said there was no enemy fire.
There was also apparently an incident of infighting when one guard did not heed
a ceasefire call.
In a press conference last Wednesday, the deputy press secretary of the State
Department gave a non-denial of reports in the press that the Department of
Defense has hinted to the State Department that the investigation into
Blackwater should be reined in, only highlighting that the departments were
working together and that the reports in the press had come from anonymous
sources.
Blackwater, which has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq and $800 million in
US government contracts, has been one of the most prominent private security
firms operating in the country. Some of its notable assignments have included
protecting L Paul Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional
Authority, as well as Ryan Crocker, who is currently the leading US diplomatic
envoy to Iraq.
The firm came into the public eye in March 2004, when four of its employees
were killed and mutilated by an Iraqi mob in Fallujah, the war-torn Iraqi city
that was an insurgent stronghold at the time. The incident touched off the
unsuccessful US attempt to retake the city in April 2004.
Family members of the four employees slain in Fallujah have since sued
Blackwater, alleging that the firm failed to provide necessary equipment and
manpower that could have saved the employees' lives.
A separate report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
faulted Blackwater's conduct in the Fallujah incident, in which Blackwater was
transporting flatbed trucks when its team was ambushed.
"Blackwater embarked on this mission without sufficient preparation, resources
and support for its personnel," concluded the report, saying that the firm had
ignored warnings by another security company, cut the staff for the mission by
putting rear gunners for both involved security vehicles on administrative
duties, and went out with insufficiently armored vehicles.
"Management in North Carolina made the decision to go with soft skin due to the
cost," despite the fact that the contract paid for armored vehicles, said a
Blackwater employee quoted in the report, referring to Blackwater's
headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina.
The congressional report noted that the Blackwater men had been sent on their
mission without maps and ended up at the wrong military base, where they had to
spend the night because of fighting nearby.
Control Risks Group, another security force working in the area at the time,
warned Blackwater about the mission after they had twice been offered the same
task but "refused both times due to the obvious risk transporting slow-moving
loads through such a volatile area".
On the heels of the House Committee report, Congressman David E Price of North
Carolina will introduce legislation next week to extend the reach of US civil
courts to include security contractors in Iraq. The proposed bill, H R 2740,
will also establish Federal Bureau of Investigation investigative units in the
war zone charged with investigating allegations of misconduct.
In a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week, Price wrote,
"The allegations related to the September 16 incident have the potential to
become a flashpoint in terms of Iraqi antagonism toward US personnel, with
wide-ranging implications for our mission and our troops. There is no question
that the lack of clarity surrounding the legal options for prosecuting criminal
acts has significantly undermined our efforts in Iraq."
Security firms are currently beyond the reach of the courts in both Iraq and
the US as a result of legislation passed by Bremer.
The various investigations into security contractors working for the US
government in Iraq and related legislation are heralded by critics of the Bush
administration's approach to the war, pointing to the failures of the so-called
[Donald] Rumsfeld doctrine, which promotes a more streamlined and greatly
privatized military based on an "entrepreneurial approach" and raising
questions about rampant war-profiteering.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
