Tag: Blackwater

Blackwater and Gustav

Last Friday, Blackwater sent out an email. This, of course, is the famous mercenary company that not only has operated in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was actually in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and beyond, in 2005 made $70 million in federal money just off of its Hurricane Katrina contracts. Last Friday, Blackwater sent out an email to its network of independent contractors. The company boasts of having some 20,000-plus individuals that it can call out at a moment’s notice. And the contract was looking for personnel that would be interested in deploying in, what the email said, areas affected by Hurricane Gustav.

And the kinds of individuals that Blackwater was looking to hire for operations potentially in the hurricane zone were law enforcement officers who were sworn, currently sworn, and wanted the specification of their arms status, if they were allowed to use semi or auto, automatic weapons; individuals with arrest powers; armed security officers. And it said that all of the applicants must be US citizens. And so, Blackwater, as of last week, was already starting for this—toward this mobilization.

What we know from experience with Blackwater in the hurricane zone is that this is not a company that believes it needs orders from any government agency to deploy, armed, on the streets of an American city. Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater—I had this confirmed to me by a senior Blackwater executive—Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince simply decided in Hurricane Katrina to send over 180 men, armed, onto the streets of an American city. And when I interviewed them in New Orleans, they told me that they were there to confront criminals and stop looters.

Now, a week after Blackwater arrived in Hurricane Katrina on the streets of New Orleans, they were hired by the Bush administration through the Department of Homeland Security Federal Protective Service, and Blackwater billed the United States government $950—nine-five-zero—$950 per man per day for its operations in the hurricane zone. At one point they had 600 men stretching from Texas through Mississippi and the Gulf. And Blackwater made, as I said, over $70 million just in its federal contracts. That’s doesn’t count the work that Blackwater picked up with wealthy individuals, private businesses, etc.

And finally, what I would say is that several of the men that I talked to were veterans of the Iraq occupation, had just been there two weeks earlier. Some of them were complaining that in New Orleans there wasn’t enough action for them. This is a company that is under multiple investigations, whose operatives are accused of killing civilians. The idea that they would once again be invited to deploy or allowed to deploy, armed on the streets of an American city, I think should be disturbing not just to residents of the Gulf but to all people in this country who are concerned about the fate of those residents of the Gulf right now.

Opportunists to the last!  THis company in NO WAY should profit from the horror of a hurricane.  The need for mercenaries would not be necessary if we had more troops at the disposal of the states.  To have that amount of troops available for hurricanes would mean that dumbass wars need to be avoided.

Blackwater Enters The World Of James Bond

Jeremy Scahill is worried about the giant mercenary firm’s latest foray into private intelligence. “They’re marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations,” he recently told an interviewer.

The forthcoming paperback edition of Scahill’s book on Blackwater, which appeared in hardcover in February 2007, will include 100 pages of new material, including a discussion of last September’s shooting spree in Baghdad by Blackwater operatives — which killed 17 Iraqi civilians but for which nobody has ever been charged.

This is a company that has been accused of murdering Iraqi civilians,” Scahill pointed out, “of shooting the bodyguard to the Iraqi vice-president, of causing blowback attacks on United States troops, of hurting the morale of the United States military — that has cost United States taxpayers over a billion dollars for its operations in Iraq.”

However, Scahill’s greatest concern at present appears to be Blackwater’s venture into the private intelligence business.

“Blackwater started a private intelligence company,” he explained, “a private CIA essentially, called Total Intelligence Solutions. And the man running Total Intelligence Solutions is J. Cofer Black. He’s a thirty-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency. He also was the guy who ran the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, the government-sanctioned kidnap-and-torture program.”

Is the governemtn out sourcing our intel?  Is that why we need and Intel Czar?  Someone to co-ordinate the info furnished by private companies??

Blackwater Could Lose Immunity

The Iraqi armed services are likely to target widely-hated American security contractors when they lose their immunity to Iraqi law under a new agreement between the US and the Iraq.

The main American concession, during prolonged and rancorous negotiations over a Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) that would determine the future military relationship between the US and Iraq, has been to agree to lift the immunity hitherto enjoyed by the 154,000 contractors, of whom 35,000 are private security men.

The ending of immunity will have serious consequences for the 142,000 US troops in Iraq, who are highly reliant on contractors. Mr Chalabi says it is likely that the Iraqi security forces and judiciary will go out of their way to arrest foreign security men who break Iraqi law, which they have so far flouted.

He also said that the loss of immunity of American contractors would make US intelligence operations more difficult because private companies have been used to maintain links with opponents of the Iranian regime based in Iraq, notably the Mojahedin-e Khalq. This enables the US government to deny that it has contacts with such groups.

Could Blackwater Have A New Gig?

Mia Farrow, the actress and activist, has asked Blackwater, the US private security company active in Iraq, for help in Darfur after becoming frustrated by the stalled deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force.

Ms Farrow said she had approached Erik Prince, founder and owner of Blackwater, to discuss whether a military role was either feasible or desirable.

She acknowledged that many people might have reservations about Blackwater being involved in Darfur – the company’s men were involved in the fatal shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians last September – but said the threat of violence to refugees meant all options had to be explored.

Mr Prince hasraised the possibility of a role in Darfur for security companies.

Ms Farrow, who represents Dream for Darfur, a human rights group, and other lobbyists this week lambasted the UN Security Council for its “shameful” failure to halt killings in the Sudanese province.

The activists, who claim China has used the threat of its Security Council veto to prevent tough sanctions on its ally, urged the UN to stand up to Khartoum in the deployment of a 26,000- strong force. They said the Sudanese government had abused its right to approve contingents in an effort to ensure only relatively poorly trained and equipped African troops were assigned.