Licensed to Kill Page 10
The second incident was a firefight in front of the palace. “We were standing there and I heard two sounds like a cap gun. It was rounds whizzing by my head. Then all hell broke loose and about a thousand rounds were fired. People were trying to storm the ministry of defense across the street, and the guards shot into the crowd, killing three people.”
The closest call, however, came when Karzai was on a campaign tour in 2003. Despite the difficulty of traveling, Karzai had been under a lot of pressure to campaign, even though the force of U.S. public-relations dollars behind him virtually assured his election. The media was coordinated to document a campaign stop in Gardez, still a hotbed of Pashtun resistance to the U.S.-supported government.
Nick remembers: “We already knew there was a huge threat and tried to talk the Man out of going. He still insisted. We were flying two CH-47s and two Apaches. I was on the helicopter with Karzai and my team. When we approached Gardez, I looked out of the helicopter and saw a mass of people coming out of their houses. We were already on edge. Intel was coming in from our CAT teams and snipers already on the ground. It didn’t look good. The first helicopter landed with all of the press. As we came in, we unbuckled and were ready to run out and form a box. We form a box or diamond to protect the Man as he walks from the helicopter to the armored vehicle. I expected to land softly, but about fifteen feet off the ground, the helicopter just dropped. A rocket went right over the top of our helicopter. The State Department shift leader yelled ‘SAM!’—surface-to-air missile—over the radio. One of the vehicles on the ground also took a single shot from somewhere. Our helicopter tried to do evasive maneuvers to get us out of the area. We grabbed on to anything we could. We thought we were dead. The pilot got us onto our side, and we dropped so fast I thought we were going to crash along with everyone else. I threw my seat belt on and waited for the impact that never came. The pilot pulled it up and got us out of there. There was a rocket, maybe two fired at us. When we got back to the palace, the pilot landed, we got off, and he took off as fast as he could. You could tell he was scared shitless. Karzai was also a little shook up.
“The next day Karzai wanted to go back, but State said hell no, even though George Bush was pushing him to get out and campaign before the elections. One reporter asked Karzai why he would not go back, because most presidents would have. The press is so fucked up sometimes.”
Though one might expect DynCorp to have learned a lesson after having to manage a crisis of losing their first Karzai detail because of a pay dispute, it appears that old ghosts still haunt the system. Nick has decided to leave for a job with Blackwater in Iraq, and Pete has decided to leave as well and work for his old SF captain doing training in Arizona. One of the team members mentions, “DynCorp is trying to screw our new guys out of the pay increases. DynCorp is notorious for fucking their people when it comes to money. I have been here a year and half and we threatened to walk twice. The whole detail just said they would quit because they try to screw us out of money. They have given in a few times, but it looks like they won’t this time for these new guys. Most of these guys are thinking about going to other companies and breaking their contracts because of this. The State Department will blackball them from going to other companies like Blackwater that have State Department contracts if they quit. It is really screwed up.”
DynCorp’s contract to provide the palace guard is just one of many contracts with the U.S. government, ranging from $600 million to eradicate drugs in Colombia to $500 million to train police in Iraq. The contract to protect Karzai is only one part of a $43-million contract related to Afghanistan, a minuscule line item in DynCorp’s $1.8 billion in annual revenue.
Karzai, called the “Mayor of Kabul” for his lack of influence outside the palace, remains on the American payroll and maintains hope that his American protective force will continue their work uninterrupted by contract negotiations or a loss of support by the U.S. government. In May of 2005, following violent demonstrations sparked by reports of American mistreatment of Afghan prisoners, Karzai asked President Bush for more control over the twenty thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Bush declined his offer. Karzai could force the issue, but since he relied on American largesse to provide the security that keeps him alive, he couldn’t push too hard without endangering his own position of privilege. Karzai is wise to take his cues from the U.S. president. Karzai no doubt closely followed the downfall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in the spring of 2004. The Aristide coup illustrates how effectively a security detachment funded by a private contract can not only support a leader’s hold on power, but also, possibly, contribute to his overthrow.
Falling Out and Falling Down
President Aristide of Haiti contracted with the Steele Foundation in San Francisco in 1998 to provide bodyguards. The business relationship was approved by the State Department, which had a vested interest in keeping Aristide alive and in power. The initial detail was about ten bodyguards but was increased to about sixty by 2000 when it became apparent that Aristide’s police could not or would not put down violent insurrections that plagued the island. Aristide was paying between $6 and $9 million a year, with a weapons package hovering around a million dollars, in a country considered to be the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. There was a direct coup attempt against Aristide on December 17, 2001, by Guy Philippe, a former police commissioner from northern Haiti. Philippe returned from exile in the neighboring Dominican Republic in early 2004 to attempt Aristide’s overthrow again. In late February 2004, he and sixty armed supporters took over control of Cap-Haïtien, Haiti’s second largest city, from where he started taunting and threatening Aristide. By then, Aristide’s detail had been trimmed down and hovered at around twenty to twenty-five men, most of them ex-military with PSD experience.
In early February, rebels began to push against the four-thousand-man, poorly trained Haitian police force. They posed little to no resistance, and Aristide ordered another twenty-five contractors from Steele to beef up his detail. One of the assumptions was that the former military supplied by Steele might be used as trainers and force multipliers for his beleaguered police force. However, the U.S. State Department denied the additional contractors permission to travel to Haiti. By that point, Aristide had been so marginalized in his own country that he no longer served the needs of the United States.
Early in the morning of February 28, 2004, members of Aristide’s security detail came to him and said they were supposed to escort him to the embassy. But actually, U.S. officials had asked Steele to pull out immediately and advised that the replacement team of twenty-five contractors would not be allowed to leave the States for Haiti. Aristide later said it was “white American soldiers” who told him that he needed to leave. Hart Brown, a contractor on the detail, however, told me that Ambassador James Foley contacted Aristide at 5:00 A.M. and said that they would be holding a press conference at the U.S. embassy to announce his resignation. The American rationale was that if Aristide did not leave, there would be bloodshed with thousands killed. Aristide and his detail were driven by his military escort right by the embassy and to the airport, where he was told to get on a waiting plane. There were U.S. soldiers in uniform, including marines, and more surprisingly, his entire security detail boarded the plane as well. It was a white plane with the only notable marking being a small U.S. flag on the tail. The window shades were pulled down, and their destination was not revealed. Strangely, some of the Steele employees brought their wives and children, so they obviously had prior knowledge of the quickly unfolding events.
At 5:45 A.M., now former president Aristide flew out on a fifty-five-seat plane with nineteen employees of the Steele Foundation and twenty members of the U.S. military. There were other U.S. operators on the plane as well, and all changed out of their uniforms into civilian clothes before they landed. After a stop in what Aristide thought was Antigua (apparently it was Miami) to set up arrangements for their exile, he and his entourage were flown to Africa to be wel
comed by President François Bozizé of the Central African Republic. Aristide immediately began accusing the U.S. government of kidnapping him. The U.S. government officially stated that it was “nonsense.” Secretary of State Colin Powell (a former client of Steele) said, “He was not kidnapped. We did not force him on the airplane. He went on the plane willingly.”
Ken Kurtz, CEO of the Steele Foundation, refused most opportunities to comment on the circumstances of Aristide’s overthrow, and would usually go little further than saying that the personal safety of Aristide and his family was the only concern of Steele.
Hart Brown, a contractor on the team that escorted Aristide out of the country, had a slightly different recollection. “At the end we all knew that there might be a conflict of interest. When the State Department asked Aristide to step down, he refused and was flown to Miami…. It was a decision taken at the corporate level in order to keep further contracts.” Aristide knew that he would never survive without his PSD, and if the U.S. government advised Steele that it would be in the best interests of their business future to pull out, Aristide had little choice but to go with them. Even considering the implications of the U.S. State Department asking Steele to pull out, the Aristide example does not seem to have been a situation of the United States backing a coup. However, it certainly exemplifies how dependent foreign leaders may feel if they know the American government could collude to withdraw security if displeased.
Part Two
* * *
The New Breed
CHAPTER 4
* * *
Confirmed Kills
“We are not merely imperfect creatures that need improvement: we are rebels that need lay down their arms.”
—C. S. LEWIS, THE PROBLEM OF PAIN
It’s impossible to get the attention of the waitress at the Dallas Convention Center. Buzz-cut, muscular men wearing tight-fitting golf shirts pack the tiny lounge tables, creating a forest of empty beer bottles and glasses all awaiting fresh refills. Dallas is hosting the ASIS (American Society for Industrial Security) convention, and the independent contractors, or ICs, as they call themselves, have come to network. The red glow of cigars illuminates discreet discussions of potential mercenary and security work between wide-eyed amateurs and battle-hardened pros, many just back from Afghanistan or Iraq.
On the surface, ASIS is a dull security equipment and video camera convention, but it has become a social center for contractors, as well as a sprawling showcase for high-tech gizmos and for the providers of security services. It’s the summer of 2004, and this is the first ASIS conference to vividly demonstrate the impact the Iraq war has had on the security industry. Gone is the old-boy networking at the now-defunct Soldier of Fortune conventions in tattered Las Vegas hotels. Since demand for security services has skyrocketed in Iraq, ex-soldiers can find plenty of aboveboard professional employment opportunities with corporations like Blackwater, Triple Canopy, the Steele Foundation, and the other private security outfits that hide among the acres of display booths. The companies come here with slick booths and displays to attract potential clients, meet friends, hand out brochures, and talk business to business. The contractors, flush with money but light on social contacts, flock to these conventions like a band of gypsies seeking like-minded tribesmen. Informal cc’ed and bcc’ed chain e-mails let the ICs know who will be at what show, and here they can talk shop, share a room, meet with potential clients, relive past gigs, and meet new people. Since it is through this vast, interconnected web of friendships that word of new contracts usually trickles down, networking these functions can minimize the inevitable periods of unemployment any independent contractor will have during his career. Although the high day rate of contractors means that hanging out at the show is costing everyone in the room at least $400 to $600 dollars a day, they don’t sweat it. Professionals know that stacking too many gigs back to back leads to burnout, and then the personal life goes to hell and you can’t even keep a girlfriend, let alone an apartment. In a disconnected global marketplace where contractors bounce between hot spots and hometowns, hanging here with their tribe allows many to enjoy a sense of belonging lacking even in their own homes.
In the convention center bar, an animated and loquacious young Blackwater contractor named Shannon Campbell holds court at one of the tiny round tables. As he spins his tale for me about life as a contractor, the spread of burly men surrounding Shannon expands as more stop to listen. At thirty-five, with his dark blond hair long and hanging over his forehead, Shannon looks like a dead ringer for the star of the movie Dune, except that he wears the T-shirt, sandals, and ball cap of a beach bum. Small-framed and comparatively short for a contractor with an almost lithe manner of movement, Shannon does not look, act, or walk military. His handle oddly enough is Cougar Bait—not because of his catlike demeanor, but because he insists that married women always target him on his home visits.
Shannon’s bravado seems to mask a concern about how other contractors perceive him, since he is one of the few nonmilitary ICs working high-level security in Iraq. But if Blackwater likes to project a certain kind of image, then Shannon must be it. In the news photos of the day the CPA handed authority over to the Iraqis, Shannon can be seen out front clearing the way for Bremer and standing guard nearby as he speaks. Blackwater also thinks highly enough of Shannon to assign him to work the Blackwater booth at ASIS. He has the rapid wit of someone used to thinking on his feet, and that personality plus his superior shooting skills have made him a favorite of management. Away from the machismo of the other contractors, Shannon will admit that he is a big fan of C. S. Lewis, particularly The Problem of Pain. The book he carries with him is underlined, notated, and obviously read repeatedly.
Contrary to most independent contractors, who logically transition into the security industry after having careers in the military or law enforcement, Shannon just read a news article about mercenary outfits or “private military companies” like Executive Outcomes and Sandline and decided that he’d found his calling. He ran up credit card debt and worked day jobs, such as managing his father-in-law’s flower shops and funeral parlor, to pay for martial arts classes and bodyguard and weapons training, until he had racked up enough experience to break into the industry. After a brief stint at Marquez Vance Marquez (MVM), a prime security contractor for the CIA, he found a home with Blackwater, where he learned that it was his mental endurance as much as his experience that would drive a successful career in his chosen field.
As he explains to me, “Contracting is not a job for higher-ups. They just work on their tan. All they do is whine. It’s a mental thing. You have to put up with the rigors of working in a place like Iraq day in and day out. But really, the number one criterion for getting over is having been there. Hey, even if you are an MP [military police], I say get your shit into Blackwater.”
Getting in might be easier than staying in, since Shannon tells me that even after completing training, a contractor can be knocked out of rotation. Getting out of sync with the ninety days on/thirty days off spin cycle means a contractor could make half of what he expected. “Even if you make it, your relationship with Blackwater is very shifty…. We bring in twenty and send home ten—trial by fire. They can’t complain if they don’t make it at Blackwater. Some guys can bring it on, but most of them just worry if their gear matches. They will wear the checkered scarf, or wear a Blackwater shirt, and they think they are the shit. The guys I respect are the ones that the five of them live in a small building out in the boonies. Those guys would be allowed to give anyone shit.
“The big money is in the OGA contracts. MVM hires OGA guards. They have to have SCI clearance. You could be five foot two in every direction with one eye, but as long as you have that clearance you can still work with them. And if you want to know who is OGA? They wear two IDs—DoD and embassy. Their ID is thicker because they have to open it up to show their CIA ID.
“Blackwater can be like a fucking restaurant. You’ve got hundred
s of people coming through. They usually fall into two categories. You’ve got the under-thirty crowd—the whippersnappers just looking for the biggest paycheck. Then you got the over-thirty crowd—the guys with a family and kids that are looking for a company to work for. The oldest person I know working for Blackwater is Jesse at fifty-five. His claim to fame is that he has been in an unbelievable number of shootouts and survived. Just a good ole country boy. His performance is impeccable.”
Shannon wants to illustrate the world of the IC in “Bangdad,” and so sketches out a cartoonish map of Baghdad on a napkin. “There is the Green Zone and there is the Red Zone. The Green Zone is a well-defined area along the Tigris with three controlled entrances. The Green Zone is this arc above the ‘Schlong’—a large peninsula created by a loop in the Tigris, more politely known as the ‘Thumb.’ The mortars come from here,” he says, pointing across the river to the northwest, “to hit the military on the tip of the Schlong. OGA is right against the Tigris. They also have an awesome lounge and chow hall. You can even get Snickers bars and soft-serve ice cream. Assassin’s Gate is here. Baby Assassin’s Gate is just past it. A thousand-pound truck bomb went off at Baby Assassin’s Gate. It shook the entire area, lifted the dust off the sidewalk. When we heard that one back at the team house, we didn’t really move, just looked at each other and said, ‘Sounds like a truck bomb.’ The ICs live inside the Green Zone. The most dangerous road is Route Irish—the road from the Green Zone to BIAP [Baghdad International Airport]. The road is also called IED Alley. We go everywhere. The word in the Red Zone is that we are hired killers. ‘Mercenaries’ they call us. Thank God for CNN!”