Licensed to Kill Page 13
In Iraq today, probably their most visible and risky role comes in providing security escorts, particularly along the deadly Route Irish running to and from Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). Like Roman gladiators stepping out to do battle every day, a handful of SUVs representing a variety of companies can always be found waiting at the airport to drive their incoming passengers the short but deadly distance into Baghdad. They roll at high speeds, firing their weapons to keep other cars away, treating everything along the way as if it could be a VBIED, aka vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, aka suicide car bomber. The statistics showing the frequency of attacks along the appropriately nicknamed “IED Alley” justifies their aggressive driving manner. In addition to ensuring safe transit for everything from a carload of journalists, diplomats, or businessmen to a truckload of kitchen equipment or construction supplies, private contractors also provide static security for embassies, oil pipelines, government buildings, and other critical infrastructure. Security contractors train Iraqi soldiers and police, perform intelligence gathering, mount aerial surveillance, and handle bomb-sniffing canines. Even if they may not be technically working on behalf of the U.S. military in many of these roles, Deborah Avant says security contractors have become legitimate targets for insurgent attacks because they perform roles in support of the U.S. mission and ensure the presence of U.S.-appointed political figures and corporations.
During Blackwater’s highly visible contract protecting Bremer, insurgents were reportedly offering a $30,000 bounty for the life of any one of the Blackwater bodyguards. Not only did these contractors have to operate with full knowledge of a sizable bounty on their heads, but they also knew that the man they were tasked with protecting represented the highest-value target available in the war zone. Some estimates put the price on Bremer’s life as high as $45 million.
To the blossoming insurgency, Paul Bremer represented a singular symbol of unwanted Western occupation, and Blackwater had to keep this in mind when determining the level of manpower and firepower required to ensure his safety. Jay Garner initially only had a small contingent of soldiers from the Florida National Guard as protectors, but the rapidly deteriorating conditions and Bremer’s insistence on moving around the country meant that he needed something significantly more substantial. Erik Prince and Blackwater were tasked to come up with a unique solution using funds from an existing DynCorp State Department contract. And so, the famous Bremer Detail—a fast-moving contingent of hired guns backed by massive firepower—was created.
DynCorp already possessed a contract to provide security for State Department needs worldwide—including guarding diplomatic installations and Afghan president Hamid Karzai—but subcontracted out the Iraq domain to Blackwater. Although the cost for Bremer’s praetorian guard was never advertised, a few months after they won the job, on August 24, 2003, a separate contract for $21.3 million was awarded to Blackwater. In a good example of how new companies are formed to fill a contract in this PSC boom, a new division, Blackwater Security Consulting LLC, was registered with the North Carolina secretary of state one month later.
Blackwater’s Bremer detail initially comprised thirty-six independent security contractors, a fleet of SUVs, two bomb-sniffing canine teams with handlers, four pilots, four aerial gunners, a ground crew, and three Boeing MD-530 “Little Bird” helicopters. Later, Blackwater would supplement the team with three armored Mamba trucks with swivel mounts for PKM machine guns, a Saracen armored carrier, and a CASA 212 for transport. The detail made an impressive show of force, and purposefully so, because its conduct was regulated by the State Department’s rules of engagement for a personal security detail. A PSD most importantly functions as a deterrent against attack, and if hit, they are authorized to engage the assailants only until the VIP is “off the X,” or evacuated away from the scene. Although many in the left-wing press call this group of armed ex-soldiers and ex-cops “mercenaries,” the government agencies consider them well-armed security guards. Either way, Blackwater was essentially fielding a small private militia, and for the first time in history, Paul Bremer, a civilian contractor, protected by a small army of private security contractors, was running an occupied country.
On Rules and Resentment
Ambassador Paul Bremer, an independent contractor assuming the position of proconsul, arrived in Iraq in May 2003 with supreme authority to make sweeping changes and radical reforms to post-Saddam Iraq. A retired but seasoned diplomat, Bremer had been hired away from his position as CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, a company that had been formed by Marsh and McLennan Companies after nearly three hundred of their employees died in the World Trade Center.
Bremer may have been touted as a good choice for his diplomatic style, but his strong hand and seemingly unlimited power angered many Iraqis. He was widely viewed as a new dictator squandering Iraqi oil revenue on corrupt and wasteful foreigners from the same palaces where Saddam had squandered Iraqi oil revenue on his own corrupt and wasteful programs. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) itself reeked of Orwellian Newspeak. The “coalition” was essentially America, the effort seemed more permanent than provisional, and the chaos in Iraq offered proof that it had no authority.
The CPA did seem to create an ancient form of mercantile company. The United States had invaded the sovereign state of Iraq, deposed its ruler, vanquished its army, and seized control of its treasury. They then installed essentially a business manager who released dicta designed to encourage commerce between coalition countries and the instantly created industry of “rebuilding Iraq.” Although war-profiteering is generally frowned upon, the CPA made no effort to mask the lucrative opportunity it was trying to create for corporate interests. Economic shock therapy and all-powerful market forces were expected to quickly set Iraq on a course for success. To get started, Bremer would just need a big piggy bank—the newly minted Development Fund for Iraq—to fund all the corporations who were positioned to help with and/or earn a profit from the coalition’s professed selfless act of liberation and reconstruction.
On March 20, 2003, President Bush had signed Executive Order 13290 allowing confiscation of Iraqi property in the United States and funds in American banks. On May 22, UN Resolution 1483 outlined the responsibilities of the occupying powers “to promote the welfare of the Iraqi people through the effective administration of the territory…,” and to that end allowed that 95 percent of the income from petroleum export sales be diverted into the new Development Fund for Iraq—a shift over from the questionable UN Oil for Food program that had been designed to prevent Saddam from looting the income for his own purposes. The first CPA regulation Bremer issued after arriving in Baghdad established the legal basis of the CPA with him as administrator, and Regulation Number Two made him the sole comptroller of the Development Fund for Iraq.
For other early official acts as head of the CPA, Bremer issued Order 1, beginning the de-Baathification of Iraqi society. This banned all Baath party members from any “positions of authority and responsibility in Iraqi society,” effectively ostracizing 10 percent of the Iraqi population or between 1.5 and 2.5 million people. Order 2 disbanded the Iraqi Army and several Iraqi ministries, essentially cutting off employment or income for over four hundred thousand Iraqis. These two orders essentially created a pool of unemployed potential foot soldiers or suicide bomb fodder for the opponents of the occupation, and Order 19 and Order 14 handed them a propaganda victory they could use as a recruiting tool. Order 19 defined the legally permissible freedom of assembly and placed restrictions on the Iraqis’ right to protest, and Order 14 outlined the limitations on their newfound freedom of the press. Neither of these orders were particularly unreasonable, but they did help the budding insurgency make the case that American rhetoric of freedom and democracy was little more than an elixir to lull the Iraqi people into complacency over the invasion of their country.
Further, as Bremer’s numerous edicts continued with a clear slant to mercantile benefit rather tha
n humanitarian assistance, they exacerbated the domestic paranoia that the United States had invaded the country to steal its oil and money. Even if these measures were taken with the best of intentions, to give economic shock therapy to an inarguably stagnant economy, they were not perceived as thus by the general population. Baath party assets and businesses were seized, 100 percent foreign ownership and repatriation of profits were allowed, forty-year contracts intended to ensure that any ventures created under U.S. occupation would endure, the banking system was privatized, a flat tax of 15 percent was created, excise and duties were abolished. All of these orders were issued in English with the Arabic translation lagging behind, underscoring the growing impression that the American occupier was taking control of the country for its own selfish purposes.
In the early months of Bremer’s tenure as proconsul, the Iraqi people only saw marginal improvement in their economic status and way of life. As the desperate times dragged on, resentment grew, and so did the insurgency. To add another point of tension to the already-delicate situation, the expanding reconstruction was increasing the presence of well-armed but nonmilitary men. Their ubiquitous and highly visible security convoys drove aggressively, pushing uncooperative cars out of the way or firing shots to disable them or their drivers. No one maintains any kind of statistics on how many civilians have been injured or killed by security contractors, but anecdotal evidence from the many conversations I have had with ICs on this subject indicates that it is not an insignificant number. Even so, at the date of this writing in early 2006, no private security contractors have yet suffered legal consequences for causing any collateral damage in Iraq.
In one incident related to me by a contractor who witnessed it, the driver of a Ford F-250 “bump truck” in a security convoy drove right over the top of a small car carrying an Iraqi family while maneuvering to escape a potentially dangerous situation. In the aftermath, the car looked fairly well crushed, but the contractor has no idea if the family lived or died since the convoy fled the scene. The incident was not reported at the time, and the driver of the truck was never investigated or disciplined for the action. The contractor who witnessed the incident wanted to report it to appropriate authorities but felt he would have jeopardized his own job by doing so.
Bush had opened up the War on Terror by issuing a license to kill with his post-9/11 presidential finding authorizing targeted assassination, but it would be Bremer’s Order 17 that would really unleash the security contractors in Iraq. The relevant clause of Order 17 states: “Contractors shall be immune from Iraqi legal process with respect to acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract or any subcontract thereto. Nothing in this provision shall prohibit MNF Personnel [Coalition forces] from preventing acts of serious misconduct by Contractors, or otherwise temporarily detaining any Contractors who pose a risk of injury to themselves or others, pending expeditious turnover to the appropriate authorities of the Sending State. In all such circumstances, the appropriate senior representative of the Contractor’s Sending State in Iraq shall be notified.” In commoner’s English, this means that the Iraqi legal system would have no jurisdiction to prosecute a contractor, even for a charge as serious as murder, if the incident occurred while he was on the job.
The appropriate process is supposed to be for the contractor to be repatriated and tried for any alleged offenses in his home country. That sounds like a reasonable solution, considering the state of the Iraqi justice system, but it just doesn’t actually happen in practice. Considering the impression I have gotten from contractors with extensive experience in Iraq about the frequency of accidental civilian casualties at the hands of contractors, it is amazing to me that not a single security contractor—and by that I strictly refer to the independent contractors employed in a security position by a PSC—has come under criminal investigation for any offense.
A couple of cases have set precedent for other types of contractors to be tried in their home countries for an offense committed in a war zone—such as the CACI (California Analysis Center, Inc.) and Titan translators charged after the public outcry over Abu Ghraib. David Passaro, an ex–Green Beret and independent contractor employed by the CIA as part of a paramilitary unit hunting terrorists in Afghanistan, was actually charged under terms of the Patriot Act for the death of a detainee he interrogated too harshly. Since both of these cases were brought only after controversy had erupted over the revelations about torture carried out at Abu Ghraib, it raises the question about whether the prevailing powers care about accountability only when the glare of the public spotlight is upon them.
Order 17 dissolved with the handover of Iraq, and in the ensuing time contractors have supposedly been subject to Iraqi law. For safety reasons as much as for avoidance of legal trouble, contractors do not stick around a scene after an incident. After numerous assaults mounted by insurgents disguised as official Iraqi security forces, contractors also refuse to pull over for sirens and flashing lights. So it would be up to the Iraqi police to investigate an incident, track it back to determine the individual at fault (if that would even be possible), and then appeal to the American forces for cooperation in picking up the person and turning him over to Iraqi custody—a highly unlikely scenario. If any grumbling is made over the inappropriate or overly violent behavior of any security contractor, his employers, if they judge the person to be a liability, will typically release him from his contract and send him home. He may end up out of a job, but he is unlikely to see the inside of a prison cell.
Order 17 established a virtually nonexistent standard of accountability for security contractors in Iraq that has persisted, though the specific legal grounds may have since shifted. This order not only gave non-Iraqi private security companies a “get out of jail free” card, but from what I have learned in my travels, it altered their view of the operating environment. Instead of being able to abide by local limits of force or regulation, many security contractors view Iraq as a lawless wasteland, “the sandbox,” a land where one must kill or be killed. To contractors bolting out of safe blastwall-gated enclaves in armored SUVs, the local population most often appears simply as a blur of dark faces viewed through gun sights.
Allowing these armed groups to operate with impunity and very little oversight is disquieting, but it is a credit to the quality of many of the security companies and the training and discipline of their employees that there have not been any major controversies. For the most part, the vast majority of security contractors working in Iraq abide by the rules of engagement originally established by the State Department and dramatically simplified by the head of security for the Project and Contracting Office (PCO), retired British Brigadier General Anthony Hunter-Choat. The simplest and most concise summary of the security contractors’ rules of engagement in Iraq is “If they shoot at you, shoot back.”
That seems like such an easy rule to follow, and in the early months after the invasion—perhaps up to the entire first year—it was. However, as occupation stretched on through 2003 without providing any significant benefits to the typical Iraqi, resentment grew, the insurgency gained strength, and contractors began to recognize increasing looks of sheer hatred directed at them when they moved through civilian areas. Working in an insecure environment, and facing an ill-defined enemy that hides easily among the civilian population, that somewhat intangible but definite shift in the mood on the street can greatly influence the rapidity of the trigger finger’s response. Then the Fallujah attack on Blackwater contractors changed everything.
The four contractors who died that day did not even have time to fire back. The vivid brutality of that attack put many contractors on edge and removed this naïve assumption that they were somehow immune from targeted attacks since they technically enjoy a quasicivilian status. After watching the deaths and bodily desecration of some of their colleagues played over and over again on a seemingly endless loop on TV, security contractors became much more ready to shoot if they felt threaten
ed.
Just a few days after the incident in Fallujah, two of the most significant incidents involving contractors in the Iraq war occurred, though the reporting on these developments was overshadowed by other events throughout the country. Though the rules of engagement require that security contractors shoot only to break contact with an attacker, the formulators of those rules did not foresee that contractors providing static security at a CPA compound could come under fire for hours or days. Security contractors, surrounded, cut off from escape, and abandoned by the military, have no choice but to fight if they come up against a lengthy onslaught by hundreds of attackers. At a time when Pentagon representatives and news commentators were making the case that the Blackwater contractors should have been protected under the laws of war as civilians, since they just provided security and did not engage in combat, contractors at Al Kut and An Najaf were engaging in combat.
CHAPTER 5
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Blackwater Bridge
“We knew even before we left Kuwait that this contract was doomed.”
—T-BOY, BLACKWATER CONTRACTOR ORIGINALLY
SLATED FOR THE ILL-FATED TEAM
I’m sitting in Las Vegas’s Bellagio Hotel bar after midnight, and the room buzzes with the chatter of martini-sipping women and the boasts of gamblers flush with new winnings. Across from me sits a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a small mustache. We could be hardware salesmen or businessmen relaxing after a trade show. But he is a veteran Special Forces team leader telling me about the battle for Fallujah. “The bodies were stacking up. I had one intersection with fifteen bodies. Our team must have killed at least five hundred Iraqis that day. At least five hundred is when we stopped counting,” he remembers calmly. He is due for retirement soon. He has no interest in being a contractor. The man remembers Fallujah as the single most violent encounter of his career—an offensive that focused the anger for the entire war on one town and sought payback for an attack on contractors that had triggered a violent orgy of destruction.