By Jeremy Scahill
Nation Books, Avalon Publ. Group, New York, NY; 452 pp., 2007
Reviewed by Mark Biskeborn
In his new book, Jeremy Scahill traces the explosive growth of Blackwater, USA, a private and secretive mercenary company based in the backwaters of North Carolina. Scahill writes that “in less than a decade [Blackwater] has risen out of the swamp in North Carolina to become something of a Praetorian Guard for the Bush administration's so-called war on terror."
By following the mercs’ (mercenaries) missions, Scahill takes us on a tour of some of the most outrageous policy blunders in the occupation of Iraq. Based on every aspect of this so-called Operation Iraqi Freedom, from policy, planning, strategy, and daily tactics, this has everything to do about colonization for economic gains, and very little about liberating the citizens.
In the Introduction, Scahill reminds us of President Eisenhower’s famous and prophetic farewell speech in 1961 about the perils of the American industrial-military complex:
”The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
The operative phrase in Eisenhower’s speech: Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry. The popular vote in 2000 resulted in a win for Al Gore. The Supreme Court, however, ruled in favor of Bush because he won in the electorate college. By 2004, with tanks rolling through Baghdad, the popular vote did what it has always done during wartime, it voted for “staying the course.” History has proven for many presidents that military conflict guarantees staying power for the second term. Whether or not the American citizenry passed the test of alert and knowledgeable, remains for debate.
Scahill argues that the Bush administration has given us a new America, one in which misplaced power rose to excess, one in which the huge industrial and military machinery degenerated into disastrous abuse.
”What has unfolded…particularly in the Bush administration is nothing less than the very scenario Eisenhower darkly prophesied.”
According to Scahill, Blackwater has:
• an international branch, Greystone, in Barbados for tax-exempt status
• more than 2,300 soldiers deployed in nine countries
• a database of 21,000 special forces troops and retired police that it could deploy at a moment's notice
• a private fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gunships
• 7000-acre headquarters—the world’s largest private military facility
• new facilities in California, Illinois, and a jungle training facility in the Philippines
• training for tens of thousands of law enforcement officials a year from the U.S. and other nations
• over $500 million in government contracts – and that does not include “black budget” operations for U.S. intelligence agencies or contracts with private corporations or foreign governments
• U.S. government “cost-plus” contracts: the more they spend, the more they profit—leading to abuse and inefficiency
• Capability to overthrow many of the world’s governments
Theocratic Military Power
“Blackwater is a private army,” Scahill writes, “and it is controlled by one person: Erik Prince, a radical right-wing mega-millionaire who has served as a bankroller not only of President Bush’s campaigns but of the broader Christian right agenda.”
Erik Prince’s father Edgar played a major role in creating and funding many right wing Christian political movements, such as James Dobson’s Family Research Council.
“Erik Prince has been in the thick of the right-wing effort to unite conservative Catholics, evangelicals, and neoconservatives in a common theoconservative holy war—with Blackwater serving as sort of armed wing of the movement. Prince says ‘Everybody carries guns, just like the Prophet Jeremiah rebuilding the temple in Israel—a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.’”
Scahill calls this a “theocratic movement” which motivates the rise of mercenary corporations like Blackwater which was founded in the mid-1990s. And only during the theocratic based Bush administration did it win the contracts that exploded its growth.
Many on the Christian right considered the newly elected Clinton administration illegitimate. First Things, a journal that Scahill calls “the main organ of the theocratic movement,” published a special issue entitled The End of Democracy, which featured essays that predicted a civil war scenario or Christian insurrection against the government. Erik Prince’s close friend, former Watergate conspirator turned Christian fascist, Charles Colson, wrote in the issue, “A showdown between church and state is inevitable. This is not something for which Christians should hope. But it is something for which they need to prepare.”
Fallujah
Immediately after 9/11 Blackwater landed a $5.4 million contract to provide 20 security guards for the CIA’s Kabul station. But a big break for the company came when it landed a $27 million contract for providing security for Paul Bremer, who was in charge of running the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The senior U.S. official in Iraq and the public face of the occupation, Bremer would not be protected by U.S. government forces or Iraqi security but by Blackwater.
Blackwater soldiers sent to guard Bremer:
“embodied the ugly American persona to a tee. Its guards were chiseled like bodybuilders and wore tackey wrap-around sunglasses. Many wore goatees and dressed in all-khaki uniforms with ammo vests or Blackwater t-shirts with the trademark bear claw in the crosshairs, sleeves rolled up…Their haircuts were short and they sported security earpieces and lightweight machine guns. They bossed around journalists, ran Iraqi cars off the road or fired rounds at cars if they got in the way of a Blackwater convoy”
Blackwater USA Corporation first came to public attention on 31 March 2004 when four of its private soldiers in Iraq were ambushed and killed in Fallujah. People in the city dragged the bodies through the streets, burned them, and strung two of the mercenaries over the bridge over the Euphrates River.
The press portrayed the incident as an Iraqi mob irrationally attacking “contractors”—not armed mercenaries—who were helping to rebuild Iraq. The headline in the Chicago Tribune read, “Iraqi Mob Mutilates Four American Civilians.” Scahill reveals the true situation in Fallujah before the attack on the Blackwater soldiers.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Fallujah had been the site of a major massacre when a “precision bomb” hit a densely populated area smashing through a market and apartment complex killing over 130 civilians. After U.S. troops occupied the city in 2003, U.S. troops opened fire on a peaceful demonstration killing 13 and wounding 75.
The attack on the mercenaries was used as a pretext, quite possibly a staged bait, to launch a massive assault on Fallujah delivering a horrific collective punishment to the whole city.
Thousands of U.S. troops invaded the city, 1000- and 2000-pound bombs were dropped, and hospitals were closed so those injured could not get medical aid. Over 800 people died in the U.S. attack and tens of thousands were forced to flee.
A reporter from Al Jazeera wrote, “I went to the hospital. I could not see anything but a sea of corpses of children and women, and mostly children…These were scenes that were unbelievable unimaginable. I was taking photographs and forcing myself to photograph while I was at the same time crying.”
And at the time, President Bush told U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair that he wanted to destroy Al Jazeera by bombing it. “He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere.”
Above All Laws
Mercs from Titan and CACI—two other mercenary businesses like Blackwater—were involved in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. According to a class action suit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Titan and CACI conspired with U.S. officials to “humiliate, torture and abuse persons” to win more contracts for their “interrogation services.” Despite the hot spotlight on these corporations, business continued to bustle.
None of these military contractors has been prosecuted for crimes committed in Iraq. In fact the contractors operate outside the law, completely immune from prosecution. One of Paul Bremer’s last official acts before leaving Iraq was to sign Order #17, that “contractors shall be immune from Iraqi legal processes with respect to acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of any Contract to sub-contract thereto.”
In addition, until very recently, contractors have been immune from military law that governs U.S. troops. Blackwater also claims that it is immune to civil suits filed in U.S. courts, because it is part of the U.S.’s “total force” in Iraq. The mercs can have it both ways, literally above all laws both civil and military.
In late 2006 Congress added an amendment to a Defense Department spending bill that said that contractors could now be prosecuted by the military. No charges have filed. If its mercs were brought in front of military tribunals, Blackwater would likely challenge the right of the military to prosecute them.
Merc Contractors Making a Killing
By the time Defense Secretary Rumsfeld resigned in late 2006, the ratio of active-duty U.S. soldiers to private contractors deployed in Iraq had reached just under one to one, a statistic unprecedented in modern warfare.
The reasons for this huge change in the use of non-government military are numerous. As a seemingly purposeless, goalless war, few men are willing to sign up, volunteer for the low paying job as a grunt. On the other hand, mercs received up to four or five times the salary of U.S. soldiers. In this war, patriotism no longer drives most warriors.
And a draft would be out of the question as a means to conscript a new crop of men willing to serve…the country…Bush’s own war… A draft would rouse a new antiwar movement that would make the 1960’s look like a small rally.
The Vietnam War grew over the course of many years from the days of French colonialism to a gradual U.S. involvement through a series of policies of several U.S. Presidents.
The war in Iraq is unique. Bush junior, a single man, is responsible for the decision to go to war. He pushed for his own war by lying to the U.S. public. He pushed the ratification for the war through a Republican Congress. He lied about the WMD’s, which the UN inspectors never found long before the invasion; he lied in a long string of justifications for going to war.
When Rumsfeld left his office, President Bush did make one very truthful statement thus far in his Presidency: Rumsfeld made the “most sweeping transformation of American’s global force posture since the end of World War II.”
Unfortunately, Bush’s words may now mean something very different than what he may have thought he tried to say.
The U.S. military has been ground down to exhaustion, many a retired General has testified to this, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell who said in 2006, “the active Army is about broken.”
“While Blackwater executives may have initially set their sights high in aiming to be a wind of the military—like the Marines or the Army—now, reeling from its successes, the company is no longer content to be subordinate to the United States. While it still maintains its plege of loyalty and patriotism, Blackwater strives to be an independent army, deploying to conflict zones as an alternative to a NATO or UN force, albeit one accountable to Blackwater’s owners rather than member nations.”
The uses of a army for hire offer many possibilities for humanitarian peacekeeping missions. Corporations like Blackwater could serve as a quick and easy solution to deploying units of military professionals to “solve problems” such as deterring the sorts of killings we see in Africa or coup d’etats in places like Haiti.
On the other hand, many questions arise:
• Who controls these private armies?
• To what are these private armies loyal? The U.S. Constitution? The al-Saudi Royal family? Or just the highest bidder in contracts to kill?
• Once such a private army gains real military might, what are the limits?
• What prevents a Blackwater from raiding the Pentagon on a Thursday morning?
• Blackwater is an example of a military run by an extremely right-wing Christian fundamentalist group. What if they decide that their ideology should be the only way to live for all of America…or some other nation for that matter?
• What’s to stop private corporations like Chevron or ExxonMobile from hiring a Blackwater brigade to take back the oil fields in Nigeria which they believe belong to them?
As we see in the case of Fallujah, Blackwater may very well have instigated the insurgency. Who was there to stop it? Who was there to deter it? Or was it a paid-for mission? Was it a “strategy” drawn up in a back office of theocratic, neoconservative political leaders?
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