Newspaper Editorials

"Blackwater Outside Law in Iraq"
New Haven Register (CT), 10/11/2007

"Blackwater Excess; Private Guards Undermine An Already Compromised Mission"
Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY), 10/11/2007

"Blackwater: Another Black Mark on US Image"
New Canaan News Review (CT), 10/18/2007

"Private military out of control; U.S. security contractors in Iraq must be held accountable"
Chicago Sun-Times, 10/22/2007

"In Iraq war, mercenaries kill credibility"
Atlanta Journal-Contsitution, 10/7/2007

"Excessive Reliance on Private Security Hurts Iraq Effort"
The State (Columbia, SC), 10/11/2007



"Blackwater outside law in Iraq"
New Haven Register (Connecticut)
10/11/ 2007

The State Department's actions speak louder than its statement claiming continuing faith in Blackwater USA, whose guards last month allegedly fired indiscriminately on people in a square in Baghdad, killing 17 Iraqis and wounding 23. The Iraqis have called it murder. An FBI team has been dispatched to investigate.

The State Department is now assigning its own guards to ride with Blackwater convoys that protect department officials on their travels in Iraq. The department also will install video cameras in armored vehicles used by Blackwater to record each mission.

The monitors and cameras are being required for neither of the other two contractors that guard State Department officials in Iraq.

The Iraqis cannot prosecute the Blackwater guards involved in the September shooting. An American edict grants them immunity despite Iraq supposedly having a sovereign government. As employees of a private company, U.S. military law does not apply to them.

As a result, a drunken, off-duty Blackwater guard who allegedly killed a bodyguard for an Iraqi vice president last December has not been arrested. Instead, Blackwater fired him and he left Iraq.

The State Department hired security contractors because it has only 1,450 of its own security officers. It uses 1,400 private guards in Iraq, 1,000 of whom work for Blackwater. The Department of Defense has another 7,300 private guards, none of them from Blackwater, working in Iraq.

The decision to hire outside security guards has been costly. The State Department pays Blackwater $445,891 a year for each guard, which is six to nine times the cost of an Army sergeant doing the same job, according to a congressional report.

The State Department should supply its own guards rather than continue to rely on a company whose guards it feels it must shadow because it fears they are trigger-happy.

If there were no war in Iraq, these private guards should be subject to Iraqi law. But since they work in a combat zone, Congress should extend U.S. law to their conduct. As it stands, the Iraqis can charge that these guards' alleged crimes are adding to the lawlessness in their country.

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"Blackwater Excesses; Private Guards Undermine an Already Compromised Mission"
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
10/11/2007

Blackwater. The name sounds ominous. That the U.S. presence in Iraq should depend so heavily on 1,000 Blackwater security contractors is troubling enough. That thousands more private contractors like these operate outside the law raises more disturbing questions. That they go to such extremes - aiming at civilians, crashing through cars and barriers in their armored, high-speed convoys - could not go unchallenged indefinitely. Now that they stand accused of firing on innocents, long-overdue steps to rein in the armed security contractors are being taken. But at what cost?

Baghdad is not a friendly neighborhood. With all sides targeting them, the burgeoning U.S. diplomatic and civilian population would be highly vulnerable without armed guards. "You want the biggest, meanest guys in the world protecting you," says one former U.S. official.

In 2004, four Blackwater contractors were set upon and killed in Fallujah, their bodies mutilated. Since the fighting began, some 30 Blackwater employees have died on the job. Meanwhile, as Blackwater CEO Erik Prince told Congress recently, his company has never lost a client in Iraq.

Interestingly, Prince says he welcomes more oversight. Beyond firing rogue agents, he says, there is nothing Blackwater can do. And so far, there is little anyone else has done.

In May, 2005, Blackwater guards shot at a cab, killing a passenger and wounding the driver. The guards were fired, but never prosecuted. On Christmas Eve, 2006, a Blackwater agent shot and killed the Iraqi vice president's bodyguard. He was whisked out of the country, only to return to work for another security firm.

The event that precipitated the current uproar occurred Sept. 16, when Blackwater contractors opened fire at a Baghdad intersection, killing as many as 17 Iraqis. The Iraqi government called for Blackwater's expulsion, prosecution of accused agents in Iraqi courts, and $8 million in compensation to the family of each victim - remarkable demands, coming from the Interior Ministry, a hotbed of sectarian provocation.

For its part, Blackwater says its agents were returning fire. In the fog of competing claims, the truth may never be known.

The State Department has launched three investigations. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ordered video cameras on Blackwater vehicles and federal agents to accompany each convoy. One effect of these new rules will be to raise costs, since each diplomatic security officer costs U.S. taxpayers some $500,000 per year.

The House last week rushed through a bipartisan bill subjecting contractors to U.S. prosecution. That authority already may exist, though the government has never exercised it.

Indeed, the Bush administration resists making changes, since it can't afford to lose the private guards. A White House statement opposing the House bill warned of "unintended and intolerable consequences for crucial and necessary national security activities and operations."

An academic who worked in Baghdad recalled the arrogance and excesses of her Blackwater guards. "As we do the work of bridge building and improving our host citizens' lives, if the people providing our transportation and security are antagonizing, angering and even killing the people we are putatively trying to help, our entire mission is undermined."

She might as well have been describing the overarching paradox of the mission itself - which is where the real problem lies.

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"Blackwater: Another Black Mark on U.S. Image"
New Canaan News Review
10/18/2007

In days of yore, certain young men with a sense of adventure joined the French Foreign Legion to see the world. Hollywood romanticized their exploits in a series of mostly grade B films.

In the first decade of the 21st century, some have suggested similarities between the French Foreign Legion and Blackwater USA, the "private security contractor" founded in 1997 by a former Navy SEAL named Erik Prince. Much like the French Foreign Legion, these modern "soldiers for hire" are dispatched to distant lands with guns at the ready.

Regrettably, several recent incidents in Iraq have portrayed Blackwater USA and other outside security contractors -- "mercenaries," according to detractors -- as trigger-happy cowboys who shoot first and ask questions later.

In a highly contentious encounter on Sept. 16, as many as 17 Iraqi civilians were killed by a Blackwater Private Security Detail (PSD) that was escorting a convoy of U.S. State Department vehicles to a meeting in western Baghdad.

The State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating. Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi officials are negotiating Baghdad's demand that Blackwater USA be expelled from the country within six months.

Embarking on a media blitz of damage control, Blackwater's Prince appeared on 60 Minutes, Today and other high-visibility TV news shows in recent days and insisted that his personnel were under attack. But the first U.S. soldiers to arrive on the scene found no evidence that the Iraqis fired any weapons at the guards or the convoy, the Washington Post reported.

Last Thursday, a wounded survivor and relatives of three people killed in the Sept. 16 carnage, filed suit against Blackwater in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., saying the firm violated American law and "fostered a culture of lawlessness" among its employees.

To be sure, the nearly 1,000 Blackwater USA employees who toil in Iraq put their lives on the line every day. Escorting diplomats and other visiting officials through a war zone or guarding installations is dangerous work. But they are well compensated, each earning a reported $200,000 annually -- or nearly $550 per day.

Blackwater USA, the company, is well compensated, too. Over the past three-plus years, the company, with close ties to the Republican Party, has been paid more than $320 million by the U.S. State Department for "worldwide personal protective service," mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of all the charges leveled at Blackwater, one of the most damning is that it is a war profiteer. To be sure, the company has been awarded numerous CIA and other no-bid "urgent and compelling need" contracts by the government, the terms of which are often shrouded in secrecy.

As Time noted this week, "You could call [Blackwater] Halliburton with guns, except Halliburton has some guns too."

So, what's next?

We advocate -- no, insist -- on stronger congressional oversight of all outside contractors in Iraq and other war zones. During the Bush administration's first six years, a GOP-dominated Congress provided little oversight, and federal spending on private contractors spiraled out of control. A Democrat Congress is in position to do better.

We would like to see those charged with crimes against Iraqi civilians be prosecuted through the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which allows the extension of federal law to civilians supporting military operations. If Blackwater USA security guards fired without provocation, they should be tried.

Finally, we urge Congressman Christopher Shays, R-4, to listen to his constituents and work with his Democratic colleagues to end the awful Iraq War.

This quagmire has dragged on for more than four years, and too many lives of America's young men and women have been lost. Please, sir, put diplomacy to work.

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"Private military out of control; U.S. security contractors in Iraq must be held accountable"
The Chicago Sun-Times
10/22/2007

If the U.S. government persists in outsourcing war to private contractors, those companies need to be accountable to the American people.

They are not.

The FBI investigation into the Sept. 16 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians by employees of Blackwater USA, a private security contractor, exposes a gaping lack of accountability. U.S. soldiers are investigated and tried under clear and established rules when accused of wrongdoing. A cottage industry that has grown exponentially since Sept. 11, 2001, private military companies are policed by a patchwork of rules and agencies that have left officials unclear on how to scrutinize and prosecute them.

Contractors shouldn't be rogue militia, roaming the country shooting without justification and without consequences. This is especially true since the federal government has apparently hired out the Iraq war right under our noses: There are nearly as many private military employees there as troops.

"It was a serious miscalculation by this administration of how many troops would be necessary . . . a complete miscalculation of the violence and length of the war," said Sen. Dick Durbin, who supports legislation to better regulate contractors. Altogether, Blackwater has been involved in 195 escalation of force situations since 2005 -- about 1.4 shootings a week. But the company was given immunity from prosecution in Iraq by L. Paul Bremer III, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Furthermore, military laws are written in such a way that Blackwater is not bound by them. Other than prosecuting Blackwater in U.S. civil courts, officials are unclear how the company should be handled.

''We're using them to a much greater extent than anyone really realized," said Laura Dickinson, a University of Connecticut military law expert. "We haven't had a public debate about it. They are risking their lives, too, but we have to make sure they are observing the appropriate limits on when you can use force."

Legislation subjecting contractors to the same military laws that bind soldiers would boost transparency and oversight. Congress is halfway there with the passage of Rep. David Price's (D-N.C.) bill to better govern security contracting. The next step is passing a law proposed by Sen. Barack Obama to subject contractors to military law. However, the State Department and President Bush -- who strongly opposed Price's proposal -- need to get out of the way.

Despite assurances that our military is equipped to secure victory in Iraq, it's clear now that America has depended heavily on a shadow military. Single-bid contracts are awarded to favored companies and paid for by taxpayers, who don't have a say in the process or its outcomes.

Our national interests are threatened when these companies act on the country's behalf without having to answer to Americans. Instead of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis, we've made them angry and possibly fueled support for the counterinsurgency that is keeping us stuck in Iraq.

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"OUR OPINION: In Iraq war, mercenaries kill credibility"
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
10/7/2007

Just imagine that Vice President Dick Cheney went on a visit to a foreign country --- let's say Great Britain --- and that one of his Secret Service agents was shot several times and killed by a drunken bodyguard hired by the Brits. Let's say the British government quickly hushed up the crime and spirited the bodyguard out of the country, leaving him free to go about his life.

Americans would, of course, be outraged --- and rightly so. They would demand justice for the slain Secret Service agent. The ensuing controversy would preoccupy the White House and damage relations between the two countries.

So what happened when a Blackwater security guard fatally shot a bodyguard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi? The Blackwater man, who had been drinking heavily, had left a Christmas Party in the Green Zone last year when he was confronted by Iraqi guards. According to reports, he opened fire, killing a 32-year-old Iraqi. The Blackwater employee was spirited out of the country, with the help of the U.S. State Department. He has so far faced no criminal proceedings. He was not subject to any Iraqi laws or to U.S. military jurisdiction.

If Americans are still puzzled by the hostility with which so many Iraqis --- indeed, so many Muslims --- view the U.S. occupation, this one episode ought to go a long way toward explaining the resentment. While the Bush administration continues to justify its invasion by pretending a deep concern for the Iraqi people, the lives of average Iraqis haven't counted for much. Blackwater USA paid the family of the slain Iraqi $20,000 in compensation.

Last week, following a Sept. 16 shooting barrage in Baghdad in which Blackwater personnel may have killed unarmed Iraqis, the House voted to hold private contractors accountable in U.S. courts for any misdeeds abroad; the Senate is likely to follow suit. Even if the law passes, the damage is already done. A heavy-handed occupation has already alienated much of the Middle East, as our unilateralism has annoyed much of the world.

In what seems another lifetime, President Bush promised a "humble" foreign policy. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, he followed a swaggering and belligerent course, fueled by cowboy rhetoric and a stubborn, even messianic, insistence that he knew what was right. His policies were supported by a scared-silly public desperate to believe that our military might still guarantee American dominance of the world.

Many of us, however, didn't want to send our own sons and daughters to supplement that military power. So we relied heavily on mercenaries from companies such as Blackwater and DynCorp and Triple Canopy to do dirty jobs in dangerous places. Never mind if some of them are reckless and trigger-happy.

In testimony before Congress last week, Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater USA, vigorously defended his company as "Americans, working for Americans, protecting Americans." Of the drunken bodyguard, he said, "We can't flog him. We can't incarcerate him. That's up to the Justice Department." He also noted that the bodyguard was forced to forfeit his Christmas bonus and pay his own way back to the United States. He might as well have added, Isn't that enough?

For all the credit the White House takes for establishing a democratically elected government in Iraq, it is hardly a sovereign nation. If it were, it would be able to prosecute Blackwater's bodyguards under its own laws and eject them from the country. But because the U.S. State Department depends so heavily on Blackwater and two other private contractors, it's unlikely they'll be leaving even if the Iraqi government wants them out. That makes our presence a foreign occupation, not benign assistance.

Not so long ago, the United States was a master in the use of soft power and the light touch: food for famine victims; medicine for sick children; visas for foreign students; radio broadcasts about the wonders of our country; diplomatic missions to beg, cajole and threaten wayward countries back into line. As Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli has noted, the United States Agency for International Development employed about 15,000 people during the Vietnam era. Today, it has about 3,000. Now we use our billions, instead, to hire mercenaries.

It's no wonder the rest of the world doesn't hold us in such high regard anymore.

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"Excessive reliance on private security hurts Iraq effort"
The State (Columbia, South Carolina)
10/11/2007

"We can't blame the contractors. We blame our officials for this. We blame the American government. They're working here under the authority of the Iraqi government. They did not come here without authority."

-- a witness, identified only as "Muhammad," after a shooting by hired security agents on a Baghdad street

THIS BAGHDAD RESIDENT is pointing out something that should be heeded in Washington: The United States rightly is held responsible for the actions of private security firms in Iraq. It's time for the U.S. government to embrace that responsibility -- and protect its Iraq mission by reining the private armies in.

Private security firms such as Blackwater are contracted to do all sorts of work in Iraq, notably protection of VIPs. Their staffers, numbering in the thousands, often work alongside U.S. and coalition forces. But they don't operate under the same rules as U.S. forces, and they often set out without access to the same intelligence as U.S. forces. That brings trouble.

The Iraqi government has had enough of Blackwater's work. In the wake of recent, apparently unprovoked, shootings of civilians, it is pressuring the United States to revoke Blackwater's right to work in the country. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ordered a review of the security rules for State Department employees in Iraq. Given the widespread use of such bodyguards, that's not enough.

Differing missions are the problem. The U.S. military, under Gen. David Petraeus' direction, is pursuing basic counterinsurgency strategy: Win by winning over the populace. Base the troops right alongside them, restore security block by block, and cooperate to solve local problems, and thereby enlist local help. The mission of private bodyguards is: Protect the VIP, first and foremost. If guns have to be shoved into the faces of bystanders, or guards must shoot at approaching vehicles first and ask questions later, so be it. Or ask questions never; one report to Congress says many shootings of civilians have gone unreported; the freelance gunmen simply roar away in their SUVs.

These two missions, military and private, are in fundamental conflict. U.S. Rep. John Tierney even quoted Gen. Petraeus' doctrine at a hearing about the problem: "Counterinsurgents that use excessive force to limit short-term risk alienate the local populace."

The private security groups also drain a precious resource from the military effort: some of the best personnel. Blackwater was formed by ex-Navy SEALs, and the groups lure the best-trained troops out of the services with promises of higher pay -- not to mention less government bureaucracy and oversight. At a time when the U.S. armed forces struggle to fill the ranks and need every experienced hand, this competition works against the national interest.

Some in Congress have tried to rein in the security firms, with a bill to allows their operatives to be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts for offenses committed overseas. While the impulse is laudable, the civilian courts seem inadequate to the task.

A better fix is a long-term one: Congress needs to end reliance on such contract security agencies. That would be difficult, given our shrunken military and increased reliance on the free-lancers. They will be lobbying for more and more contracts. But much of this work belongs where it used to reside: under the command of the U.S. military, and in line with our national goals.

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