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Ear to the Ground

Blackwater Bounces Back

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Posted on May 10, 2008
Blackwater helicopter
flickr.com

Back in black: Blackwater Worldwide contractors will continue to work in Iraq for at least another year.

Over the last year, Blackwater Worldwide has been under fire from critics at home and abroad, but that hasn’t stopped the private security firm. In fact, the State Department has just re-upped Blackwater’s Iraq contract, thanks in part to the magic of lobbying. Also, State Department officials don’t seem to think they have much choice.


The New York Times:

The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guard in the September shooting, either, and the F.B.I. agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards have committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.

The chief reason for the company’s survival? State Department officials said Friday that they did not believe they had any alternative to Blackwater, which supplies about 800 guards to the department to provide security for diplomats in Baghdad. Officials say only three companies in the world meet their requirements for protective services in Iraq, and the other two do not have the capability to take on Blackwater’s role in Baghdad. After the shooting in September, the State Department did not even open talks with the other two companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, to see if they could take over from Blackwater, which is based in North Carolina.

“We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq,” said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. “If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq.”

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By Expat, May 12 at 5:27 am #

^ you like me to say?  Poot Lao! (spoke already, in Thai language).  See below!

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By Aegrus, May 12 at 5:13 am #

Both Hillary and Barack need to be more clear about usage of Blackwater-type mercenary forces in foreign conflicts. Hillary spoke out a little, and Obama has said very, very little about Blackwater. I need unequivocal intent to use a lot less of these kinds of forces, if any at all, because they aren’t accountable to anyone, and are morally bankrupt. It’s wrong, and isn’t something to be pondered over in a political sense.

Baracks got the guts to pursue legal action against Bush, but not against Blackwater? That doesn’t make sense. Speak up, already!

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By Expat, May 12 at 2:38 am #

^ evidence that the Emperor’s Sardikar Killers (oops, that’s from “Dune”, sorry), I mean security forces can in fact kill with impunity with no consequences.  The name is apropos as well.  Very telling……,but then; who cares?

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By PatrickHenry, May 12 at 2:34 am #

Either disband the DSS or expand them and get the mercenaries out of it.

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By marc, May 11 at 7:55 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Lets see, the reason we outsourced security in the first place was because competition was suppose to make it cheaper and better than letting our “stumble bum” military do the job. Patrick F Kennedy let the cat out of the bag. Since there is usually only one company that can do a particular job, especially when the job specs are designed to FAVOR a PARTICULAR company, THERE IS NO COMPITITION!! The U.S. pays through the nose, Blackwater slaughters Iraqi children, among others, wantonly destroys property, and creates diplomatic disasters. Oh, and KBR uses it’s single source no bid contract to electrocute U.S. troops in the shower.

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By mike112769, May 11 at 7:49 pm #

If the U.S.military can’t do the job, we need to leave. We shouldn’t be there in the first place! The last time I checked, our constitution does not make provisions for making a buck off of people’s suffering, which is exactly what Blackwater is doing.Check out the video “Iraq for Sale”, it’s a good indictment of Blackwater and all private contractors in general. Their ONLY concern is profit, even at the expense of American lives. After all; if we’re lazy enough to let them do it, why should they stop?

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By Anna-Marina, May 11 at 4:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

If there is a sign that the American Idea is giving up to cancerous growth, it is the shadow army that the American administration had created and now carefully and generously maintains.
The USSR had a shadow economy to keep the state above the water. The American “haves” pump money into the army of mercenaries from all over the world to keep the US wealth safe.
We do not know whom this army responds and how much resources have been actually allocated to these professional murderers. It is only a question of time before this shadow army turns against the Constitution in a decisively open way.

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By purplewolf, May 11 at 4:53 pm #

So Patrick Kennedy stated that if the paid killers were to be removed, we would have to leave Iraq. And this is a problem because? Those people have a right to decide if they want invaders occupying their country. How would people in America feel if some other countries elected leaders on some power trip of a wet dream decided it was time to come into America and do what the Bush/Cheney administration has done in Iraq only over here?

Hasn’t the world and it’s people everywhere suffered enough from this buffoon and his minions mistakes already? Time for a change about 180 degrees opposite from the current course of Bushco’s incompetence.

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By Fadel Abdallah, May 11 at 8:25 am #

Mercenaries!

“...its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year.”

“We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq,” said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. “If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq.”
===================================
On the above two quoted statements from this piece, I would like to make the following comments:

1. There is no such thing as American diplomats in Iraq. Americans in Iraq are either hated occupiers, mercenaries or war-mongers.

2. The so-called “contractors” is a nice way to cover up the fact that those mercenaries are the backbone of the American marauders and occupiers of Iraq. That’s why Patrick Kennedy correctly says (and this is one time when an American official is not making a lie), “If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq.”

3. One well kept secret about those mercenaries is that among them there are at least 20 thousand Israelis, who entered with the first occupying forces, and they will stay there as long as it takes to destroy Iraq beyond recovery. Those Israelis are mostly in charge of kidnapping and liquidating the Iraqi scientists, besides all other unholy missions.

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By Stephen Smoliar, May 11 at 8:13 am #

I think we can turn Kennedy’s remarks around into one of the more pragmatic arguments for withdrawing from Iraq:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/05/thats-p oint-isnt-it.html

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By DennisD, May 11 at 5:31 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. “If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq.”

He should say if the “contracts” were removed we’d be out of Iraq tomorrow.

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