[Mb-civic] Blackwater Down

[EAN at sbcglobal.net]

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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/scahill


Blackwater Down

by JEREMY SCAHILL

posted September 21, 2005 (October 10, 2005 issue) 

The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans 
right after Katrina hit. The company known for its 
private security work guarding senior US diplomats in 
Iraq beat the federal government and most aid 
organizations to the scene in another devastated 
Gulf. About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops 
dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos 
of New Orleans. Officially, the company boasted of 
its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." 
But its men on the ground told a different story. 

Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted 
windows and the Blackwater logo splashed on the back; 
others sped around the French Quarter in an unmarked 
car with no license plates. They congregated on the 
corner of St. James and Bourbon in front of a bar 
called 711, where Blackwater was establishing a 
makeshift headquarters. From the balcony above the 
bar, several Blackwater guys cleared out what had 
apparently been someone's apartment. They threw 
mattresses, clothes, shoes and other household items 
from the balcony to the street below. They draped an 
American flag from the balcony's railing. More than a 
dozen troops from the 82nd Airborne Division stood in 
formation on the street watching the action. 

Armed men shuffled in and out of the building as a 
handful told stories of their past experiences in 
Iraq. "I worked the security detail of both Bremer 
and Negroponte," said one of the Blackwater guys, 
referring to the former head of the US occupation, L. 
Paul Bremer, and former US Ambassador to Iraq John 
Negroponte. Another complained, while talking on his 
cell phone, that he was getting only $350 a day plus 
his per diem. "When they told me New Orleans, I 
said, 'What country is that in?'" he said. He wore 
his company ID around his neck in a case with the 
phrase Operation Iraqi Freedom printed on it. 

In an hourlong conversation I had with four 
Blackwater men, they characterized their work in New 
Orleans as "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting 
criminals." They all carried automatic assault 
weapons and had guns strapped to their legs. Their 
flak jackets were covered with pouches for extra 
ammunition. 

When asked what authority they were operating under, 
one guy said, "We're on contract with the Department 
of Homeland Security."Then, pointing to one of his 
comrades, he said, "He was even deputized by the 
governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make 
arrests and use lethal force if we deem it 
necessary." The man then held up the gold Louisiana 
law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. 
Blackwater spokesperson Anne Duke also said the 
company has a letter from Louisiana officials 
authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons. 

"This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of 
the government," says Michael Ratner, president of 
the Center for Constitutional Rights. "These private 
security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, 
in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New 
Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal." 

Blackwater is not alone. As business leaders and 
government officials talk openly of changing the 
demographics of what was one of the most culturally 
vibrant of America's cities, mercenaries from 
companies like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security 
Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and an Israeli company 
called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) are 
fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as 
well as government projects and institutions. Within 
two weeks of the hurricane, the number of private 
security companies registered in Louisiana jumped 
from 185 to 235. Some, like Blackwater, are under 
federal contract. Others have been hired by the 
wealthy elite, like F. Patrick Quinn III, who brought 
in private security to guard his $3 million private 
estate and his luxury hotels, which are under 
consideration for a lucrative federal contract to 
house FEMA workers. 

A possibly deadly incident involving Quinn's hired 
guns underscores the dangers of private forces 
policing American streets. On his second night in New 
Orleans, Quinn's security chief, Michael Montgomery, 
who said he worked for an Alabama company called 
Bodyguard and Tactical Security (BATS), was with a 
heavily armed security detail en route to pick up one 
of Quinn's associates and escort him through the 
chaotic city. Montgomery told me they came under fire 
from "black gangbangers" on an overpass near the poor 
Ninth Ward neighborhood. "At the time, I was on the 
phone with my business partner," he recalls. "I 
dropped the phone and returned fire." 

Montgomery says he and his men were armed with AR-15s 
and Glocks and that they unleashed a barrage of 
bullets in the general direction of the alleged 
shooters on the overpass. "After that, all I heard 
was moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped. 
That was it. Enough said." 

Then, Montgomery says, "the Army showed up, yelling 
at us and thinking we were the enemy. We explained to 
them that we were security. I told them what had 
happened and they didn't even care. They just left." 
Five minutes later, Montgomery says, Louisiana state 
troopers arrived on the scene, inquired about the 
incident and then asked him for directions on "how 
they could get out of the city." Montgomery says that 
no one ever asked him for any details of the incident 
and no report was ever made. "One thing about 
security," Montgomery says, "is that we all 
coordinate with each other--one family."That co-
ordination doesn't include the offices of the 
Secretaries of State in Louisiana and Alabama, which 
have no record of a BATS company. 

A few miles away from the French Quarter, another 
wealthy New Orleans businessman, James Reiss, who 
serves in Mayor Ray Nagin's administration as 
chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority, 
brought in some heavy guns to guard the elite gated 
community of Audubon Place: Israeli mercenaries 
dressed in black and armed with M-16s. Two Israelis 
patrolling the gates outside Audubon told me they had 
served as professional soldiers in the Israeli 
military, and one boasted of having participated in 
the invasion of Lebanon. "We have been fighting the 
Palestinians all day, every day, our whole lives," 
one of them tells me. "Here in New Orleans, we are 
not guarding from terrorists." Then, tapping on his 
machine gun, he says, "Most Americans, when they see 
these things, that's enough to scare them." 

The men work for ISI, which describes its employees 
as "veterans of the Israeli special task forces from 
the following Israeli government bodies: Israel 
Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter 
Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National 
Police Counter Terrorism units, General Security 
Service (GSS or 'Shin Beit'), Other restricted 
intelligence agencies." The company was formed in 
1993. Its website profile says: "Our up-to-date 
services meet the challenging needs for Homeland 
Security preparedness and overseas combat procedures 
and readiness. ISI is currently an approved vendor by 
the US Government to supply Homeland Security 
services." 

Unlike ISI or BATS, Blackwater is operating under a 
federal contract to provide 164 armed guards for FEMA 
reconstruction projects in Louisiana. That contract 
was announced just days after Homeland Security 
Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the 
Washington Post he knew of no federal plans to hire 
Blackwater or other private security firms. "We 
believe we've got the right mix of personnel in law 
enforcement for the federal government to meet the 
demands of public safety," he said. Before the 
contract was announced, the Blackwater men told me, 
they were already on contract with DHS and that they 
were sleeping in camps organized by the federal 
agency. 

One might ask, given the enormous presence in New 
Orleans of National Guard, US Army, US Border Patrol, 
local police from around the country and practically 
every other government agency with badges, why 
private security companies are needed, particularly 
to guard federal projects. "It strikes me...that that 
may not be the best use of money,"said Illinois 
Senator Barack Obama. 

Blackwater's success in procuring federal contracts 
could well be explained by major-league contributions 
and family connections to the GOP. According to 
election records, Blackwater's CEO and co- founder, 
billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands 
to Republicans, including more than $80,000 to the 
Republican National Committee the month before Bush's 
victory in 2000. This past June, he gave $2,100 to 
Senator Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He has 
also given to House majority leader Tom DeLay and a 
slew of other Republican candidates, including 
Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince interned 
with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained 
at the time that he "saw a lot of things I didn't 
agree with-- homosexual groups being invited in, the 
budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of 
bills. I think the Administration has been 
indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns." 

Prince, a staunch right-wing Christian, comes from a 
powerful Michigan Republican family, and his father, 
Edgar, was a close friend of former Republican 
presidential candidate and antichoice leader Gary 
Bauer. In 1988 the elder Prince helped Bauer start 
the Family Research Council. Erik Prince's sister, 
Betsy, once chaired the Michigan Republican Party and 
is married to Dick DeVos, whose father, billionaire 
Richard DeVos, is co-founder of the major Republican 
benefactor Amway. Dick DeVos is also a big-time 
contributor to the Republican Party and will likely 
be the GOP candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. 
Another Blackwater founder, president Gary Jackson, 
is also a major contributor to Republican campaigns. 

After the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries in 
Falluja in March 2004, Erik Prince hired the 
Alexander Strategy Group, a PR firm with close ties 
to GOPers like DeLay. By mid-November the company was 
reporting 600 percent growth. In February 2005 the 
company hired Ambassador Cofer Black, former 
coordinator for counterterrorism at the State 
Department and former director of the CIA's 
Counterterrorism Center, as vice chairman. Just as 
the hurricane was hitting, Blackwater's parent 
company, the Prince Group, named Joseph Schmitz, who 
had just resigned as the Pentagon's Inspector 
General, as the group's chief operating officer and 
general counsel. 

While juicing up the firm's political connections, 
Prince has been advocating greater use of private 
security in international operations, arguing at a 
symposium at the National Defense Industrial 
Association earlier this year that firms like his are 
more efficient than the military. In May Blackwater's 
Jackson testified before Congress in an effort to 
gain lucrative Homeland Security contracts to train 
2,000 new Border Patrol agents, saying Blackwater 
understands "the value to the government of one-stop 
shopping." With President Bush using the Katrina 
disaster to try to repeal Posse Comitatus (the ban on 
using US troops in domestic law enforcement) and 
Blackwater and other security firms clearly 
initiating a push to install their paramilitaries on 
US soil, the war is coming home in yet another 
ominous way. As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This 
is a trend. You're going to see a lot more guys like 
us in these situations." 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone who has the power to make you believe 
absurdities has the power to make you commit 
injustices.

Voltaire, 1767




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