House GOP connects Blackwater, Petraeus

October 2, 2007

Given the serious scandals surrounding Blackwater’s activities in Iraq, I thought it was at least possible that congressional Republicans would take their responsibilities seriously enough to challenge the company aggressively. After all, it’s easy to create a distinction between the company’s operations and the Bush administration’s mission — there’s a clear disconnect.

In fact, the Blackwater controversy offers the GOP a terrific opportunity to take a credibility-building hard line against incompetence, recklessness, mismanagement, a lack of accountability, and misspent funds. Republican lawmakers could have used the hearing today at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to make a straightforward conservative case: “We shouldn’t cut and run, but we shouldn’t support possible crimes committed by a private army, either.”

Alas, some House Republicans are just too far gone to act like lawmakers. Take Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), for example, who decided the Blackwater hearing should be about MoveOn.org and Gen. David Petraeus. Seriously.

Issa explained to the committee and the hearing audience that he wasn’t there to defend Blackwater, but rather to “defend Gen. Petraeus and the men and women who do their job.”

In fact, as far as Issa is concerned there shouldn’t even be a hearing into the alleged crimes committed by Blackwater private contractors, because the hearing itself is “a repeat of the MoveOn ad.”

And lest anyone think this jaw-dropping stupidity was limited to just one House Republican, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) relied on the “Betray Us” ad during his allotted time, before telling to Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, “There is a party in Congress that doesn’t like companies that make a profit.”

There will be plenty more to say about the Blackwater hearings in the coming hours and days, but in the short term, here are a few items to keep in mind:

* Blackwater’s Prince doesn’t want to talk about how much money the company has made from Iraq-related contracts. “I’m not a financially driven guy,” the CEO said.

* Prince doesn’t know if there are any laws governing Blackwater’s activities in Iraq.

* Issa helped prove that Blackwater is a Republican company … shortly before concluding that Blackwater is not a Republican company.

* Prince isn’t clear on whether he received no-bid contracts.

* The State Department is playing the role of Blackwater’ “enabler.”

Stay tuned.

Seems pretty clear that Issa and Westmoreland don’t want these hearings to take place. Maybe someone ought to start searching for offshore accounts—because when someone wants to interupt an investigation of what amounts to cold-blooded murder, that someone is usually afraid their fingerprints might be associated with the murder weapon….

  • In fact, the Blackwater controversy offers the GOP a terrific opportunity to take a credibility-building hard line against incompetence, recklessness, mismanagement, a lack of accountability, and misspent funds.

    I suspect the GOP isn’t actually against any of those things, especially since it is GOP- backing companies and individuals who always seem to benefit from them.

  • Rep. Lynn “All Ten?” Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said something stupid? Allow me to place my palms against my cheeks and shout, Home Alone style in my disbelief.

    “There is a party in Congress that doesn’t like companies that make a profit.”

    War profiteers are so awesome, Lynn. Oh, hey Lynn, what happens when Saudi Arabia outbids the US Government for Blackwater’s contract?

  • Prince doesn’t know if there are any laws governing Blackwater’s activities in Iraq.

    I assume that the no-bid contract with Backwater, like all contracts, contain all kinds of legalese –so they expect us to believe that in those contracts that the “rules” got left out?

    This is nothing short of the resumption of tyranny in our fair land that Abraham Lincoln warned us about. Outrageous! This absolutely makes my blood boil!

  • ““I’m not a financially driven guy,” the CEO said.”
    Er, really? That’s news to me.

    As for the GOP war chorus:
    “Cry Donations! And let slip the apologists of war!”

  • Blackwater’s contracts weren’t no-bid, they were GSA Schedule. Erik Prince testified to that effect, and even Dennis Kucinich was surprised and a little confused. Source: http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/

    Also, it’s rather ironic that JKap invokes Abraham Lincoln, the president who hired the private security firm of Pinkerton’s Detective Agency that served throughout the Civil War, giving the Union a real intelligence and covert-ops boost.

  • Yes, and when South Carolina secedes from the Union again, I’ll be ok with a private mercenary army operating above the law at taxpayer expense to preserve the Union.

  • “There is a party in Congress that doesn’t like companies that make a profit.”

    Hey, they’re just practicing free enterprise.

    Kind of like IG Farben, or antelbellum plantation owners.

  • If Democrats pursue these corrupt contractors to their logical end, this will end the Iraq occupation.
    Oil profits aren’t enough to keep this going. The Contractor kickbacks are key profit centers for GOP election prospects.

    When that money dries up, so will GOP support.

  • Blackwater, KBR, Halliburton… is there any reasonable doubt left that this war was all about profit?

    If you have been keeping up with Naomi Klein’s recent tour promoting her book “Disaster Capitalism”, she lays out a pretty sordid picture of just what exactly these peoples’ motivations are.

    It’s actually quite sickening that these people are so greedy and elitist they have no compunction whatsoever to detroy tens of thousands of lives so that their monetary interests are preserved.

    I watched Ken Burns’ “The War” last night, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about what has happened to our country, and what would happen to these blatant war profiteers had they tried these shenanigans back during WWII.

  • “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”

    Benito Mussolini

    Is there any doubt people, that we in fact are living under a fascist regime?

  • doubt to people like Jonah Goldberg who are paid to believe up is down? Yeah. Doubt to any logical person? pretty much no, the fascism stink is too hard to ignore.

  • Wow, I mean, just wow! A whole blog devoted to Blackwater.

    CPVS — Are you in the public relations department for Blackwater?

  • Darrel Issa’s intellect isn’t clean enough for me to wipe my hind quarters with. He is a thug, an apologist for death for profit, and yet, he contends he is a pro-lifer. Orwellian cretins this coterie of Republicans in the early 21st century are! America will be better off after the ’08 election cycle in which the Republican party will receive the same fate as the Federalists of 1814! -Kevo

  • Westmoreland and Issa prove that a Naegleria fowleri infection doesn’t always kill the victim.

  • Hasn’t it occurred to Congress and the American public that organizations like Blackwater are America’s SS?

    If and when these mercinaries come home,
    what exactly will they do to earn a living,
    and to what group of super-rich powerful Bushies will they owe their loyalty?

    Our “law” that exempts them from criminal activity overseas, can easily be manipulated by Bushie courts to cover state-side violence (intimidation) that protects Bushieites from the American Public.

    .

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