Negotiating Blackwater’s expulsion?

October 14, 2007

We learned on Friday that Army officials in Baghdad believe Blackwater guards at Nisoor Square not only weren’t under attack when they opened fire, the private security force actually opened fire on Iraqi civilians while the Iraqis were fleeing in the other direction. Said Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa, whose soldiers reached Nisoor Square 20 to 25 minutes after the gunfire subsided, “It appeared to me they were fleeing the scene when they were engaged. It had every indication of an excessive shooting.”

To date, there have been exactly zero independent reports and/or evidence bolstering Blackwater’s version of events on Sept. 16. It is against this backdrop that Iraqi officials have renewed discussions with the Bush administration about kicking the private army out of the country.

U.S. and Iraqi officials are negotiating Baghdad’s demand that security company Blackwater USA be expelled from the country within six months, and American diplomats appear to be working on how to fill the security gap if the company is phased out. […]

The Iraqi investigators issued five recommendations to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has since sent them to the U.S. Embassy as demands for action. Point No. 2 in the report says: “The Iraqi government should demand that the United States stops using the services of Blackwater in Iraq within six months and replace it with a new, more disciplined organization that would be answerable to Iraqi laws.”

Sami al-Askari, a top aide to al-Maliki, said that point in the Iraqi list of demands was nonnegotiable.

“I believe the government has been clear. There have been attacks on the lives of Iraqi citizens on the part of that company (Blackwater). It must be expelled. The government has given six months for its expulsion and it’s left to the U.S. Embassy to determine with Blackwater when to terminate the contract. The American administration must find another company,” he told AP.

In a bit of a shift, al-Askari, according to the AP report, said Bush administration officials are no longer “insisting on Blackwater staying.”

If Blackwater is expelled, as now appears increasingly likely, who’d replace their teams? Apparently, DynCorp, which already has a significant presence in Iraq, is poised to replace the controversial North Carolina company, though the AP noted that DynCorp probably doesn’t have the infrastructure in place to take over Blackwater’s responsibilities within six months, as the Maliki government demands.

What percentage of Blackwater guys will end up working for DynCorp or one of the other mercenary outfits? Prince himself will possibly retire in luxury, or perhaps just continue operating his mercs in other countries, as he’s doing now. Business as usual.

  • “The Iraqi government should demand that the United States stops using the services of Blackwater in Iraq within six months and replace it with a new, more disciplined organization that would be answerable to Iraqi laws.”

    The stinker here is phrase “that would be answerable to Iraqi laws.” That would seem to preculde any US effort, wouldn’t it?

  • I want these Blackguard punks expelled from the US.
    Any chance we can off this human crap to the moon… or Mars?

    I understand we are going to be colonizing those places just as soon as they figure out how to keep the tiles on the space shuttle’s hull…

  • How about we use the US Military to do their rightful job at 1/6th the cost of these useless murdering mercs?

    And let’s get every useless Bush official we can out of Iraq so they don’t have excuses to require all this “security”.

  • What percentage of Blackwater guys will end up working for DynCorp or one of the other mercenary outfits? Prince himself will possibly retire in luxury, or perhaps just continue operating his mercs in other countries, as he’s doing now. Business as usual.

    Losing Iraq is a big contract, so it’s not “business as usual.” If they still get to do other work for the U.S., I’m sure Blackwater will survive, and I’m sure a lot of Blackwater guys are doing fine, regardless of whether Blackwater’s expulsion, if it happens, somehow leads to Prince having more debts than assets (but then, there’s still the question of whether his firm gets to do other work besides Iraq). I think no matter what it would end up teaching a lesson to Blackwater/Prince, so expulsion is fine. As far as all these comments about getting rid of all Blackwater guys, I’m sure that the guys involved in this shooting, if it really wasn’t justified, were some of the worst guys in Blackwater, and without discounting anybody’s concerns that there may in fact be a lot of bad apples in Blackwater, we just don’t know for sure that these weren’t just a couple bad apples, and that the majority of Blackwater guys are a lot better. The point is that Blackwater should discipline its people better so they have disincentives to murder people, not that Blackwater should be obsoleted. That’s an open question to me subject to learning more about the corruption/smuggling accusations against Blackwater and more about accusations that their operations were unprofessional in general, such as accusations that they routinely committed hit-and-run vehicular homicides against bystanders.

  • To date, there have been exactly zero independent reports and/or evidence bolstering Blackwater’s version of events on Sept. 16.

    That’s a damned lie, Steve. It’s almost a statistic, in fact.

    You are totally choosing to ignore the testimony of the earwitness that the AP presented in its report of Sept. 17:

    Hussein Abdul-Abbas, who owns a mobile phone store in the area, said: “We saw a convoy of SUVs passing in the street nearby. One minute later, we heard the sound of a bomb explosion followed by gunfire that lasted for 20 minutes between gunmen and the convoy people who were foreigners and dressed in civilian clothes.”

    He’s very clear, isn’t he, about what he saw and what he heard?

    So, what? You don’t think the testimony of this acute listener bolster’s Blackwater’s story? He heard gunfire between “gunmen and the convoy people who were foreigners and dressed in civilian clothes”. You just dismiss this guy, huh? After all the trouble that AP went to to bring us his story?

    Shame on you, Steve Benen! And thank God for AP!

  • Dale wrote:

    How about we use the US Military to do their rightful job at 1/6th the cost of these useless murdering mercs?

    If the merc/ security contractor business keeps a lot of really good, really well-trained soldiers involved in U.S. military operations when military pay and benefits wouldn’t have, then there should be a place in our society for that business. The question is just whether you can do it without providing a home for a murderous subculture– do these guys necessarily commit war-crimes, or is there a segment of the super-soldier population that can be professional and effectively subject to discipline? Wars are spaced years apart in time, and the military and military culture changes in between each war, so we’re answering these questions all newly again, as opposed to cultures that have used mercenaries in the past. We’re just learning about these guys, and how these things work out, so we’ll have to give it time. It just depends on whether we’re going to keep having military operations in the near future, but if we do we’ve got to look seriously at the question and not discount these mercenaries without knowing we’re doing the right thing.

  • I wrote (comment 6):

    That’s an open question to me subject to learning more about the corruption/smuggling accusations against Blackwater and more about accusations that their operations were unprofessional in general, such as accusations that they routinely committed hit-and-run vehicular homicides against bystanders.

    I mean, it’s an open question whether we shouldn’t have a Blackwater org or a mercenary business anymore; but it’s clear that if they were guilty of an illegal shooting, though, that the org and maybe the business has to do better to provide professional-behaving soldiers. It’s not certain that Blackwater should go out of business or that we shouldn’t have mercs.

  • Six months. Right now, it’s October. That puts Condi’s “hessians” back on US soil in April—about six-to-seven months before the general elections. I’m going to have to go with Anney on this one—do NOT let the neocon’s private militia back onto US soil.

    And would somebody please start taking the guns away from Eric von Prince and his Schwarzenwasser SS Gruppe? Or am I the only one that recognizes an armed workforce of 20,000 as the equivalent of six full-strength combat brigades?

    This is NOT “a security company; it is an ARMY. An aggressive, renegade ARMY.

    SHUT IT DOWN!!!

  • Sarabeth’s comment at 7 is problematic. Without getting too much into my very limited, and not-professionally attained, knowledge of weapons, it’s very unlikely that the explosion the witness heard was a bomb. According to accounts, one of the Blackwater guards fired a grenade launcher. This person probably heard that grenade explode. This is because it’s very unlikely that the grenade a Blackwater guy deployed was the kind of grenade that would have left a lot of evidence, like an incendiary grenade, or a grenade from a heavier grenade launcher that an individual can’t carry on his own- it’s highly likely that it was, on the other hand, a “stun” or concussion grenade, a smoke grenade, or a smaller-sized fragmentation grenade- grenades that don’t necessarily leave a lot of evidence of having been deployed. Also, if a truck-bomb/IED went off, in all probability, it would have left a lot more evidence than a typical fragmentation grenade would have. It would have been clear that a bomb went off, and it would be a well-known part of events at the Nisoor Square massacre. Because there wasn’t a lot of evidence either of bomb explosion or a grenade explosion, there probably wasn’t a bomb, and the only grenade that went off was probably non-spectacular, for a grenade (and wouldn’t have in anyway appeared to be an IED going off), and the explosion the person told about in the AP article heard was probably the sound of the Blackwater grenade going off.

    I think the shooting was probably wanton and unjustified, but of course, I’ve only heard what’s in the news.

  • I’m with President Lindsay. Most of the Blackwater crowd will simply switch uniforms and go on with their work in Iraq virtually uninterrupted, as Dyncorp guards. Dyncorp will be looking to fill the positions, and will be delighted to have Blackwater’s experienced mercenaries. The only ones who can really punish Blackwater are the Iraqis, who could wipe out Blackwater if they were serious about it.

  • Ok, here’s a little more for the sticklers:

    A typical hand grenade or grenade from a hend-held grenade launcher is not like in the movies. It doesn’t fill up a building with a fireball or blow up an entire vehicle all on its own. What it does it throw out a bunch of bits of metal that wound about 50% of people within about 30ft of the explosion (and if it’s lucky, kill someone). There is such a thing as a incendiary grenade, which starts fires, but Blackwater probably wouldn’t be carrying these, as they’re totally inappropriate to their security duties– even Blackwater cowboys probably don’t want to risk being responsible for starting an out-of-control fire in Baghdad. There also is such a thing as a full-auto grenade launcher, which is a heavier weapon that kind of looks a little like a little anti-aircraft gun, and is too big for one guy to carry around with him. I would guess that the grenade fired by this kind of gun are a little heavier, and a little more like a mortar round, which typically are a heavier explosion relative to a grenade. But I actually know nothing about the properties of grenades fired by full-auto grenade launchers, I’m just guessing that if somebody would design this heavier weapon, they would give it heavier punch than a weapon designed for a single guy to carry (the hand-held or rifle-mounted grenade launcher) and use from a standing position.

  • Mark wrote:

    the Blackwater crowd will simply switch uniforms and go on with their work in Iraq virtually uninterrupted, as Dyncorp guards.

    What’s the problem if Dyncorp is able to discipline them like Blackwater wouldn’t, so that the ex-Blackwater guys are dead set against committing atrocities under the Dyncorp aegis, whereas w/ Blackwater maybe they weren’t sure whether they could get away with it or not?

  • I wrote:

    A typical hand grenade or grenade from a hend-held grenade launcher is not like in the movies. It doesn’t fill up a building with a fireball or blow up an entire vehicle all on its own. What it does it throw out a bunch of bits of metal that wound about 50% of people within about 30ft of the explosion (and if it’s lucky, kill someone).

    So a grenade is a lot less deadly and destructive than an IED attack, which would much more likely be unmistakeable and leave a lot of evidence.

  • And what leads anyone to believe that Dyncorp can discipline these guys any better than Blackwater? These guys are cowboys, they aren’t going to fall in line and salute. Dream on!

  • If the merc/security contractor business keeps a lot of really good, really well-trained soldiers involved in U.S. military operations when military pay and benefits wouldn’t have, then there should be a place in our society for that business.

    Yes, but we should get corporate sponsorship. The Seventh Pepsi Cola Infantry, the 101st Tylenol Raiders, the Tampax Grenadiers. The possibilities are endless.

    If these guys don’t want to be involved other than at the pay of six times that of the average GI then they should go elsewhere. We recruit and train these people at huge cost then the Blackwater’s of this world hire them away and pay them huge salaries with our money – and exempt them from accountability to anyone in the bargain. Anyone else see something wrong in that?

  • re 11 and 13: Please! My comment in 7 is supposed to be dripping in sarcasm. When a witness takes a scene he heard, and describes it using word-pictures, he’s really more of a witless. And it takes very little imagination to guess why he’s saying what he’s saying. (Remember these are people who will line up to get themselves killed for anything more than $15,000.)

  • Sarabeth wrote:

    re 11 and 13: Please! My comment in 7 is supposed to be dripping in sarcasm.

    Ok, fine. But you weren’t very clear about that. A line about how you think we can’t trust these guys or something at the end of the comment would have helped.

    President Lindsay wrote:

    And what leads anyone to believe that Dyncorp can discipline these guys any better than Blackwater? These guys are cowboys, they aren’t going to fall in line and salute. Dream on!

    What makes you think Dyncorp can’t discipline them better than Blackwater? All I’m saying is that we don’t know yet. Maybe it’s something as simple as putting a clause in the contract with the org that provides a severe punishment for being involved in this kind of crime while on the job, like a forfeiture of 90% of the funds the merc earns under the contract. In other, typical contracts contexts, a court would be unlikley to uphold such a punitive clause, but given the special context and special, important interests involved, I think a court might go the other way (just so you know where I’m coming from, I went to law school for three years, where I took a contracts course, earned a good grade in it, and took some other courses that taught contracts law. I also studied contracts law for the bar exam. This question (basic considerations of validity of punitive clauses- speciifically, liquidated damages clauses) is a typical, basic type of contracts question that law students learn about in those kinds of courses). It could be something like summary firing if you’re involved in that kind of thing, plus spreading around that the guy isn’t professional to other merc orgs, so he won’t get hired as a merc again.

    Maybe Erik Prince just hasn’t been in the biz long enough to know what kind of guys he should be hiring yet. Maybe he’s thinking more in a cowboy frame-of-mind, and hiring people who psychologically would be more appropriate for combat operations, when he should really be hiring cooler heads, more like ex-cops, for this kind of guard-duty. If his field experience is limited to being a Navy SEAL, that doesn’t at all qualify him as a convoy-security or body-guarding expert. He may have only been in a combat-oriented frame of mind for his whole pre-Blackwater career. Maybe he just has to learn more about the mission of security provision to learn more about what person to provide for that. If his company ever gets combat missions, maybe people who are a little more bloodthirsty could be involved in that without there being as much of a worry that they’re going to not get enough action on the job and commit atrocities as a consequence.

  • I wrote:

    If his field experience is limited to being a Navy SEAL, that doesn’t at all qualify him as a convoy-security or body-guarding expert.

    Navy SEALs don’t do these kinds of duties and aren’t trained to do them. Their job is basically about infilitrating enemy-controlled areas.

    I wrote:

    I think the shooting was probably wanton and unjustified, but of course, I’ve only heard what’s in the news.

    I think the Blackwater guys probably shot a grenade round to fake a bomb explosion as a pretense to fire on Iraqi civilians.

  • I wrote:

    If his field experience is limited to being a Navy SEAL, that doesn’t at all qualify him as a convoy-security or body-guarding expert.

    For all I know, Navy SEALs get some training in taking up defensive positions on vehicles like tanks, trucks, and low-flying helicopters. And I expect that they might, since they learn a lot of things that might come up in the course of their job. But if 99.5% of the SEAL’s training and 100% of his experience have nothing to do with either convoy protection or body-guarding, that doesn’t make him a convoy-protection expert or a body-guarding expert– it just makes him a guy who spent part of one day standing on a moving truck with a weapon in his hand, pretending to watch for enemies approaching the vehicle.

  • Bush administration officials are no longer “insisting on Blackwater staying.”

    Translation: Blacktwatter in Iraq is calling Freddie Kruger Prince, Jr. and screaming: “Help! These people are talking about trials and laws and stuff! You never said nothing about laws, boss!”

    He knows that if his employees stay he’ll have no employees and possibly a lot of lawsuits.

    And let’s get every useless Bush official we can out of Iraq so they don’t have excuses to require all this “security”.

    Dale #5.

    Aw, you’re no fun. Why can’t we just take Blackwater out*, give the officials a gun** and let them fend for themselves? Given BushCo SOP they will have all shot themselves in the foot before the week is up.

    tAiO

    * To guard Antarctica. With the gear they’ve been using in Iraq.
    ** But only one gun. It’s about time those bastards learned to share.

  • Come January 21, 2009, I’d love to see Erik Prince deported to Guantanamo as the “enemy combatant” and traitor he is, and his private Waffen SS given the treatment their predecessors weren’t – in accordance with the Geneva Conventions: “members of private armies are to be executed upon capture for violation of the laws of war.”

    Blackwater: what happens when you give rednecks corn likker, guns, and pick ’em up trucks, with no county sheriff on duty.

  • Take a good look at the organization our little Bitch of Belsen-wannabee, “Sarabeth” wants to associate with.

    Further proof that the righties really are missing frontal lobes and opposable thumbs.

    http://www.1115.org/

  • Not to put a damper on all the fine effort to reconstruct the scenario, and the interesting lesson on grenades – but a broad spectrum of original reporting on the incident as well as some of the on-scene interviews suggests there was indeed a car bomb, or some other significant explosion much too loud to have been a grenade. They just pointed out that it was much too far away to have initiated events in the square. The overall impression was of a group of trigger-happy yahoos who just cut loose at anyone who happens to be on the street whenever they hear a loud bang.

    I’m sure most state police would like to do the same, since it likely minimizes their own chances of getting killed. However, they can’t. There are these things called discipline and accountability. Dare to shoot even an armed criminal without giving him fair warning, and you’ll end up in the dock yourself.

    Therefore, your own police force in YourState, YourTown, is far more professional than the unstable loonies of Blackwater. Give someone a gun, take away discipline and accountability, and that’s what you’ll get every time. Add in a big fat paycheque, and it’ll happen faster.

  • What’s going to stop this problem from happening again?

    What’s to stop the same problem mercenaries from just doing the same thing under a different company name?

  • sarabeth often comments on this blog, and her comment was obviously sarcasm – it didn’t take a special feel for sarcasm to get it. You can stand down the troops, boys, The Right isn’t comin’ ta getcha. You know, knee-jerk slobbering condemnation is the kind of thing the right is famous for. Ditto no sense of humour. I hope we have no aspirations in those directions.

  • I guess a capable, experience Navy SEAL is probably the best bodyguard or convoy guard you could expect to find, as far as his combat skills are concerned. But the basic point I’d leave unchanged from my last few comments is that out of all the Navy SEALs and other commandos and whatever out there, there are a certain number of guys who have a problem with violence that makes them unfit for this kind of work (security). You hear every once in a while a story in the news about some Navy SEAL or ex-Navy SEAL who gets himself in trouble- some braggart who likes to demonstrate his chokeholds on people, and who ends up strangling his girlfriend to death and being charged with murder, and so on.

    Despite 28 mark and 29 benjoya, I didn’t think it sounded sarcastic. I’d like to know what CB thought. I don’t see anything in the comment that sounded especially sarcastic. But anyway, it’s not a big deal. Comment #28 is just weird: The Right isn’t comin’ ta getcha. You know, knee-jerk slobbering condemnation is the kind of thing the right is famous for. Ditto no sense of humour. I hope we have no aspirations in those directions

    If I had been knee-jerk slobbering, my first response to sarabeth wouldn’t have been “ok, fine” like it was, would it? I would have been more defensive. But it you want to make me sound like I was kneejerk slobbering, you would write something like “no kneejerk slobbering, boys” in your comment, as if I needed to be told that.

  • Sarabeth,

    Sorry the boys attacked. Some folks get into attack mode and don’t look at what they are shooting. Oh, my, that’s just like Blackwater. Fortunately you weren’t in range.

  • The greater issue is the fact that we are fighting a war with a mercenary army at all. What, after all motivates a mercenary, and what motivates a soldier? Patriotism? Capitalism? I don’t feel that replacing one private army with another will do any more to address the root of this than drinking a different brand of cola will help an abscessed tooth to heal.

    This goes beyond the discipline of a handful of legionnaires, who employs them or under what jurisdiction they fall. The real problem is that corporations like Blackwater could not exist without extensive government contracts – yes, your tax dollars pay each of these “cowboys” a half million dollars a year – and that they are profit-driven enterprises without any vested interest in bringing about a peaceful resolution to any conflict. When there is peace, a grunt can go home. If and when the chaos in Iraq subsumes, a mercenary has to find a new job.

    How fast would you work for a dollar an hour? for ten dollars to finish the job? Can it be any more clear what must be done?

  • Anyway, whether or not Blackwater and the specific mercs involved in the Nisoor square shooting turn out to be in the wrong in that specific incident, Blackwater sill has many alleged incidents of bad conduct in iraq clouding its name that it needs to explain, and so al-Maliki is still justified in seeking their expulsion on the basis of that other bad behavior; remember, though, the Iraqi witnesses don’t seem to corroborate the Blackwater story that there was an insurgent attack.

    Blackwater seems to be an example of how these orgs have issues they need to overcome to become an acceptable part of our military operations.

  • Swan, get over yourself. I wasn’t talking about you. I was referring to Tom Cleaver (who is normally very reasoned and moderate) tagging sarabeth as a “bitch of Belsen wannabe”. I just didn’t think her attempt at humour deserved such a stinging reaction, and her previous commentary hardly characterizes her as a “rightie”. Don’t you have a grenade lesson to teach or something?

  • Take a good look at the organization our little Bitch of Belsen-wannabee, “Sarabeth” wants to associate with.

    That should be: Take a good look at what happens when Tome Cleaver gets his hands on the keys to the liquor cabinet.

    “Nazi bashtards, they’rere everywhere! [gibber, puke]”

    Sad.

  • Swan, get over yourself. I wasn’t talking about you. I was referring to Tom Cleaver (who is normally very reasoned and moderate) tagging sarabeth as a “bitch of Belsen wannabe”.

    Yeah, I knew you would say that eventually– then mention Tom Cleaver in your #28 comment so people don’t think you’re lumping me in with him, buddy.

  • This is an overall reply to most of your comments:

    In general, you folks seem misinformed and are basing your responses on personal beliefs. The words that you have used to describe mercenaries are: bloodthirsty, cow boys, private “Waffen SS”, and neocons. I use words like: patriot, professional, subject matter expert, and warriors. You see we are “blood thirsty,” “professionals” because that wins fights. If you hesitate for a moment on the “X” you may die, but worse off, the client may die. The client is the U.S. government who hired these “subject matter experts”, and cowboys for their track record of keeping the principal alive. The client’s mission and survival are exceedingly more important than the individual lives of all the protection specialists.

    They are all prior military operators, they are all your neighbors, and some are your colleges. They are not coming home in six months they are already home in intervals. Some may not go back, and some may never come home. Just as they did in the military they make mistakes, and this particular mistake happened in the green zone which is why it made headlines. Everyday similar incidents occur in all of the world’s high threat areas. Often times the outcome (righteous or not) can only be determined days after the action. This fine line between hero and homicidal maniac can only be seen by those who are there in the fight. You are judging those men from a safe platform, where a click of the mouse will set you free. We are making all of these decisions while rolling down the gauntlet in the wolves den, anticipating the next turn. Some would argue that you are there because of us and we are there because of you.

    The facts of war:
    1. Mistakes are made and innocents are killed and people should be punished.
    2. Mercenaries are a fact of warfare and will probably never disappear from the battlefield.
    3. It is cheaper overall to employ a mercenary than military personnel (benefits, travel, career cost, ability to terminate when a job is done, support cost, etc…).
    4. Mercenaries are men not beasts. Many are reservist in the military.
    5. None of you knows what a SEAL does or what a grenade sounds like
    6. if I ever had to protect you I would do it with all of my faculties, I’m not sure you would do the same.

  • Thanks to all who came to my defense!

    I can’t say I’ve ever paid much attention to Tom Cleaver’s comments, but I’m willing to accept that he’s “normally very reasoned and moderate”.

    That leaves me with 2 questions, for him:
    1) What set you off here, in #25?
    2) What on earth did you see on my blog that you decided supported your “little Bitch of Belsen-wannabee” characterization of me?

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