But it was just the beginning for private military companies and their missions in Iraq.

U.S. government agencies coming in to rebuild the shattered country expected a benign environment. Instead, they found a cauldron of violence. As insurgent attacks steadily escalated, millions of dollars were diverted from reconstruction to security, opening up a huge new market for the private military industry.

One of the first companies to jump in was Blackwater USA.

Executives of the North Carolina-based company landed a meeting with Paul Bremer III, the diplomat chosen by Bush to head the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq's interim government.

"Nobody had really figured out exactly how they were going to get him from D.C. and stand him up in Iraq," Blackwater President Gary Jackson said. "The Secret Service went over and did an assessment and said, 'You know what? It's much, much more dangerous than any of us believed.' So they came back to us."

In August 2003, Blackwater was awarded a $21 million no-bid contract to guard Bremer, and U.S. agencies have been tapping the Blackwater well ever since. The company now has about 1,000 contractors in Iraq - the most it has ever had.

Other players also have rushed in to meet the demand. Last month, the government estimated that there were at least 180 security companies operating in Iraq with more than 48,000 employees - the largest private military deployment in history.

In the first Gulf War 15 years ago, the ratio of private contractors to troops was 1 to 60; in the current war, it's 1 to 3.

In fact, the private sector has put more boots on the ground in Iraq than all of the United States' coalition partners combined. One scholar, Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, suggests that Bush's "coalition of the willing" would be more aptly described as the "coalition of the billing."

Those bills are in the billions and rising.

Blackwater alone has won $505 million in publicly identifiable federal contracts since 2000, according to an online government database. About two-thirds of that amount was in no-bid contracts.

The bulk of those are with the State Department, which has used the company to guard its ambassadors in Iraq since Bremer's provisional government was disbanded in mid-2004.

Federal regulations allow agencies to bypass competitive bidding in cases of "unusual and compelling urgency" - which just happens to be Blackwater's stock in trade.

"When there is a crisis," Jackson said, "they have a tendency to call us first."

Why does Blackwater get so much federal work? Company officials say it's because of their strong track record. The organization's high-level political connections certainly don't hurt.

Blackwater declined to discuss the particulars of its work in Iraq, but Brian Leventhal, a State Department spokesman, said the company's contracts were awarded under "emergency conditions." Competitive bids were sought in May and are now being reviewed, he said.

The mushrooming presence of private security contractors on the battlefield is uncharted territory, spawning a difficult set of questions about conflicting objectives, poor coordination and lack of accountability.

As the United States and the global community struggle for answers, Blackwater - once again - finds itself in the middle of the fray.

In Iraq, Blackwater's security teams stepped into a world that has been widely compared to the Wild West.

In defense-speak, it's a "complex battle space," shared by a dizzying array of players: military forces, government agencies, humanitarian groups, contractors, insurgents and Iraqi civilians just trying to get through the day.

When Marine Col. Thomas X. Hammes did a stint in Iraq in early 2004, he encountered them all. Hammes was assigned to help set up bases for the newly reconstituted Iraqi armed forces. On several occasions, he crossed paths with Blackwater convoys escorting Bremer.

They did a professional job, he said, but they used "very aggressive" tactics in protecting the "principal" - security lingo for the VIP under guard, also known as the "package" or "egg."

"I was in an Iraqi army civilian vehicle at the time so we were treated as Iraqis" by the Blackwater contractors, Hammes said in an e-mail interview. "... The very act of guarding a principal - forcing his convoy through traffic, keeping all Iraqis away from the vehicle - irritated the Iraqis."

Blackwater accomplished its mission: keeping Bremer alive. But, Hammes said, it did nothing to help further the larger U.S. goal of winning Iraqi hearts and minds.

"The Iraqis perceived the armed contractors as being above the law," he said. "They felt if a U.S. soldier or Marine did something wrong, he might eventually be held accountable for it. They believed contractors would simply fly out of the country.... They don't seem to be held responsible by any authority."

Since the start of the war in March 2003, no private military contractors have been charged with - let alone convicted of - a crime in Iraq.

Unlike military personnel, dozens of whom have been charged with crimes in Iraq, private contractors are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Chris Taylor, a Blackwater vice president, said the company doesn't want its workers subjected to the military justice system because of possible "institutional biases" against contractors.

Under an order issued by Bremer that remains in effect, contractors are also generally immune from Iraqi law for acts performed while carrying out their jobs. Contractors might or might not be covered by civilian U.S. law, depending on which agencies they work for.

According to the Raleigh News & Observer, which reviewed voluntary reports filed with the government during a nine-month period in 2004-05, contractors fired into 61 Iraqi civilian vehicles.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Blackwater contractors fired into a taxi at a Baghdad intersection in May 2005, killing a passenger and wounding the driver. A review by the U.S. Embassy found that two contractors had not followed proper procedures and they were fired, a U.S. official told the newspaper.

Asked about the shooting, Taylor said: "To the best of my knowledge, it didn't happen."

 

Moments after a car bombing last year in Baghdad, a Blackwater helicopter hovers over the area. The company's air fleet consists of 25 planes and choppers, all of which belong to its aviation affiliate, Presidential Airways. MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Amid the crazy quilt of actors in the Iraq war zone, trigger-pullers on the same side sometimes end up shooting at each other.

A report last year by the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency, found many instances of "blue on white" violence: U.S. troops firing on contractors or, less often, contractors firing on troops. In one five-month period in early 2005, there were 20 such incidents reported. They were so frequent that reports weren't always filed, investigators were told.

Communication appears to be better these days. The GAO reported that there were just 12 incidents of friendly fire filed from June 2005 to June 2006. But relations between the military and private sectors are still rocky.

U.S. military commanders have authority over private contractors within the confines of military installations. One Army officer told the GAO that his unit had barred some security contractors from the mess hall because they insisted on carrying loaded weapons.

Outside the bases, contractors operate independently of the military chain of command - a fact that gives some officers heartburn. Two examples in the GAO report bear strong resemblance to known Blackwater incidents, but the report did not name the companies involved:

- An Army officer said security providers escorted the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator into his squadron's area of operations without the military's knowledge, got involved in a firefight and had to be rescued.

- A division commander didn't know several contractors were operating in his area until he was instructed to recover the bodies after they had been killed.

Taylor said the establishment of regional operations centers in Iraq where contractors can voluntarily coordinate their activities with military commanders has helped smooth out the rough spots.

"As with anything in a conflict zone, there are speed bumps," he said. "Lessons are learned. This gets better and better all the time."

The GAO also found that there are no established U.S. or international standards for contractor training, experience, weapons qualifications or other skills. The International Peace Operations Association, a Washington-based trade group of 24 military contractors including Blackwater, agrees standards are needed - with a caveat.

"We're all for that, but you have to have some flexibility built into the system," said Doug Brooks, the association's president. "Most of the work in terms of security is doing things like guarding gates and perimeters. And you really don't need a James Bond to guard a gate."

Amnesty International issued a report in May asserting that the United States' "war outsourcing" has created a "virtual rules-free zone" for contractors. The organization cited a survey of 60 publicly available Iraq military and reconstruction contracts. Not one explicitly required that contractors obey international human rights law.

"There's a culture of impunity," said Mila Rosenthal, director of the business and human rights program at Amnesty International USA.

Rosenthal points out that some of the interrogators accused of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison were private contractors. So far, none have been punished.

"It sends the message that you can do whatever you want over there and get away with it," she said.

No Blackwater personnel were among those implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Taylor said the training regimen for his company's contractors includes instruction in ethics and international humanitarian law. Each contractor is given a 55-page handbook that lays out applicable laws regarding murder, torture, humiliating and degrading treatment, human trafficking and destruction of religious and cultural facilities.

"We constantly reinforce to our people their obligations under humanitarian law," Taylor said. "When there is chaos and conflict, there will always be a difficult environment."

Taylor acknowledged that because of his company's high profile, the margin for error is especially small.

"It does not behoove us to cut corners or break laws," he said. "Everybody's looking at us. Because we're Blackwater, we extra can't do it."

Concerns about financial accountability are growing right along with the increased workload being shouldered by private military companies.

The GAO found that none of the major federal agencies operating in Iraq - the State Department, the Defense Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development - has complete data on the cost of using private security providers.

There is wide agreement, even within the industry, that the government is ill-equipped to guard against waste, fraud and abuse. In March, a federal jury found Custer Battles, a Northern Virginia-based security company, guilty of defrauding the Iraqi interim government and ordered it to pay more than $10 million in damages and fines.

"If you're going to outsource this much, you've got to have the oversight capability," said Brooks, the trade-group spokesman. "We've downsized our oversight. We don't have enough contract officers."

U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., one of several members of Congress who have taken an interest in the issue, has been trying for a year to get a contractor-oversight bill enacted.

"The administration needs to get its act together on this," Price said. "There's been a certain kind of legal twilight zone that these guys have been operating in, and the military commanders have too often, it seems, not known exactly what was going on."

Congressional frustration boiled over at a hearing in Washington last month when members of a House subcommittee grilled security company spokesmen and government officials for five hours.

Blackwater's Taylor and representatives of two other companies were peppered with questions about their revenues, contracts, training and hiring practices.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said there is an "astonishing lack of accountability for the billions of dollars being spent on private security contractors."

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., complained that he asked the Pentagon 18 months ago for a cost accounting of Iraq contracts awarded to Blackwater and three other companies and has been "stonewalled" ever since.

The criticism was bipartisan.

"Some conservatives are starting to wonder if this misadventure in Iraq isn't more about money for defense contractors than it is about security," said Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn.

One exchange with a Pentagon official left Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, incredulous.

"If someone connected with a private contracting company was involved in murdering a civilian," Kucinich asked, "would the department be ready to recommend their prosecution?"

Shay Assad, a senior contracting official in the Defense Department, replied: "Sir, I'm just not qualified to answer that question."

"Wow, think about what that means," Kucinich said. "Private contractors can get away with murder."

Industry spokesmen say they welcome regulation - up to a point.

At a recent conference in Washington, Blackwater Vice Chairman Cofer Black said his company is "not fly-by-night; we're not tricksters. We are all for oversight of an industry like ours."

He also said there are limits to what the company would support. For example, he said, putting contractors under the military chain of command might pose problems when the client is a nonmilitary agency.

Blackwater's major client in Iraq is the State Department, so that's where the company gets its marching orders.

"We are responsible to who hired us," Black said. "You have to leave the dance with the one that brought you."

In an e-mail interview, Blackwater founder Erik Prince said: "Given the sensational tone of the media coverage our industry receives, it is understandable that there are calls for more regulation."

In the end, though, an unfettered marketplace is self-regulating, Prince said:

"Those companies or individuals who disregard the moral, ethical, and legal high ground are not long for this industry.... We want to reduce opportunities for abuse without constraining the flexibility that makes our industry so valuable."

That industry was churning along with little public scrutiny until a Blackwater convoy found itself lost on a spring day in 2004 near a bridge over the historic Euphrates River.

Katy Helvenston-Wettengel, whose son and his three colleagues were killed in 2004 in Fallujah, says Blackwater sent them ''on a suicide mission.'' The four families are suing the company for damages. CHRIS CURRY / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

Video: Interview with Katy Helvenston-Wettengel, mother of slain Blackwater contractor    Text: Contractor Scott

It was the lynching seen around the world.

On March 31, 2004, an American convoy was ambushed by insurgents in Fallujah, a hotbed of Iraqi rage over the U.S. presence. The four men escorting the convoy in two Mitsubishi SUVs were killed in a fusillade of small-arms fire. A furious mob set the vehicles ablaze, dragged the bodies out and partly dismembered them. Two were strung up from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

The entire episode was captured on film and aired worldwide.

The four dead Americans were not soldiers. They were civilians working for North Carolina-based Blackwater USA. The nation learned with a horrifying jolt that there was something new going on here: Modern warfare was being privatized.

The Fallujah ambush had profound consequences on two fronts:

In Iraq, it irrevocably altered the course of the war. U.S. military commanders, who had no advance knowledge of the convoy’s presence in Fallujah, were ordered by Washington to change tactics and pound the city into submission, inflaming the Iraqi insurgency to new heights.

• Back home, families of the four victims are suing Blackwater for damages. The outcome could be costly for the company. It also has implications for the entire private military industry if it sets a precedent for holding companies legally responsible when their contractors die on the battlefield.

   

   

   

  The remains of the contractors were burned, and two of the bodies were strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River. The span has since become known among U.S. forces as Blackwater Bridge. KHALID MOHAMMED / ASSOCIATED PRESS

  Video: Interview with Katy Helvenston-Wettengel, mother of slain Blackwater contractor

  Text: Contractor Scott Helvenston's last e-mail

  List: Blackwater's fallen contractors

  Transcript: The last flight of Blackwater 61

  Full special report

Blackwater also is the target of a lawsuit involving three servicemen killed in a plane crash in Afghanistan in November 2004. Citing the pending litigation, Blackwater declined to discuss either incident.

“Out of respect for the judicial process and out of respect for the families, we just won’t comment,” said company vice president Chris Taylor.

But in court papers, the company has laid out its defense in sweeping terms.

Blackwater is arguing that although it is a private company, it has become an essential and indistinguishable cog in the military machine and, like the military, should be immune from liability for casualties in a war zone.

At stake, Blackwater says, is nothing less than the authority of the president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, to wage war as he sees fit.

The plaintiffs say it’s all about corporate greed, unaccountability and a private army run amok.

Things do go wrong in a violent business like Blackwater’s.

A memorial garden on the Moyock compound attests to that. A ring of 25 large stones encircles a pond. Each one bears the chiseled name of a fallen contractor.

The company’s casualties are among more than 500 civilian contractors who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning of the fighting – roughly one-sixth of U.S. fatalities and more than twice as many as have been suffered by all of America’s coalition partners combined.

When a military service member is killed on the battlefield, a public announcement is made within 48 hours. The service member is entitled to burial in Arlington National Cemetery with a 21-gun salute and a bugler playing taps. An American flag is draped over the casket and presented to the next of kin.

When a private contractor dies, there is no fanfare. There is not even an official list of contractor casualties. The identities of the dead trickle out as their families come forward.

In a sense, it is the 21st century incarnation of the Unknown Soldier.

Taylor said the company’s policy of not identifying casualties is based on privacy concerns for their families.

“They have the choice of how they will honor the service and commitment of their loved ones,” he said.

Compared to soldiers, Taylor said, even wounded contractors “don’t enjoy a respectful status. How do you tell a guy who’s just lost his arm and eye escorting someone that just because he’s no longer wearing a uniform, he’s any less noble?”

With his tousled blond hair, Hollywood face and muscular build, Scott Helvenston was a walking advertisement for the Navy SEALs.

The Florida native joined the Navy on his 17th birthday and became the youngest-ever recruit to finish the rigorous training for the elite commando corps.

While stationed at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base and living in the North End of Virginia Beach, he met a local girl, Patricia Irby. They were married in the base chapel in 1988, settled in San Diego and had two children.

Helvenston spent 12 years in the Navy, about half that time as a SEAL instructor. He was also a world champion pentathlete , fitness trainer and movie stuntman who coached Demi Moore for her role in the film “G.I. Jane.”

In March 2004, recently divorced and looking to make some short-term cash while waiting to start a new job, Helvenston signed on with Blackwater for a two-month tour in Iraq.

His mother says she begged him not to go.

“I said, 'It’s all about oil, Scotty. You don’t want to go risk your life for oil,’” said Katy Helvenston-Wettengel of Leesburg, Fla. “But he wanted to help, and he needed to make some money.”

She said he was told he would be doing security work for Paul Bremer III, head of the interim Iraq government. But after a week in Kuwait, Helvenston-Wettengel said, the mission suddenly changed.

Around 10 p.m. March 28, Helvenston was ordered to leave at 5 a.m. the next day with three Blackwater contractors he had never met, according to the lawsuit filed by the four men’s families. Their assignment: escort a convoy of flatbed trucks to pick up kitchen equipment from a military base on the edge of Fallujah.

When Helvenston resisted the order, citing the short notice and lack of preparation, the lawsuit alleges, his boss, Justin McQuown, reacted violently.

McQuown “burst into Helvenston’s bedroom … screamed at and berated him – calling Helvenston a 'coward’ and other demeaning and derogatory names,” the plaintiffs say in court papers. “McQuown then threatened to fire Helvenston if he did not leave early the next morning with the new team.”

Helvenston’s teammates, all ex-Army Rangers, were Wesley Batalona of Honokaa, Hawaii; Mike Teague of Clarksville, Tenn.; and Jerry Zovko of Cleveland.

According to the lawsuit, Blackwater broke its contractual obligations to the contractors by sending them into hostile territory in unarmored vehicles without automatic weapons or a rear gunner.

The lawsuit says: “Blackwater cut corners in the interest of higher profits.”

Blackwater won’t talk about Fallujah now, but eight days after the ambush, Patrick Toohey, a senior company executive, told The New York Times that the company had already made changes in its “tactics, techniques and procedures.”

Today, Taylor will say only: “We don’t cut corners. We try to prepare our people the best we can for the environment in which they’re going to find themselves.”

The lawsuit says otherwise, alleging that a Blackwater employee refused to give the team maps of the area, telling them “it was too late for maps.”

“They were sent on a suicide mission,” Helvenston’s mother said.

Helvenston-Wettengel says she was sitting at her home computer that day, doing research for her job as a real estate broker, with the TV on in the background, when the images of the burning SUVs and the rampaging mob began airing.

“I thought, 'How horrible for those families.’ A couple of hours later they said they were security contractors, and I thought, 'Oh, my God, Scotty’s a security contractor. But he’s in Baghdad, he’s OK, he’s not in Fallujah. He’s protecting Paul Bremer.’

“Finally around 4 o’clock they said 'Blackwater.’

“I called Blackwater and said, 'My name’s Katy. I’m Scott Helvenston’s mom. Is he OK?’ and they said, 'We don’t know.’ I was on and off the phone with Blackwater until 3 a.m. By midnight I knew he was gone. …

“They said, 'He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’”

 

In Blackwater's memorial rock garden, stones etched with the names of fallen contractors pay tribute to 25 men - and one dog - killed while serving with the company in Iraq and Afghanistan. The statue of a boy represents the families of contractors. CHRIS CURRY / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

The U.S. Marines, who had military responsibility for the Sunni Arab heartland in and around Fallujah, knew it was a tinderbox and had been trying hard not to set it aflame. “Patient, persistent presence” was their motto.

The attack on the Blackwater convoy changed everything.

The convoy had entered the city by bypassing a Marine checkpoint without the Marines’ knowledge. The Marines learned of the ambush the same way the rest of the world did: from the grisly pictures on TV.

President Bush, enraged by the attack, ordered a major assault on the city. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a Pentagon spokesman, said of the coming U.S. response: “It will be deliberate, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming. … We will pacify that city.”

A key objective of the assault, U.S. leaders said, was to capture the killers of the Blackwater contractors and bring them to justice.

The Blackwater incident was a tragic error that provoked a violent chain of events, according to Bing West, a former Marine and Reagan-era assistant defense secretary who wrote “No True Glory,” a book about the battle for Fallujah.

“Ultimately, Fallujah was a decision by our top leadership against the advice of the Marines,” West said in an interview. “They were not going to change their entire strategy because of a tactical error. They were overruled.”

Video: Interview with Katy Helvenston-Wettengel, mother of slain Blackwater contractor

Text: Contractor Scott Helvenston's last e-mail

List: Blackwater's fallen contractors

Transcript: The last flight of Blackwater 61

Full special report

What followed days later, in early April, was the first street-by-street fighting by U.S. military forces since the Vietnam War. As Al-Jazeera broadcast pictures of dead, bleeding and maimed Iraqis in Fallujah hospitals, the city became a rallying point for anti-U.S. anger.

Worried that the assault was jeopardizing the political stability of the country, U.S. leaders suspended the offensive a week later. The fighting settled into a series of skirmishes, flare-ups and periods of calm.

Four days after Bush was re-elected in November, the Marines launched a second, more deadly assault on the city with massive bombing and bloody house-to-house combat. The major fighting was over within a week.

“It looked like a savage tornado had roared through the downtown district, smashing everything in its path,” West wrote.

Over the course of the two sieges, U.S. forces carried out nearly 700 airstrikes in which 18,000 of the city’s 39,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. About 150 U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis were killed. The city was locked down behind barbed wire, a curfew declared and access limited by military checkpoints.

A year later, only about half of Fallujah’s population of 300,000 had returned.

The insurgency was quelled in Fallujah but intensified elsewhere across Iraq. Before the second assault on Fallujah in November 2004, U.S. military leaders estimated active enemy forces at 20,000. By January 2005, Iraq’s national intelligence chief placed the number at 200,000.

“In some ways, the second Fallujah campaign was the end of any hope for success for the United States in Iraq,” said Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan.

The perpetrators of the Blackwater ambush were never found.

On Nov. 14, 2004, the Marines rolled away a coil of razor wire and held a ceremonial reopening of the Fallujah bridge, calling the span’s clearing for traffic a symbolic victory. In black paint on the green trestle, a Marine had printed: This is for the Americans of Blackwater murdered here in 2004. Semper Fidelis.

Less than two weeks later, over Thanksgiving weekend, Blackwater was in the headlines again.

In broad daylight and clear weather, a twin-engine turboprop airplane operated by the company’s aviation affiliate, Presidential Airways, slammed into a mountainside in the rugged highlands of Afghanistan, killing all six aboard: three company crewmen and three U.S. soldiers.

An Army investigation found that the crewmen had no flight plan, lacked experience flying in Afghanistan, were poorly trained, had inadequate communications gear and violated federal regulations requiring the use of oxygen masks at high altitudes.

The families of the dead soldiers are suing Presidential Airways for negligence. The case is set for trial in February.

In both cases, Blackwater claims immunity under the Feres doctrine, a legal precedent that prevents someone injured as a result of military service from suing the federal government.

Contracts signed by the Fallujah victims include a section releasing Blackwater from liability for any loss or injury suffered on the job. The plaintiffs say the contracts are invalid because Blackwater failed to fulfill its obligations.

In court papers, the company cites the Pentagon’s “Total Force” concept, which designates private contractors as an integral component of the military mission along with active-duty and reserve troops and civilian employees.

Blackwater says the government’s unprecedented reliance on private contractors on the battlefield has made them so indistinguishable from uniformed personnel that the company should enjoy the same immunity from liability as the government.

“You can’t separate the contractors from the troops anymore,” Joseph Schmitz, general counsel of Blackwater’s parent company, said after a March federal appeals court hearing in Richmond.

In court papers, Blackwater says its contractors perform “a classic military function” and asserts that the courts “may not impose liability for casualties sustained in the battlefield in the performance of these duties.”

Blackwater casts its defense in constitutional terms, arguing that the separation of powers and presidential authority are at stake.

“The judiciary may not impose standards on the manner in which the President oversees and commands the private component of the Total Force in foreign military operations,” the company says in one brief.

To that, the plaintiffs in the Fallujah case reply that Blackwater is trying to have it both ways – acting as a private entity on one hand and aligning itself with the government on the other.

In their filing, they argue: “Blackwater cannot have its cake and eat it too. As a private security company, reaping private profits, they should be held accountable for their wrongful conduct, just like every other private corporation in America.”

Undergirding Blackwater’s profits, the plaintiffs say, is the workers’ compensation insurance that covered the Fallujah victims and has provided death benefits to their families under the federal Defense Base Act – insurance that is ultimately paid for by taxpayers.

The premiums are paid up front by Blackwater, then passed along to the government in the contracts. And if the insured person is injured or killed in a war zone, the government reimburses the insurance carrier for benefits paid.

Blackwater officials point out that the Defense Base Act has been in existence for 65 years and is routinely used by overseas government contractors.

In the end, the case is about more than money, said Marc Miles, a Santa Ana, Calif., lawyer representing the Fallujah victims’ families: “It’s about sending a message.”

Regardless of how the court fight turns out, Blackwater is moving on, looking for new opportunities once the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan winds down.

Last summer, thanks to a nasty storm, it found a new niche right here at home.

Expecting the worst, Blackwater contractors rushed into the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in September heavily armed. At the height of its work there, the company had close to 600 contractors in the region. Nearly a year later, the assault rifles are gone but roughly 100 Blackwater men are still on the job. CHRIS WALKER/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

NEW ORLEANS — Every day, storm victims still line up at FEMA’s disaster relief centers. Time has only fueled their frustration.

It’s been nearly a year since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and huge swaths of New Orleans remain in rubble. Red tape, mix-ups or dead ends can easily trigger a boil-over.

The people who work for the Federal Emergency Management Agency usually catch the wrath.

“Let me put it to you this way,” says Gary Marratta, one of the agency’s security coordinators. “We used to go out in T-shirts with a big 'FEMA’ across the back. We don’t do that anymore – ever since this one guy told me, 'You know, that space between the 'E’ and the 'M’ makes a pretty good target.’”

Blackwater USA protects FEMA’s Katrina staff – a contract that has cost taxpayers $73 million through the end of June, or about $243,000 a day.

Tony Yates runs the Blackwater security crew assigned to a disaster relief center set up in the city’s downtown public library. FEMA’s workers at the library are mostly women – local teachers recruited after the storm destroyed their schools. They hunch over rows of laptops, interviewing applicants at long tables jammed between bookshelves. They’re not accustomed to the kind of rage that can come their way.

“Sometimes they see it building in the person they’re talking to,” Yates says, “but they’re too intimidated to call us over. So we keep an eye on body language.”

He also keeps an ear cocked for the code. This week, it’s “blue form.” If a worker raises her voice and asks for one, a Blackwater guard strolls over and hovers. One look at his sturdy presence – and the dull-black sheen of the 9 mm Glock on his hip – persuades most tough customers to rein it in. Two to three times a month, Yates says, someone leaves the library in handcuffs.

Video: Interview with Blackwater VP Chris Taylor

Mary Cornelius, the center’s director, looks up from her desk, watching as Yates makes his quiet rounds.

“I can’t tell you what it means to have them here,” Cornelius says. “A lot of people are at the end of their rope down here. We never know who’s going to walk in that door or what they have in mind.”

For battle-hardened Blackwater, New Orleans appears to be gravy work – at least at this point. It’s the tail end of a milestone mission: the private military company’s first domestic deployment – an undertaking that, at its height, employed close to 600 of the company’s contractors.

Blackwater’s men were among the first outsiders to reach the Gulf Coast after the costliest hurricane in U.S. history made landfall Aug. 29. The company’s quick response led to a windfall of work, both government and commercial.

It also has affected the way disasters within the nation’s borders will be dealt with in the future. Katrina woke Americans to the harsh fact that calamities can overwhelm even the government, and rescue can be a long time coming. Some people girding for the next one have already laid plans to hire their own deliverance from companies like Blackwater.

At first, Blackwater’s arrival set off alarms in New Orleans. The company’s work in Iraq has forged a soldier-of-fortune image, and nerves jangled when Blackwater’s commando-types surfaced on the streets of Louisiana, outfitted with body armor and assault rifles.

Concerned calls came in to Mark Smith, who works for Louisiana’s Department of Homeland Security, part of the governor’s office.

“Everyone wanted to know what those Blackwater mercenaries were doing down here,” Smith said.

Blackwater bristles at that reaction.

“This is not the occupation of Louisiana,” said Andy Veal, one of the company’s Katrina zone supervisors. “This is Americans helping fellow Americans.”

It is also a potential plug for a hole in Blackwater’s business model. Private military companies thrive on war – an icy fact that could gut the now-booming industry when or if Iraq settles down.

Katrina offered Blackwater a chance to diversify into natural disasters. After the hurricane, the company formed a new division of domestic operations. Seamus Flatley, a retired Navy fighter pilot, is the division’s deputy director.

“Look, none of us loves the idea that devastation became a business opportunity,” Flatley said. “It’s a distasteful fact, but it is what it is. Doctors, lawyers, funeral directors, even newspapers – they all make a living off of bad things happening. So do we, because somebody’s got to handle it.”

 

Guarding FEMA workers is Blackwater’s primary task now in the Gulf Coast. Contractor Chris Knight is part of a security detail that keeps the peace at the New Orleans Public Library, which doubles as a disaster relief center. CHRIS CURRY PHOTOS / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

 

America’s Gulf Coast is a long way from the troubled lands where Blackwater usually plies its trade. But after Category 3 Katrina, the area resembled a war zone. Hundreds were dead. Communities were destroyed. Law and order collapsed with the levees. Residents were trapped by floodwaters. Rescuers were being shot at.

“The scope of this thing – how big it was – was just too much for any organization,” said Coast Guard Cmdr. Todd Campbell, who directed a large part of the rescue operations, including the dramatic rooftop airlifts that had the nation glued to the TV.

“Every aircraft we had was committed,” Campbell said. “And it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t find anyone who could give us more.”

Campbell didn’t know it, but a Blackwater crew was already beating its way toward Louisiana in a just-purchased Super Puma helicopter.

Bill Mathews, Blackwater’s executive vice president, explained why the company headed in before anyone called for help:

“We ran to the fire because it was burning.”

Campbell says Blackwater asked just one thing: that the Coast Guard cover the cost of the Puma’s fuel. But what really impressed him was the crew’s attitude.

“Just the way they walked in,” Campbell said, “with confidence in their faces. They weren’t rattled one bit by what was going on. They just listened to what we wanted and went out and did it.”

The 9th Ward of New Orleans still looks much like it did in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath, Blackwater escorted rescuers into the area. The company says conditions were so depressing that it rotated the duty among its contractors

 

Precisely what that was depends on who’s doing the recalling.

According to Gary Jackson, Blackwater’s president: “We were lifting people off of housetops, off of small boats, to med-evacs – people that were sick and hurt.”

According to Campbell: “They offered to do rescues, but there were legal concerns. What if someone got hurt? So we asked them not to engage in pulling people out. They debriefed me at the end of every day, and no one ever mentioned doing any rescues. If they were out there doing them, it was solely on their own.”

Campbell has no doubts about the rest of Blackwater’s help. For two weeks after the storm, the Puma conducted survey flights and ferried 12 tons of water, food and supplies to rescuers and stranded inhabitants.

“What they did was critical,” Campbell said. “I’ve never been in a position like that before, where I had to reach out to civilians for help. I couldn’t have asked for a better, more professional response.”

In the midst of all that humanitarian work, the phones started ringing at company headquarters in Moyock, N.C.

“The word got out,” Jackson said. “'Blackwater’s in New Orleans.’ People started calling us from the hotels: 'Can you do this? Can you do that?’ We set up a 24-hour-a-day operational center, and we started taking these commercial contracts.”

The first customer was a communications company that hired Blackwater to fetch 100 of its employees who were stuck in flooded homes. Because a state of emergency had been declared, Blackwater could bypass Louisiana licensing requirements. Boats, waders and other gear were loaded on a company cargo plane. A convoy of SUVs rolled out of Moyock.

Within 18 hours, Jackson said, Blackwater had 135 men on the ground. They were outfitted for battle, complete with helmets, flak vests, pistols, batons and M-4 carbines, capable of firing 900 rounds per minute.

“Yes, we looked a little heavy-handed coming in,” Jackson said, “but it was because of the intel that we received.”

Exaggerated or not, Jackson said, reports coming out of New Orleans indicated the place was in anarchy, with armed looters roaming the city and outlaws preying on the populace.

“We did a risk assessment and decided we’re going to send guys in there for real,” he said.

Jackson said Blackwater re-established order in the city’s most famous area: “We got guys into the French Quarter … and we basically secured it.”

His claim rubs some the wrong way.

“There may be some braggadocio involved there,” said Lt. Lawrence McCleary of the Louisiana State Police. “If they were securing a hotel or something down there, that’s one thing, but locals secured the French Quarter.”

Maj. Ed Bush of the Louisiana National Guard said: “Every group wants to kind of thump their chest a little bit, but just think about it. We live here. Seems kind of naive to think Blackwater beat us to the French Quarter.

“But you know what? I’m not interested in getting into a pissing match over it – not with someone who came down here and really helped. It’s safe to say they were among the first to arrive.”

Whatever the sequence of events, in those first days after the storm, Blackwater’s client list exploded.

Blackwater says it has not fired a single shot since arriving in Louisiana. The company’s contractors heard plenty of gunfire, though. None, they say, was aimed at them.

“We’d be on one street going to a house for extraction and on the next street over we’d hear 'bang-bang-bang,’” Veal said. “Then the Blackhawks would swarm in. It was kind of surreal, that all that was happening in this country. Americans were floating by dead in the street and there was no time to do anything about it. We had to focus on the living. It was like something you’d see in the Third World.”

Veal says Blackwater rescued plenty of nonpaying folks along with the paying ones.

“Once you came across someone, you just couldn’t leave them there,” he said.

Clients were signing up quickly. Blackwater won’t name them or reveal what it charged. It will only say that the jobs called for a laundry list of duties.

Blackwater contractors stood guard over fuel shipments, generators, transmitters, railroad cars, stores, hotels, banks, museums, landmarks, industrial sites, power plants and a temporary morgue set up in Baton Rouge. They escorted CEOs, insurance adjusters, technicians and repair crews. They watched over high-dollar homes and conducted “asset retrieval.” They plucked priceless paintings off walls and fetched precious gems from abandoned bedrooms.

“It was hot and miserable,” Veal said. “We were all sleeping in tents. The bugs just ate you alive.”

One week after the storm, Blackwater landed a contract with the Federal Protective Service, the agency that provides security at federal buildings and watches over FEMA when its workers deploy. The rate, according to a copy of the contract obtained from the Department of Homeland Security: $950 per day for every man the company supplied.

Dennis O’Connor, a spokesman for the Federal Protective Service, said the magnitude of the disaster left the agency with little choice: “We don’t have enough people to handle something like this ourselves, and the local security companies were devastated. Whoever we awarded the contract to had to be totally self-sustaining. Everything down there was wiped out.”

Blackwater had the mind-set for dealing with such hardships. The company set up its own camps, equipped with shower trailers, dining tents, post offices, barber shops, laundry facilities, armories and mechanic shops. Contractors from across the country poured into Moyock, where they were outfitted with tactical gear and sent south.

The Federal Protective Service contract gave Blackwater more impact in the hurricane zone. While contractors were not deputized – a fact that left them with no official law enforcement powers – their formidable presence was now spread across the city.

“They helped us keep the bubble afloat,” said the National Guard’s Bush. “At first, they occupied their battle space and we occupied ours, but as the weeks trickled on and the Guard guys from other states started going home, Blackwater stepped in to fill the void.”

The transition worried some locals, Bush said.

“I think it was the fact that they were civilians more than anything else,” he said. “So we walked the ground together for a while, until everyone got more comfortable. We turned over some pretty big areas to them.”

Less than a month after Katrina battered the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Rita delivered a second blow, coming ashore just to the west.

Federal Protective Service expanded its contract and Blackwater rushed toward Rita.

“At one time,” Jackson said, “we were spread across 500 miles, from Texas to Mississippi.”

 

With the heavily padded “red man” in the bad guy role, contractor Eric Miller practices the proper way to use a baton. The class, at Blackwater’s base in Baton Rouge, is part of a four-day course the company set up to ensure its contractors meet Louisiana requirements for security work. CHRIS CURRY PHOTOS /THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

                                                        

The commercial work has dried up. So has the need for military-style action. The combat look has softened to tan polo shirts and sidearms. Tents have been replaced with hotel rooms. Dinner is served on china. FEMA is the main reason Blackwater is still here.

Roughly 100 contractors are all that remain. They’re split between New Orleans, Baton Rouge and a few scattered outposts. They work 12-hour shifts, often seven days a week, standing guard at FEMA sites. They’re paid around $300 a day, which means they can earn up to $9,000 a month.

Most are former law enforcement officers. They hired on after the storm, when special-ops types were no longer required and Blackwater made the shift to a long-term presence.

“Law enforcement is better suited for this kind of job,” Blackwater’s Flatley says. “They’re used to dealing with the public – with Americans. They’re trained to defuse things, not escalate them.”

There are harder-core guys, who rotate between stints in Iraq and New Orleans.

“You wouldn’t really call this a vacation,” Flatley says, “but they are able to recharge here between tours overseas.”

When it comes to hiring, the stakes are high. Everybody carries a gun, and one hothead making the wrong call could ruin the company’s image and derail a lucrative future in the disaster business. Of the 1,600 contractors Blackwater has cycled through the Gulf Coast, Flatley says, around three dozen have been sent home for various infractions – none criminal.

Kathleen Young operates the Chateau LeMoyne, a hotel in New Orleans that was guarded by Blackwater. The company flag at the French Quarter hotel is the only one flying at a site other than the Moyock compound, according to Blackwater.

“It can be as small as unprofessional behavior, partying too much or even just a bad attitude,” he says. “We can’t afford to put up with any of it. At that point, my only question is, 'Do you prefer an aisle or a window seat?’”

State and local police say they know of no arrests of Blackwater contractors in their area, but that does not stop the talk. Rumors had Blackwater commandeering apartments, shooting bad guys and conspiring with the government to hide corpses.

The company says there is no truth to such stories. Tommy Potter, a former police officer from Franklin, is the company’s area manager for New Orleans. He shakes his head at the rumors.

“Look,” he says, “people swore that there were alligators walking down the streets. How does that stuff get started? Who knows?”

The Blackwater men admit that, in the early days, they bumped heads a bit with local police, who resented all the out-of-town guns. They’ll volunteer that someone slashed all four tires on a company SUV. At the library, Yates confesses he was in one real knock-down, drag-out – with a large woman who leaped on him and wouldn’t quit.

Kathleen Young runs the Chateau Le-Moyne, a French Quarter hotel. She thinks Blackwater’s mere presence stops trouble in its tracks. Young’s hotel chain hired the company the day after Katrina.

“I didn’t know that,” she says, “and I was scared to death coming back into the Quarter after the storm. Looters were everywhere. Windows were smashed out. There were no police.

“And then I got here, and there were two Blackwater guys camped out in my lobby. Nothing was touched. They stayed with me for weeks, and I never saw anyone challenge them.”

Young was so impressed, she struck a deal with Blackwater to house more of its men. At one point, contractors occupied nearly half of her 171-room hotel. The number has dwindled, but her lobby, at any given time, is still full of men carrying guns.

Young has also put Blackwater on retainer.

“If something like this ever happens again,” she says, “I want them in here before the storm.”

Blackwater isn’t content to wait around for Mother Nature to strike again. It’s busy scouring the far corners of the world for more business.

 

Blackwater parachuted onto the public stage in a flashy way this spring at the Virginia Gold Cup horse race in Northern Virginia. The show marked a turning point for a company that has long preferred its privacy. CHRIS CURRY PHOTOS / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

WARRENTON, Va. - Emerald rolling hills. Acres of white fence. It's a postcard spring day in horse country.

Fifty-thousand people are gathered for the 81st running of the Virginia Gold Cup, a high-stakes steeplechase that draws the political glitterati from nearby Washington.

Sleek steeds prance toward the starting line. "The Star-Spangled Banner" swells. Wide-brimmed hats turn skyward. Hands shield designer sunglasses.

Oooh, says the crowd. Look at that. Five parachutes have blossomed against the blue - pre-race entertainment. But these chutes don't belong to the usual military show teams: the Army's Golden Knights or the Navy's Leap Frogs.

These are emblazoned with a bear-paw logo and strapped to some of the finest jumpers in the world - five of whom now work for Blackwater USA.

It's the new team's first public U.S. performance, and a high-visibility U-turn for a company that has long preferred the shadows.

The reason behind the strategy shift: Blackwater has decided that l ying low is a problem.

"People were getting our story wrong," said company vice president Chris Taylor. "The parachute team is a way to create awareness, so people will ask about us and we can deliver the accurate story."

It does get them noticed.

Necks crane as the jumpers come together, link into a tiered formation and float to Earth, unfurling Blackwater's flag as they descend. Touchdown is perfect, a cloud of billowing silk on the infield. The crowd erupts in applause.

Blackwater says one of the goals of its parachute team is to interest children in military careers, particularly special operations. The Gold Cup jump was the team's first public U.S. demonstration. The members, who were veterans in the field before joining Blackwater, have made a combined 36,000 jumps. Video: Blackwater VP Chris Taylor discusses the future New products: Seeking a larger slice of the industry pie

"Wow," says John O'Rourke of Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a management consulting company. "Can't say I've ever heard of Blackwater before, but that jump was phenomenal."

"Stirring," adds O'Rourke's wife, Jenine.

The couple are leaning on a fence, watching as their two children join other kids invited to help the jumpers repack their chutes.

"Isn't that sweet?" Jenine says.

Impressing the power brokers is more important. Unlike the military, Blackwater must woo its customers. The well-heeled crowd at the steeplechase is flush with the right kind of people - VIPs who could pave the way for a government contract, buy the company's new products or use its personal bodyguard service themselves.

Blackwater's hospitality tent buzzes with invitation-only guests. Gathered around white linen tablecloths, they network and nosh hors d'oeuvres. A few stout-looking men dressed in suits stand sentinel, arms crossed, the coiled wire of an earpiece disappearing into the back of their collars.

Erik Prince, the company's reclusive founder, is reportedly in attendance, but as usual, he steers clear of the spotlight.

Later, Taylor asks a newspaper photographer if he managed to snap any pictures of Prince at the race.

The answer is no. Taylor grins.

"Good. Then we did our job."

 

Prince may choose to stay in the background, but his company is bent on polishing its image. A good reputation makes domestic work, like the Katrina contract, easier to line up. It can offset character-damaging accusations, like the two yet-to-be settled lawsuits that portray the company as callous and inept.

Blackwater wants all doors open. The company says it has more than two dozen projects under way, an almost dizzying pursuit of new frontiers.

Among them:

In addition to its ongoing assignments guarding American officials and facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater has won contracts to combat the booming opium trade in Afghanistan and to support a SEAL-like maritime commando force in Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic.

• On the home front, Hurricane Katrina's $73 million purse has persuaded Blackwater officials to position themselves as the go-to guys for natural disasters. Operating licenses are being applied for in every coastal state of the country. Governors are being given the pitch, including California's Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom a Blackwater official recently visited to discuss earthquake response.
•  

  "We want to make sure they're aware of who we are and what we can bring to the table," said Seamus Flatley, deputy director of Blackwater's new domestic operations division. "We want to get out ahead of it."

   

• Last year, the company opened offices in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. More recent expansion plans call for a Blackwater West in Southern California and a jungle training facility at the former Subic Bay naval base in the Philippines.

   

  Image is already affecting the Philippines deal. News reports out of the area indicate strong local opposition, fueled by fears of an influx of "mercenaries." A Filipino senator says he intends to investigate accusations that Blackwater is recruiting his countrymen for security jobs in Iraq; the Filipino government forbids its citizens to work there.

  Taylor said the locals are overreacting. Clients at Subic and the type of training offered there will be subject to Defense Department oversight.

  "We will only teach who and what the U.S. government wants us to," he said.

  Taylor also denied accusations that Blackwater is using its toehold at Subic Bay to recruit for Iraq.

  "Why does everyone think that?" Taylor asked. "Why can't we just be offering training in that part of the world?"

  The company confirms that it does recruit in foreign lands. Taylor said Blackwater has hired roughly 20 Filipinos for guard duty in Afghanistan, where there is no ban on such work.

  A few years back, Blackwater created a diplomatic embarrassment for Chile by recruiting Chileans who had trained under the ousted regime of military dictator Augusto Pinochet. The new Chilean government was concerned about its country's reputation abroad and worried that the former henchmen of a toppled dictator would not represent it well.

  Similar concerns surface here at home about the way America's private military companies represent the country overseas.

  Thomas X. Hammes, a retired Marine colonel, encountered U.S. contractors during his 2004 tour of duty in Iraq. To the Iraqi people, Hammes said, those contractors were America:

  "We are held responsible in the people's eyes for everything they do, or fail to do."

 

Now a graduate of the Blackwater Academy program, Thomas Pouge looks at pictures with his high school sweetheart at a graduation ceremony at the Blackwater USA compound in Moyock. CHRIS CURRY / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

Thomas Pogue will soon be on his way to somewhere dangerous – most likely Iraq. Of the 19 young men who entered the latest Blackwater Academy, Pogue is among the nine who made it all the way through.

In fact, Pogue, 25, a former Navy SEAL from Chesapeake, won the academy’s “Honor Man,” an award given to the top all-around student in the class.

After graduation, Pogue said he was anxious about what he’ll encounter overseas.

 the same time, really different.”

"I'm sure it'll be a lot like what I'm used to,"  he said, "but at the same time, really different."

Pogue pointed out that contractor teams have limited time to train together. They don’t have a massive force of men and machines at their back when things go wrong. They aren’t necessarily privy to military intelligence. And their defensive role, he says, places them at a disadvantage.

“The enemy comes to you,” he said. “You wait to be attacked.”

He’s counting on Blackwater to even things up.

“You just hope the experience of the guys you’re with makes up for all the rest. I’m really relying on the company to make the right hires and choose the right contracts.”

The cutthroat “mercenary” image of private contractors, Pogue said, “is a product of ignorance. We’re the same people you have in the military. We just got out.”

Money is a big reason, Pogue said: “This country does not pay its soldiers enough for the work they do. This industry is one way to level the field.”

He sees a big future for the private military business. “These forces can be employed without a lot of publicity – and that’s a very useful characteristic for any government. It’s politically easier, and there is less red tape.”

The ultimate reason Pogue believes his profession will stick around:

“We’re expendable. If 10 contractors die, it’s not the same as if 10 soldiers die. Because people will say that we were in it for the money. And that has a completely different connotation with the American public.”

One day, Pogue could find himself among the men Blackwater marshals for what is perhaps its most controversial plan ever: the creation of a brigade-size armed force – about 1,700 troops – that could be deployed on “peacekeeping” or “stability” missions in world trouble spots, such as the Darfur region of Sudan.

Speaking at a special-operations conference in Amman in March, Blackwater Vice Chairman Cofer Black said the company has approached the United Nations and several African countries with the idea.

“I do believe there are situations where it is viable to use the commercial contractor option,” he said, arguing that a small private force would be a flexible, low-cost alternative to U.N. troops.

The idea found support in some quarters and raised alarm in others.

After interviewing Blackwater officials this spring, veteran news commentator Ted Koppel suggested that private military companies shoulder more of war.

In a May column in The New York Times, Koppel wrote that a “rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam, might relieve us of an array of current political pressures.”

Others worry where companies like Blackwater will draw the line. Peter Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank, said that in the past, private military companies “have been hired to do everything from defending facilities and escorting convoys to protecting drug cartels and overthrowing governments.”

Indeed, there are no laws that dictate who Blackwater can work for, as long as the client isn’t involved in criminal activity or at war with the United States.

But Taylor said his company would only hire out for missions approved by the American government.

“If we went against the wishes of our government, we’d be blackballed,” he said. “We’d never get another U.S. contract.”

Taylor said Black’s remarks have been misunderstood: “We’ve never said we’ll be an army for hire to go fight somebody’s battles. We have never said that we would provide an offensive combat capability. It would be only defensive.”

That distinction is difficult, if not impossible, to draw, Singer countered.

“It’s not analytically honest,” he said. “No one in the military is defined as to whether they’re offensive or defensive. No weapon is offensive or defensive. The saying is, a weapon is offensive or defensive depending on which side of the gun barrel you’re facing.”

Singer offered an example. If a convoy bristling with machine guns came rumbling through the streets of Norfolk, he said, local residents would likely view it as offensive – regardless of the troops’ stated intentions.

“Often these companies will say, 'We only do defensive work, so that means that we’re somehow good,’” Singer said. “Basically what they’re trying to do is put a moral imprimatur on a business. Companies aren’t good or bad. They’re just companies. It’s how they operate that determines their moral standing.”

Unsavory activities by private warriors have prompted legislative action in several countries, most notably South Africa, where memories of the nation’s apartheid-era security forces are still fresh. Hearings were held by Parliament this spring on a tough new anti-mercenary bill that would prohibit South Africans from participating in armed conflict areas without the permission of their government.

Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a Washington-based trade group of private military companies including Blackwater, flew to Johannesburg to speak against the bill, arguing that it would hobble peacekeeping operations around the world.

Several thousand South Africans are estimated to be working for security companies in Iraq.

“They don’t want to be considered criminals when they go home,” Brooks said.

Taylor distanced Blackwater from the kind of overt combat missions undertaken by companies like Executive Outcomes, a South African firm that was hired to put down insurgencies in Angola and Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s.

“I don’t think you’ll ever see that again,” Taylor said. “The first thing we want to be is a tremendous deterrent. Our first goal is not to actively engage in live-fire exchanges.”

On the other hand, he added, “You can’t ask people to defend something and then penalize them for defending it well.”

There have never been easy answers in war. Questions about motives, money and morality litter battlefields, while people caught up in life-and-death struggles make split-second decisions.

Blackwater says it’s only filling a niche others can’t or choose not to. So, while the country wrestles with this new twist on an old way to wage war, Blackwater will keep plugging away – engaging critics, courting customers and hatching plans.

Every day brings a new challenge.

“We have a very long-term view to our work,” company founder Prince said in an e-mail interview. He said Blackwater wants to help transform the Defense Department into “a faster, more nimble organization.”

Company President Gary Jackson put it this way: “We have a dynamic business plan that is 20 years long, and it starts every day at zero-745” – 7:45 a.m. military time, when Blackwater’s daily staff meeting begins.

“We’re not going anywhere. Anybody that builds a 65,000-square-foot headquarters in the middle of the Dismal Swamp does not have an exit strategy.”

 

• Reach Joanne Kimberlin at (757) 446-2338 or joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com.
• Reach Bill Sizemore at (757) 446-2276 or bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com.

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=108003&ran=206428

 

 

 

 

" Blackwater USA is comprised of five companies; Blackwater Training Center, Blackwater Target Systems, Blackwater Security Consulting, Blackwater Canine, and Blackwater Air (AWS). We have established a global presence and provide training and tactical solutions for the 21st century.

Our clients include federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Transportation, local and state entities from around the country, multi-national corporations, and friendly nations from all over the globe.

We customize and execute solutions for our clients to help keep them at the level of readiness required to meet today's law enforcement, homeland security, and defense challenges.
Any and all defense services supplied to foreign nationals will only be pursuant to proper authorization by the Department of State.

Come to Blackwater, where the professionals train."

 BLACKWATER Photos:   http://www.militaryspot.com/securitycontractors.htm

More Photos:    http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=13260&tmpl=printversion

Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater  It is one of the most infamous incidents of the war in Iraq: On March 31, 2004, four private American security contractors get lost and end up driving through the center of Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni resistance to the US occupation. Shortly after entering the city, they get stuck in traffic, and their small convoy is ambushed. Several armed men approach the two vehicles and open fire from behind, repeatedly shooting the men at point-blank range. Within moments, their bodies are dragged from the vehicles and a crowd descends on them, tearing them to pieces. Eventually, their corpses are chopped and burned. The remains of two of the men are strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River and left to dangle. The gruesome image is soon beamed across the globe.

Iraq for Sale:  The War Profiteers

email :    Erasmo "Doc" Riojas at  el_ticitl@yahoo.com