Below is the editorial I wrote on Blackwater's role in Iraq. It ran in the Kansan, but some content was cut and some mistakes were added. I don't expect this to count as a post, I just wanted to put it up somewhere as I had intended it.
On Sept. 16 an armed convoy of six U.S. State Department SUVs came under fire in the Mansour district of Baghdad in a crowded market square. The SUVs, driven by Blackwater private security operatives, stopped. Operatives evacuated the vehicles and returned fire. Helicopters escorting the convoy gave aid. When the shooting stopped, somewhere between11 and 23 Iraqi civilians were dead.
For many people around the world, this was the first exposure to Blackwater, a private security company with roughly 1,000 tactical operatives currently in Iraq – none of which are held legally accountable to a specific entity, be it the United States or Iraqi governments or the United Nations.
For the Iraqi people, however, Blackwater has been a constant reminder of occupation since the beginning of U.S. involvement in their country.
Operatives have aggressively forced military convoys through crowded neighborhoods and marketplaces and fired on cars they considered too close. The Iraqi government accused Blackwater operatives of aiding in the jailbreak of Ahyam Al Samarri, a man who embezzled $2.5 billion mean to restore Iraq's archaic power grid. Another group of operatives are under FBI investigation for allegedly smuggling weapons into Iraq and then selling them to the Kurdistan Workers Party, a known terrorist organization.
They have killed with impunity and the threat of unemployment has been their only punishment. They are not officially soldiers, so they are not held to the same code of conduct. While Congress voted in favor of including private security companies in the Military Extraterritorial Act, investigations take time and do not provide immediate accountability to, or curb, violence. In lieu of the Sept. 16 incident the Iraq government has moved to revoke private security contractors' immunity, bu at the same time, Iraq's government is in no position to enforce its own laws. Blackwater operatives are essentially above the law.
As a private company, Blackwater has more than 21,000 operatives in its database and 90 percent of its largely unknown profits come from government contracts. Operatives serve as security guards, convoy escorts and assassins and while the company currently works exclusively for the government, corporate hiring and privatized intelligence are the next steps in the Blackwater business model.
But let's forget about all of that for now and focus on the necessity of Blackwater in Iraq.
Simply put, the U.S. lacks the troop volume necessary to fully occupy and secure the country. While American's cringe at the idea of a draft and wince at casualty reports, leaving Iraq in full would guarantee its implosion into further sectarian violence, interference from Iran and Syria and make the country an even more fertile breeding ground for international terrorism and anti-American sentiment.
Ironically, it was the brutal murder of four Blackwater operatives in Fallujah and the military's subsequent month-long assault on the city that effectively lost "the hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people and emboldened Mutada Al Sadr to call for the first Shiite uprising. Now the most we can hope for is protection of our own interests; namely our troops, the 48,000 known U.S. employees in the country and the Iraqi government as it struggles to its shaky feet.
For this, Blackwater and other private security companies such as DynCorp and Triple Canopy are prefect candidates for the job, but they must be held accountable.
The State Department has already announced that its officials will accompany Blackwater operatives on their convoys in Iraq. The department will also install security cameras in Blackwater vehicles and will keep recordings of Blackwater radio transmissions. This is a good first step, but these provisions need to apply to all security contractors, not just the ones making headlines.
Because so much of the War on Terror has been outsourced already, we should outsource accountability monitoring to an independent organization as well. There would be less red tape and fewer conflicts of interest.
Amnesty International is the best candidate for this job. The organization has already been monitoring the activities of Blackwater and other private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it has experience. The organization could prepare monthly assessments of security contractor conduct, report directly to the State Department and publish the findings as public record. Operatives that receive poor reviews would be subject to termination and deportation back to the United States where they would face trial in a military tribunal.
Amnesty International could also ensure that future contracts between the State Department and private contractors contained sections on human rights, something previous contracts lacked.
Of course, in order for this to work certain aspects of private security cannot remain private. While companies like Blackwater may be perfect candidates for the kind of warfare in which the line between civilians and enemy combatants is often blurry or nonexistent, they still have to answer to someone. Otherwise they're merely thugs, out to make a profit in the lucrative business of war. And our complacency as Americans makes us all responsible.
— Trevan McGee