Blackwater again: the military contractor mess

Of course, the spider at the center of the web once again must be Dick Cheney, because in addition to not being in the executive branch, and not quite being of the legislative branch of government, he’s no longer precisely chief honcho of one of the US government’s most favored military, security, and reconstruction contractors, Halliburton.  But he still profits from his association with that corporation.

The matter of government contracting is front and center again.  Jeremy Scahill, author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” said in an interview about Blackwater, the notorious rightwing security company four of whose employees were brutally murdered in Fallujah: 

I've interviewed several Congress people who've said they've tried for years to get detailed information on Blackwater's contracts and other war contractors' arrangements with the government and they've been stonewalled. The fact of the matter is that Blackwater has repeatedly refused to hand over documents requested by Congress!  What's ironic is that when Blackwater refuses to hand over these documents, they say that they're classified!  The irony of telling Henry Waxman, chair of the Government Oversight Committee, that they can't give him a document because it's classified is stark.

Well, the hearings have been taking place.  And more questions are being asked about private contractors.  NPR reports that “though the private contracting industry has exploded during the Iraq war, there’s been virtually no oversight.  Now efforts are underway to gain control over a business that flourishes in times of war.” 

Jackie Northam, reporting for NPR, examines what we are beginning to learn about the use of 120,000 contractors in Iraq.  The murder of four Blackwater security employees, delivering kitchen equipment to troops in Fallujah, set off a firestorm.

Northam:  …They were all civilian contractors with North Carolina-based Blackwater USA.  The families of the four men sued Blackwater, claiming the company did not live up to promises to provide the men with adequate equipment before going into Fallujah.  The families’ lawyer, Daniel Callahan:

Daniel Callahan:  They only had a driver and a navigator.  They did not have a rear gunner with a large, powerful machine gun in the back.  They didn’t have the armored vehicle.  And they weren’t even so much as given a map.  They were not given an opportunity to inspect the routes in advance.  And all these things were promised.

Northam:  Blackwater said it should be immune from any civil litigation because it, and the men, were working under contract for the Defense Department and so should be shielded from lawsuits, much as the US military is protected from suits.  Marty Strong, a vice president of Blackwater, says any compensation for the families has to come from the US government through the Defense Base Act.

Marty Strong:  When it comes to doing contracts with the US government involving areas of conflict, there’s a potential risk to life and limb.  The Defense Base Act is the governing issue.

Northam:  But military lawyers say the Act doesn’t address the family’s claims that the four men weren’t given enough or the proper equipment.  Blackwater has fought this lawsuit hard.  It launched a $10 million counter suit.  It brought in high-profile lawyers including Ken Starr, the special prosecutor who investigated President Bill Clinton.  Callahan, the lawyer for the families of the four men killed in Fallujah, says there is a lot riding on this case.   It could set a precedent for handling future lawsuits.

Daniel Callahan:  I’m trying to show that “don’t come after Blackwater – we’re too big and too bad and you won’t win.”  And you know what?  They have a lot of political muscle.

Northam:  This case has moved far beyond the courtroom.  It became the focus of a House Oversight Committee hearing earlier this year.  Family members of the men killed in Fallujah sat along with representatives from the Army, Blackwater, and several other major contracting firms.

The hearing, which was intended to air the families’ concerns, also exposed many other problems in the contracting industry.  Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, tried to sort out what he called “the murky world of subcontracting.”

Henry Waxman:  Blackwater was providing security services under a contract with a Kuwaiti contractor called Regency.  Regency was, itself, a subcontractor for ESS Support Services Worldwide, which in turn was a subcontractor for other contractors such as KBR and Fluor Corporation.  The Fluor Corporation disputes this, and the Defense Department doesn’t seem to be sure what’s going on.   

Northam:  In fact, at that hearing, a spokesperson couldn’t even say how many contracting companies were working in Iraq.  These issues have led to calls for more transparency in the contracting industry.  Doug Brooks, the president of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group for contractors, says a lack of transparency isn’t necessarily the fault of the contractors. 

Doug Brooks:  Oftentimes the clients, which is to say governments, like to control the message going out.  They will tell the companies, essentially, if there is a media contact it should come through us – which would be State Department, Department of Defense. 

Northam:  There’s no single database, no single organization to keep track of facts and figures.  So the most basic questions regarding civilian contractors cannot easily be answered.  What roles to the contractors play?  What nationalities?  How much is it costing the American taxpayer?  And, how many contractors have been killed?  One of the most vexing questions is what legal framework do the civilian contractors fall under.

Peter Singer:  They fall into a legal vacuum, a legal gray space…

Northam:  Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and author of the book, “Corporate Warriors,” says there are concerns about accountability, especially regarding the heavily armed security contractors. 

Peter Singer:  First, they are not part of the military.  They’re not part of the chain of command.  They aren’t wearing uniforms.  At the same time, though, they’re not traditional civilians.  They are participants in some way, shape, or form, but within a military operation.  So they’re not just accompanying the force, they’re there operating.

Northam:  One of the last things Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, did before leaving Baghdad in 2004, was grant civilian contractors immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.  A civilian contractor working for the Defense Department or other US agency who commits a felony would fall under the law known as the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, or MEJA.  Singer says there are problems with this.

Peter Singer:  MEJA was not designed for war zones.  It was designed for things like a family member committing a crime on a US military base. 

Northam:  And, Singer says, there’s little enforcement of MEJA.  Over the past three years, the Department of Justice has indicted or prosecuted only three cases.  This lack of active enforcement has raised concerns that contractors can act with impunity.  And that may be why Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican from South Carolina, tucked an amendment into the 2007 Defense bill that said civilian contractors fall under the military legal system, known as the Uniform Military Code of Justice.  But is it possible to try civilians under a military system? 

John Hudson:  I think you probably could.  I just don’t think that you should.

Northam:  John Hudson, the dean of the Pierce Law School and former Navy judge advocate general, says that criminal offenses, court systems, and punishments are significantly different under civilian as opposed to military law.  Hudson says the military justice system is narrowly focused on trying to maintain order and discipline in the service.

John Hudson:  To then take that system and say, “Okay, now we’re going to use it for a bunch of civilians over whom we have no control, by the way – they’re not part of the military chain of command, they don’t report to the commanding general, they report to somebody back in Virginia” – you could do that, but it’s going to change in a very fundamental and important ways the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

Northam:  The Pentagon says its lawyers are “ironing out the details of the new law.”  Hudson says urgent action must be taken to control the flourishing contracting industry. Because it’s likely that military and civilians will be next to each other on the battlefield well into the future.

Comments

[Theodor]

One of the founders of the "Waffen SS" Paul Hauser who initiated the military training of the Waffen SS in 1934 was born out of the idea that a more efficient security force would bring more stabilisation.
When individuals like Malcolm Riffkind, Mark Thatcher, and others with close contacts to governments are CEO of PMCs, knowing that costs for PMCs are covered by contributions of taxpayers from the so called civilized world, this debate is coming far to late.
We can not run a secret prison gulag on this globe, snatching people at will wherever we want around the world. As we know, it hasn't worked this way, neither for their victims not for the "Third Reich".