Steve Fainaru, the Washington Post reporter respected for his investigative reporting on private contractors, summarizes the relationship of Blackwater to the US and Iraqi governments and concludes that the Blackwater "cowboys" are a ready source of conflict between the US (which protects them) and Iraq (which suffers from their arrogant and dangerous behaviors.
Blackwater, at odds with the average American soldier in Iraq and under no real oversight, has been making big trouble over the long American occupation.
In recent months, the State Department's oversight of Blackwater became a central issue as Iraqi authorities repeatedly clashed with the company over its aggressive street tactics. Many U.S. and Iraqi officials and industry representatives said they came to see Blackwater as untouchable, protected by State Department officials who defended the company at every turn. Blackwater employees protect the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats in Iraq.
The State Department's oversight turns out to have been virtually non-existent. Blackwater could do no wrong.
Vetting of security companies in Iraq remains so lax that another organization, the International Contractors Association, has offered to help companies discern experienced guards from those who lack qualifications. "If people won't regulate us, we will regulate ourselves, and we will do so professionally," said Jaco S. Botes, a South African contractor who heads the association.
"If the industry goes unchecked, it will implode -- that's just the logical way of things to happen," he said. "It's like a landslide. It will grow and grow until everybody is just fed up."
The military came up with some regulations but Blackwater ignored them.
None of the new orders applied to Blackwater, which has received $678 million in State Department contracts since 2003 and operates under the department's authority.
Imagine if you are in the US military in Iraq and there's a second small army, allegedly on your side, which operates separately and without letting you know what it's doing.
Blackwater is not required to report its movements to the military. "There is no oversight or coordination of Blackwater by the U.S. military," said Jack Holly, a retired Marine colonel who oversees several private security firms as director of logistics for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Then there's the relationship of Blackwater and the Iraqi people, amply described by Blackwater expert Jeremy Scahill. It's a simply relationship: Blackwater is feared and detested.
"Blackwater has no respect for the Iraqi people," the Interior Ministry official said. "They consider Iraqis like animals, although actually I think they may have more respect for animals. We have seen what they do in the streets. When they're not shooting, they're throwing water bottles at people and calling them names. If you are terrifying a child or an elderly woman, or you are killing an innocent civilian who is riding in his car, isn't that terrorism?"
Blackwater's most visible and important task is to guard American high officials moving around in Iraq. Even those officials notice the way in which Blackwater is regarded.
Ann Exline Starr, a former Coalition Provisional Authority adviser, said she traveled in Iraq first with a military escort, then with guards from Blackwater and another State Department-contracted security firm, DynCorp International, as security in Iraq deteriorated. The shift was startling, she said. The soldiers drank tea and played cards with the Iraqis. The security contractors, on the other hand, moved more aggressively, their only focus protecting Exline Starr.
Bottom line? Given the US State Department's laxity in handling its private contractors, and given that contractor's behaviors on the ground, the US government is losing credibility and standing in Iraq along with its hot-dog privateers.
"The Iraqis despised them, because they were untouchable," said Matthew Degn, who recently returned from Baghdad after serving as senior American adviser to the Interior Ministry. "They were above the law." Degn said Blackwater's armed Little Bird helicopters often buzzed the Interior Ministry's roof, "almost like they were saying, 'Look, we can fly anywhere we want.' "
Degn said he believed that the Iraqi government was trying to hold up Blackwater as "a symbol." If the government can bring the company to heel, he said, all the other private security companies will have to follow.
"It's a symbol of the rift that still exists between both governments," he said. "The Iraqis are trying to establish their own authority. And if they do this, they can show the world that Blackwater is not untouchable. And that the U.S. is not the ultimate authority in their country."
"The ugly American." "Yankee go home." Same old, same old. Exhausted, over-stretched and (compared to privateers) badly underpaid and cared for, the military are nonetheless making friends with the Iraqis. All of this is deeply unfair to well-trained and well-meaning troops in Iraq.
