THINKING FOR OURSELVES

Supporting Outlaws

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen. Sept.30-Oct.6, 2007

Sometimes a single incident comes to symbolize events and forces far beyond the moment. The shooting last Sunday in Baghdad’s Nisour Square has the potential to be such an incident.

Last week Blackwater armored vehicles accompanying diplomats were sent to close off traffic into the square. A car entering it failed to stop. Shooting started and in the end the driver of the car, his passenger and the baby in her arms were all dead. So were eight other people.

It is unclear who fired the shots. Blackwater personnel, insurgents, or nearby Iraqi troops have all been suggested. However, an Iraqi government probe found that Blackwater was “100% guilty” in the killings. So government leaders demanded an end to Blackwater activities and that Blackwater leave their country.

In a land that has endured the deaths of more than 100,000 people by bombing, explosives, murders, beheadings, torture and gunshots, the death of eleven people in the middle of a square seems unremarkable. Yet this killing brings to the surface the growing anger at the brutality of an occupation army and the impotence of the Iraqi government when it challenges U.S practices.

The deaths in Nisour Square were the seventh episode in which Iraqi authorities have cited Blackwater for violence against innocent civilians. For example, a Blackwater employee is accused of shooting the bodyguard of Iraqi’s Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, during an off duty incident. In addition, the company is under investigation for shipping unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq.

Blackwater says its contractors fired in self-defense and, after a four-day suspension, has resumed “essential missions.” Critics of Blackwater point to a pattern of recklessness in the use of deadly force.

Blackwater is one of more than 20 private companies providing security in Iraq. Other large companies include American firms DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, and the British-run Aegis Security and Erinys International.

Iraqis see these companies as little more than U.S.-sanctioned bullies.

In a Virginia civil court case against Triple Canopy last month, two former employees claimed that their supervisor, after telling them that he wanted to “kill somebody” before leaving the country on vacation, shot randomly into two Iraqi civilian vehicles on the airport road in Baghdad.

This deadly bullying is supported by a decree from L. Paul Bremer which exempted security companies and their employees from accountability under Iraqi law for deaths and injuries caused in the execution of their duties. Although Congress in 2005 instructed the Pentagon to bring contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, no action has been taken, leaving these men to operate without any restraints.

Like many of the independent contracting firms in Iraq, Blackwater is tied to the GOP. The company founder, Erik Prince, has given more than $200,000 to Republican causes, a pattern followed by his top executives. Cofer Black, the company’s vice president, is a senior advisor to Mitt Romney. Their legal team has included former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr and current White House Counsel Fred Fielding.

Given their close ties to Congress and the White House, any serious rethinking by elected officials of the role of unregulated mercenaries in Iraq is unlikely. But their existence raises fundamental questions about whether our current national security practices are legal and constitutional. The presence of Blackwater in Iraq is, as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al Maliki said, a challenge to his nation’s sovereignty. It is also a challenge to the sovereignty of the American people who are now supporting outlaws in the name of security.

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