Schakowsky Prepares Legislation to Ban Blackwater

Schakowsky says Blackwater has “severely damaged the credibility and security of our military and harmed our relationship with other governments”

By Jeremy Scahill

As multiple scandals involving Blackwater continue to emerge almost daily, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing to introduce legislation aimed at ending the US government’s relationship with Blackwater and other armed contracting companies. “In 2009, the U.S. government employed well over 20,000 armed private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is every indication that these figures will continue to rise in 2010,” Schakowsky wrote in a “Dear Colleage” letter asking for support for her Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act. “These men and women are not part of the U.S. military or government.  They do not wear the uniform of the United States, though their behavior has, on numerous occasions, severely damaged the credibility and security of our military and harmed our relationship with other governments.”

Schakowsky originally introduced the bill in 2007, but it only won two co-sponsors in the Senate: Vermont’s Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Ironically, Clinton—now Secretary of State— is currently the US official responsible for most of Blackwater’s contracts. “The legislation would prohibit the use of private contractors for military, security, law enforcement, intelligence, and armed rescue functions unless the President tells Congress why the military is unable to perform those functions,” according to Schakowsky. “It would also increase transparency over any remaining security contracts by increasing reporting requirements and giving Congress access to details about large contracts.”

Meanwhile, a national coalition of groups opposed to Blackwater have issued an open letter to Congress urging support for Schakowsky’s SOS Act and have called on Congress to investigate the US Justice Department’s handling of the criminal case against the Blackwater operatives alleged to have been responsible for the 2007 Nisour Square massacre. On New Year’s Eve, federal Judge Ricardo Urbina threw out the case alleging prosecutorial misconduct. “Considering all of the millions of tax payer dollars that have gone into funding Blackwater, as well as paying for all of the various investigations into their illegal and unethical activities, the citizens of the United States deserve to know the truth,” said Dan Kenney, co-coordinator of “No Private Armies.” Their letter to Congress and an accompanying petition can be found here.

Here is the full text of Schakowsky’s letter:

• • • January 07, 2010

PHASE OUT PRIVATE SECURITY CONTRACTORS

Become an Original Cosponsor of a Bill to Return

Security Functions to Government Personnel

Dear Colleague:

I invite you to join me in cosponsoring a bill which would responsibly phase out the use of private security contractors for functions that should be reserved for U.S. military forces and government personnel.

In 2009, the U.S. government employed well over 20,000 armed private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is every indication that these figures will continue to rise in 2010.  These men and women are not part of the U.S. military or government.  They do not wear the uniform of the United States, though their behavior has, on numerous occasions, severely damaged the credibility and security of our military and harmed our relationship with other governments.

In addition, legal jurisdiction over civilian contractors remains murky, leaving the very real possibility that we cannot punish contractors who commit serious crimes while serving the United States government overseas.  As illustrated by the recent dismissal of the case against the Blackwater guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, prosecution of private security contractors who commit severe abuses remains exceedingly difficult.

It has been recently reported that at least two of the men killed by the New Year’s Eve suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan was a contractor employed by Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater.  If true, this confirms the extent to which private companies have become integrated into not just our military and State Department, but also our intelligence services.

My bill recognizes that our armed forces and security personnel have been so overtaxed that it is not possible to immediately eliminate the use of private contractors for functions that should be reserved for U.S. military personnel.   However, it puts us on the path of restoring military functions to the military.  The legislation would prohibit the use of private contractors for military, security, law enforcement, intelligence, and armed rescue functions unless the President tells Congress why the military is unable to perform those functions.  It would also increase transparency over any remaining security contracts by increasing reporting requirements and giving Congress access to details about large contracts.

To join me as an original cosponsor or for more information, please contact my staff.

Sincerely, 

Jan Schakowsky

Two Blackwater Guards Arrested by FBI on Murder Charges

They are charged with killing two Afghan civilians in May 2009

By Jeremy Scahill

Two former Blackwater operatives were arrested by US federal agents on murder charges, stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May. They have been identified as Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va. They have been charged with “crimes including second-degree murder, attempted murder and firearms offenses while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan,” according to the Justice Department. The 13-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 6 and unsealed today.

It alleges that on May 5, 2009, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Cannon and Drotleff shot and killed two Afghanistan nationals and wounded a third. In a press release, the Justice Department said:

The indictment alleges that at the time of the shootings, Cannon and Drotleff were Department of Defense contractors employed by Paravant LLC, which is a subsidiary of Xe (formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide).  According to the indictment, as contractors, Cannon and Drotleff provided training to the Afghan National Army for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in the use and maintenance of weapons and weapons systems.

In May, reports emerged that four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC were alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian. According to The Wall Street Journal’s August Cole, “At least some of the men, who were former military personnel, had been allegedly drinking alcohol that evening, according to a person familiar with the incident. Off-duty contractors aren’t supposed to carry weapons or drink alcohol.”

The US military said the incident took place in Kabul on May 5. “While stopped for the vehicle accident, the contractors were approached by a vehicle in a manner the contractors felt threatening,” according to the military.

Now, there are many layers to this story, not the least of which is yet another allegation of Blackwater-affiliated personnel drinking and killing in a foreign war zone. (A drunken Blackwater operative was alleged to have killed a bodyguard to an Iraqi vice president on Christmas Eve 2006 inside Baghdad’s Green Zone).

What’s more, this represented the first public mention of the Blackwater/Xe subsidiary Paravant, but also the fact that its work was apparently buried in a subcontract with Raytheon, which in turn has a large US Army training contract in Afghanistan. “Raytheon’s use of Paravant is for a program called Warfighter Focus, a sweeping U.S. Army training effort valued at more than $11 billion over a 10-year period,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

“Warfighter Focus” is carried out by a Raytheon program the company describes in its contract handbook as such [PDF]:

The Raytheon-led Warrior Training Alliance (WTA) team is comprised of over 65 subcontractors with one common mission: to deliver unmatched training support services that cost-effectively meet the U.S. Army’s requirement for total warfighter readiness. The WTA’s ability to provide a comprehensive range of integrated training services will assist the Army in transitioning to a more collaborative, consolidated and streamlined training environment.

Now, the “Warfighter Focus” contract in and of itself is very intriguing and worthy of further investigation. But it is also particularly interesting given that Blackwater is under multiple investigations (DoJ, Congress, IRS, ATF, etc.) and continues to operate in Afghanistan (in part) on a subcontract through a subsidiary working for a massive defense Goliath. This is how the whole contracting scam works, particularly for companies in trouble. They hide under layers of subcontracts and subsidiaries. Blackwater/Xe of course still holds overt contracts in Afghanistan as well.

In addition to Raytheon/Paravant part of the Kabul story, according to the WSJ:

Paravant has terminated contracts with the four men “for failure to comply with the terms of their contract,” according to Xe spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell. “Contractual and or legal violations will not be tolerated,” she said.

The contractors were ordered not to leave Afghanistan without permission of the Defense Department, she said, and the company said it is cooperating with authorities.

A US military spokesperson confirmed this, saying, “The contracting company is cooperating with us. We have asked them to keep the individuals in-country until the investigation is complete.”

Blackwater Settles Massacre Lawsuit by Paying Families of Dead Iraqis $100,000 Each

Blackwater says it is “pleased” with the outcome.

By Jeremy Scahill

Two sources with inside knowledge of Blackwater’s settlement with Iraqi victims of a string of shootings, including the Nisour Square massacre, have confirmed to me that Blackwater is paying $100,000 for each of the Iraqis killed by its forces and between $20-30,000 to each Iraqi wounded. One source said it was “an absolute bargain” for Blackwater. Based on the number of dead and injured named in the civil lawsuits, the total amount paid by Blackwater is likely in the range of $5 million. Blackwater has made more than $1.5 billion in “security” contracts in Iraq alone since 2003.

Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince, recently said his company is spending $2 million a month in legal fees to battle civil and criminal cases and investigations.

Blackwater released a statement saying the company was “pleased” with the ruling. “This enables Xe’s new management to move the company forward free of the costs and distraction of ongoing litigation, and provides some compensation to Iraqi families,” the company said, using its new moniker, Xe.

The Nisour Square massacre was the single deadliest incident involving private US forces in Iraq. Seventeen civilians were killed and more than 20 wounded by Blackwater forces in a shooting the US military labeled a “criminal” action. Among the dead were women and children and some victims were shot in the back as they fled Blackwater’s gunfire.

The settlement was finalized last night in court papers filed by the attorney for the Iraqis, Susan Burke, who brought the suit with the Center for Constitutional Rights. Blackwater is still facing a separate civil lawsuit in North Carolina filed by more victims of the Nisour Square shootings.

Update: I have heard that two of the injured Iraqi plaintiffs received higher payments than the others, including the families of the deceased.

Germany Launches Probe Into Blackwater/CIA Assassination Plot

“Imagine if [German Intelligence] were to carry out a hit job via a front company, say in New Orleans,” says a German lawmaker. “It would be a shocking occurrence”

By Jeremy Scahill

German prosecutors have launched a preliminary investigation into allegations that a Blackwater-led CIA team conducted a clandestine operation in Hamburg, Germany after 9/11 ultimately aimed at assassinating a German citizen with suspected ties to al Qaeda. The alleged assassination operation was revealed last month in a Vanity Fair profile of Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince.

The magazine reported that after 9/11, the CIA used one of Prince’s homes in Virginia as a covert training facility for hit teams that would hunt al Qaeda suspects globally. Their job was find, fix, and finish: “Find the designated target, fix the person’s routine, and, if necessary, finish him off.”

According to Vanity Fair, one of the team’s targets was Mamoun Darkazanli, a naturalized German citizen originally from Syria. Darkazanli has been accused by Spain of being an al Qaeda supporter with close ties to the alleged 9/11 plotters who lived in Hamburg. The Blackwater/C.I.A. team “supposedly went in ‘dark,’ meaning they did not notify their own station—much less the German government—of their presence,” according to Vanity Fair. “[T]hey then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down.” Authorities in Washington, however, “chose not to pull the trigger.”

Dieter Wiefelspütz, the domestic policy spokesperson for the parliamentary group of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats, told Der Spiegel it is irrelevant that Darkazanli’s targeted assassination was never carried out. “If it can be confirmed, then this was a murder plot,” he said. The conservative Christian Democratic Union joined the Social Democrats in calling for an official inquiry.

From Der Spiegel:

Hans-Christian Ströbele, a prominent German Green Party politician, however, said he was unconvinced. “The fact is that the CIA can, for the most part, do whatever it wants here in Germany,” the member of parliament said. “The secret prisoner transports after Sept. 11 showed that — and no one dared to do anything about it.” Try to imagine the opposite happening, he said. “Imagine if (Germany’s federal intelligence agency) the BND were to carry out a hit job via a front company, say in New Orleans. It would be a shocking occurrence,” he said.

[…]

Ströbele said he would call for the parliamentary control committee to discuss the allegations. He said one also had to ask “where the German intelligence services were.” After all, he said, “they are supposed to find out whether other services are romping about here.”

In an interview on German TV this week, Darkazanli said he was “speechless” at the story.

This brewing scandal in Germany is the latest allegation to surface in what is a clear pattern of the US conducting clandestine rendition and assassination operations within the borders of allied countries. In November, an Italian judge convicted 23 US intelligence operatives in the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street as part of a CIA extraordinary rendition operation. Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, was taken to Egypt, where he said he was tortured.

Sen. McCain Calls on Justice Dept. to Appeal Blackwater Massacre Case

By Jeremy Scahill

During a visit to Iraq, Republican Senator John McCain called on the US Justice Department to appeal the dismissal of all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of being the shooters at the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007.

“We hope and believe that the ruling will be appealed,” McCain said while seated next to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in Baghdad. “Our sympathy goes out to the families of those who were killed and injured in this very unfortunate and unnecessary incident.”

The Justice Department has not commented on what it plans to do. The case was dismissed on New Year’s Eve by US District Judge Ricardo Urbina, but not for lack of evidence or because the men were found not guilty. Urbina alleged that prosecutors had “recklessly violated the constitutional rights” of the Blackwater operatives by using statements the men had given after the shooting with the promise of immunity.

The five men were set to stand trial in February in Washington DC on 14 counts of manslaughter and weapons violations. A total of 17 Iraqi civilians were killed at Nisour Square and more than 20 others wounded. Some people were shot as they fled Blackwater’s forces, others while they had their hands raised in the air, according to the Justice Department.

Fed Judge Gives Blackwater Huge New Year’s Gift, Dismisses All Charges In Iraq Massacre

By Jeremy Scahill

A federal judge in Washington DC has given Erik Prince’s Blackwater mercenaries a huge New Year’s gift. Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of gunning down 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in September 2007. Judge Urbina’s order, issued late in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve is a stunning blow for the Iraqi victims’ families and sends a clear message that US-funded mercenaries are above all systems of law—US and international.

In a memo defending his opinion, Urbina cited a similar rationale used in the dismissal of charges against Iran-Contra figure Oliver North—namely that the government violated the rights of the Blackwater men by using statements they made to investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting to build a case against the guards, which Urbina said qualified for “derivative use immunity.” Urbina wrote that he agreed that “the government violated [the Blackwater guards’] constitutional rights by utilizing statements they made to Department of State investigators, which were compelled under a threat of job loss.” He added that the “government is prohibited from using such compelled statements or any evidence obtained as a result of those statements” to bring indictments.

Urbina concluded: “the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the court must dismiss the indictment against all of the defendants.”

The Nisour Square massacre was the single deadliest incident involving private US forces in Iraq. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and more than twenty wounded.

For those interested, here are the judge’s order and the 90 page memo defending the order.