Blackwater USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | Blackwater USA is a private military company, security firm and mercenary company, [1][2][3][4][5] founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark. It is based in the U.S. state of North Carolina, where it operates a tactical training facility that it claims is the world's largest. |
Blackwater is currently the biggest of the US State Department's three private security contractors.[6] At least 90% of its revenue comes from government contracts, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts.[7] Operatives of Blackwater Security Consulting have raised significant controversy both through casualties suffered[8] and inflicted by their employees.[9]
Corporate structure: Blackwater USA consists of nine business units: Blackwater Training Center Blackwater Training Center offers tactics and weapons training to military, government, and law enforcement agencies. See facilities below. Blackwater Training Center also offers several open-enrollment courses periodically throughout the year, from hand to hand combat (executive course) to precision rifle marksmanship. They also offer courses in tactical and off road driving.[10]
Blackwater Target Systems: This division provides and maintains target range steel targets and a "shoothouse" system.[11]
Blackwater Security Consulting: Blackwater Security Consulting (BSC) was formed in 2001, and based in Moyock, North Carolina. BSC is one of 177 private security firms employed during the Iraq War to guard officials and installations, train Iraq's new Army and Police, and provide other support for Coalition Forces.[12]
Blackwater Security Consulting is well equipped and known to use:
- MD-530F "Little Bird" helicopters, organized into Quick Response Force (QRF) teams.
- Sikorsky S-92 helicopters are known to be used based on Blackwater USA's careers page.
- AB 412 utility helicopters in use in Iraq.
- BAE RG-31 Mamba armored vehicles, purchased from the British Army are known to be used to transport personnel along Route Irish[13]
- Force Protection Industries Cougar H[14]
- Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano — Blackwater is in the process of purchasing one of these aircraft for pilot training in the US.[13]
Blackwater K-9: Training canines to work in patrol capacities as war dogs, explosives and drug detection, and various other roles for military and law enforcement duties.[16a]
Blackwater Airships, LLC: Blackwater Airships LLC was established in January 2006 to build a remotely piloted airship vehicle (RPAV).[17]
Blackwater Armored Vehicle: Blackwater recently introduced its own armored personnel carrier, the Grizzly APC.[18]
Blackwater Maritime: Blackwater Maritime Security Services offers tactical training for maritime force protection units. In the past it has trained Greek security forces for the 2004 Olympics, Azerbaijan Naval Sea Commandos, and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior.[19] Blackwater's facilities include a manmade lake, with stacked containers simulating the hull and deck of a ship for maritime assaults. Blackwater received a contract to train United States Navy sailors following the incident on the USS Cole. [20]
Raven Development Group: In 1999, the Raven Development Group was established to design and build Blackwater USA's training facility in North Carolina.
Aviation Worldwide Services (Presidential Airways and STI Aviation)
Aircraft maintenance and tactical transportation. Presidential Airways holds a Secret Facility Clearance from the U.S. Department of Defense.[21] It operates several CASA 212 aircraft in addition to a Boeing 767.[22] [23]
Blackwater has won a S-70A modification/upgrade program for the UAE Special Operations Command that include Mounts for Machine Guns, Heads Up Display, Secure Communications and FLIR systems EO-IR sensor with Vectr mission system
Greystone Limited: A private security service, Greystone is registered in Barbados, and employs third country nationals for offshore security work.
Personnel: Blackwater's owner and founder is Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL. Prince’s father, Edgar Prince, who died in 1995, was a wealthy businessman who created the lighted car visor, among other things. Erik Prince attended the Naval Academy, graduated from Hillsdale College, and was an intern in George H.W. Bush's White House. Prince has contributed $200,000 to the Republican National Committee since 1998, and also has supported the candidacies of conservatives such as President George W. Bush and Senator Tom Coburn.[24] He also serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a nonprofit group that provides Bibles, food and other help to Christians in countries where they face persecution.
Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, is also a former Navy SEAL.
Cofer Black, the company's current vice chairman, and national security advisor for Mitt Romney, was the Bush administration's top counter terrorism official when 9/11 occurred. In 2002, he famously stated: "There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves come off." Blackwater has become home to a significant number of former senior CIA and Pentagon officials. Robert Richer became the firm's Vice President of Intelligence immediately after he resigned his position as Associate Deputy Director of Operations in fall 2005. He is formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.[25]
Facilities: Blackwater's training facility, located on 7,000 acres in North Carolina, comprises several ranges, indoor, outdoor, urban reproductions, a man-made lake, and a driving track in Camden and Currituck counties. It is one of the largest firearms training facilities in the world. Company literature claims that the company runs "the largest privately owned firearms training facility in the world."
In November 2006 Blackwater USA announced it recently acquired an 80-acre (30 ha) facility 150 miles (240 km) west of Chicago, in Mount Carroll, Illinois to be called Blackwater North. That facility has been operational since April, 2007 and serves law enforcement agencies throughout the midwest.
Blackwater is also trying to open a facility in California for military and law enforcement training,[26][27] in Potrero, San Diego County.[28] [29]
History: Blackwater USA was formed in 1997 to provide training support to military and law enforcement organizations. In 2002 Blackwater Security Consulting (BSC) was formed. It was one of several private security firms employed following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. BSC is one of over 60 private security firms employed during the Iraq War to guard officials and installations, train Iraq's new army and police, and provide other support for occupation forces.[30] Blackwater was also hired during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by the Department of Homeland Security, as well as by private clients, including communications, petrochemical and insurance companies.[31] In each case, Blackwater received a no-bid contract. Overall, the company has received over a billion dollars in government contracts.[32]
Iraq involvement: In 2003, Blackwater landed its first truly high-profile contract: guarding civilian Administrator L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, at the cost of $21 million for 11 months. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service, which protects U.S. officials and some foreign officials in conflict zones.[33] In 2006, Blackwater won the remunerative contract to protect the U.S. embassy in Iraq, which is the largest American embassy in the world. It is estimated by the Pentagon and company representatives that there are 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, and some estimates are as much as 100,000, though no official figures exist.[34][35] Of the State Department's dependence on private contractors like Blackwater for security purposes, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, told the U.S. Senate: "There is simply no way at all that the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security could ever have enough full-time personnel to staff the security function in Iraq. There is no alternative except through contracts."[36]
For work in Iraq, Blackwater has drawn contractors from their international pool of professionals, a database containing "21,000 former Special Forces troops, soldiers, and retired law enforcement agents," overall.[37] For instance, Gary Jackson, the firm's president, has confirmed that Bosnians, Filipinos, and Chileans, "have been hired for tasks ranging from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority."
Between 2005 and September 2007 Blackwater security staff was involved in 195 shooting incidents, in 163 of those cases Blackwater personnel fired first. 25 members of staff have been sacked for violations of Blackwaters drug and alcohol policy and 28 more for weapons related incidents. [38]
Fallujah mission: On March 31, 2004, Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah attacked a convoy containing four American private military contractors from Blackwater USA who were conducting delivery for food caterers ESS.[39] The four armed contractors Scott Helvenston, Jerko Zovko, Wesley Batalona and Michael Teague, were attacked and killed with grenades and small arms fire. Their bodies were hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates.[8] In the fall of 2007, a congressional report found that Blackwater intentionally "delayed and impeded" investigations into the contractors' deaths.[40]
Shortly after the incident, blogger Markos Moulitsas infamously stated "I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them." [41]
Later incidents: In April 2004, a few days after the Fallujah bridge hanging, a small team of Blackwater employees, along with a fire team of U.S. Marines, held off over four hundred insurgents outside the Coalition Provisional Authority Headquarters in Al Najaf, Iraq, waiting for U.S. troops to arrive. Due to details of the situation, U.S. commanders would not risk inserting additional troops. The Headquarters was surrounded and it was the last area in the city that remained in Coalition control. During the siege, as supplies and ammunition ran low, an all volunteer team of Blackwater contractors 70 miles away flew on a rescue mission to the compound to resupply, maintain Coalition control, and bring an injured U.S. Marine back to safety outside of the city. The mission was considered a huge success.[42][43][44]
In April 2005 six Blackwater independent contractors were killed in Iraq when their Mi-8 helicopter was shot down. Also killed were three Bulgarian crewmembers and two Fijian gunners. Initial reports indicate the helicopter was shot down by rocket propelled grenades.
On January 23, 2007, five Blackwater contractors were killed in Iraq when their Hughes H-6 helicopter was shot down. The incident happened in Baghdad, Haifa Street. The crash site was secured by a Personal Security Detail Platoon, callsign "Jester" from 1/26 Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. Three Iraqi insurgent groups claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter, however, this has not been confirmed by the US.[45] A US defense official has confirmed that four of the five killed were shot execution style in the back of the head, but did not know whether the four had survived the crash.[46] Robert Young Pelton broke the full details of the crash on his site. Pelton also met and flew with the Little Bird pilots.
On August 12, 2007, an MSNBC report noted the largely unaccountable and unsupervised nature of security contractor activities, and the high number of casual or indiscriminate civilian killings attributed to them. According to the State Department, on December 24, 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee shot and killed a body guard who was protecting the Iraqi vice president. The US State Department was aware of the incident and recommended that a $250,000 payment be made to the victim's family. Blackwater claimed that such a payment would be "too large" and would encourage other Iraqis to "try to get killed". They offered to pay out $15,000, which the State Department agreed to. The Blackwater employee was fired but no criminal charges were brought against him.[48] In late May 2007, Blackwater contractors, "opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days... and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi Interior Ministry commandos, U.S. and Iraqi officials said."[34] And on May 30, 2007, Blackwater employees shot an Iraqi civilian deemed to have been "driving too close" to a State Department convoy being escorted by Blackwater contractors.[49][34] Other private security contractors, such as Aegis Defence Services have also been accused of similar actions.[50] However, "Doug Brooks, the president of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group representing Blackwater and other military contractors, said that in his view, military law would not apply to Blackwater employees working for the State Department."[51]
Baghdad shooting controversy: On September 17, 2007, Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq was revoked, resulting from a highly contentious incident that occurred the previous day during which eleven Iraqis were killed.[9] The fatalities occurred while a Blackwater Private Security Detail (PSD) was escorting a convoy of US State Department vehicles en route to a meeting in western Baghdad with United States Agency for International Development officials. As of October 2007, several American and Iraqi investigations are being conducted on the incident.
Legal status: The legal status of Blackwater and other security firms in Iraq is a subject of contention. Two days before he left Iraq, L. Paul Bremer signed "Order 17"[52] giving all Americans associated with the CPA and the American government immunity from Iraqi law.[53] A July 2007 report from the American Congressional Research Service indicates that the Iraqi government still has no authority over private security firms contracted by the U.S. government.[54]
On September 23, 2007, the Iraqi government said that it expects to refer criminal charges to its courts in connection with a shooting involving Blackwater guards. [5]
Litigation: Blackwater is currently being sued by the families of the four contractors killed in Fallujah in March, 2004. The families say they are not suing for financial damages, but rather for the details of their sons' and husbands' deaths. They claim that Blackwater has refused to supply these details, and that in its "zeal to exploit this unexpected market for private security men, showed a callous disregard for the safety of its employees."[55] Four family members testified in front of the House Government Reform Committee on February 7, 2007. They asked that Blackwater be held accountable for future negligence of employees' lives, and that Federal legislation be drawn up to govern contracts between the Department of Defense and the defense contractor.[56] Blackwater has counter-sued the lawyer representing the empty estates of the deceased for $10 million on the grounds that the lawsuit was contractually prohibited from ever being filed.[57]
On April 19, 2006, The Nation magazine published an article titled, "Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater," concerning the lawsuit against Blackwater brought by some of the families of the four deceased employees.[58] The article discussed the removal of the word "armoured" from already-signed contracts, and other allegations of wrongdoing.
According to an Army report, in November 2004, a Blackwater plane, "in violation of numerous government regulations and contract requirements," crashed into a mountainside, killing all six aboard.[59] The families of the three soldiers killed — Lt. Col. Michael McMahon, Chief Warrant Officer Travis Grogan and Spec. Harley Miller — filed a wrongful death suit against Blackwater, alleging negligence. However, Presidential Airways, a division of Blackwater, questioned the hastiness of the Army's report, stating that it "contains numerous errors, misstatements, and unfounded assumptions."[59]
Post-Katrina involvement: Blackwater USA was employed to assist the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts on the Gulf Coast. According to a company press release, it provided airlift, security, and logistics and transportation services, as well as humanitarian support. It was reported that the company also acted as law enforcement in the disaster stricken areas, such as securing neighborhoods and "confronting criminals".[60]
Blackwater moved about 200 personnel into the area hit by Hurricane Katrina, most of whom (164 employees) were working under a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to protect government facilities,[61] but the company held contracts with private clients as well.
Overall, Blackwater had a "visible, and financially lucrative, presence in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as the use of the company contractors cost U.S. taxpayers $240,000 a day."[62] There has been much dispute surrounding governmental contracts in post-Katrina New Orleans, especially no-bid contracts such as the one Blackwater was awarded. Blackwater's heavily-armored presence in the city was also the subject of much confusion and criticism.[63]
Other employments: Blackwater USA is one of five companies picked by the Department of Defense Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office in a a five-year contract for equipment, material and services in support of counter-narcoterrorism activities. The contract is worth up to $15 billion. The other companies picked are Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Arinc Inc.[64]
Blackwater USA has also been contracted by various foreign governments. In 2005, it worked to train the Naval Sea Commando regiment of Azerbaijan, enhancing their interdiction capabilities on the Caspian Sea.[65]
Controversy and criticism: In March 2006, Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, allegedly suggested at an international conference in Amman, Jordan, that the company is ready to move towards providing security professionals up to brigade size for humanitarian efforts and low intensity conflicts. Critics have suggested this may be going too far in putting political decisions in the hands of privately owned corporations.[66] The company denies this was ever said.[67]
Critics consider that Blackwater's self-description as a private military company is a euphemism for mercenary activities.[21] Under international law, Americans working for Blackwater are not considered mercenaries while assisting the U.S. military, since the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Convention specifically declares that nationals of a state involved in a conflict are not considered mercenaries while fighting in that conflict.[68] However Jeremy Scahill reports that Chilean nationals, mostly former soldiers, whose country of origin does not participate in and actually opposes the occupation of Iraq, work for Blackwater in that country, thus meeting the operational and most restrictive definition of a "mercenary."[69] Approximately six hundred former Chilean soldiers are currently hired by the USA to carry on military assignments, most of them motivated by the relatively high salaries.[70]
Author Chris Hedges wrote about the establishment of mercenary armies, citing Blackwater USA as an example of such a force, asserting their existence as a threat to democracy, and a step towards the creation of a modern day Praetorian Guard in a June 3, 2007 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.[71] The reference to a Praetorian Guard reflects critic Ben Van Heuvelen's observations about very close ties between Blackwater and the Bush administration, which he alleged had helped Blackwater to cover up other killings by paying off families of victims.[72]
Arms smuggling: On September 22nd, 2007, Federal prosecutors announced an investigation into whether Blackwater employees illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq, that were later possibly transferred to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Kurdish nationalist group designated a terrorist organization by the US, NATO and the EU.[73][74][75] The United States government is presently investigating Blackwater for these alleged crimes.[76]
Blackwater in fiction: The fictional company Ravenwood Security in the CBS drama series Jericho is said to be modelled after Blackwater USA.
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Stageleft:. Life on the [lower] left side » Blog Archive » Awh, They’re Not Best Buddies Anymore Says: The British Prime Minister announced a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, the White House announced they’re not best buddies any more, and started crapping on their performance - all we’re missing now are the threats of consequences. October 4th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Chuck Adkins » Thursday Open Thread and Open Trackback Says: It’s an Open thread and Open Trackback Posting Discuss what thou wilt. 10/04/07 11:40 am
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