About Blackwater USA - The Republican Praetorian Guard : Melbourne Indymedia

from the front page of the Blackwater USA Web Site

Blackwater USA is the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world.
Blackwater USA comprises nine separate business units to offer the most comprehensive professional security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world.
VISION
To support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.
MISSION
To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times.
Blackwater is committed to the foot soldiers -- the men and women who stand on the frontlines of the global war on terror and who believe in a peaceful future for their communities and nations. Whether serving in or out of uniform, Blackwater is committed to providing these men and women with the very best in training and tactical support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet current and future global security challenges.
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from SourceWatch entry on Blackwater USA

Blackwater USA is a private military contractor offering "tactical training," firing range and target systems, and security consulting under the company's subdivisions: Blackwater Training Center, Blackwater Target Systems, Blackwater Security Consulting and Blackwater Canine. According to its website, Blackwater provides "a spectrum of support to military, government agencies, law enforcement and civilian entities in training, targets and range operations as a solution provider." Their slogan is: "Providing a new generation of capability, skills, and people to solve the spectrum of needs in the world of security."
Blackwater USA was co-founded by former Navy Seal Erik Prince, a "billionaire right-wing fundamentalist Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family. A major Republican campaign contributor, he interned in the White House of President George H.W. Bush and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992. He founded the mercenary firm Blackwater USA in 1997 with Gary Jackson, another former Navy SEAL."
Erik Prince is "the secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder of Blackwater, the private security firm that has built a formidable mercenary force in Iraq," Chris Hedges wrote December 31, 2006, in Truthdig. Prince "champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is deceitful, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. These mercenary units in Iraq, including Blackwater, contain some 20,000 fighters. They unleash indiscriminate and wanton violence against unarmed Iraqis, have no accountability and are beyond the reach of legitimate authority. The appearance of these paramilitary fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gave us a grim taste of the future. It was a stark reminder that the tyranny we impose on others we will one day impose on ourselves."
"A number of senior CIA and Pentagon officials have taken top jobs at Blackwater, including firm vice chairman Cofer Black, who was the Bush Administration's top counterterrorism official at the time of the 9/11 attacks (and who famously said in 2002, 'There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves came off.')," Ken Silverstein, wrote September 12, 2006, in Harper's Magazine.
In fall 2005, Robert Richer "resigned from the post of Associate Deputy Director of Operations; he immediately took a job as Blackwater's Vice President of Intelligence. Richer is a former head of the CIA's Near East Division and long served in Amman, where, for a period beginning in 1999, he held the post of station chief. For years he was the agency's point man with Jordan's King Abdullah, with whom he developed an extraordinarily close relationship," Silverstein wrote.
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from Blackwater USA Web Page

Blackwater Global Stability Solutions
Blackwater USA, has a proven track record of superior advisory support to government agencies and private organizations. We are in position across the globe ready to provide rapid planning consultation, rapid mobility/logistics, and security assistance support in areas devastated by war or natural disasters.
Our thousands of highly specialized global stabilization professionals form the backbone of our consulting and services support capabilities. Blackwater Global Stability Solutions approaches every challenge with focused analysis. We pride ourselves on providing solutions that are practical, economical, timely and effective.
When you require a solution in real time - Blackwater delivers!
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from Four Hired Guns in an Armored Truck, Bullets Flying, and a Pickup and a Taxi Brought to a Halt. Who Did the Shooting and Why? A Chaotic Day On Baghdad's Airport Road By Steve Fainaru Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, April 15, 2007.

On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, four private security guards rolled out of Baghdad's Green Zone in an armored SUV. The team leader, Jacob C. Washbourne, rode in the front passenger seat. He seemed in a good mood. His vacation started the next day.
"I want to kill somebody today," Washbourne said, according to the three other men in the vehicle, who later recalled it as an offhand remark. Before the day was over, however, the guards had been involved in three shooting incidents. In one, Washbourne allegedly fired into the windshield of a taxi for amusement, according to interviews and statements from the three other guards.
Private contractors were granted immunity from the Iraqi legal process in 2004 by L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government. More recently, the military and Congress have moved to establish guidelines for prosecuting contractors under U.S. law or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but so far the issue remains unresolved.
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From a Q & A with WashingtonPost Staff Writer Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, April 3, 2007. following The War Over the War

New Orleans: What can you tell us about the continued use of Blackwater USA personnel in security positions in Iraq (and elsewhere)? Are they being used as a mercenary army? Thank you.
Thomas E. Ricks: The role of Blackwater USA and other private security personnel (I think they used to be called 'mercenaries') is a big frustration for me. I think historians will look upon the presence on the battlefield of of thousands of armed but non-military people as one of the distinctive characteristics of this war.
So I wish I knew more about it. How many "private shooters" are there now? What are their relations with the U.S. military? Do they treat Iraqis differently than U.S. troops do? Have they had a net negative effect, or a net positive effect, and how would that be measured? If we had a bigger military, would we need them?
I quote Marine Col. T.X. Hammes in 'Fiasco' as worrying about the private security guys because they didn't have duty to the country in their job description. For example, he said, a bodyguard's job is to keep his principle alive. And if that means driving on sidewalks in downtown Baghdad, or pointing his weapon at every Iraqi he sees, than he might do that, even if such actions undercut the American effort by alienating Iraqis.

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Revolving Door to Blackwater Causes Alarm at CIA Washington Babylon by Ken Silverstein September 12, 2006 Harpers Magazine

Blackwater USA, the private security contractor that has operated in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and New Orleans, has been booming the past few years. Founded in December of 1996, the company spent its early years "paying staff with an executive's credit card and begging for customers," according to the Virginian-Pilot. But today, Blackwater reportedly has revenues of about $100 million annually, almost all of it from government contracts, and maintains "a compound half the size of Manhattan and 450 permanent employees," according to the newspaper.
How did Blackwater rise so high, so fast? The "war on terrorism" got the ball rolling for the firm, but one suspects that political connections played a big part as well. Erik Prince, Blackwater's founder, is a former SEAL who is deeply involved in Republican Party politics. Since 1998, he has funneled roughly $200,000 to GOP committees and candidates, including President Bush. In 2004, Blackwater retained the Alexander Strategy Group, the PR and lobbying firm that closed down earlier this year due to its embarrassing ties to Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. (Paul Behrends, a former national security adviser to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, handled the account for Alexander. After the firm shut down, Behrends moved on to a firm called C&M Capitolink, and took the Blackwater account with him.)
A number of senior CIA and Pentagon officials have taken top jobs at Blackwater, including firm vice chairman Cofer Black, who was the Bush Administration's top counterterrorism official at the time of the 9/11 attacks (and who famously said in 2002, "There was before 9/11 and after 9/11. After 9/11, the gloves came off.") Robert Young Pelton, author of the new book, Licensed to Kill , says that an early Blackwater contract-a secret no-bid $5.4 million deal with the CIA-came in 2002 after Prince placed a call to Buzzy Krongard, who was then the CIA's executive director.
A CIA source with whom I spoke said that Prince is very tight with top agency officials and has a "green badge," the security pass for contractors who have access to CIA installations. "He's over there [at CIA headquarters] regularly, probably once a month or so," this person told me. "He meets with senior people, especially in the D.O." (The D.O., or Directorate of Operations, runs covert operations; last year, it was absorbed by the newly created National Clandestine Service.)
Prince's visits are probably one reason that the revolving door to Blackwater keeps turning. Last fall, Rob Richer resigned from the post of Associate Deputy Director of Operations; he immediately took a job as Blackwater's Vice President of Intelligence. Richer is a former head of the CIA's Near East Division and long served in Amman, where, for a period beginning in 1999, he held the post of station chief. For years he was the agency's point man with Jordan's King Abdullah, with whom he developed an extraordinarily close relationship. "There have been some ups and downs in our relationship with Jordan, but the king has always been on good terms with the CIA," said a person familiar with the situation. "The king's primary relationship is always with the CIA, not the American ambassador."
The CIA has lavishly subsidized Jordan's intelligence service, and has sent millions of dollars in recent years for intelligence training. After Richer retired, sources say, he helped Blackwater land a lucrative deal with the Jordanian government to provide the same sort of training offered by the CIA. Millions of dollars that the CIA "invested" in Jordan walked out the door with Richer-if this were a movie, it would be a cross between Jerry Maguire and Syriana. "People [at the agency] are pissed off," said one source. "Abdullah still speaks with Richer regularly and he thinks that's the same thing as talking to us. He thinks Richer is still the man." Except in this case it's Richer, not his client, yelling "show me the money." (Richer did not return a phone call seeking comment.)
Meanwhile, there's talk at the agency that Blackwater is also aggressively recruiting Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's current top spy as director of the National Clandestine Service. Rodriguez has a number of former agency friends at Blackwater, most notably Rick Prado, with whom he served in Latin America and who is now Blackwater's Vice President of Special Programs.
One of my sources told me that agency employees have voiced concerns to CIA director Michael Hayden about the Blackwater revolving door. "In a situation like this, there are too many opportunities for people to scratch each others' backs," he said.
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from Home truths about Bush's Iraq war Alan Ramsey Sydney Morning Herald April 21, 2007

Helen Liddell arrived in Canberra last July as the Blair Labor Government's appointee as British High Commissioner to Australia. She used to be a minister. This week, in a speech to our National Press Club, Liddell had the temerity to tell the inconvenient (if obvious) truth about the invasion of Iraq.
"We have never seen Iraq as part of the war on terrorism," she told her audience on Wednesday, in answer to a question. "Certainly, at the moment, we are engaged in a war on the streets in Afghanistan, in Iraq, against terrorism, but our raison d'etre for our involvement in Iraq has not been about terrorism. We have always said, all along, that you cannot defeat what is going on in some parts of the world today by military might alone ..."

Then there is Blackwater USA.
The weekly magazine The Nation was founded in 1865 and describes itself as "America's oldest and most widely read weekly journal of progressive political and cultural views, opinion and analysis". Ten of its 14 editorial executives are women, including the editor and publisher.
The magazine's April 2 issue ran a 5000-word extract, headlined "Bush's Shadow Army", from a new book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. The article makes the Post investigation of last July's shooting incidents in Baghdad look like child's play.
The author of the book is Jeremy Scahill "who reports on the Bush Administration's growing dependence on private security forces, such as Blackwater USA, and efforts in Congress to reign them in."
According to Scahill, when the former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned last December, there were an estimated 100,000 private contractors in Iraq.
Scahill writes: "Contractors have provided the Bush Administration with political cover, allowing the Government to deploy private forces in a war zone free of public scrutiny, with the deaths, injuries and crimes of those forces shrouded in secrecy. The Administration in turn have shielded contractors from accountability, oversight and legal constraints. 'We have over 200,000 troops in Iraq, and half of them aren't being counted,' says the Democrats' Dennis Kucinich, a leading congressional critic of war contracting."
Of the "shadowy mercenary company, Blackwater USA", Scahill writes: "Blackwater has secured a position of remarkable power and protection within the US military apparatus. This company's success represents the realisation of the life's work of the conservative officials, including Rumsfeld, who formed the core of the Bush Administration's war team. While initial inquiries have focused on the complex labyrinth of secretive subcontracts under which it operates in Iraq, a thorough investigation into the company reveals a frightening picture of a politically connected private army that has become the Bush Administration's praetorian guard.

"Blackwater was founded in 1996 by conservative Christian multimillionaire and ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy Michigan family whose generous political donations helped fuel the rise of the religious right and the Republican revolution of 1994. At its founding, its vision was 'to fulfil the anticipated demand for government outsourcing in firearms and related security training.' In the following years, Prince, his family and his political allies poured money into the Republican campaign coffers, supporting the party's takeover of Congress and the ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency.
"Almost overnight, following September 11, the company would become a central player in a global war. In just a decade Prince has expanded his headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina, to 7000 acres [2800 hectares], making it the world's largest private military base, with 2300 personnel in nine countries and 20,000 other contractors at the ready ..."
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666 THE DEVIL (GEORGE WARMONGER BUSH) : "Sorry to Oil the Blackwater Mercs in Afganistan, the Blackwater Mercs in Iraq, the Blackwater Mercs in Lebanon, the Blackwater Mercs in Iran, the Planted Bombs in Iraqi Cars by Blackwater Mercs, and the Privatized Oil For Bombs Program in Afganistan, Africa, Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon but Oil comes First. HOOK 'EM HORNS ??????????"