This morning Rep. Waxman’s (D-CA) committee is taking testimony from Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and others about the private military contracting in Iraq. TPMmuckraker’s Spencer Ackerman is in the committee room and he’ll be providing live coverage through the day at TPMmuckraker.com. For more on Prince’s extensive background in Republican politics click here.
Late Update: Okay, it seems Mr. Prince has served up his first of what will likely be an endless bevy of bamboozlement. He says …
“Since the Revolutionary War, private contractors have supported our military by providing training, equipment, logistical support, and security. Some private contractors, such as the “Flying Tigers” of World War II, are iconic American success stories.”
Let me start by saying that this is definitely not my area of expertise. And we’ll be looking for more information, and bringing it to you. But calling the Flying Tigers private contractors is at best a severe distortion of history. The head of the group, Claire Chennault, was a military advisor to Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek before the US entry into WWII. President Roosevelt secretly authorized Chennault to recruit retired US military aviators to create a unit that would harry the Japanese from the rear. The reason this was done clandestinely was because the US was not yet at war with the Japanese and thus couldn’t act openly. I believe they were eventually folded into the Army. It’s a complex topic. But whatever else Chennault was, he wasn’t a precursor of Erik Prince.
