Today’s Must ReadBlackwater: Above the law.
Yesterday we reported that not only is Blackwater immunized from liability under any Iraqi law, but the State Department has allowed it to operate under less restrictive rules of engagement than any other private military company. As a result, the State Department bears responsibility for the culture of impunity that resulted. Today The Washington Post adds more detail:
Blackwater “has a client who will support them no matter what they do,” said H.C. Lawrence Smith, deputy director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, an advocacy organization in Baghdad that is funded by security firms, including Blackwater.
The State Department allowed Blackwater’s heavily armed teams to operate without an Interior Ministry license, even after the requirement became standard language in Defense Department security contracts. The company was not subject to the military’s restrictions on the use of offensive weapons, its procedures for reporting shooting incidents or a central tracking system that allows commanders to monitor the movements of security companies on the battlefield.
“The Iraqis despised them, because they were untouchable,” said Matthew Degn, who recently returned from Baghdad after serving as senior American adviser to the Interior Ministry. “They were above the law.” Degn said Blackwater’s armed Little Bird helicopters often buzzed the Interior Ministry’s roof, “almost like they were saying, ‘Look, we can fly anywhere we want.’ ”
Last year, Congress passed a law placing contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the law that establishes legal conduct for U.S. forces. Little follow-on work has established what exactly that means for private security companies, however. While the Pentagon has issued a number of so-called fragmentary orders seeking to regulate the private security firms, Blackwater is exempt, since its contracts are with the State Department and CIA. Blackwater isn’t required to keep the U.S. military command informed of its operations or file incident reports to it.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry — which, lest we forget, is deeply corrupt itself — claims it has information on at least six incidents where Blackwater contractors fired on Iraqi civilians. On Sunday, Blackwater guards were involved in a murky incident in Baghdad’s Mansour neighborhood that resulted in at least nine dead Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi government claims Blackwater resulted to deadly force with minimal provocation. The State Department called Blackwater’s response a defensive measure resulting from an insurgent attack on a Blackwater-guarded diplomatic convoy. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called the incident a “serious crime.” A joint U.S.-Iraqi investigation has now been empaneled.
The Defense Department, stung by the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal and sensitive to allegations of further wrongdoing, has at least taken first steps to hold its security contractors in check. But its regulators see little reason to hold State contractors to the same standard.
“I’m not gonna go chasing after non-DoD organizations, going, ‘Uh, you didn’t submit an incident report for this,’ ” said Maj. Kent Lightner of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who monitors shooting incidents involving private security contractors under Defense Department contracts.
Peter, of the private security firms’ advocacy group, said the rules that govern companies often depend on who issued their contract. “There’s a different regulatory environment depending on who you work for,” he explained.
Earlier this week, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) accused Howard Krongard, the State Department’s inspector general, of scuttling investigations into Blackwater’s contract. If true, it would underscore what the official in charge of Iraq contracting for the Army Corps of Engineers told the Post about Blackwater’s operational style: “It’s obviously condoned by State and it’s what State expects, because they have contract oversight and if they didn’t like it they would change it.”
