On Sept. 16 private military contactors hired by the U.S. government opened fire on a crowd of innocent civilians in a congested Baghdad square. These men, working for a company called Blackwater USA, killed at least 17 people and wounded 24 more.
The bloody and unprovoked massacre raises questions about these "guards" (read: mercenaries) who the State Department pays to supplement American troops and protect diplomats. Seeing how unstable Iraq is already, employing these unscrupulous and unreliable -- not to mention expensive -- individuals, who have no personal stake in the military's success on the ground, appears downright irresponsible. All private military contractors, including Blackwater, should be recalled from Iraq immediately before they do more harm to a peaceful resolution.
As the investigations by both the U.S. and Iraqi governments continue, details have emerged that paint a grim picture of last month's bloodbath as only the latest and most deadly in a series of incidents involving Blackwater. Despite assertions by Blackwater officials that the guards were only defending themselves from attack, a report by the first American soldiers to arrive on the scene concluded that there was "no enemy activity involved." They also uncovered evidence that Blackwater guards even shot at people who had turned their cars around and were driving away from the square.
The pattern of Blackwater employees committing and then covering up atrocious acts of violence goes back years. In June 2005, an operator killed an innocent bystander and failed to report the shooting. On Christmas Eve 2006, a drunken contractor shot and killed a security guard for Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi. In internal State Department e-mails, the U.S. embassy debated how much Blackwater should pay to compensate the victim's family. They initially proposed $250,000, but one official called that "crazy" and said it could cause Iraqis to "try to get killed so as to set up their family financially." Blackwater eventually decided the man's life was worth $15,000.
Unfortunately, because the State Department refuses to hold Blackwater accountable for the actions of its contractors, the American military's ability to build trust with the Iraqi people remains compromised. Iraqis cannot be expected to have faith in a government that employs people described by an Army lieutenant currently serving in Iraq as "immature shooters" with "very quick trigger fingers." In the Washington Post one senior U.S. military official portrayed the Sept. 16 incident as a "nightmare" and indicated it may have a more detrimental long-term impact on Iraqi public opinion of the United States than did Abu Ghraib.
Since these private military contractors seem to undermine the explicit goals of the armed forces, a rational person would expect some major cost advantage to tolerating them on the battlefield. But Blackwater charges the United States $1,222 per day for one private contractor, according to the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The federal government has given Blackwater over $1 billion in the last six years for mercenaries who, at approximately $445,000 per year, cost over six times as much as a comparable U.S. soldier.
Just a guess here, but political cronyism might have something to do with the use of these expensive, ineffective mercenaries. Former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, who founded and owns Blackwater, has numerous connections to the Republican Party and President George W. Bush in particular. Prince's sister arranged over $100,000 in donations for Bush's re-election campaign in 2004 and her husband was the 2006 Republican nominee for governor of Michigan. Himself once a White House intern under President George H.W. Bush, Prince has personally contributed over $160,000 to the Republican National Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
After all, no legitimate reason exists to justify Blackwater's sustained employment. As long as the United States employs money-seeking individuals on the streets of Baghdad -- people who can shoot anyone at anytime with little to no consequences -- we should not be surprised when Iraqis turn to the insurgency for protection. Eliminating the use of companies like Blackwater remains one baby step in the right direction.
