In This Article
30 Second Summary
Headline Links: The Iraqi investigation and the number of contractors in Iraq
Background: Blackwater profiled, the growth of military outsourcing, past controversies, and Blackwater in New Orleans
Analysis: The politics surrounding the controversy, legal accountability, and the State Department’s role
Reactions: Prime Minister Maliki, President Bush, and the Iraqi response
Opinions: Do military contractors have enough oversight?
Historical Context: Military contractors in history
Reference Material: Blackwater’s Web site, the IPOA Code of Conduct, and Iraqi casualties
Related Topics: Congress could bring accountability to contractors
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Baghdad Firefight Raises Questions About Contractors
by
findingDulcinea Staff
A shooting involving private military contractor Blackwater USA leaves at least eight Iraqi civilians dead, and prompts renewed scrutiny of the role private-sector security firms play in the Iraq War.
30 Second Summary
On Sunday, September 16, Blackwater USA security contractors opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Iraqi witnesses allege the shooting was unprovoked, prompting an investigation into the incident by the Iraqi government.
Blackwater personnel claim that their convoy was “violently attacked” by armed insurgents, and that they fired only in self-defense.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has questioned their version of the events. An investigation by the Interior Ministry argues that the guards shot and killed a couple and their infant without provocation.
The controversy has prompted lawmakers to re-evaluate the legal status of security contractors in Iraq.
Currently these private security forces operate outside of international, Iraqi, and U.S. military and civilian law, making it very difficult to identify which, if any judicial body actually governs them.
However, Iraq and the United States are both trying to change that. Congress is currently considering a law that would put military contractors within reach of American law, and the Iraqi government may rescind an order that gives the companies immunity from Iraqi law.
Blackwater personnel claim that their convoy was “violently attacked” by armed insurgents, and that they fired only in self-defense.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has questioned their version of the events. An investigation by the Interior Ministry argues that the guards shot and killed a couple and their infant without provocation.
The controversy has prompted lawmakers to re-evaluate the legal status of security contractors in Iraq.
Currently these private security forces operate outside of international, Iraqi, and U.S. military and civilian law, making it very difficult to identify which, if any judicial body actually governs them.
However, Iraq and the United States are both trying to change that. Congress is currently considering a law that would put military contractors within reach of American law, and the Iraqi government may rescind an order that gives the companies immunity from Iraqi law.
Headline Links: The Iraqi investigation and the number of contractors in Iraq
Although it remains unclear what prompted Sunday’s shooting incident, a report conducted by the interior and defense ministries of Iraq refutes the security company’s claim that it was ambushed by insurgents, stating instead that its security guards fired on a car containing a civilian couple and their infant child after it disobeyed a policeman’s call to stop. The report concludes that “the Blackwater company is considered 100 percent guilty through this investigation.”
Source: The New York Times
The Columbia Journalism Review's blog, The Kicker, points out that the major U.S. newspapers are offering inconsistent estimates on how many private security contractors are currently in Iraq. Paul McLeary writes that "according to the best estimates by our major newspapers, it’s somewhere between six thousand and fifty thousand." McLeary attempts to address the 44,000-person discrepancy by listing the estimate reported by each newspaper.
Source: The Columbia Journalism Review
Background: Blackwater profiled, the growth of military outsourcing, past controversies, and Blackwater in New Orleans
Blackwater’s headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina is home to the largest private military training facility in the world. Founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, today Blackwater is one of the most well–known military outsourcers in the world. Weekly Standard writer Mark Hemingway profiles the company, its founder, and the growing business of military outsourcing.
Source: The Weekly Standard
Military contractors began to proliferate after the end of the Cold War when the United States and other Western governments drastically reduced the size of their militaries. Since then, the U.S. military has increasingly turned to these companies to fill its personnel gaps. PBS’s Frontline’s carefully examines military outsourcing in the Iraq War with its special report, “Private Warriors.” Frontline’s Web site makes available the full program and transcripts.
Source: Frontline
In November of 2005 a group of contractors recorded a video of themselves shooting indiscriminately at Iraqi civilians and posted it on the Internet. The video appeared on a site unofficially connected to the Aegis Defense Services company, and depicted contractors firing machine guns at two civilian cars to the soundtrack of Elvis Presley’s “Mystery Train.”
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
In September 2005, The Washington Post published an article examining what it deemed to be a lack of contractor oversight in Iraq. The article quoted Brigadier General Karl R. Horst, deputy commander of the Third Infantry Division responsible for Baghdad security, as saying that contractors “run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place."
Source: The Washington Post
In May of 2005 U.S. Marines stationed in Fallujah detained contractors from the Zapata company for firing at Iraqi civilians and Marines. The men were never charged, but upon their release complained of being abused and mistreated during their 72-hour detention. The incident highlighted what appeared to be growing animosity between military personnel and their private-sector counterparts.
Source: Global Policy Forum
Blackwater made headlines in September of 2005 when its personnel were deployed to post-Katrina New Orleans. The company was hired by a division of the Department of Homeland Security to protect government facilities, but created a stir when two of its employees reportedly told Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill that they had been deputized by the governor to make arrests and use lethal force.
Source: The Virginian-Pilot
Analysis: The politics surrounding the controversy, legal accountability, and the State Department’s role
Peter W. Singer, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, explains why this incident and its political aftermath have been a long time in coming: “The inevitable part [of this incident] was not just the shootings, but the government's reaction … Private contractors are a visible and especially disliked part of the US presence in Iraq. So a good way for Iraqi government officials, who are often depicted as stooges of the US, to try to burnish their nationalist credentials is to go after the contractors. They can make it look like they are standing up to the big bad outsiders, but not do so against U.S. troops.”
Source: The Brookings Institution Web site
Salon.com examines the legal status of military contractors working in Iraq. Focusing on whether contractors found to have committed a crime in Iraq could be prosecuted under International, Iraqi, U.S., or military law, the article finds that contractors exist in a legal gray area that offers few options for prosecution: “U.S. law ... is hopelessly murky ... The introduction of private contractors into Iraq was not accompanied by a definitive legal construct specifying potential consequences for alleged criminal acts.”
Source: Salon.com
In June 2004, then head of the Coalition Provisional Authority L. Paul Bremer, issued an order granting immunity from Iraqi laws to all contractors working for coalition governments. The order is titled CPA Order 17, and makes it highly unlikely that any contractor will be tried in an Iraqi court. The official Web site of the CPA offers the full text of Order 17 as a PDF file.
Source: The official Web site of the Coalition Provisional Authority
In July of 2007, the Congressional Research Service released a report examining contractor legal status under U.S. Law titled “Private Security Contractors in Iraq, Background Legal Status, and Other Issues.” The CRS found that not only is it “possible that some contractors may remain outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, civil or military, for improper conduct in Iraq,” but even referred to “the U.S. government’s practical inability to discipline errant contract employees.” The full text of the report is available as a PDF file on the Web site of the Federation of American Scientists.
Source: The Federation of American Scientists Web site
On January 23, 2006 the International Law Society at Duke Law School held a panel discussion “the role of private firms in American endeavors, paying particular attention to implications for thelaws of war, human rights and contemporary concerns about abuses.” Jurist offers a video recording of the panel formatted for RealPlayer.
Source: Jurist
Talking Points Memo looks at the State Department’s culpability in the Mansour incident. According to military contracting researcher Richard Young Pelton, Blackwater’s rules of engagement “are set by State [the State Department] and are different than other security contractors who use the Military Rules of Engagement and Rules of Force … State went from a kinder, gentler Rules of Force (they [Blackwater] were told to shoot flares, throw water bottles or wave a flag to warn off motorists) to shoot if a threat is imminent with no warning shots required … It’s incorrect to portray Blackwater as a lone actor in all this.”
Source: Talking Points Memo
Reactions: Prime Minister Maliki, President Bush, and the Iraqi response
After hearing the Interior Ministry’s preliminary report on the shooting, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that he would “not tolerate the killing of our citizens in cold blood.” Maliki went on to say that the shooting was “the seventh of its kind,” and that the government will work “to reveal to the world whether those killed were armed or innocent.”
Source: USA Today
In a press conference President Bush said he would reserve judgment of the Blackwater incident until an American investigation was complete. Bush went on to say that “to the extent innocent life was lost, you know, I'm saddened … Our objective is to protect innocent life. And we've got a lot of brave souls in the theater working hard to protect innocent life."
Source: The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Following the Iraqi government’s decision to temporarily ban Blackwater personnel from operating in Baghdad, the U.S. embassy halted all ground travel for diplomats within the city. The decision prevents all U.S. diplomats and civilian officials from land travel outside Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone.
Source: National Public Radio
Opinions: Do military contractors have enough oversight?
The Roanoke Times writes that Sunday’s shooting has made clear “that oversight of security contractors is lacking. Congress and the Iraqi government must work together to close a gap in accountability for the actions of an armed force beyond the reach of military justice … The U.S. has long recognized the gap but has not dealt with it effectively. Now, after at least nine people were killed in a firefight in a Baghdad neighborhood involving North Carolina-based Blackwater USA, an angry Iraqi government has said ‘enough.’ But it lacks the strength and authority to act as a sovereign power.”
Source: The Roanoke Times
In March of 2006 Doug Brooks, the President of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group representing Blackwater and other companies doing business in Iraq, wrote a letter to the editor of the Raleigh News & Observer arguing the legal accountability of military contractors: “IPOA members are professional companies that have decided to take the lead in bringing improved standards, increased accountability and more responsible U.S. and international regulation to the peace and stability industry. All IPOA members have agreed to support a Code of Conduct and to acknowledge and respect the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the body of international humanitarian law contained in both the Hague and Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols.”
Source: The Web site of the International Peace Operations Association
Historical Context: Military contractors in history
Foreign Policy writer Deborah Avant sheds some historical light on the role of military contractors in war: “Before the rise of the nation-state, nearly all force was contracted. From the 12th century through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, military contractors often employed soldiers trained within feudal structures, sending them to whomever could pay, from Italian city-states to the Vatican.”
Source: Foreign Policy
Reference Material: Blackwater’s Web site, the IPOA Code of Conduct, and Iraqi casualties
Blackwater is one of the largest security contractors in Iraq, employing more than 1,000 people there. The company is responsible for the personal security of U.S. diplomats and protecting the U.S. Embassy and airport and border security. Blackwater also operates in Afghanistan. Reuters provides a factsheet on the company and its activities.
Source: Reuters
The International Peace Operations Association’s Code of Conduct is meant to “ensure the ethical standards of International Peace Operations Association member companies operating in conflict and post-conflict environments so that they may contribute their valuable services for the benefit of international peace and human security.” The text of the code goes on to encourage its signatories to follow “all rules of international humanitarian law and human rights law.” The full text of the Code is available on the IPOA Web site.
Source: The Web site of the International Peace Operations Association
Blackwater USA’s Web site offers information on the company and the services it offers.
Source: The Web site of Blackwater USA
According to IraqBodyCount.org, there have been 72,596 – 79,187 documented civilian deaths from violence in Iraq since the invasion in 2003.
Source: Iraq Body Count
Related Topics: Congress could bring accountability to contractors
Congress is considering legislation that would not only make contractors subject to American law, but would force the companies to disclose the details of their operations to the government. The bill is called H.R. 369, The Transparency and Accountability in Security Contracting Act of 2007, and is sponsored by Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.).
Source: National Public Radio
A detailed summary and the full text of H.R. 369, The Transparency and Accountability in Security Contracting Act of 2007 is available from WashingtonWatch.com and the Library of Congress.
Source: WashingtonWatch.com
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