So about those four American 'civilians' killed in Iraq yesterday...

I still don't get how it saves money. It probably doesn't. It is just the defense department and CIA privatizing itself so they can make some real cash after they get their government retirement.

Don't get me wrong, I think decreting the bodies of ANYONE is nasty and terribly inhumane. It is just that situations like this and that plane getting shot down in Colombia a few months back make you wonder what the hell is the government doing.

I'm only questioning the general idea of the government outsourcing muscle, which in the long run cannot be good for anybody. Are we heading into some "Count Zero" serious pro mercenaries for corporate hire? It unfortunately seems that way.

Is another good article that discusses this surge of mercenary activity.

Indeed, whereas there were fewer than 10 PMCs in the United States two decades ago, today there are more than 30. Many are based in northern Virginia, giving them close access to Pentagon officials. Reston, Va.-based DynCorp, one of the larger companies, saw its revenues increase by more than 15 percent in 2002. According to Ed Soyster, former head of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and now a spokesman for Alexandria, Va.-based Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), his PMC has grown from eight employees in 1988 to more than 900 today.

it seems we're sowing the seeds of civil war quite actively...

One big advantage of these corporate mercsecurity outfits is to give military officials a certain amount of invisiblity, deniability, and unaccountability. If this story starts getting more press, how much longer will those advantages last?

And of course, we have the predictable yahoos on the right now screaming about how we just level Fallujah, burn the buildings, salt the earth, etc.

I really don't see anything subversive about it.

It's hard to say, since none of the news reports that I've seen have identified who Blackwater's clients were on that particular job.

ha ha ha ha
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hm

Bingo. There are "revolving doors" between the Federal executive, military, and intelligence sectors and the Beltway Bandits. Millar, who left the Air Force with a nice high security clearance to take a job with some such company, is a much less egregious example of this.

BTW, CSC acquired DynCorp last year, which led to me doing work on a couple proposals for CSC/DynCorp services. I probably should not talk in detail about the proposals I've seen, but the comfort with the idea of commercial outsourcing can be staggering.

And then of course, the more aware I've become of the current scale of outsourcing, how long do you think it will be until nation-building is simply contracted out to Halliburton or another such corporate behemoth?

Yes. The American taxpayer foots the bill for quite a lot of things funneled through DoD to proxy security forces. There's a considerable industry devoted to it, an industry which has been around for quite some time.

You can make a lot more money as a proxy or contractor than a soldier, obviously.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53059-2004Apr5.html

Some relevant passages (but don't miss the rest of the article):

The four men brutally slain Wednesday in Fallujah were also Blackwater employees and were operating in the Sunni triangle area under more hazardous conditions -- unarmored cars with no apparent backup -- than the U.S. military or the CIA permit.

One senior Blackwater manager has described those killings to U.S. government officials as the result of a "high-quality" attack as skilled as one that can be mounted by U.S. Special Forces, according to a copy of a report on the incident obtained by The Washington Post.

The four victims of that attack, according to Blackwater spokesman Chris Bertelli, were escorting trucks carrying either food or kitchen equipment for Regency Hotel and Hospitality. Regency is a subcontractor to Eurest Support Services (ESS), a division of the Compass Group, the world's largest food service company.

ESS provides food services to more than a dozen U.S. military dining facilities in Iraq, according to news accounts.

Blackwater, a security and training company based in Moyock, N.C., prides itself on the high caliber of its personnel, many of whom are former U.S. Navy SEALs. It has 450 employees in Iraq, many of them providing security to CPA employees, including the U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, and to VIPs visiting Iraq.

If you want to read something that is very illuminating, track down Eisenhower's fairwell address as President.

Blackwater back in the news again in a big way.

BBC NEWS
Blackwater 'arms smuggling probe'
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether staff from controversial US security company Blackwater smuggled weapons to Iraq, according to reports.

Some employees are alleged to have sent over unlicensed weapons and equipment, that could have been used by a group labelled as terrorist by the US.

The North Carolina-based firm said it was not aware of such an investigation.

But it confirmed two members of staff were sacked in August 2005 for stealing company property in the US.

Blackwater was blamed for a Baghdad gunfight in which 11 civilians died last Sunday.

The contractor had its licence to operate in Iraq withdrawn by the Iraqi authorities following the shootout, but resumed limited operations on Friday.

The News and Observer in North Carolina quoted two sources as saying officials were investigating whether any Blackwater staff had shipped weapons, night-vision scopes, armour, gun kits and other equipment to Iraq, without the required permits.

BLACKWATER USA FACTS
Founded in 1997 by a former US Navy Seal
Headquarters in North Carolina
One of at least 28 private security companies in Iraq
Employs 744 US citizens, 231 third-country nationals, and 12 Iraqis to protect US state department in Iraq
Provided protection for former CPA head Paul Bremer
Four employees killed by mob in Falluja in March 2004

The newspaper said that, in January, two former members of staff with the firm had pleaded guilty in Greenville, North Carolina, to weapons charges and the pair were now co-operating with federal investigators.

The allegations of weapons smuggling in Iraq by a North Carolina firm came to light earlier this week in a written statement from the state department's inspector general, Howard Krongard.

In July, Turkey complained to the US that they had seized American weapons from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist organisation by Washington.

Investigators are reportedly attempting to determine if any Blackwater weapons could have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of the PKK.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government was also investigating if Blackwater had been involved in six other violent incidents in Iraq that left at least 10 people dead, according to the Washington Post's Saturday's edition.

'Hazy situation'

An Iraqi interior ministry investigation found Blackwater to be "100% guilty" of last weekend's incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians were killed.

Blackwater insists its guards acted in self-defence.

A spokeswoman for the company said on Saturday that they had called in investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after finding two Blackwater employees stealing company property in August 2005.

The members of staff were dismissed and then criminally prosecuted in connection with offences in the US, said the spokeswoman.

Responding to allegations that Blackwater employees were the subject of an Iraq arms smuggling probe, the spokeswoman told the BBC News website: "We are aware of that report and we have yet to see definitive proof that the firm in question is Blackwater.

"I'm not saying it's not, as sometimes these things can happen, but it's a hazy situation."

Regarding Saturday's Washington Post report, Blackwater said it was based on one-sided information from the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7008058.stm

Published: 2007/09/22 15:36:16 GMT

© BBC MMVII

And another:

Yahoo! News
Back to Story - Help
Iraq expands Blackwater investigation

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago

Iraq's Interior Ministry has expanded its investigation into incidents involving Blackwater USA security guards amid the furor following a shooting that claimed at least 11 lives, a ministry spokesman said Saturday.

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said the Moyock, N.C.-based company has been implicated in six other incidents over the past seven months, including a Feb. 7 shooting outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad in which three building guards were fatally shot.

Khalaf said other incidents include: a Sept. 9 shooting in front of Baghdad's municipal government building that killed five people and wounded 10; a Sept. 12 shooting that wounded five on the capital's Palestine Street; a Feb. 4 shooting near the Foreign Ministry, in which Iraqi journalist Hana al-Ameedi died; a May shooting near the Interior Ministry that claimed the life of a passer-by and a Feb. 14 incident in which Blackwater employees allegedly smashed windshields by throwing bottles of ice water at cars.

"These six cases will support the case against Blackwater, because they show that it has a criminal record," Khalaf told The Associated Press.

Blackwater USA spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell had no comment when reached by phone Saturday morning.

An Interior Ministry report into the Sept. 16 shooting at Baghdad's Nisoor square has been handed to the country's judiciary, Khalaf added. But it was not clear if Iraqi courts can raise charges against Blackwater, whose personnel enjoy immunity from law here.

The report concluded Blackwater guards were not attacked and initiated the shooting, first killing a driver who had failed to heed a traffic policeman's call to stop. It was based on the testimony of those wounded at Nisoor Square, Iraqi police accounts from the scene and video footage from a camera at the police headquarters nearby, he said.

Iraqi witnesses have said that some victims were fatally shot when they abandoned their vehicles in panic and tried to run or crawl to safety. Blackwater has said its guards were returning fire from insurgents and acted appropriately.

Khalaf has suggested that the guards involved in Sunday's incident should be prosecuted but not the entire company.

According to Khalaf, eight died at the scene and 15 were wounded, three of whom later died in hospital. He said other security companies have "committed violations" in Iraq but all "apologized for these violations, met the families of the victims and compensated them, something Blackwater hasn't done."

The killing outraged many Iraqis, who have long resented the presence of armed Western security contractors, considering them an arrogant mercenary force that abuses Iraqis in their own country.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is in New York, said he would discuss the case with President Bush next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Authorities in Anbar province, meanwhile, announced the arrests of 25 people linked to the assassination of the leader of the U.S.-backed revolt by Sunni Arab tribesmen in the western Anbar province against al-Qaida in Iraq.

The detainees included the head of the security detail that was supposed to protect Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, killed in a bombing Sept. 13 at his compound near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, said Lt. Col. Jubeir Rashid, an Iraqi police officer in Anbar.

Rashid said Abu Risha's security chief, Capt. Karim al-Barghothi, confessed and said al-Qaida in Iraq had offered him $1.5 million for the slaying, but he was arrested before he could collect the money.

According to Rashid's account, al-Barghothi allowed a suicide car bomber into the compound minutes before Abu Risha was due to enter. The bomber pretended to be parking but detonated his explosives as the tribal leader's vehicle passed about 20 yards away, Rashid said.

Another suspect confessed to filming the operation, he said.

Maj. Jeff Pool, a U.S. spokesman for American troops in western Iraq said the information was in line with what the military knew about the arrests.

The U.S. military earlier said an al-Qaida-linked militant — identified as Fallah Khalifa Hiyas Fayyas al-Jumayli, an Iraqi also known as Abu Khamis — connected to Abu Risha's death and a plot to kill other tribal leaders, had been arrested during a raid north of Baghdad. Pool said two other suspects were arrested in the raid.

Abu Risha's killing — just 10 days after his meeting with Bush — dealt a blow to one of the few success stories in U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq. The tribal leader brought together Anbar sheiks into an alliance against extremists, after years of American failure to tame flash points such as Ramadi and Fallujah.

Two other bodyguards as well as some of Abu Risha's neighbors also had been detained, Iraqi police said. Al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for the assassination.

Elsewhere Saturday, gunmen ambushed an Iraqi police checkpoint in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing one officer and wounding five others, according to authorities. A civilian also was killed in Khalis, a Shiite enclave near Baqouba in the volatile Diyala province, when gunmen opened fire on his car.

U.S. troops killed seven suspected insurgents and detained an operative believed to have knowledge about the whereabouts of al-Qaida in Iraq leaders south of Baghdad, the military said.

The military said seven militants were killed and weapons and military-style assault vests were found at the site in Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad.

The troops also detained 12 suspected insurgents, including a militant believed to have been responsible for the movement of senior al-Qaida in Iraqi leaders and to have extensive knowledge of their whereabouts, the military said.

An al-Qaida umbrella group in Iraq posted a video recording on showing the killing of five kidnapped Iraqi army officers.

The footage, posted by the Islamic State of Iraq, shows a masked gunman shooting the blindfolded officers in the back of the head with a pistol. The officers' hands are bound behind their backs during the shooting.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.