It's Not the Blackwater Cowboys, But Cowboy Diplomacy

In an op-ed in Friday's Christian Science Monitor, I argue that that a key piece has been absent in the debate over Blackwater, namely, they're working as an agent of the State Department, under a very permissive Mission Firearms Policy:

But the issue isn't an overly aggressive contractor. It's the State Department's zero tolerance for casualties of its employees in Iraq. Such an approach makes tragedies such as the September episode more common – and it marginalizes the lives of innocent Iraqis who just might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Placing so many diplomats and civil servants on nation-building assignments in the middle of a civil war has a high price – perhaps too high, as officials at State have finally started to acknowledge.

It's no surprise that diplomats are afraid to go to Iraq, but the problem is much deeper.   State's fear of casualties is actually the cause of the Blackwater issue and it's hindering the mission in Iraq.

And there is a larger danger in how State is handling the Blackwater situation:  that outsourcing becomes a way for the government to hand off its grittier work to a contractor, letting the contractor take the heat when things go badly and skirting responsibility for its own policies and practices.  This is but one of the many risks is the haphazard manner the government has outsourced our national security, a topic I lectured on this week as a guest of extremely gracious hosts at the Robert S. Strauss Center for the Study of National Security and Law and the LBJ Library at the University of Texas. 

Comments

[dave]

hey, wonderful blog, just read about you in yet another article...though i'm confused - is this just a blackwater blog? i don't see any articles on diligence llc (another retirement home for agency figures)...

btw, i like that black leather jacket pic - has a sorta 'cagney and lacey' feel to it ;)

[phil]

The French Foreign Legion gets paid about 15% of what Blackwater mercenary gets and they are better trained. Maybe we should subcontract with the Legion and save some cash to pay off the 2.5 trillion dollars Bush has spent that he did not have in these long 7 years of his reign.

[R J Hillhouse]

Dave,

I cover both outsourcing of military and intel in this blog. Blackwater has dominated discussions of late due to the topicality of the issue. And keep in mind Blackwater is very involved in CIA contracting.

For intel related posts are filed in the following categories:

CIA
Intelligence Community and
private intel corporations.

RJH

[Retired]

Phil wrote: "The French Foreign Legion gets paid about 15% of what Blackwater mercenary gets and they are better trained." This just isn't true, it's a glib, sarcastic statement based on ignorance, at least of Blackwater. For the most part, Blackwater is much better trained for the mission that they are paid to undertake. Furthermore, they are much better equipped for their specific mission than the French Foreign Legion could ever hope to be.

By the way, I've been shot at by the French Foreign Legion (and others, for that matter). If it had been Blackwater doing the shooting in the same situation, I would be dead.