New Rules for Blackwater

The Departments of State and Defense have finalized their agreement governing the operations of private security contractors, including Blackwater.  The New York Times reports:

The agreement requires all State Department convoys in Iraq to coordinate their movements with the military’s main operations center in Baghdad, sets minimum standards for training the contractors and outlines when armed guards may use force in self-defense.

It's doubtful that monitoring the movements of contractors will have any real effect upon contractor accountability, except to assist in pinpointing which contractors are involved in an incident, something that has not been in issue with Blackwater, a company with a very distinctive footprint. 

The main operations center in Baghdad which the article states will be coordinating their movements almost certainly refers to the Regional Operations Center (ROC) which are run by Tim Spicer's company Aegis.  The ROC already monitors the movement of contractors working for the Department of Defense.  It's questionable whether this actually will have any net effect other than increasing the amount of the $475 million Aegis contract.  Military personnel who have worked with the ROC have told me that they're virtually useless in real time, but it is good at providing historical data of where contractors have been. 

Establishing minimum training standards is also unlikely to make any difference because the WPPS II contract itself requires a rigorous training program, an area in which Blackwater excels.

The real impact is the shift in the rules for the use of force, something that has already been implemented.  The NYT reports: 

He [the acting head of diplomatic security, Gregory B. Starr] told Blackwater operators that “there needs to be clearer indicators” that an approaching car might hold potential suicide bombers before the contractors could open fire, according to a Blackwater employee who attended the Nov. 14 meeting in Baghdad.

  There need to be "clearer indicators"???  Perhaps we could require placards in their windows, Baby Bomb on Board? 

Such indicators, Mr. Starr told the contractors, include cars that have a single driver but ride unusually low on their suspensions due to the weight of explosives.

The problem is, as the rules of the use of force are tightened, it will open up new vulnerabilities for insurgents to exploit.  So how long will it take for the bad guys to remember that important lesson from kindergarten, the buddy system?   

Comments

[anon]

You said:

"Military personnel who have worked with the ROC have told me that they're virtually useless in real time, but it is good at providing historical data of where contractors have been"

The service is an off-the-shelf real-time GPS tracking service, as any large logistics company might use. Any vehicle with the system fitted has their location displayed centrally in near- real time.

When a bad man shoots at them, they press an alarm button so that their location is immediately available and status known.

Therefore, the system clearly can do real-time gps, as well as keep historical records.

[Retired]

How high did Starr say that the bomb-carrying lowriders had to hop before they were considered to be dangerous? Must contractors carry yardsticks to measure the height before they open fire, or can they just guestimate?

[stormulf]

Yeah, right. These silk pants bastards love to make up the rules don't they. Not one of the mad MFer's have ever been in the AO though. Lets hear a little battle rattle from the sad scum making up the rules...sight unseen. A little ISR might do the COIN some good. They have no COIN, though...just a lot of bildge water. Beltway bandits...right.

[AndyC]

The GPS system mentioned is far from perfect; we hit one contact coming into Baghdad near the Vortex (a big spaghetti-junction) and hit the panic-button. Once we got safely into base, we did our usual after-action debrief and found that the GPS, for all its supposed accuracy, placed us 5 clicks away from where we were actually jumped.

As for Mr Gregory B. Starr, let him run a few convoys as a trunk-monkey and see if he can do any better at guessing which vehicles are VBIEDs - I look forward to learning something new.

[Retired]

Good God! Al Qaeda is here! I was in LA yesterday and there were swarms of cars that met the Starr criteria: Low to the ground and with a single male driver. And they had speakers in their wheel wells so that you could hear what was playing on their sound system.

Funny thing, though. They were moving real slow and seemed to be looing for something along the side of the street. If I didn't know better, I'd think that they were cruising for chiqs.

[DJS]

GIVE STARR A CHANCE, HE JUST
GOT THE JOB.

[Carlos]

Gregory Starr is an incredibly intelligent level headed individual that was pushed into this position. He is an expert on these subjects and has been in a position to observe these indicators on many an occasion, some of which have been extremely dangerous. I think he did an excellent job and will continue to do so in the future.

[run your car on water]

blackwater definitely needs rules this is so scary.