The Spy Who Billed Me

Blackwater Shoots NYT Dog

As Twain once said, "never pick a fight with a man who buys his ink by the barrel."  It's an even worse idea to kill his dog.  In the latest development in the Blackwater saga  Blackwater killed the New York Times' dog and the State Department is investigating the shooting.  (Like I said, you can't make this stuff up.)

According to Reuters, Blackwater claims the shooting was defensive in order to protect the lives of it's K-9 and K-9 handler:

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the dog had attacked one of Blackwater's bomb-sniffer dogs while a security team was sweeping the compound for explosives.

"The K-9 handler made several unsuccessful attempts to get the dog to retreat, including placing himself between the dogs. When those efforts failed, the K-9 handler unfortunately was forced to use a pistol to protect the company's K-9 and himself," she said in an e-mail to Reuters.

Blackwater has been slow to learn how to work with the media and once again, they've missed an opportunity.  Sure, it's a PR disaster when one of your guys shoots a newspaper's dog at Christmas time (but not as bad as last year's shooting of the Iraqi Vice President's bodyguard.)   But damage can be controlled.  Since it's the holidays, I thought I'd give Blackwater a little present--some free spin advice for my friends in Moyock. 

It's probably a good time to yank your Blackwater K-9 training video from the web that shows just how cuddly BW pooches are, at least when in action.  Watching a German Shepard viciously attack a guy in a padded suit doesn't exactly bolster the sweet heroic dog under attack image you want to portray.

It's also a good time to put a little PR spin into the story.  Try this one:

A semi-feral dog that begged for scraps in the Baghdad New York Times compound attacked Fluffy (rebrand, or rather rename her if you have to), a Blackwater certified bomb-sniffing dog who has been credited with saving multiple lives with her keenly trained nose.  Fluffy, a 3 year-old orphan rescued from a North Carolina puppy mill by Blackwater, was carrying out her job when Hentish ambushed her.

"I tried everything," the Blackwater K-9 handler said.  "I love dogs.  The last thing I ever want to do is kill a dog, but this is war. That mongrel was about to rip Fluffy to pieces."

A Blackwater Little Bird pilot risked his life to fly to the NYT compound and evacuate Fluffy to the Combat Support Hospital in the International Zone where she was turned away because of her species.

Fluffy's wounds were treated in the Blackwater compound.  She's expected to make a full recovery.

It might not hurt to throw in some of Fluffy's training from the BW website.  It also woudn't hurt to respond to this blogger's queries.

Stay tuned for the escalation of the latest Blackwater shooting incident.  My prediction: an Iraqi Ministry of Interior press conference in which they claim they're revoking the Blackwater dog's license and ordering it out of the country.

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?   

CSI: Blackwater

A federal grand jury has been convened to investigate the September 16th Blackwater shootings at Nisoor Square.  Fox News is reporting that the subpoenas were issued under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA.)  MEJA creates jurisdiction for contractors for federal court trials--or so goes the thinking at this point, but it's unclear which specific statutes might apply to the wrongdoing itself.  Possibilities here include War Crimes Act, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, the Anti-Torture Statute, the Defense Base Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and creative prosecutors could find other potentially applicable statutes in US and international laws.  Suffice it to say, it's a legal gray area, but if the political will is there, statutes will undoubtedly be found.

The New York Times observes:

The opening of the grand jury inquiry is a significant step in the case because it indicates that prosecutors believe that there is enough evidence of wrongdoing to warrant a formal criminal investigation.

Evidence of wrongdoing is one thing.  Admissible evidence from a foreign war zone quite another.

The New York Times reported that the FBI investigation in Baghdad faced severe limitations, not least of which was their arrival on the unsecured crime scene two weeks after the event.  They were unable to determine the overall number of fatalities nor could they use videotapes or pictures of the scenes because it was unknown if it had been altered.  The NYT wrote:

Bodies of a number of victims could not be recovered. Metal shell casings recovered from the intersection could not be definitively tied to the shootings because, as one official described it, “The city is littered with brass.”

The FBI investigators also did not have access statements taken from Blackwater Tactical Support Team members.

And this is the most carefully investigated incident involving contractors in the Iraq war--as good as CSI Baghdad gets.   

Steve Fainaru at the Washington Post reports that the mandate of the grand jury is much broader and that subpoenas have been issued to several security corporations operating in Iraq.   There will be plenty to look into because, four and a half years into the war, it's safe to say that all  security firms have been involved in instances in which civilians have been killed.  Most have been involved in several.   

I am not a lawyer, but it seems that crime scenes have not preserved; witnesses are unknown and Iraqi police aren't well trained in detective work, not to mention they have their own murky agendas.  Even if evidence gathered by a foreign government could be admitted in a US court, it seems unlikely there would be enough that could withstand scrutiny to lead to a conviction--after all, Iraq is littered with brass.   ("If the brass doesn't fit, you must acquit.")

But standards for grand juries are much lower and critics claim that grand juries are inclined to follow the prosecutor's leads, so it's quite possible that contractors will eventually be put on trial, ointment for our conscience over an awkward outsourced war that was sometimes fought by civilians, against civilians.

The Blackwater February 7th Shooting Explored

The Washington Post's Steve Fainaru has produced another excellent article on private contractors in Iraq, this time examining a lesser-known Blackwater February 7th shooting.  Fainaru focuses upon the Iraqi perspective, giving nod to the official US government position, which, as expected, exonerates Blackwater:

U.S. officials were "overwhelmingly convinced" that the Blackwater guards acted appropriately, based on information they had provided, according to the diplomatic security official.

Clearly, State believes that Blackwater is performing its contract within specifications, underscoring that the entity that should be taking the heat is the State Department and its aggressive protection of its staff.

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My apologies to my regular readers for such a down-and-dirty post, but I'm running to catch a plane.

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. 

Will Infamous Merc Tim Spicer Monitor Blackwater's CIA Missions?

The New York Times  is reporting today that all State Department security convoys  will now be subject to Department of Defense coordination.  Department of Defense security contractors are already coordinated through a single, DoD entity, the Regional Operations Centers  which track movement of security convoys to make sure they and the military don't trip over one another.  Most likely this existing mechanism will be expanded to monitor Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp convoys for the Department of State and this would raise some interesting questions since its known that BW and TC also provide security services to the CIA under this contract.

The US Regional Cooperation Offices are outsourced through a recently renewed $475 million contract to the British firm Aegis.  Aegis is run by the infamous old-school mercenary, Tim Spicer. 

In order to make this work, the Agency will obviously require some form of firewall between Spicer and Agency operations, perhaps best achieved through special space set aside at the Regional Cooperation Offices to which cleared Americans, including CIA liaison elements have access.

It is, however, quite ironic that Department of State and Defense's idea of bringing greater accountability and oversight to Blackwater could end up being in the hands of a man who is arguably the world's most famous living mercenary.

Heckuva job, Condi!

Update:  Both reader Tom Griffin and Noah Schachtman from Wired's blog The Danger Room remind me that Aegis was the company whose workers filmed the infamous trophy video of themselves shooting civilian vehicles to the tune of Elvis' "Runaway Train."

Bureau of Diplomatic Security Gives Immunity to Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Blackwater Contractors

According to the Associated Press, State Department investigators of the September 16h Blackwater Nisoor Square shooting have granted limited immunity to Blackwater operators who were present at the incident.  The Mainstream Media reports missed the fact that the State Department's investigators are from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the very bureau of the State Department that contracts with Blackwater for the services in question and that is responsible for operational control of those missions. Regardless of whether that's a good or bad idea, it's one that smacks of a serious conflict of interest.

This is a milestone in government outsourcing.  To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time a contracting agency has ever granted legal immunity to a contractor or contractors employees faced with potential criminal penalties. 

As their contract monitors,  the Bureau of Diplomatic Security would have known if the Blackwater operators were doing their jobs as prescribed by contract with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and via the very aggressive Mission Fire Plan-- a plan that allowed point-and-spray marksmanship--or lack thereof.  My suspicion is that Diplomatic Security knew that Blackwater operators were working within established State guidelines, even though this resulted in significant loss of live and perhaps this was a diplomatic way out.  Regardless, it should raise red flags for everyone concerned with government accountability in in the new age of national security outsourcing.

Why Does Anyone Trust the Ministry of Interior on Blackwater?

The Iraqi Ministry of Interior has just leaked its own report of the Nisoor Square incident to Newsweek and the press seems to be lapping it up with little skepticism.  I've been avoiding analysis of the actual shooting since it's so darn murky and there are so many different agendas, but when reading the information from the Ministry of Interior, keep in mind it's hardly an objective source, but has its own convoluted interest in the matter.  To provide some context, recall that the Ministry of Interior was the intelligence arm of Saddam's Baath party, as in the secret police and it was not dissolved and rebuilt from scratch like the Ministry of Defense.  Here's what the Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq found:

"It has been described as an "11-story powder keg of factions," that has been plagued by battles for influence among political parties, religious groups, the existing government, and tribes and families."  The security environment at the MOI is so dangerous that when Western officials visit the ministry they frequently wear body armor and move only under heavily armed escort.

These are the guys who have been associated with death squads, among other things.  It's at all out of the question that they, or some of their factions, would want to oust a company that has been associated with the CIA, particularly if that would affect the Agency's ability to conduct the covert side of the war.  In fact, it might be one of the the few things that can actually get consensus among the quarreling factions.

 

Concurrently, Blackwater has issued an unprecedented call to arms among its supporters.  It's hard to say whether this is an internal assessment of how bad things are politically for the company or part of its new offensive public relations campaign or most likely both, but Blackwater is requesting that its supporters contact their Congressional representatives, "Pass the word. Pass the truth."  In a letter to its 15,000 plus mailing list, it wrote:

The Blackwater family is comprised of dedicated and active service providers that work vigorously to support the American nation. In this tumultuous political climate, Blackwater Worldwide has taken center stage, our services and ethics aggressively challenged with misinformation and fabrications. Letters, e-mails and calls to your elected Congressional representatives can and will create a positive impact by influencing the manner in which they gather and present information. 

While we can’t ask that each supporter do everything, Blackwater asks that everyone does something. Contact your lawmakers and tell them to stand by the truth. Correspondence should be polite and professional. We don’t support generating negative messages. Tell the Blackwater story and encourage your representatives to seek the truth instead of reading negative propaganda and drawing the wrong conclusions.

It cannot be a good sign for them that the first head has fallen today and it was ambassador level:  the State Department's Chief of Diplomatic Security resigned.   BW supporters had better get their Congressional reps on speed dial.

The Spy Who Briefed Me

 

Political Correctness Hits a War Zone: State Department Panel Recommendations on Iraq Security Contractors.  You gotta read it to believe it.  The panel's recommendations include cultural sensitivity training for the protective security detail gunslingers in Iraq.  They also suggest the creation of a "Go Team" to rush to the site of any weapons discharge to investigate whether or not it was justified.  This does open up possibilities for a CSI Baghdad, it doesn't seem the best of ideas to rush investigators into a hot zone where teams have just found the need to use weapons.  Seems like it would have been a safer idea to suggest rushing to the site only in cases where the contractor fired first.  Regardless, if implemented as suggested, the "Go Team" is going to be quickly renamed to the "Go Get Ambushed Team" once the insurgents clue in to the process.  Which will raise interesting questions as to who will be dashing off to investigate weapons discharges from the "Go Team's" security guys when they are inevitably attacked? 

Some of the committee's recommendations are quite good, such as tightening up the rules of engagement to match that of the military.  The Department of State has already announced that the mission firearms policy is being amended to include that, "he or she must fire only aim shots, fire with due regard for the safety of innocent bystanders, and make every effort to avoid civilian casualties."  No more point and spray the AK way.  That's one of those things you've got to wonder why it wasn't in there before.

 

Blackwater finally defends itself over Fallajuah.  The Waxman committee has been pulling down Blackwater's pants regularly for weeks.  Finally we're starting to see some pushback and interestingly, the company provides new details on something it's been tightlipped about for over three years due to pending lawsuits:  the massacre of its four contractors in Fallujah.  Blackwater provides new details, suggesting the team was ambushed with the cooperation of the Iraqi police.

Last Friday, Waxman sent a letter to Blackwater, asking for details of the company's records that seem to me to amount to just about every electronic or paper document the corporation has produced over the last ten years, including privileged and confidential exchanges with attorneys.  On Monday he then went after them on IRS regs concerning wage and hour laws and in his request somehow he managed to work in the Christmas Eve shooting.  Waxman also cites boilerplate confidentiality clauses in a standard settle agreement in a labor complaint as evidence that Blackwater, "has tried to conceal the IRS ruling and the evasion of taxes from Congress and law enforcement officials." 

I didn't know better, I'd think he wasn't objectively providing Congressional oversight, but instead Waxman was out to get those BW guys. 

 

CIA Director Grades the Agency on the Curve.  And Whadda ya know.--he gives it an A+.  Monday night on PBS's Charlie Rose show D/CIA Hayden stated, "If we were comparing our intelligence services to the intelligence services around the world, and we were grading on a curve, we'd have to give ourselves an A-plus."

Grading on the curve?  Geez, what's next, using the Montessori school methods for the Career Trainees at the Farm?   Group hug.

 

Kudos to The Spy Who Billed Me.  In a comparative review of two recent books on the Agency, the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson Center's Wilson Quarterly calls CIA outsourcing "perhaps the most pressing and widely overlooked intelligence policy issue" and "The Spy Who Billed Me, a blog by political scientist R. J. Hillhouse, is a most instructive source on this trend." 

Hook 'em Horns.  I will be delivering a lecture,“Who Controls the CIA? The Dangers of Outsourcing” a week from Thursday, on November 1, 2007 at 5:00pm on the 10th Floor of the LBJ Library in the Brown Room at the University of Texas in Austin.  Austin area readers can find details here. 

Help Wanted for Controversial Blackwater Contract

In a sign that Blackwater is not planning on leaving Iraq anytime soon, on Thursday Blackwater posted a job opening for a "WPPS Regional Coordinator,"  a key management position for the controversial Worldwide Personal Protective Service II (WPPS II) contract with the Department of State.  The position is responsible for staffing and equipping  the contract and for supporting the in-country project manager.  Although the administrative position is based at Blackwater's headquarters in Moyock, NC, given where Blackwater currently holds task orders under the WPPS, the responsibilities are almost certainly for the Iraq contracts.

The administrative position is responsible for proactively anticipating staffing changes, making sure the contract is fully staffed and all other contractor issues.  According to the job announcement, that may include such issues such as pay, emergency leave, and arranging medevacs.   However, we know from a memo from Majority Staff to the Members of the House Oversight Committee, that the job can get much more interesting than that.  Blackwater experiences some rather unique personnel problems that the average HR professional doesn't exactly see every day, such as "inappropriately firing at Iraqis" and, my personal favorite, "proposing to sell weapons to the Iraqi government." 

Regardless of whether the job of protecting diplomats in a war zone is done by Blackwater, another contractor or Diplomatic Security's own staff, they are all going to draw from the same personnel pool and they are all going to experience similar personnel problems.  Let's face it, when you staff gunslinger jobs in a war zone, you have to pick from a rough crowd.  What's important is how the incidents are handled and whether the bad behavior is tolerated because of pressure to keep the contracts fully staffed in order to avoid stiff financial penalties as stipulated in the contract.  To be fair to Blackwater, they do have a demonstrated history of terminating staff for personnel problems under the WPPS II contract:   

Termination of Blackwater Personnel

Weapons Related Incidents	28
Drugs and Alcohol Violations	25
Inappropriate/Lewd Conduct	16
Insubordination	11
Poor Performance	10
Aggressive/Violent Behavior	10
Rules Violations	8
Failure to Report an Incident/Lying	6
Publicly Embarrassing Blackwater	4
Security Clearance/Classification Issues	3
PTSD	1
Total	122

According to the aforementioned memo, over the contract period (approximately 2 years.) Blackwater has terminated the equivalent of one-seventh of its total current workforce in Iraq.  (To make their math work, this is most likely referring to personnel category of personal security specialists only.)   

Aside from the "Publicly Embarrassing Blackwater" category which probably is embarrassing Blackwater by now, this does seem to indicate that Blackwater management sets and enforces behavioral limits upon its staff.  (Any manager will know how much it hurts to fire staff when faced with chronic personnel shortages, particularly when those staff are required to have security clearances.) 

If you have a business degree and military background and you're still polishing that resumes, there is one caveat that should be taken very seriously given recent events:  you must be capable of handling "a fast-paced and changing environment."

CYA experience a plus.