The Iraqi government says that 11 people were killed in that Sept. 16 incident, which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called killings in “cold blood.” But it is almost certain that no one will ever be charged for the deaths. Al-Mayahi, 45, knows why. He says he immediately suspected who was to blame—gunmen from the most notorious private security company in Iraq, Blackwater USA. Like others among the feared fleet of private security contractors guarding Westerners in Baghdad, Blackwater employees are not covered by either American or Iraqi law, and are generally spirited out of the country whenever a hint of scandal emerges. “People are afraid of [contractors] more than the American Army,” says newspaper editor Ismail Zayer. “Some Iraqis call them ‘blond gorillas’.”
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell did not return several calls made to her office. But in a statement, Blackwater said that its employees had acted “lawfully and appropriately” on Sept. 16, adding: “The ‘civilians’ reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies … Blackwater professionals heroically defended American lives in a war zone.”
Even so, other eyewitness accounts tend to support al-Mayahi’s version of events—that Blackwater started shooting unprovoked—and even President George W. Bush acknowledged at a news conference late last week that “evidently some innocent lives were lost.” After an enraged Maliki declared that the company would be thrown out of Iraq, however, he received a call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who advised him that without the security protection provided by 30,000 guards from Blackwater and other private firms, the U.S. occupation would grind to a halt. She and Maliki later agreed to a joint U.S.-Iraqi commission to look into the behavior of these companies, and Blackwater-escorted convoys resumed a few days later.
This was not the first time innocents had allegedly suffered at the hands of Blackwater men. Last Christmas Eve a Blackwater contractor, reportedly drunk, shot and killed an Iraqi guard for Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi in the Green Zone. In May 2005, Blackwater guards fired at a car while escorting two U.S. Embassy employees in downtown Baghdad, killing one Iraqi. An investigation showed the guards violated procedures and they were sent home. Maliki said last week the government knew of at least seven cases involving contractors killing Iraqi civilians.
The administration anticipated that using contractors who are not subject to the Military Code of Justice—and therefore courts-martial—could be a problem. As far back as 2003, the then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld convened a task force led by Under Secretary of Defense David Chu to consider new rules that might be needed to govern the privatization of war. But little was done to implement its recommendations on managing contractors on the battlefield. Then L. Paul Bremer III, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator, inadvertently compounded the problem two days before he left Iraq in June 2004 when he signed a blanket order immunizing all Americans. “We wanted to make sure our military, civilians and contractors were protected from Iraqi law” once the country achieved sovereignty, one of his former top aides told NEWSWEEK, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is in another line of work today. And because of legal loopholes, these private armies can’t be prosecuted under U.S. law either. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, which permits charges to be brought in U.S. courts for crimes abroad, applies only to Defense Department contractors (and even then the administration has rarely used it). Blackwater, among others, works for the State Department. Some congressmen, like Rep. David Price of North Carolina, are now introducing legislation that would make State Department contractors liable to prosecution.
Washington has relied on private security firms in Iraq more than in any other previous war because of the huge size of the civilian occupation—tens of thousands of workers—and because of the strains the insurgency has placed on America’s all-volunteer Army. Blackwater, which was cofounded by ex-Navy SEAL and longtime Republican donor Erik Prince, has always been first among equals, its ranks filled with retired Delta Force members, Green Berets and SEALs. And no one questions that Blackwater is effective—the company boasts that it has never lost an official it has been guarding. But it has suffered serious losses of its own. The most prominent were the four contractors killed and then dragged through the streets of Fallujah in April 2004. The killing triggered the first major U.S. attack on the insurgent stronghold. In all, about 30 Blackwater contractors have been killed in Iraq.
Yet Blackwater’s tactics are so aggressive that even other contractors criticize the company. “A lot of guys who worked for Blackwater had an all-knowing mind-set,” says David Casler, who worked for a year with another security firm in Iraq. “They were kind of overcocky.” After the families of the four men killed in Fallujah sued Blackwater, claiming that the company failed to provide them with the armored vehicles and other security measures it promised, the firm countersued, saying it was immune from lawsuits as well as criminal prosecution. “These contractors continue to get away with murder,” Kathryn Helvenston-Wettengel, the mother of one of those killed, told a congressional committee last Friday. The Bush administration’s reliance on private companies like Blackwater may be undermining the president’s surge plan, which applies counterinsurgency principles that require winning over the local population. Instead, Blackwater is seen by many Iraqis as the face of a malignant occupation—and U.S. diplomats, no matter their good intentions, are tarred by association.
