thedrifter
10-05-07, 07:33 AM
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Blackwater's Backwash
Their legal status needs clarity, but Bush hasn't Rambo-ized Iraq.
Friday, October 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that military contractor Blackwater's presence in the Iraq region is irreplaceable. General David Petraeus has called the armed support key to defeating the counterinsurgency. So what exactly is the problem that has dominated Washington the last week? With no negative stone about Iraq left unturned, we take it as self-evident that if Blackwater's soldiers were committing widespread abuses, the story would have been on the front page of every newspaper long ago.
After a week, the controversy appears to have settled on the contractor's legal status. In fact, that looks to be the only serious issue at the center of the Blackwater story. Voting yesterday, the House Fed-exed a piece of overnight legislation that would bring the contractors under the jurisdiction of U.S. civilian courts. We hope the Senate will give its version of the legislative fix more than a day's thought.
Critics have said that reliance on contractors outside the military chain of command reduces accountability on the ground--leaving rogue soldiers without guardrails, answering only to corporate headquarters. Blackwater founder Erik Prince said in Wednesday's hearing that he would support further jurisdiction by U.S. courts. As it stands, the company can't punish anyone accused of a crime but only refuse to employ them.
Blackwater and others have continued to operate under a unique umbrella of diplomatic immunity from Iraqi law, a status originally granted them by Paul Bremer during the U.S.-led Coalitional Provisional Authority. Whether that immunity should continue is a legitimate question. What remains for the Senate to discover is exactly where the jurisdiction should reside.
No one is going to condone outright murder or crime by Blackwater or anyone else carrying a gun for the U.S. But let's be frank: Of the more than 130,000 contractors in Iraq, Blackwater's employees number only around 1,000. They specialize in providing security details for U.S. diplomats and other high-profile personnel (read: "targets") in a war zone. By all accounts, the private contractors have performed well: Not a single person under their protection has died.
It would be nice if there was just a smidgen of acknowledgment from the Democratic side of the aisle, or the parsons of the press, that these people are in a war zone, often spending their days on the knife edge between life and sudden death. Virginia Republican Tom Davis had the unusual political modesty to admit the Members didn't have enough information to know if these Blackwater stories are "the product of a dangerous cowboy culture or the predictable result of conducting high-risk missions."
Blackwater's Mr. Prince put some contextual numbers around the reported incidents. Since 2005, he said, the company has been in 195 shooting incidents. This year the company has guarded 1,873 convoys involving 56 shootings. To date, the company has fired 122 workers for breaking rules. One other detail: More than 30 of Blackwater's people have been killed doing these jobs. One of the most searing images of the Iraq war is the four Blackwater employees in 2004 being mutilated and dragged through the streets of Fallujah.
From General Petraeus's perspective, by taking on critical but peripheral security functions, Blackwater employees and other firms' contractors free the U.S. military to focus on more productive missions, such as securing Baghdad's neighborhoods. If contractors didn't perform these functions, the U.S. military deployment in Iraq would have to be even larger than it is. This relationship is a far cry from the Capitol Hill spin that President Bush has unilaterally Rambo-ized the U.S. military.
The legal status of these workers needs to be clarified, and the Senate ought to take a deeper look than the 24 hours of non-thought the House gave the issue. We doubt putting them under civilian court jurisdiction makes much sense; investigations would be arduous. There is logic in putting the contractors closer to the military's legal system. These people by and large are mature troops who served in elite special ops units in military conflicts from the Gulf War to Bosnia. They know the existing rules.
We hope the Senate realizes that larding on yet another new layer of bureaucracy in an active war zone to fix what we've learned the past week makes no sense.
Ellie
Blackwater's Backwash
Their legal status needs clarity, but Bush hasn't Rambo-ized Iraq.
Friday, October 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that military contractor Blackwater's presence in the Iraq region is irreplaceable. General David Petraeus has called the armed support key to defeating the counterinsurgency. So what exactly is the problem that has dominated Washington the last week? With no negative stone about Iraq left unturned, we take it as self-evident that if Blackwater's soldiers were committing widespread abuses, the story would have been on the front page of every newspaper long ago.
After a week, the controversy appears to have settled on the contractor's legal status. In fact, that looks to be the only serious issue at the center of the Blackwater story. Voting yesterday, the House Fed-exed a piece of overnight legislation that would bring the contractors under the jurisdiction of U.S. civilian courts. We hope the Senate will give its version of the legislative fix more than a day's thought.
Critics have said that reliance on contractors outside the military chain of command reduces accountability on the ground--leaving rogue soldiers without guardrails, answering only to corporate headquarters. Blackwater founder Erik Prince said in Wednesday's hearing that he would support further jurisdiction by U.S. courts. As it stands, the company can't punish anyone accused of a crime but only refuse to employ them.
Blackwater and others have continued to operate under a unique umbrella of diplomatic immunity from Iraqi law, a status originally granted them by Paul Bremer during the U.S.-led Coalitional Provisional Authority. Whether that immunity should continue is a legitimate question. What remains for the Senate to discover is exactly where the jurisdiction should reside.
No one is going to condone outright murder or crime by Blackwater or anyone else carrying a gun for the U.S. But let's be frank: Of the more than 130,000 contractors in Iraq, Blackwater's employees number only around 1,000. They specialize in providing security details for U.S. diplomats and other high-profile personnel (read: "targets") in a war zone. By all accounts, the private contractors have performed well: Not a single person under their protection has died.
It would be nice if there was just a smidgen of acknowledgment from the Democratic side of the aisle, or the parsons of the press, that these people are in a war zone, often spending their days on the knife edge between life and sudden death. Virginia Republican Tom Davis had the unusual political modesty to admit the Members didn't have enough information to know if these Blackwater stories are "the product of a dangerous cowboy culture or the predictable result of conducting high-risk missions."
Blackwater's Mr. Prince put some contextual numbers around the reported incidents. Since 2005, he said, the company has been in 195 shooting incidents. This year the company has guarded 1,873 convoys involving 56 shootings. To date, the company has fired 122 workers for breaking rules. One other detail: More than 30 of Blackwater's people have been killed doing these jobs. One of the most searing images of the Iraq war is the four Blackwater employees in 2004 being mutilated and dragged through the streets of Fallujah.
From General Petraeus's perspective, by taking on critical but peripheral security functions, Blackwater employees and other firms' contractors free the U.S. military to focus on more productive missions, such as securing Baghdad's neighborhoods. If contractors didn't perform these functions, the U.S. military deployment in Iraq would have to be even larger than it is. This relationship is a far cry from the Capitol Hill spin that President Bush has unilaterally Rambo-ized the U.S. military.
The legal status of these workers needs to be clarified, and the Senate ought to take a deeper look than the 24 hours of non-thought the House gave the issue. We doubt putting them under civilian court jurisdiction makes much sense; investigations would be arduous. There is logic in putting the contractors closer to the military's legal system. These people by and large are mature troops who served in elite special ops units in military conflicts from the Gulf War to Bosnia. They know the existing rules.
We hope the Senate realizes that larding on yet another new layer of bureaucracy in an active war zone to fix what we've learned the past week makes no sense.
Ellie