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Privatizing Terror, Outsourcing
Diplomacy
By Wajahat Ali
10/13/07 "Counterpunch" --- - The international outcry over the
recent Blackwater shootings forced the world to closely examine
and appreciate the complex reality of the United States
government's overdependence on private military contractors
operating in Iraq. The foremost expert and most cited authority
on the subject is Peter Warren Singer, a senior fellow at the
prestigious Brookings Institute, co-founder of "The U.S. Policy
towards the Islamic World" Program, and author of the seminal
work on private military contractors, "Corporate Warriors." This
interview, his most recent, examines the most current
repercussions caused by the Blackwater scandal and private
military firms within an overall context of The Iraq War, U.S.
Foreign policy in the Middle East, and America's public
relations with the Muslim world.
WAJAHAT ALI: Ok, the first
question is an easy one. A fastball right down the middle
regarding Blackwater (An American Private Military firm
contracted by the U.S. government to provide security in Iraq).
On September 16, Blackwater was involved in a catastrophic
shooting incident in Iraq's Nisoor Square leaving nearly 20
Iraqi civilians dead. Are you at all shocked or surprised by
this revelation?
P.W. SINGER: No. Short answer,
no. Long answer is that--look, I've been researching and writing
on private military firms for over a decade now. My book,
Corporate Warriors, dealt with this issue even before
the Iraq War. Since the war started the outsourcing of military
functions has been put on steroids not only in terms of
the growth of it, but also in terms of the negative aspects
coming out of that growth. The incident in question regarding
Blackwater needs to be put in a proper context. It's just one
company out of 181 other private military companies operating in
that space in Iraq. The incidents involving abuses of private
military contractors go back to the starting of the war. This
includes the incidents at Abu Ghraib (Torture Scandal) and the
private contractor Aegis Trophy's infamous video of 2005 (Aegis
employees posted a video online showing them shooting at Iraqi
civilians.) You also had the Triple Canopy shootings lawsuit in
'06. Blackwater is just one of the companies in the game.
Within Blackwater itself there
have been multiple incidents well before this most recent one.
An example is The Christmas Eve shooting where a Blackwater
contractor allegedly got drunk, got into an argument inside the
Green Zone with one of the Iraqi Vice President's security
guards, and then shot him and killed him. It's been over 10
months since that happened. Weeks before the Nisoor Square
September shooting, there were multiple incidents involving the
Iraqi Interior Ministry. There was one such incident where an
Interior Ministry employee was killed, one where there was an
armed standoff between Blackwater contractors and the Iraqi
police in which the U.S. military actually had to intervene. One
of the U.S. government officials, embedded in the Iraqi Interior
Ministry, described this as a "powder keg of anger." That powder
keg exploded several weeks later (The September Nisoor Square
shooting in Iraq). To answer your question, no, I wasn't
surprised. Absolutely not.
The Iraqi government had some
harsh words recently for Blackwater, publicly saying, "Blackwater
uses employees who disrespect the rights of Iraqi citizens even
though they are guests in the country." Could this statement
also describe the conduct of the U.S. forces and other American
private firms operating in Iraq?
The Iraqi government understands
that Blackwater is only one player within a much larger
industry--the Iraqis understand that also. They (Blackwater)
have become some sort of a symbol. If you ask most contractors,
I am dubious that they would see themselves as "guests of the
Iraqi government." Most see themselves carrying out a contract,
and the client in that contract is not the Iraqi government. It
usually is the United States government or United States
subcontractors. They view Iraqi governments with a great deal of
suspicion. Remember, we are talking about an Iraqi Interior
Ministry that just couple of weeks ago an investigation board
found to be completely corrupt. The Ministry acted basically as
a cover for a number of sectarian militias operating in Iraq,
and the recommendation of the investigation board was that the
best thing one can do for Iraq was to shut the Ministry down and
start over again. So there are a lot of fingers that can be
pointed in lot of directions.
At the end of the day, Iraq is
starting to act like sovereign state. Sovereign states want to
control the forces within their borders--that's what makes them
sovereign. That holds equally true for sectarian militia as it
does for private military firms operating out there. They are
outside the control of the government, or at least what should
be the control of government. The point is if Iraq is to be a
sovereign state, it needs to be resting control over this, and
to be honest, this is how you get the U.S. out of there--you let
Iraq have institutions that are able to carry out their jobs as
a government.
Has the global microscope on
the Blackwater scandal caused an overall strain between the
Iraqi and US governments? If so, what are the repercussions in
the "Muslim world" and also on the ground when dealing with the
Iraqi insurgency?
The United States government
aspect of it is - that the unfortunate truth is while
contractors are carrying out a number of critical and important
missions, the overall effect of their use has actually been
undermining rather than assisting U.S. operations and goals.
It extends all the way to tactical levels on the field to the
grand strategic world.
To the question of the
relationship between the Iraqi and U.S. government, it's very
interesting remember you need to put this into context. One week
before the shootings in Nisoor square (September '07), General
Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker (U.S. envoy to Iraq)
testified to Congress about the "surge strategy." Now, there was
huge debate whether the military aspects of the surge strategy
were being met or not. They really went back and forth on that.
Now, one thing they did talk about was the 43 Iraqi
citizens who were shot in Baghdad alone by private
contractors that same week. When we talk about what
President Bush refers to as a "Return to normalcy" in Iraq--this
doesn't feel all that normal, does it? There was no
debate at all about the political aspects. Everyone (in
Congress) on both sides of the aisle universally agreed that in
the year ahead we would have to press the Iraqi government to
finally take some action on the political benchmarks. The key to
the "surge strategy" success was dependant on this.
Now, let's move forward just one
week--within the span of that 20 minute Blackwater gun fight
(September '07 Nisoor Square shooting) --that whole strategy
falls by the wayside. A couple hours later, Secretary Condoleeza
Rice calls up Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, which is
extraordinary because she normally doesn't call him. When she
calls to speak with him personally, she doesn't press him on the
really important issues, such as, "We need you to pass the oil
law," or "We need you to deal with the amnesty issues"--both
critical political benchmarks.
Instead, she calls to express
her sympathies and to apologize for this Blackwater incident.
Over the next week, she and Ambassador Crocker have to keep
going back to the Iraqis, and they are almost actually
begging them to let Blackwater get back into business
(Resuming their routine operations in Iraq), because if
Blackwater can't operate, then the United States embassy is
effectively shut down. This is the complete vulnerability that
the United States has created for our operations there in Iraq
by depending on private contractors.
One week later, Bush meets with
Prime Minister Maliki face to face. They were already scheduled
to have this meeting, but now the whole point of the meeting
changes. Top of the agenda is no longer, "Prime Minister Maliki,
we really need you to get serious about these sectarian
killings, because if they don't end, we don't end this war, and
I don't get my troops home." Instead, top of the agenda is
Blackwater. So, basically this a manner in which private
contractor action completely skews the relationship between two
governments and undermines the overall strategy.
Now, the second question asks
what does this do to the broader, as some people like to say
"War of ideas," or however you want to phrase it, regarding the
broader Muslim world. And here, too, this is a complete hammer
to our image; a hammer to our public diplomacy. Some U.S.
military officers on the scene described this as "bad as Abu
Ghraib." I personally disagree with that, but it points to the
level of negativity. While private contractors are seen as
convenient, temporary manpower shift, it's a way of
dis-involving your public (American citizens), and it doesn't
play that way "outside" (Iraq). When incidents happen, the
Iraqis don't just focus on the private companies, instead they
blame the U.S. government.
The Blackwater "Nisoor Square"
shooting incident resonated negatively not only inside Iraq but
throughout the Muslim world. A variety of major media out there
in the Middle East like Al Jazeera reported on the Blackwater
contractors as "an army that seeks fame, fortune and thrills
away from all considerations and ethics of military honor. The
employees are known for their roughness, they are known for
shooting indiscriminately at vehicles or pedestrians." Even the
Daily Star, the regional English language newspaper which is
probably one of the most moderate voices in the region, compared
the uses of the company to the Mahdi army (Militant Shiite
insurgency in Iraq) and put the Mahdi army in a positive light
saying "at least they (The Mahdi army) can plausibly claim to be
defending their community. No foreign mercenary can plead
similar motivations. So, all of them should go." These are all
really major quotes, but the timing of it happens at the very
same moment that Secretary Rice is in the region trying to save
her historic legacy by jump starting the Arab-Israel peace
process. Most people would agree the Arab-Israel situation is
the real key in sucking the poison out of Muslim-U.S. relations.
And instead of her efforts being positive for any kind of U.S.
public diplomacy, every commentator (in Iraq) called the
conference she was attending "The BlackWater- Black Heart
Conference." It is just a hammer blow to our public diplomacy.
The second thing which is
fascinating to me is the reaction by Blackwater. While the Arab
press is roiling, and it's being covered in other parts of the
Muslim world like Indonesia and Pakistan negatively, how did the
company react?
That's a great lead in to a
question I have regarding Erick Prince, the chairman and owner
of Blackwater, who recently testified on Capitol Hill and
predictably defended his company's actions.
I was there for all 5 hours of
it.
Were you just steaming in the
back, fuming the whole time?
Yes (Laughs). To be
completely honest.
If you were on the panel,
what questions would you have asked? Some key questions you
thought were on point and went unasked by the panel?
Well the event played out two
ways. One side was craven and the other side was clueless. One
side kept going, "Mr. Prince tell us how great you are, tell us
how wonderful you are, tell us how special you are." The other
side asked questions that were scatterbrained, all over the
place, and didn't deal with the issue at hand. So, I have here a
couple of questions that would have been interesting if
answered.
I would have asked him bout the
series of incidents involving his company that date back to
2004. They range from sending out men on a mission to Fallujah
without proper equipment, vehicles, training, or even good
directions that led to their death, as well helping the Iraqi
insurgency.
A simple yes or no question
would have been, "Has your firm, based on these patterns of
incidents, faced any legal or disciplinary actions from the U.S.
government? Have they (the guilty contractors) ever been
prosecuted, or lost a contract, or been fined for anything based
on this?" Because it seems, as far as the record shows, that the
only people to take action, to create consequences when there
has been negative effect, has not been the folks (The
U.S. Government) paying these contractors. It's been three
groups only:
1) The four mothers of the
Blackwater employees killed in Fallujah.
2) The parents of the men
who were killed in the Blackwater plane crash that resulted
from their firm's actions in Afghanistan.
3) And now, The Iraqi
government that just got fed up waiting for our government
to do something.
Here's another question I
would've asked: "We understand that you fired the person that
got into a drunken argument on Christmas Eve and killed the
Iraqi Vice President's security guard. Our question is who flew
him out of the country? Which entity made the decision to get
that individual out of the country 36 hours after they
potentially committed a murder, which in effect assured
prosecution would be difficult and impede the investigation? Was
Blackwater operating under its own discretion? Or, were they
ordered to do so by its clients and the State Department? Who
was it?"
Another one is "Why do your
helicopters in Iraq not carry any identifying insignia, such as
the numbers painted on U.S. Army vehicles? Is there something
that sets the company aside from standard U.S. tactics?
It would have been very
interesting to ask him, "Isn't it interesting that the same
government individual, who has been reported by one
investigative committee to have made the initial decision for
Blackwater to get its first contract, is the brother of
the current State Department Inspector General, who was found,
by the same committee, to have intervened in preventing an
investigation into Blackwater's illegal activity?"
These are some examples of the
actual questions we could've asked. Instead, one side wanted to
talk about everything from Moveon.org to diabetes medication.
And the other side oddly kept asking Eric Prince why he didn't
prosecute his employees, but conceded ultimately that he
couldn't because he was just a C.E.O. of a company.
However, what's good is that no
one can claim they don't know about this anymore. Now, when
there are negative consequences, they (The U.S.) have to deal
with them. But they couldn't claim that before. For example, in
2006 in a public setting right across the street from me,
President Bush was asked about the legal status and
accountability of private military contractors in Iraq. One
student questioned him, and Bush answered with a giggle, you can
see this on the web, just Google it. Bush ultimately said, "I'm
gonna ask Rumsfeld about it when I get back." If that question
had been answered a year ago, we wouldn't be in this problem
today but, it wasn't.
Your research has borne many
egregious example of private contractors' reckless conduct in
Iraq--including the Blackwater shootings, CACI and Titan firms
responsible for the notorious Abu Ghraib interrogations, and
Aegis Company's "trophy video" in which they posted a video of
them shooting at civilians to an Elvis song on the net. What I
and others want to know is what legal repercussions do they
face, if any, under international law and U.S. law?
What could happen, or what will
happen? I mean there are multiple laws that could be applied.
Iraqis are claiming that since Blackwater didn't have a license
to operate in Iraq, they didn't fall under the immunity laws
protecting other private military contractors (Initiated under
Paul Bremer in 2003 as head of the CPA).
They also say they want
Blackwater to pay over $100 million dollars to the families of
the shooting victims. So, instead of sounding like they were
trying to ensure rule of law, it actually sounded like an
extortion attempt. They undermined their stance.
Now, there's also application of
U.S. civilian law. There is a law in the books called Military
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA). Basically, it says if
you are working for the U.S. government abroad in a military
setting, and you commit a felony, then we can potentially
prosecute you back home. It has only been utilized twice in
Iraq. One time when a contractor came back and was found with
child porn on his computer, and another time when there was an
attempted rape of a U.S. reservist by a contractor. The
challenge of this law is that it gets difficult when you add a
non-U.S. victim and a "battlefield environment" like we have in
Iraq. So, it'll be hard to ask a civilian jury sitting in the
U.S. that we want you, the jury, to not only decide whether a
law was broken, but whether the "rules of engagement" in a
"battlefield environment" were broken as well. It is very
difficult.
Another method is the Uniform
Code of Military Justice - the court martial system. In October
2006, the law was changed to allow private contractors to fall
under it, and it is probably the most apt one in finding
these Blackwater contractors involved in the Nisoor square
shooting liable. They were involved in a combat zone, an
operational setting, and the question is did they violate the
rules of engagement or not? The problem of that is that the law
was passed in October, but the Pentagon never issued a procedure
to its JAG officers on how to actually use it.
So, is there some semblance
of hope that there could be legal accountability?
Could be, but again, it's
political will that matters most. With Blackwater, it's
like one of those things when projecting the stock market, do
you look at past behavior and past facts? Or, do you try and
project forward? Using past facts, you shouldn't expect anything
to happen. Projecting forward? There's enough attention around
this now that you might seem some action along the side - but
not major action.
We've woken up to the fact that
the emperor has no clothes, but right now all we're willing to
do is to ask him to please put a scarf on.
In your article "America,
Islam, and the 9-11 War" you state, "The erosion of American
credibility in Muslim world not only reinforces recruiting
efforts of its foes, but denies Americans ideas and policies a
fair hearing." How does this play out in Iraq?
The U.S. was in a strong
position during the Cold War with being internationally viewed
as a "beacon on the hill." It both had power, but also more
importantly, popularity and respect. It wasn't that we had the
Atom bomb, but it was also that we had McDonalds and Coca Cola.
We had universities people wanted to come to. We had blue jeans.
Now, we have power, but now it's not as easy to apply it in the
current conflict. Instead of being seen as that "beacon",
America, "the land of blue jeans", has become internationally
viewed as the "land of armed jumped suits." And that is not a
positive when you're dealing with the problem at hand.
It is not that the U.S. is
locked in some battle with the broader Muslim World. That is
simply false. But you do have a really weird international
change, where for the first time a state and a religion are
looking at each other through a different lens--a lens of
misperceptions. It is a lens of ignorance, but also a lens of
anger. And it's getting worse, and we have to recognize that.
It's actually fulfilling Bin Laden's wishes, he wanted this kind
of conflict, and it is creating it. It's both on how we conduct
ourselves, but also how we speak to the world.
Peter, you're the co-founding
Director of the Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World
at the Saban Center at Brookings. In your experience and
opinion, how do we convince the Muslim world that our actions,
whether they are rooted in "regime change", or "humanitarian" or
"reform" efforts, are not mere tools of American imperialism?
Basically there was an era where
the U.S. had it right, and Louis Armstrong sang about it during
his jazz tours when he went around the world on behalf of the
United States. Louis Armstrong wasn't a stooge, but he spoke the
truth and that compared very positively to what they, the
people, were seeing from the Soviet Union. But the line that
encapsulates what we need to do today is to "Accentuate the
positive and eliminate the negative."
There are clearly things that
are dragging us down and are not all that useful. Accentuate the
positive. There are lot of things that the U.S. does like help
local NGOs on the ground, and investment in education. We have
an amazing spirit as a nation, in terms of not just with the
government does, but what the broad base of American society
does. We do that but we can do a lot more.
For our generation, this is the
equivalent of our cold war. This is our calling: to bridge this
growing divide between the U.S. and the Muslim world. It's
incumbent on us whether we are in government or outside
government. Whether we are a corporation or an NGO. Whether it's
faith based or not, it's incumbent on us to bridge this divide.
The same thing goes for the
clear negatives that are dragging us down. Those are easy to
pick off, you know, most people universally recognize that while
the Arab-Israeli peace will not be easy in any shape, way, or
form, at least showing action on it is something we can do,
instead of ignoring the problem. Same thing goes for GITMO
(Guantanamo Bay). We painted ourselves in a corner with that,
and we need to find a way out.
Iraq. It's very clear that not
only now is it a half trillion dollar investment gone bad, but
in terms of U.S. funds, that money could have been spent on lot
more effective things. Like I've said, it has been hammer to our
public diplomacy.
And finally, the problem with
our relationship via authoritarian leaders in the Middle East
region. It is clear we have struck a deal with the devils and we
are not getting much out of that deal - and that is true. We can
pick off the regimes where that is happening and not only does
that not help our battles with the extremist groups, but it also
undermines our broader effort to speak on behalf of democracy
every time we cozy up to a dictator. Clearly, we have to start
to disentangle ourselves and start to pressure them on some of
the things they can do. An example, I'd say to a current ally,
"Buddy, we love what you're doing in giving us intelligence,
although it's sorta funny you only give us intelligence a
day before one of our senior official visits. But, we don't
really like what you did to crack down on free media or that you
jailed democracy activists. We are not going to turn aside from
that anymore."
We have a record of doing
that--that type of dialogue - and it worked in the
transformation within South Korea during the Cold War, the
transformation that happened within Philippines is another
example. We can have a similar attitude towards our very
ostensible authoritarian allies.
What of "Islamofascism": An
accurate assessment of our enemy or a politically convenient and
sexy, new term of choice by certain ideological pundits?
It's not new, and no one likes
it. It was a stupid, stupid phrase to use in the first place. It
was completely politicized, and they very quickly realized that.
Now, the flip side is there are certain people running with it
these days to make it appear that the broader U.S. really
does believe this term.
Can there honestly be a
lasting peace between the United States and the "Muslim world"
in our lifetime, or this just whimsical naiveté?
I think there can be, but it's
not going to come in a matter of years. It's going to be
generational and maybe even multigenerational if we are going to
be honest about it. But the fact is there are all sorts of
amazing transformation and changes that are going on in the
world. This is only one part of it. In part, it's because the
world is changing so fast, but I think there are things that can
happen. The problem for us on the U.S. side is that we've really
wasted the first couple of years of this (Post 9-11). We
could've done things more positively, and we did a lot
negatively that we are going to be dealing with the consequences
for at least a generation. But that doesn't meant all is lost.
Look at the French and the
Germans. They spent literally almost a millennium fighting each
other. If you would've said in 1945, "The French and German
would later be part of this grand consortium. They would have a
fairly closely aligned foreign policy and domestic policy. They
would be sharing laws, sharing economics, basically they are not
going to be considering each other as enemies, but considering
themselves as friends they can't live without." If you would've
said that in 1945, someone would've sent you to the Loony Bin.
So, we can take hope from those examples. There we are today.
Wajahat Ali is a playwright,
essayist, humorist, and J.D. whose work, "The
Domestic Crusaders," (www.domesticcrusaders.com)
is the first major play about Muslim Americans living in a post
9-11 America. He can be reached at
wajahatmali@gmail.com
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