What is Blackwater? And what are they doing in Iraq?

Question

What is Blackwater? And what are they doing in Iraq?

Answer 1

A private security company hired by the US gov to protect certain dignataries.

Vet-USAF

Answer 2

Blackwater is a company owned by families that give tons of money to Republicans, so the GOP feels obligated to give them no bid government contracts as payback.  

Answer 3

Blackwater Worldwide, formerly Blackwater USA, is a private military company founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark. It has alternatively been referred to as a security contractor or a mercenary organization by numerous reports in the international media. In October 2007, Blackwater USA rebranded themselves as Blackwater Worldwide. Blackwater is based in the U.S. state of North Carolina, where it operates a tactical training facility that it claims is the world's largest. The company trains more than 40,000 people a year, from U.S. or foreign military and police services, as well as other U.S. government agencies. The training consists of military offensive and defensive operations, as well as smaller scale personnel security. Technologies used and techniques trained are not limited by U.S. domestic law, although it is unclear what legal status Blackwater operates under in the U.S. and other countries, or what protection the U.S. extends to Blackwater operations globally

Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq was revoked by the Iraqi Government on September 17, 2007, resulting from a highly contentious incident that occurred the previous day during which seventeen (initially reported as eleven) Iraqis were killed.

On October 5, 2007 the State Department announced new rules for Blackwater's armed guards operating in Iraq. Under the new guidelines, State Department security agents will accompany all Blackwater units operating in and around Baghdad. The State Department will also install video surveillance equipment in all Blackwater armored vehicles, and will keep recordings of all radio communications between Blackwater convoys in Iraq and the military and civilian agencies which supervise their activities.

Blackwater Worldwide was employed to assist the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts on the Gulf Coast. According to a company press release, it provided airlift, security, and logistics and transportation services, as well as humanitarian support. It was reported that the company also acted as law enforcement in the disaster-stricken areas, for example securing neighborhoods and "confronting criminals".Blackwater moved about 200 personnel into the area hit by Hurricane Katrina, most of whom (164 employees) were working under a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to protect government facilities, but the company held contracts with private clients as well. Overall, Blackwater had a "visible, and financially lucrative, presence in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as the use of the company contractors cost U.S. taxpayers $240,000 a day."There has been much dispute surrounding governmental contracts in post-Katrina New Orleans, especially no-bid contracts such as the one Blackwater was awarded. Blackwater's heavily-armed presence in the city was also the subject of much confusion and criticism.

Blackwater is one of five companies picked by the Department of Defense Counter-Narcotics Technology Program Office in a five-year contract for equipment, material and services in support of counter-narcotics activities. The contract is worth up to $15 billion. The other companies picked are Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Arinc Inc.. Blackwater USA has also been contracted by various foreign governments. In 2005, it worked to train the Naval Sea Commando regiment of Azerbaijan, enhancing their interdiction capabilities on the Caspian Sea. In Asia, Blackwater has contracts in Japan guarding AN/TPY-2 radar systems.

http://www.blackwaterusa.com/

Answer 4

Blackwater is a private security group hired by US State dept and I think the DOD however not much anymore they have been told to cease operations within Iraq but before that they would secure US Diplomats, VIP's and for a time they secured a oil field as well  

Answer 5

they are a private security force (were a part of halliburton)  this war has been privatized so some folks back in the usa could make some bookoo money.  

they are not accountable to any laws..   it will be a sad day for american citizens if they are let loose on usa soil.

Answer 6

Blackwater is a company used by the current administration to funnel money through, for their own personal gain.

They're are in Iraq because that's the place Bush & Cheney chose to start a war so that they could get their money laundering scheme underway.

In short... mercenaries working with thieves.

Answer 7

http://www.blackwaterusa.com/  

Answer 8

Blackwater is a sort of private military force helping us to fight in Iraq.  They are there partly because in our all-volunteer military we don't have enough people. But their existence and their presence in Iraq serves other purposes too.

1.  They help put more 'boots on the ground' than an all-volunteer military.

2.  They hide the number of casualties.  That 4000-something number you hear, that's just official military.  They are not required to disclose the number of blackwater 'contractors' who have died.

3.  They allow the president to shovel taxpayer money at a well-connected corporation, a big campaign contributor. In fact Blackwater 'contractors' get paid a lot more than regular military.

4.  Blackwater 'contractors' are not subject to international law or treaty, or even the UCMJ (the Universal Code of Military Justice).  So crimes they commit are not reported, mistreatment of civilians including rape/torture/murder, etc. go  unpunished.

5.  Blackwater becomes a big, healthy, well-trained organization with a lot of members, who might someday be needed to keep the peace at home, to quell a disturbance or put down a domestic insurrection.

Answer 9

They are a private security company who are performing tasks military personnel would do in the past. It's an outrage they have billions in contracts, that they have slaughtered civilians in "spray and pray" style massacres.

I'm impressed with shock and awe's answer, with detailed info of the scope of their services. Of course, bringing Blackwater to justice under the UCMJ has proved problematic.  And they have had casualties, not in the tally of US deaths in Iraq.

Answer 10

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is worried about the giant mercenary firm's latest foray into private intelligence. "They're marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations," he recently told an interviewer.

The paperback edition of Scahill's book on Blackwater, which appeared in hardcover in February 2007, includes 100 pages of new material, including a discussion of last September's shooting spree in Baghdad by Blackwater operatives -- which killed 17 Iraqi civilians but for which nobody has ever been charged.

"This is a company that has been accused of murdering Iraqi civilians," Scahill pointed out, "of shooting the bodyguard to the Iraqi vice-president, of causing blowback attacks on United States troops, of hurting the morale of the United States military -- that has cost United States taxpayers over a billion dollars for its operations in Iraq."

However, Scahill's greatest concern at present appears to be Blackwater's venture into the private intelligence business.

"Blackwater started a private intelligence company," he explained, "a private CIA essentially, called Total Intelligence Solutions. And the man running Total Intelligence Solutions is J. Cofer Black. He's a thirty-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency. He also was the guy who ran the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, the government-sanctioned kidnap-and-torture program."

"His thirty-year CIA career, his network of contacts, his knowledge that was gained through his work in the most sensitive areas of the United States government is now on the open market for hire," Scahill said sadly.

"This isn't a liberal or conservative thing," concluded Scahill. "You have a lot of traditional conservatives who are outraged at what they see as the degradation of the United States armed forces. ... This has everything to do with the future of war-making and global stability."

Answer 11

Here is some information about Blackwater, Halliburton, and KBR, contractors in Iraq.

"Blackwater is one of three contractors working under a "task order" to provide security services in Iraq. The other two are Triple Canopy and DynCorp.  

The U.S. State Department's renewal of Blackwater's contract to provide security in Iraq "is bad news," an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.

Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 people, including women and children, last September, prompting an outcry and protest from Iraqi officials.

"This is bad news," al-Maliki adviser Sami al-Askari said. "I personally am not happy with this, especially because they have committed acts of aggression, killed Iraqis, and this has not been resolved yet positively for families of victims."

About 25,000 private contractors from three companies protect diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials in Iraq. Under a provision put into place in the early days of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, security contractors have immunity from Iraqi prosecution.  

Al-Askari said he would push for the Iraqi government to contest the contract renewal.

"The U.S. government has the right to choose what contractors it chooses, but Iraq should also have the right to allow or ban certain contractors from operating on its territory," he said."

"(AP) Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, says 13 Americans were electrocuted in Iraq since September 2003 and a contractor has been ordered to inspect the facilities it maintains there for electrical safety hazards, a Pennsylvania senator said.

One of the soldiers killed was Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pittsburgh, who died Jan. 2 in his barracks in Baghdad. An Army criminal probe blamed improper grounding of an electric pump that supplied water to the building. Maseth was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, an Army post straddling the Kentucky-Tennessee line.

Maseth's family has sued KBR Inc., the Houston-based contractor responsible for maintaining Maseth's barracks.

Petraeus said KBR received $3.2 million for maintenance services as part of a February 2007 contract modification. According to Petraeus, KBR had previously provided "only limited technical inspections" at Maseth's barracks."



"WASHINGTON - House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman expanded his effort yesterday to investigate private security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, calling for a wide-ranging federal inquiry into the company's employment practices.

In letters to the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration, and the Labor Department, Waxman, Democrat of California, questioned Blackwater's classification of its workers as independent contractors instead of employees. That designation, which the government has questioned in the past, allowed the company to obtain $144 million in contracts set aside for small businesses and avoid paying as much as $50 million in withholding taxes under State Department contracts, he said."

"By JAMES RISEN

Published: February 13, 2008

WASHINGTON — Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio resident who went to Iraq to drive trucks, thought she had endured the worst when her supply convoy was ambushed in April 2004. After car bombs exploded and insurgents began firing on the road between Baghdad and Balad, she and other military contractors were saved only when Army Black Hawk helicopters arrived.

But not long after the ambush, Ms. Kineston said, she was sexually assaulted by another driver, who remained on the job, at least temporarily, even after she reported the episode to KBR, the military contractor that employed the drivers. Later, she said she was groped by a second KBR worker. After complaining to the company about the threats and harassments endured by female employees in Iraq, she was fired.

“I felt safer on the convoys with the Army than I ever did working for KBR,” said Ms. Kineston, who won a modest arbitration award against KBR. “At least if you got in trouble on a convoy, you could radio the Army and they would come and help you out. But when I complained to KBR, they didn’t do anything. I still have nightmares. They changed my life forever, and they got away with it.”

"WASHINGTON — The helicopter was hovering over a Baghdad checkpoint into the Green Zone, one typically crowded with cars, Iraqi civilians and United States military personnel.

Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.

“This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous,” Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. “It’s not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness.”

Both the helicopter and the vehicle involved in the incident at the Assassins’ Gate checkpoint were not from the United States military, but were part of a convoy operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor that is under scrutiny for its role in a series of violent episodes in Iraq, including a September shooting in downtown Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead.

“It is not allowed as a method or means of warfare,” said Michael Schmitt, professor of international law at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. “There are very, very strict restrictions on the use of CS gas in a war zone.”

"Blackwater is being investigated for allegations that its employees smuggled weapons into Iraq and for a Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad in which company guards killed 17 Iraqis."

"KBR Named In Report On Soldier Illnesses

Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using “unmonitored and potentially unsafe” water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President d**k Cheney’s former company, the Pentagon’s internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Defense Department’s inspector general’s report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

Halliburton Co., then KBR’s parent company, disputed the allegations even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails. In March 2006, the AP obtained an internal Halliburton report that, in one instance, the company missed contamination that could have caused “mass sickness or death” at Ar Ramadi."