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Blackwater by The Numbers
Tomorrow morning, the House oversight committee will hear testimony from Erik Prince, the owner of embattled private-security company Blackwater, about his company's operations in Iraq. Blackwater is in the news right now for the disputed shootings on September 16 in Baghdad that left 11 Iraqis dead. But the committee's Democratic staff has put together a compendium (pdf) of questionable incidents and practices that Prince will surely be asked about tomorrow. Here's a sampling:
* Blackwater has been involved in 195 "escalation of force" incidents since 2005, an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week. From January 2005 to April 2007, Blackwater employees used their weapons 168 times, compared to 102 times for rival DynCorp and 36 for rival Triple Canopy during that same time frame.According to the majority staff, Blackwater operatives fired the first shot in 80 percent of those cases, though its contract with the State Department only permits the use of "defensive" force.
* A single Blackwater security contractor costs the government $1,222 every day to guard U.S. civilian personnel, or $445,000 per year. That's six times the cost of getting a U.S. Army soldier to perform the same function. As P.W. Singer observed last week, private security companies increasingly exist to free up tasks for U.S. troops, ensuring a sort of dependence on contracting occurs for a military coping with the strain of deployments for two wars.
* The State Department's attitude to Blackwater shootings is most often a directive to compensate the victim's family, "rather than to insist upon accountability or to investigate Blackwater personnel for potential criminal liability."
* Blackwater's initial contract to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, in 2003, was a no-bid contract. So was its 2004 successor. On that one, Blackwater stood to earn a maximum of $338 million, but actually received $488 million from State between June 2004 and June 2006. In total, Blackwater has earned upwards of $1 billion in government contracts since 2001.
Nor is that all. A previously unknown incident revealed in a Blackwater incident report, Blackwater guards in Mosul in 2005 fired into a vehicle approaching a convoy guarded by the security company. A civilian bystander was hit in the head by a Blackwater-fired bullet that passed through the car. Blackwater kept the convoy moving along, and it's not clear if any compensation was offered to the victim's family. On at least two other occasions, Blackwater guards were found to have covered up improper or dubious uses of force. Among those: after a Blackwater-guarded convoy struck 18 (!) different Iraqi vehicles, one of the contractors in the motorcade said his boss "openly admitted giving clear direction to the primary driver to conduct these acts of random negligence for no apparent reason."
Comments (17)
Tom in AZ wrote on October 1, 2007 3:00 PM:I can't wait until all these people start coming home and 'protecting' the governments domestic interests. Katrina redux.
Anonymous wrote on October 1, 2007 4:00 PM:Sturmabteilung redux.
Derek Bill wrote on October 1, 2007 4:02 PM:What is worse for America .... being shameful or being shameless?
Legalize wrote on October 1, 2007 4:09 PM:What the Dems want to know is, how they can get in on that cool mercenary lawlessness themselves.
zirp wrote on October 1, 2007 4:40 PM:yeah -what are these guys going to do after Iraq -disband? -and give up that pay?
Moon wrote on October 1, 2007 5:04 PM:Blackwater is just what the name describes...cesspool, scum, brackish...sums them up nicely, I think.
liz wrote on October 1, 2007 5:08 PM:These companies should be treated like drug traffickers and have all their ill-gotten money and anything purchased with it confiscated.
SB wrote on October 1, 2007 5:56 PM:Then each individual who broke an American or Iraqi law should be punished to the fullest extent of those laws.
If it is true that they are not accountable to any system of laws or accountable to anyone, I think I have just encountered my first reason to want ex post facto laws.
Does the daily cost include the health care and retirement of military personnel? To be fair, it has to. The main argument against government personnel are the legacy costs (Example: General Motors).
Cinderella Ferret wrote on October 1, 2007 7:15 PM:SB:
Cinderella Ferret wrote on October 1, 2007 7:35 PM:If you include the numbers for training troops (especially former SF and Delta Operators) you have a discrepancy that is makes no economic sense whatsoever. Blackwater hires people who are already trained at taxpayer expense and ready for the mission. Were Blackwater required to train these people to the level required to perform the mission it would not be possible for them to make money. The legacy cost is a red herring. GM competes with companies that have the same capital requirements to make the product. Blackwater has almost no capital requirements when it comes to training--the taxpayers have already done so.
Another point I wanted to make is that Blackwater is doing the job it was hired to do. The folks who have the real explaining to do work for the former Cheerleader.
I suspect if we were to get a copy of any contract State or DOD has with Blackwater, or whoever the general contractor is, you would find very specific rules of engagement. Blackwater is responsible for the actions of its employees, but the real rats are scurrying about Washington, DC somewhere.
Don't be surprised if Blackwater is vindicated. NOT because they did not kill innocent civilians, but because they were operating within their contractual rules of engagement.
Mad Mike wrote on October 1, 2007 7:38 PM:Without Blackwater they were nothing. They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.
On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed.
Except for one man armed with an AK-47, and a Honda full of silver.
carlton wrote on October 1, 2007 9:42 PM:Ummm... they aren't allowed to work all year. The $445K is inaccurate. It's more like $130K. They are only allowed to work 90 days with a mandatory 30 (at a minimum) off and then another 90, etc. While they get paid well, the facts are not correct here.
Jackson wrote on October 1, 2007 10:10 PM:Carlton: I think you'll find the "per-man-year" measure of the cost of these hooligans is $445K. Of course when they're doing such good work, you're right -- they need time off to R&R and blow off a little steam.
Fortunately, our government is now being run for the first time by a Harvard MBA, so efficiency and productivity are the main guiding lights we now follow. So why train four soldiers -- who won't get those nasty 3 months on 1 month off tours of duty; they'd only be there for 15 months straight -- when one Blackwater "per-man-year" provides pin money to a family named Prince?
ben franklin wrote on October 2, 2007 1:25 AM:lets call blackwater for what it really is, a mercenary origination who is accountable to no one. Question: what are the legal ramifications for shooting a blackwater employee as a civilian and what are the implications for shooting a civilian by a blackwater employee?
anon wrote on October 2, 2007 2:11 AM:Blackwater's conduct in Iraq is making me see some logic in "Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them at home." Do we really want these guys to return home all pissed off and on the dole? Isn't there some other conflict in, say, Antartica that needs Blackwater's expertise?
Fish wrote on October 2, 2007 1:31 PM:So how is $1222 a day six times the cost of getting an Army soldier to perform the same function? It's costing us something like $390K-400K a year per soldier on the ground, which even if you use a 365 day work year is about $1100 per soldier per day for regular Army.
I'm not a big fan of Blackwater being over there, but the financial argument doesn't hold any water when the direct cost per soldier is roughly the same as the billing cost (which I assume includes profit) per Blackwater merc.
piglizard420 wrote on October 3, 2007 12:44 PM:Don't let the criminals return to the US. We don't need killers like them. And send Eric to be with them, the lowlife.