Blackwater Kills Civilians; Iraq Revokes License
Houston Chronicle: "Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in an incident last week in which 11 people died, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday." Romney silent.
Update1: 20 September
Originally posted 17 September
Philly Daily News Attytood reports that the CIA and State Department have shut down in Baghdad in the wake of the Blackwater controversy.
When President Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, I doubt he imagined civilian contractors acting like de facto troops. But that's what's happening in Iraq, and the consequences (inevitable?) have came home to roost.
On Sunday, a State Department convoy was attacked in Baghdad; the Blackwater contractors providing security reportedly killed at least eight civilians. According to a witness, the gunfire "lasted for 20 minutes between gunmen and the convoy people who were foreigners and dressed in civilian clothes."
Now the Iraqi government has revoked Blackwater's license and has opened a criminal investigation.
The Iraq War is a poster child for privatization of military operations, a process that began in the early 1990s with the first war in Iraq (Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm). More than a decade later, the Pentagon (and, by extension, the White House) has no idea how many contractors are operating on behalf of the US.
Last December, the GAO reported that the Army alone had "almost 60,000 contractor employees currently support ongoing military operations in Southwest Asia. By way of contrast, an estimated 9,200 contractor personnel supported military operations in the 1991 Gulf War."
A May estimate was 126,000 private contractors, one-fifth of them US citizens. Others estimate 200,000 -- a number equal to or exceeding US troops. And "some in Congress estimate that up to 40 cents of every tax dollar spent on the war goes to corporate war contractors."
Whatever the actual number -- it's a mind-boggling change.
In 1991, there were 500,000 US troops and 160,000 coalition troops in Iraq. And less than 10,000 contractors. Troop to civilian ratio: approximately 66:1. Today - roughly 1:1.
The GAO said that the Pentagon doesn't know how many contractors are "providing essential services" and doesn't provide adequate contract oversight. Perhaps more troubling, there is "no DOD-wide effort in place to resolve these long-standing problems."
It's our money (that we don't have, we're borrowing it so it's really our grandchildren's money) the Pentagon is spending. Call your congressman and demand accountability.