Blackwater: another story you probably won't see reported in Michigan

by: matt

Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 17:24:40 PM EDT

Today's after-lunch lesson: How to break a man's arm with your bare hands.

The students pay close attention. On a patch of grass under a powder-blue sky, they pair off to practice the moves - like the steps to some merciless dance:

Hold here. Pivot there. Trap arm. Bend. And snap.

Slavko Ilic circles the grappling forms, darting in to shout encouragement or correct a technique. He's an extra-large martial arts expert. He sports a shaved head, chiseled arms and the look of a man who does not back down.

A bunch of crazed Christian fundamentalists with awesome firepower and helicopters, Blackwater is an army-for-hire in Iraq - and on the streets of New Orleans. Here's a littlte bit of the tour of their North Carolina HQ:

Only the authorized get past the gate. A buzz-cut guard sees to that, a handgun strapped to his thigh. Inside, a winding road leads to the heart of the 7,000-acre compound - a bigger spread than any military base in South Hampton Roads.

Heavy equipment scurries to and fro, moving mountains of dirt. Over here, a 6,000-foot runway is taking shape for an air wing coming up from Florida. Over there, a 1-acre hangar will shelter the company's state-of-the-art blimp project. (emphasis added)

Since 2000, Blackwater alone has claimed more than half a billion dollars in federal contracts - most of it no-bid. And that's just what shows up in public records. The nature of the industry ensures considerable privacy. Contracts are often classified, clients confidential, compounds off-limits.

Blackwater's image may be even more secretive than most, due in part to the company's reclusive founder, Erik Prince, a wealthy former Navy SEAL who is rarely interviewed or photographed. (emphasis added)

So just who is this outfit in Hampton Roads' backyard?

On the surface, it's a company wrapped in the flag, steeped in conservative politics and stocked with can-do.

There's more...oh yes, there's more about the adventures of Amway Guy's brother-in-law - below the fold...

Last fall, Blackwater boots turned up on American soil, some of the first on the ground after Hurricane Katrina hammered the Gulf Coast. Heads swiveled at the sight of heavily armed civilian soldiers dressed in black, but the company's quick response - and foot-dragging by government officials - led to millions of dollars worth of work in the area.

From article #2, we learn of the beginnings of the Blackwater outfit from co-founder Al Clark:

That’s when Clark discovered Prince was no ordinary SEAL. He was a SEAL with money – heir to a Michigan auto parts fortune.


Prince’s father had recently died. “I was in the unusual position after the sale of the family business to self-fund this endeavor,� Prince said.


Clark recalled asking Prince how much it would take.


“He said, 'Let’s start with a million and see where it takes us,’� Clark said. “All I could think was, 'Wow. Cool.’�

Republican connections pay off (for Blackwater)...

Contacts can help pave the way for work. Private military companies often pepper their ranks with influential names, and Blackwater plays that game as well as anyone. Last year Prince, a major Republican campaign contributor, snagged two heavyweights as they came through Washington’s revolving doors.

Cofer Black, a career CIA and State Department official, is now Blackwater’s vice chairman. Joseph Schmitz, a former inspector general at the Pentagon, is the Prince Group’s chief operating officer and general counsel.

Connections are desirable at any level. Blackwater employee Gloria Shytles recently won a Republican primary for a seat on Currituck County’s Board of Commissioners. Shytles is one of the company’s “lead detailers,� responsible for matching contractors with missions.

As Blackwater’s federal contracts have soared into the hundreds of millions, its revenues and profits can only be guessed at, since the company is privately held.

Blackwater goes to Iraq:

On May 1, 2003, President Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Lincoln under a "Mission Accomplished" banner and declared: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

But it was just the beginning for private military companies and their missions in Iraq.

U.S. government agencies coming in to rebuild the shattered country expected a benign environment. Instead, they found a cauldron of violence. As insurgent attacks steadily escalated, millions of dollars were diverted from reconstruction to security, opening up a huge new market for the private military industry.

One of the first companies to jump in was Blackwater USA.

-snip-

In August 2003, Blackwater was awarded a $21 million no-bid contract to guard Bremer, and U.S. agencies have been tapping the Blackwater well ever since. The company now has about 1,000 contractors in Iraq - the most it has ever had.

Other players also have rushed in to meet the demand. Last month, the government estimated that there were at least 180 security companies operating in Iraq with more than 48,000 employees - the largest private military deployment in history.

In the first Gulf War 15 years ago, the ratio of private contractors to troops was 1 to 60; in the current war, it's 1 to 3.

In fact, the private sector has put more boots on the ground in Iraq than all of the United States' coalition partners combined. One scholar, Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, suggests that Bush's "coalition of the willing" would be more aptly described as the "coalition of the billing."

-snip-

Blackwater alone has won $505 million in publicly identifiable federal contracts since 2000, according to an online government database. About two-thirds of that amount was in no-bid contracts.

The bulk of those are with the State Department, which has used the company to guard its ambassadors in Iraq since Bremer's provisional government was disbanded in mid-2004.

-snip-

Why does Blackwater get so much federal work? Company officials say it's because of their strong track record. The organization's high-level political connections certainly don't hurt.

More...

Congressional frustration boiled over at a hearing in Washington last month when members of a House subcommittee grilled security company spokesmen and government officials for five hours.

Blackwater's Taylor and representatives of two other companies were peppered with questions about their revenues, contracts, training and hiring practices.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said there is an "astonishing lack of accountability for the billions of dollars being spent on private security contractors."

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., complained that he asked the Pentagon 18 months ago for a cost accounting of Iraq contracts awarded to Blackwater and three other companies and has been "stonewalled" ever since.

It was the lynching seen around the world.

On March 31, 2004, an American convoy was ambushed by insurgents in Fallujah, a hotbed of Iraqi rage over the U.S. presence. The four men escorting the convoy in two Mitsubishi SUVs were killed in a fusillade of small-arms fire. A furious mob set the vehicles ablaze, dragged the bodies out and partly dismembered them. Two were strung up from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

The entire episode was captured on film and aired worldwide.

The four dead Americans were not soldiers. They were civilians working for North Carolina-based Blackwater USA. The nation learned with a horrifying jolt that there was something new going on here: Modern warfare was being privatized.

BTW, here's a cute sidebar article about Blackwater camping out at Jimmy Swaggert's old compound.

Still think there's nothing at stake for Michigan this November?