While Blackwater’s campaign intensified, one of the company’s few Congressional critics saw the talk of deployment in Darfur as an ominous sign. Blackwater “has the power and the influence with the administration that [leads Blackwater] to believe that it could be a force stronger than NATO, for example, in a place like Darfur,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky. “Which means that suddenly you’ve got a for-profit corporation going around the world that is more powerful than states; can effect regime change, possibly, where they may want to go; that seems to have all the support that it needs from this Administration (that is also pretty adventurous around the world and operating under the cover of darkness). It raises questions about democracies, about states, about who influences policy around the globe, about relationships among some countries.”
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Maybe, Schakowsky said, it was Blackwater’s goal “to render state coalitions like NATO irrelevant in the future, that they’ll be the ones and open to the highest bidder. Who really does determine war and peace around the world?
“It’s really disturbing and has enormous consequences,” Schakowsky said. “Who are they loyal to? And it also empowers, then, an administration like the Bush administration—if they can engage in this kind of private war-making or a private army, then what do they even need us for? They can operate in a totally separate arena and engage in conflicts all over the world, and it seems they don’t much need to consult with us about it.”
Blackwater and the Sleeping Lion
Cofer Black has advised others in the mercenary industry to “be opportunistic”
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—a quality that has come naturally to Blackwater. “We have a dynamic business plan that is twenty years long,” bragged Blackwater president Gary Jackson in the summer of 2006. “We’re not going anywhere.”
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But while Blackwater enjoyed almost unparalleled prosperity in the wake of 9/11, the rise of the Bush administration, and a Republican-controlled Congress, its executives know that such a moment, filled with such powerful backers in charge, may not present itself again soon, if ever. While the Bush administration enthusiastically encouraged the privatization of the military and the use of unsavory forces and tactics, future administrations may not be so thrilled about the idea of using mercenaries. An obvious part of that “dynamic business plan” Jackson spoke of is a sophisticated rebranding campaign aimed at shaking the mercenary image and solidifying the “legitimate” role of private soldiers in the fabric of U.S. foreign and domestic policy, as well as that of international bodies such as the UN and NATO. Knowing that the Bush administration would govern for a finite period of time, Blackwater and its allies took full advantage of the overwhelming enthusiasm for their cause in the chambers of power during the Bush years to make swift headway in their long-term rebranding mission.
The rebranding is happening on many levels, and the terminology is already resonating in the broader discourse. Mercenary firms are now called “private military companies” or “private security companies.” Rather than mercs, their men are now “private soldiers” or “civilian contractors.” While there is fierce competition among the mercenaries, they clearly recognize the need to develop a common language to promote their cause. Many firms have their own lobbyists on contract. Blackwater was instrumental to the rapid growth of the mercenary trade association, the Orwellian-named International Peace Operations Association. Its logo is a cartoon sleeping lion that would fit perfectly in a Disney sequel to
The Lion King
. Under the auspices of the IPOA, Blackwater and its allies became aggressive promoters of regulation of the “private security/military industry.” IPOA boasts, “We are in the business of peace because peace matters,” and spokespeople say the organization is made up of “the most professional forward-thinking and ethical companies in the industry.”
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Among its members are many of the leading mercenary firms operating in the “war on terror”: ArmorGroup, Erinys, Hart Security, and MPRI.
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Though many corporations shun the idea of regulation and oversight, Blackwater assumed a leadership role in pushing for such policies—at least those that fit its agenda. Blackwater “has been a leading proponent of increased regulation, accountability and transparency, which undoubtedly is good for any industry,” asserted IPOA spokesperson J. J. Messner in 2006.
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The reason was simple: in the long run, it is better for business. But, more important, it also allows the mercenary companies to favorably shape the rules that govern their deployments, as Blackwater did in the aftermath of the Fallujah ambush when it was reported to be “leading a lobbying effort by private security firms and other contractors to try to block congressional or Pentagon efforts to bring their companies and employees under the same justice code as [active-duty] servicemen.”
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Well aware of the severe image problems plaguing the mercenary industry, the IPOA has attempted to bring in representatives from Amnesty International and other respected human rights organizations as consultants.
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The IPOA boasts of a “code of conduct” written with “the input of dozens of international and non-governmental organizations, human rights lawyers, and scholars.”
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In Congressional testimony in 2006, Chris Taylor pointed to his company’s membership in the IPOA as evidence that Blackwater is “committed to defining the standards by which our independent contractors are credentialed as qualified to work in the industry, improving the federal contracting and oversight process, providing increased transparency in business operations, and encouraging discussion of our industry so that it can become more fully integrated into the process of finding solutions to difficult challenges.”
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Taylor hads also suggested that “contracting agencies” use the IPOA as a “certification, somewhat like an ISO 9000 quality-management program.”
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The IPOA Code, which all member companies are required to sign, commits its members to “agree to follow all rules of international humanitarian law and human rights law that are applicable as well as all relevant international protocols and conventions.”
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It has sections on transparency, ethics, and accountability, and IPOA warns: “Signatories who fail to uphold any provision contained in this Code may be subject to dismissal from IPOA at the discretion of the IPOA Board of Directors.”
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But the IPOA Code is not a binding document with any legal weight whatsoever. In the aftermath of Nisour Square in 2007, Blackwater quietly withdrew from the IPOA, saying it was “pursuing other aspects and methods of industry outreach and governance.” Blackwater’s logo was swiftly scrubbed from the IPOA Web site.
The crucial role the IPOA has played in the rebranding campaign has been to lobby lawmakers, journalists, and human rights groups to support greater privatization of military and peacekeeping operations by promoting the idea that society stands to benefit from a regulated mercenary industry. At the same time, its completely unenforceable, nonlegal code of conduct is used by the mercenary companies as a talking point to show how responsible and conscientious they are—voluntarily.
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The IPOA has functioned as the political wing of the organized mercenary industry, which it has renamed the “peace and stability industry.”
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Despite the fact that there were an estimated one hundred eighty thousand contractors operating in Iraq as of spring 2008, there remained no effective oversight system in place, nor was there a legal body with effective jurisdiction over the contractors. Paul Bremer’s Order 17, which granted contractors immunity from prosecution in Iraq, remained the law of the land under successive puppet governments—from Iyad Allawi to Nouri al-Maliki—that ruled Iraq after Bremer departed and the CPA was dismantled. In theory, it is the responsibility of the home countries of contractors to police them. In reality, this has translated to impunity. That point was hit home in a dramatic way in one of the rare Congressional hearings on contractors in Iraq, which took place in June 2006. Representative Dennis Kucinich questioned Shay Assad, the Pentagon’s director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition, the department in the DoD responsible for contractors. Kucinich pointed out that U.S. troops are subjected to enforceable rules of engagement and have been prosecuted for violations in Iraq, while contractors are not:
KUCINICH: Do you know what the statute of limitation is for murder in the United States?
ASSAD: No, I don’t, Mr. Congressman.
KUCINICH: There isn’t—there isn’t one. Now, if someone connected with a private contracting company was involved in the murder of a civilian, would the Department be ready to recommend their prosecution?
ASSAD: Sir, I’m just not qualified to answer that question.
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Incredulous, Kucinich asked Assad and the other government officials on the panel, “Anybody here qualified to answer that, and if they’re not, why are you here, with all due respect?” Kucinich pointed out that as of the date of the hearing in June 2006, “no security contractor has been prosecuted” for crimes in Iraq (that remained the case as of spring 2008). He then directly asked Assad, “Would the Department of Defense be prepared to see a prosecution proffered against any private contractor who is demonstrated to have unlawfully killed a civilian?”
“Sir, I can’t answer that question,” Assad replied.
“Wow,” Kucinich shot back. “Think about what that means. These private contractors can get away with murder.” Contractors, Kucinich said, “do not appear to be subject to any laws at all and so therefore they have more of a license to be able to take the law into their own hands.” (In late 2006, Senator Lindsey Graham quietly inserted language into the 2007 defense authorization bill, which Bush subsequently signed, that sought to place contractors under the Pentagon’s UCMJ, but what effective impact—if any—this could have remains unclear, with experts predicting resistance from the private war industry.)
At that same hearing, Blackwater’s Taylor and IPOA founder Doug Brooks were the two primary defenders of the mercenary firms. “This industry is highly responsible,” Brooks told the Congressional hearing. “IPOA includes the most professional forward-thinking and ethical companies in the industry, and all members are always publicly committed to our code of conduct.” But while Brooks was preaching from the accountability gospel in front of the U.S. Congress, he was simultaneously fighting attempts to rein in mercenaries on the African continent, where the industry stands to make substantial money if allowed to operate in Sudan and other crisis zones.
The South African Example
Perhaps the most visible work the IPOA has done in recent years was not actually in the United States, though it has far-reaching implications for Blackwater and other U.S. companies—particularly when it comes to their aspirations for peacekeeping deployments on the African continent. Despite their rhetoric about supporting regulation of the industry, the IPOA and Brooks were deeply engaged in a coordinated effort to defeat South Africa’s groundbreaking antimercenary legislation, supported by the overwhelming majority of the country’s elected legislators.
South Africa—indeed, the African continent—has had a long, bloody history with white mercenaries. After the fall of the apartheid regime in the early 1990s, many white South African soldiers and police, who had spent the past years terrorizing black Africans, found themselves looking for new jobs. An unknown number of these soldiers farmed out their services to companies, governments, and counterrevolutionary causes, bringing yet more infamy to South Africa—this time as a base of operations for mercenaries. Among the most notorious South African companies, Executive Outcomes was founded in 1989 by a former apartheid-era commander and operated openly until it was shut down in 1998. Among its clients were the diamond giant DeBeers and the government of Angola, where EO was contracted in 1993 to retake strategic oil-rich areas on behalf of government forces. But EO is perhaps best known for its operations in diamond-rich Sierra Leone, where its forces were contracted to defend the government from a rebellion by Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front movement, which was committing widespread human rights abuses. The government paid EO approximately $35 million—a third of its annual defense budget—in 1995 to crush the insurgency after the U.S. and British governments and the UN declined to intervene.
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It took EO just nine days to stop the rebellion and two days to retake the prized Kono diamond fields. Supporters of the mercenary industry have held up the work of EO and Sandline (Tim Spicer’s old company) as evidence of the success of private forces.
But the ends do not always justify the means. EO’s success was largely attributed to the fact that it was a descendant of elite South African apartheid forces from which it had inherited a vast system of corporate connections, underground networks, and counterinsurgency apparatuses throughout Africa that had been used to oppress black populations and dissidents.
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Despite the touting of the tactical “successes” of EO in Angola and Sierra Leone, there was a broader issue raised by the involvement of mercenaries in international conflicts: who determines international order? The UN? Nation-states? Rich people? Corporations? And to whom are these forces accountable? This issue assumed a higher profile with the wide privatization present in the Afghanistan and Iraq occupations. While the United States largely avoided the issue of accountability for private forces, that was not the case in South Africa, with its firsthand tumultuous and lengthy experience playing host to mercenaries. After the apartheid government fell and the Truth and Reconciliation process began, calls spread for shutting down mercenary firms, especially given how closely linked many of them were to the apartheid regime. This led to the enactment of antimercenary legislation in South Africa in 1998.