Tension at House Hearing on Blackwater

Blackwater employees were accused of committing criminal acts of violence, including an incident in December 2006, when an inebriated Blackwater employee shot and killed an Iraqi security guard to Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, after a Christmas party.

At a hearing Tuesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform committee probed the role of private security contractors in war zones and highlighted misconduct on behalf of Blackwater USA.

Many of the committee's questions revolved around the oversight and legal status of Blackwater employees who serve as armed guards for State Department operations in war zones. According to documents acquired by the committee, the Blackwater employee was permitted by the State Department to leave the country 36 hours after the incident and has not yet been accused of a crime.

According to Congressman Henry Waxman (D-California), chairman of the oversight committee, the State Department has not fulfilled their oversight responsibility of Blackwater and may have assisted Blackwater in downplaying misconduct.

Referring to the Christmas shooting, Waxan said, "As I view the record, it shows that the State Department is acting as an enabler to Blackwater tactics. The company acts as if they are untouchable for a simple reason: the State Department demands no accountability. [Blackwater] is not accountable to the military, they are not accountable to the Iraqi criminal system, and the State Department who is the contractor, seems to have acted like they are helping Blackwater get rid of the guy so the whole incident can go away."

Erik Prince, chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA, was the hearing's first witness. While reading his opening statement, Prince defended the actions of Blackwater, saying, "I believe we acted appropriately at all times." Prince sounded uncomfortable and rushed when he said, "Every life, whether American or Iraqi, is precious." Prince pointed out "no one protected by Blackwater has been killed or seriously injured." He used this claim as a measure of Blackwater's effectiveness in combat zones.

When questioned by Congressman Paul Hodes (D-New Hampshire) about the actions taken by Blackwater after the killing of the Iraqi security guard, Prince said Blackwater had acted appropriately. "I can't make any apologies for what he did. He clearly violated the rules. We give each of our guys an independent contractor handbook that is all the 'dos and don'ts' of what they are expected to do and not do. Beyond firing him for breaking the rules, withholding any funds we can, we can't flog him, we can't incarcerate him, we can't do anything beyond that. That is the sole reservation of the US Justice Department."

Correspondence between State Department officials in Iraq revealed they initially advised Blackwater to pay $250,000 to the family of the slain guard, but later revised their recommendation down to $15,000. The State Department officials claimed the reduction was intended to dissuade Iraqis from "trying to get killed so as to set up their family financially," according to emails received by Waxman's committee.

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-California) accused Democratic members of the committee of politicizing the hearings because Prince's campaign contributions and political connections to the Republican Party were detailed in a report released by Waxman's staff on Monday.

But criticism of the private security contractor came from both sides. While addressing the non-competitive contracts awarded by the government to Blackwater, Congressman John Duncan Jr. (R-Tennessee) said the Iraq war has "produced some of the most lavish, most fiscally excessive, most exorbitantly profitable contracts in the history of the world," adding that "fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by this..."

Congressman Tom Davis (R-Virginia) pointed out, "To date, there has not been a single successful prosecution of a security provider in Iraq for criminal misconduct."

Aside from the killing of the Iraqi guard, Blackwater was also accused of other unwarranted violent actions including the killing of Iraqi civilians and negligence that resulted in the death of American troops. Blackwater employees are currently under investigation by the FBI after a September 16 shooting incident, which resulted in the death of 11 Iraqi civilians. The Congressional investigation was slated to address this incident but the Department of Justice requested the committee wait until the FBI investigation was complete.

The hearing shed new light on an airplane crash that resulted in the death of the flight crew and three US troops in November 2004. The Oversight committee released a memorandum that summarized the crash of Blackwater flight 61, a flight commissioned by the Department of Defense to transport troops and munitions inside Afghanistan.

The memorandum was based on two previous investigations of the incident as well as internal Blackwater email correspondence. According to the Oversight committee, the crash was caused by "a combination of reckless conduct by the Blackwater pilots and multiple mistakes by Blackwater, including hiring unqualified and inexperienced pilots, failure to file flight plans and failure to have proper equipment for tracking and locating missing aircraft. According to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, one passenger survived the crash but died ten hours later of "internal injuries ... complicated by prolonged exposure to the cold." The same investigation found that rescuers were unable to locate the survivor in time because Blackwater did not report the missing plane promptly and because the pilots had deviated from what Blackwater described as the "most typical rout." Investigators found Blackwater had failed to file a flight plan for flight 61.

At the end of Prince's testimony, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) outlined motivation for her proposed bill to end the use of private security contractors in Iraq: "The reckless and lethal activities of private security contractors have jeopardized our mission in Iraq and put our troops in harm's way by increasing hostility against Americans. Without a system in place to ensure accountability and oversight, we cannot allow contractors to continue to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for Truthout.

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