US control over guards in Iraq urged
Blackwater criticized
WASHINGTON - Humanitarian groups and security specialists urged Congress yesterday to pass new legislation placing US contractors in Iraq under the jurisdiction of federal courts after new allegations that personnel at the largest private security company working there have used excessive, deadly force against Iraqi civilians and gone unpunished.
The calls for accountability come after alarming new reports that Blackwater USA, a firm employed by the State Department to guard American diplomats in Iraq, has been responsible for mounting Iraqi casualties and property damage. The use of thousands of heavily armed private security forces in Iraq came under scrutiny yesterday at a hearing of the House Oversight and Govern ment Reform Committee that featured Erik Prince, the chief executive officer of Blackwater, a former Navy commando.
Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, the top Republican on the committee, said using deadly force with impunity against everyday Iraqis is undermining the United States' mission. Davis said Iraqis "understandably resent our preaching about the rule of law when so visible an element of the US presence there appears to be above the law."
But Prince said employees work in a highly volatile combat zone and often face the same type of attacks as US troops. Any Blackwater guard who is found to have used excessive force is disciplined or fired, he said.
Thousands of private contractors, including those protecting US and Iraqi officials, have operated in a legal limbo since an order approved by the now defunct US Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 granted them immunity from prosecution in both US or Iraqi courts. Legislation earlier this year partially lifted that immunity, making private contractors working for the Pentagon subject to US military prosecution.
That has left State Department contractors such as Blackwater and others to operate with far less accountability, according to legal specialists.
"It's time to close the legal loopholes that allow contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to commit crimes with impunity," Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said yesterday. "Illegal and abusive conduct should not go unpunished."
Daskal and others urged lawmakers to support a bill proposed by Representative David Price, a Democrat from North Carolina, that would extend the reach of federal law to all security contractors in Iraq. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act is expected to come up for consideration today. The International Peace Operations Association, a security trade organization whose members include Blackwater, also endorsed the bill yesterday.
"Effective legal structures are necessary to ensure ethical operations in the field, and are not just valued by clients and local populations, but are also viewed as being in the long-term interest of our industry," the group said in a statement yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, a humanitarian organization based in Washington, called for "uniform rules and accountability measures for all private security contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The United States has paid billions of taxpayer dollars to private firms in Iraq and Afghanistan, issuing contracts to provide American troops with everything from food, fuel, and supplies to protecting US and Iraqi diplomats as they travel. The private bodyguards, however, have garnered intense scrutiny because of frequent firefights with insurgents - and because they aren't bound by the same rules of engagement as US military personnel.
In 2004, Blackwater came under the spotlight when insurgents ambushed and killed four of its employees, burned their corpses, and dangled the charred, mutilated remains above a bridge near Fallujah. The ambush precipitated a major US offensive, a bloody battle that took the lives of three dozen US military personnel.
During yesterday's hearing, Davis and other House members yesterday grilled Prince, Blackwater's founder, about new allegations that employees protecting American diplomats in Iraq killed 11 Iraqi civilians last month - and a report that a drunken Blackwater guard gunned down the Iraqi vice president's bodyguard after a Christmas Eve party last year. The FBI is investigating the September episode; Prince said the employee involved in the Christmas Eve shooting was removed from Iraq and fined but never faced criminal charges.
Earlier this week, the House oversight panel released a report that found that Blackwater employees have been involved in at least 196 firefights in Iraq since 2005 - roughly 1.4 shootings a week. In 84 percent of those cases, the report found, Blackwater workers opened fire first, despite contract stipulations that they use force only in self defense. The report also found that other Blackwater employees involved in illicit activities, including drug use and vandalism, have been relieved of duty but were not held responsible in Iraq or in the United States.
Representative Elijah Cummings, a Democrat of Maryland, likened Blackwater's Iraq personnel to "a shadow military of mercenary forces that are not accountable to the United States government or to anyone else."
Prince rejected allegations that his company's guards have operated as rogue "cowboys." He said his employees are professional and disciplined, trained to use force as a last resort to get clients out of potentially deadly situations. "I believe we acted appropriately at all times," Prince, 38, told the House committee, noting that no US officials have been killed while under his company's protection.
"We are the targets of the same ruthless enemies that have killed more than 3,800 American military personnel and thousands of innocent Iraqis," he added. "Any incident where Americans are attacked serves as a reminder of the hostile environment in which our professionals work to keep American officials and dignitaries safe, including visiting members of Congress. In doing so, more American service members are available to fight the enemy."
Based in North Carolina, Blackwater's workforce consists mostly of former US military commandos, including highly trained Army Rangers and Special Forces troops. Started in 1997, it has been paid nearly $1 billion by the State Department for its services, including providing military training for Iraqis and combat survival classes for civilians.
But mounting reports that Blackwater employees are willing to shoot first and ask questions later have set off new concerns about the role of private security firms working for the US government in battle zones.
Peter W. Singer, a specialist in military contractors at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said heavy reliance on private contractors has damaged the US effort in Iraq by taking on war-zone jobs the Pentagon used to do itself and charging far more than government personnel would have cost.
"The US government needs to go back to the drawing board and reevaluate its use of private military contractors, especially armed roles within counterinsurgency and contingency operations," he concluded in a Brookings report in September.
David Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, told the House committee that his agency relies on private security personnel in Iraq and insisted that abuses are extremely rare. On the whole, he said, the contractors have "performed exceedingly well," and "with professionalism and courage."
Satterfield also assured the committee that each reported firefight involving private security forces is fully investigated. He said that a joint US-Iraqi commission has been established to conduct a "comprehensive examination" of the role of private security forces in Iraq, and a top US diplomat was asked to review of the department's overall security practices.
But even Prince acknowledged that holding his employees accountable is ultimately a matter for law enforcement, not the State Department or the Pentagon. Asked about the shooting involving the drunken Blackwater worker, he told the committee, "We fired him. We fined him. But we as a private organization can't do any more. We can't flog him. We can't incarcerate him. That's up to the Justice Department. We are not empowered to enforce US law."
Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com. 
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
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