Blackwater Still In Business: State Department Fumbles Effort To Oust Them From Iraq

Newsweek:

Your tax dollars at work: as part of their effort to stop doing business in Iraq with companies affiliated with the controversial paramilitary contractor formerly known as Blackwater, the State Department earlier this year hired a rival contractor to fly civilian U.S. personnel around the war-torn country by helicopter. But officials subsequently learned that helicopters the replacement contractor, Dyncorp International, was planning to use for this service didn't meet government safety standards. So as a result, the Department was forced to extend for several months its air-transport contract with an affiliate of ... the contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[NeoconGal]

This Prince character should be 'hidin the sausage' with Bernie Maddoff for the next 150 years.

[Macready]

I think the state dept is a dysfunctional as congress . . .

[jsarets]

Why try to replace one PMC with another PMC?

Why not use the military to handle transport logistics in conflict zones?

Back in the day, soldiers used to peel potatoes. Now we hire private catering.

And we wonder why our wars cost so much...

[deanfv]

Because private contractors do it cheaper and more efficiently than soldiers. On the cost aspect, you pay for the PMC service... that's it. You don't pay for his training, his retirement, his healthcare, etc. Fee for service.
On the personal security protection, ask someone from the State Department who they want protecting them outside the Green Zone of Iraq. Blackwater - trained in personal security and movement through hostile zones, seasoned ex-military with tons of experience - or a 21 year old private in the Army, who's just out of boot camp, has never been under hostile fire and has had a license for 3 years and has never driven up-armored vehicle through the streets of Baghdad. Ask your State Dept friends and they'll all say "BLACKWATER".

Blackwater has never lost a single person they've been employed to protect.

Keep dreaming that Obama or Hillary will get rid of them.

[deanfv]

Back in the day when soldiers peeled potatoes, we had millions of soldiers in the Army. Now we have 1.5 million in the entire US Military. For example, in WWII, there were 8 million Army troops. Now there are 500,000.

Smaller force means everyone must be trained to do specialized, higher order tasks. The military cannot afford and doesn't have the manning to drive fuel from the port to the airfield, or have guys fixing chow/peeling spuds at the rear of the battle. Those days are long gone.

[duxguts]

Hopey Hopey, Changey Changey.
Thank you Mr. President.

[haval2]

Even if the news is months old DEAL WITH THIS NOW.

[deanfv]

Nahhh... he'd rather hang out at Camp David and play hoops with the boys. Tough decisions don't come easy to the rookie.

[EWeiss]

This news is literally months old. I don't get it.

[doriath22]

Why is a mercenary army allowed to exist on US soil? (Never mind our govrnment actualyy doing business with these thugs) What's next, hiring the Gotti family to "protect" Amerika?

[chrisfrmchi2]

You question is probably one of the most important we need to ask ourselves in the last 10 years years concerning Mercs.

additionally tho the The US government and the mafia have had several times when they have worked together to "protect" America. ww2 is one of them and I believe something in the 60s and the 90s.

Many books about that.

[Macready]

I wouldn't be surprised doraith22 . . . these are cheney's old buddies . . . seems we can't get rid of them any more than we can get rid of the gotti family

[ReedYoung]

"The company’s air-transport operations have not been implicated in scandal."

Neither has the Mafia's.

[research]

But law enforcement seizes ACORN offices, not blackwater or the Banksters.

[keepemhonest]

... don't leave out Halliburton, KBR & Erik Pearle

[keepemhonest]

... meant Erik Prince

[research]

Ah, The Great Prince Blackwater, Christian Mercenary king. Waging a new crusades on the Islamic world! ,

so many war criminals, I can;t fit them in every sound bite....

Thanks.

[HST]

The best military in the world doesn't need help from a group of overpaid mercenaries who are not subject to any laws. Whitewater is responsible for the murder of innocent people in Iraq.

KBR is another businees that should be banned from going business with the government, since they are responsible for electrocuting our soldiers in the showers.

[billhodges]

Blackwater/Xe is an outstanding company that unfortunately had an issue with a very small group of it's employees. That does not mean the company is not doing it's other work well. The aviation side does a service the State Department can not handle and the Military should not be doing.

There have been issues with select military men working together in a battlefield environment did not mean the entire military was bad and should be removed.

I know many here do not like corporations doing business with the government but often times it is something needed to make things work mush better without draining the military.

During Vietnam it was Air America flying for the CIA and State Department. They had a higher mortality rate then the military did per ca-pita with their pilots. But it was a much needed part of the over all program.

Stop trashing everything and try to look at the big picture.

[HMDMSR]

The big picture tells us that such arrangements allow governments to evade responsibility for criminal acts, just as incorporation allows business owners to evade both legal and financial responsibilities, and just as farming out services to other companies allows businesses to do the same.

You see, liberal democracy permits a lot of corruption. This is one reason the US economy cannot a model for other nations to use.

[Agentprovokatur]

Actually we are looking at the big picture.

We are looking at

1) The corrosive effects that privatization has (due to inflated salaries paid mercenaries doing equivalent work) on the sense of civic duty and commitment of military service.

2) The purported "savings" that are illusory due to, not only higher actual costs of mercenary use, but the costs of recruitment to replace those with skills paid for by taxpayers who do not re-enlist and then sell their services to said mercenary groups who resell it back to the taxpayers, at a significant mark-up - you know to cover the increased pay and corporate profits.

3) The lack of legal oversight, or ambiguous laws covering the mercenaries actions, which lead to comments by fellow apologist "deanfv" of "Where are the indictments and convictions?" to justify this arrangement "

4) The talent drain in point 2) causing the current nightmares of unqualified or even criminal elements being relied upon to meet recruiting manpower needs of the military.

5) The existence within our nation of militarized forces whose only duties are to the service of their corporatist employers and the furtherance of their profits, no duty to uphold and defend the Constitution and follow orders of the CinC - POTUS. Praetorian Guard, but with a corporate master.

Maybe YOU should join us at the 100k ft level and take a look at the Really Big Picture.

[ReedYoung]

"The aviation side does a service the State Department can not handle and the Military should not be doing."

Why shouldn't the military be doing that job?

[OgreDaddy]

"The aviation side does a service the State Department can not handle and the Military should not be doing."

You mean like extraordinary renditions, torture, drug running, and covert attacks?

[keepemhonest]

BillHodges,

ChainE's secret azzazzination squad = Blackwater

Let me guess ... you repel ACORN

[doriath22]

Mercenaries have no place in a Democracy. Ever.
You might just as well hire the Mafia

[deanfv]

Y'all are just jealous that Blackwater has a job and you don't.

[Agentprovokatur]

Because "having a job" really IS the most important thing in the world.

No matter who it is with and what the job is, right? (Not even going to go to the obvious extreme and compare them to certain WWII persons who, when on trial, said "It was just a job, I was just following orders" - oops, guess I just did).

Move along mercenary apologist, at least until you can rationally explain your positions and not just sloganeer.

[deanfv]

Where are the indictments and convictions? You're just spouting off the talking points provided by Jeremy Scahill. No proof of wrong doing. No proof of fraud. Just baseless, sensationalized allegations.

That's all you got.

Keep complaining. Guess what? Obama wants Blackwater in Iraq. He (and HIllary) approved their contract. Get over it.

[ReedYoung]

What a foolish thing to say. Blackwater's "job" was to work for us, and Erik Prince decided to treat Iraq as a new front on the Crusades, and he hired thugs who decided to murder civilians for recreation. Those were acts of terrorism.

[jsarets]

I thought the government doesn't create jobs?

[LiberalDemIda]

Fumbled? Hardly. That's just what they want the gullible American people to think.

Like it or not, the U.S. "powers that be" need mercenaries like Xe in order to carry out their clandestine operations within a sovereign country that circumvent the Geneva Convention and can't stand the light of day.

Aren't we U.S. tax payers proud?

[tmo7734]

Erik Prince and his Blackwater gumbas should be behind bars permanently. And any government officials who are feeding them business should join them.

[hemara]

Erik Prince of Darkness should be in prison.