Deaths in Fallujah: Blackwater Email Exposes Gear Shortages

WASHINGTON - The day before four American contractors providing private security in Iraq were ambushed by a mob and their bodies dragged through the streets of Fallujah, their immediate supervisor sent an anguished, urgent email to his seniors at Blackwater Security Consultants, begging for armored cars.

"Guys are in the field with borrowed stuff and in harm's way," the supervisor, Tom Powell, wrote in an email sent at 1 a.m. on March 30, 2004. "Which I'm very uncomfortable with, given the upcoming events, with 5 million Shia moving into Karbala in five days.

"I have requested hard cars from the beginning and from my understanding, an order is still pending. Why, I ask?...It is my understanding that someone in Kuwait made a decision to go with Suburbans that are used" instead. "Bad idea!"

Just how bad an idea became clear the next day.

But on Capitol Hill today, a lawyer for the company testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the email did not necessarily pertain to the situation of the men who were killed the following day: "I can't read his mind, sir," said Andrew Howell, general counsel for the company.

Republicans on the committee not only defended Blackwater, but were surprisingly sharp in their exchanges with four women relatives of the men killed that day.

The women repeatedly broke down in tears as they recounted how the men, all U.S. military vets, were sent out almost immediately after arriving in Iraq, without so much as a map, much less any of the protective equipment they had been promised. One was decapitated and two were strung from a bridge.

Congressman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, began his questioning of the bereaved women this way: "Although I don't think your testimony today is particularly germane, I am sorry for your loss."

Then he asked who had written their joint statement. When they answered that it had been a group effort, he said, "Oh, it was well-written. It just looked like it had been written by an attorney." They are suing Blackwater, and the company has filed a countersuit.

Issa's colleague Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican, repeatedly admonished one of the women, Katy Helvenston-Wettengel, who seemed to be trying to answer his question, "Don't interrupt me...I said, don't interrupt me."

And Utah Republican Chris Cannon said he didn't see how Blackwater could even be accused of profiteering: "Your company existed before the war in Iraq, did it not?" he asked Howell.

Issa said: "It's absolutely clear that things have not gone perfectly well in Iraq, but to victimize a particular company, especially a company undergoing a lawsuit, is something we should be extraordinarily careful about."

The committee chairman, Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, noted in his opening statement that the contractors' deaths in Fallujah opened America's eyes to the fact that civilian contractors -- some 50,000 of them -- were in effect also fighting in Iraq, and that many of them are doing work done by the military itself in previous wars.

Government oversight has been so lax, he said, that, "It is now almost three years later, and we still don't know for sure the identity of the prime contractor under which the four Blackwater employees were working."

(Blackwater was hired by a Kuwaiti company called Regency, which was a subcontractor for ESS Support Services, which was a subcontractor for both the Halliburton subsidiary KBR and Fluor Corporation.)

For months, KBR had denied to the U.S. Army that it had even hired Blackwater as a subcontractor to provide security; the contract stipulated that only the military was to do that job.

But Tina Ballard, an Army procurement official, told the panel today that the Army has withheld $19.6 million from Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR after learning that it had in fact hired Blackwater for that purpose.

According to other emails released today, the Blackwater official who received the late-night plea for armored vehicles answered it promptly, and with a pat on the back, but a thumbs down on the request for better protection.

"First off, I know you are the right man for the Baghdad office and will make this work," said the Blackwater official, Mike Rush. But "there is no order for 'hard cars.' The contract only allows for 'hardening' and yes, I realize that is not optimum."

An official with Regency, the company that had hired Blackwater, wrote to Rush and told him not to sweat the situation, either, because he was all over it: "Mike," wrote the Regency official, Tim Tapp, "Do not lose sleep over this one."