Two Apache helicopters showed up to hover over the area for a few hours. The besieged men took advantage of the lull in fighting to resupply ammunition to the defensive positions. They broke MREs out of their heavy brown wrappers and swallowed bites of food in between loading magazines. The Ukrainian soldiers were poorly equipped in general and certainly weren’t prepared to fight at night. The KBR contractors supplied them with flashlights, radios, and other equipment, and Triple Canopy gave them fresh ammo after their stock ran low.
At 8:00 P.M., the group was informed that General Ostrovsky of the Ukrainian contingent would not negotiate with the militia but that the ceasefire remained in effect. One hour later, however, they heard more incoming RPGs and mortars from across the river, lasting about fifteen minutes. Then John Turner received word that a Special Forces ODA team was readying for insertion and would come help defend the compound. A helicopter extraction plan was supposedly also in the works. The optimism for salvation would last a few hours, until new word came to inform them that the Ukrainian general had scratched the plans because he deemed it too dangerous to land a helicopter in the compound.
Meanwhile, in the besieged HART house, the cat-and-mouse battle continued as the militia fired up at the rooftop. In the midafternoon, a HART team member had called the CPA and the Ukrainian military base, informing them of Gray’s death and their retreat under attack to confinement on the roof of their building. He had requested immediate evacuation. The HART team had prepared the roof for a helicopter extraction, but by early evening it appeared obvious one would not be coming. Taking regular small-arms fire and an occasional RPG, the HART men were surrounded and abandoned. The militia sent a negotiator up to a neighboring rooftop and urged the men to come out. The Mahdi militia said it wanted to take the men to their headquarters, where another group would escort them out of the city. It sounded like another trick, or hostage trap, so the HART team tried to buy time, hoping that the Ukrainians or Americans would finally send in a team to extract them. They went through the motions of negotiation until well after midnight, when it became clear that the ruse could be continued no longer. The men broke off their talks with the militia members, and were within minutes under attack by more small-arms fire and a couple of grenades tossed up on the roof. The vicious attack lasted only briefly, until the militia redirected its weapons toward the more attractive target across the river.
The Mahdi militia were put on the defensive after AC-130 gunships started circling, coordinating with those inside the compound to target insurgent positions. Many of the Triple Canopy contractors had been trained in their previous military career to do close air support, and a chain of communications was developed to relay the targeting information provided by the contractors to the aircraft prowling the sky above. The AC-130 circled at a constant altitude, providing a stable platform for 105-mm manually loaded cannons, 20-mm chain guns, and 40-mm grenade launchers, selecting targets with their powerful FLIR (forward looking infrared) spotlights, which identify humans heat sources and even warm engines as bright white glowing objects on the targeting screen.
The military requested that every gun in the compound open up to draw the insurgent fire for targeting purposes—an old trick to flush out the enemy. Cheered on by having the big guns for support, the civilians headed to the roof of the hotel, until the GC, Marc Etherington, ordered everyone to respect the nonexistent ceasefire. Disappointed, they stood down. But their shooting to draw enemy fire was apparently unnecessary, since a few minutes later the insurgents unleashed everything they had with devastating effect. The hotel rocked with multiple hits. Tracers and muzzle flashes quickly revealed enemy positions across the river. The gunship operators kept up a steady radio chatter with the Triple Canopy contractors, since the barrage of fire had allowed them to locate multiple enemy positions. They paused for permission to engage, but the Ukrainian general refused to allow the gunship to open fire, reasoning that the enemy positions were on top of schools, houses, and civilian structures. Despite the order, the AC-130 took out locations across the street from the compound and at least one mortar position. At 1:45 A.M., two Apache helicopters showed up, replacing the gunship and providing rotating air cover. Their presence alone successfully suppressed the heavy fire against the compound.
Turner had realized by then that the insurgents had been listening on the radios stolen from the compound by the fleeing Iraqi guards. He assembled the exhausted group to relate the good news in person—the Ukrainian command had put together ten armored troop carriers with air cover, and just before dawn they would break through the city to rescue the men inside the compound. A sense of jubilation overcame the exhaustion, and the men set to work planning for their evacuation. At 4:35 A.M, the group gathered together with their go bags, weapons, and critical equipment, waiting impatiently for the sound of helicopters and diesel engines. They soon learned that General Ostrovsky had canceled the extraction plan as too risky and likely for failure. John Turner and the CPA-based Ukrainian commander began immediately creating their own plan using the available resources in the compound. They had a collection of armored and soft-skin SUVs belonging to the security companies and could coordinate for air cover with the hovering Apaches. They had to hurry to make a self-imposed 6:00 A.M. launch date, since after morning prayers the Mahdi Army would begin setting up their mortars and readying for a new day’s offensive—something the compound probably couldn’t endure for another day, considering how low their supplies had run.
When the men in the HART house heard that the CPA was pulling out, they decided to trust two of their employees who offered to help them make a break for it. They put on local headscarves and made their way to the roof of an adjacent building, climbing down in the darkness to a silver Pajero SUV. They drove slowly out of town in the direction of al Amarah as the sun rose into the sky.
By 6:00 A.M., vehicles were loaded and Apaches circled above the CPA compound. KBR staff piled into the CRG armored vehicles, but there was some shuffling to see who got the favored seats in the armored vehicles and who would ride out in the soft skins and large military trucks. The CPA pulled rank. By 6:15, the convoy was ready to go and lined up on the road leading out of the compound. The Ukrainians bookended the convoy in their BTR-60 Russian-made armored troop carriers, with the security companies’ armored cars driving in the next layer, while the one soft skin and the rest of the military vehicles rode in the middle of the convoy. The entire group was just waiting for the GC to get off the phone.
Marc Etherington, the CPA’s governate coordinator, was still talking to General Ostrovsky, begging him to reverse his order and send in reinforcements. It was apparent he did not want to abandon his post. He ordered a CRG car to block the convoy’s departure route, but the security contractors refused to obey his orders. A near revolt broke out as the group of men began shouting at the GC to get the hell in the car. Finally, an army captain of the force protection team told the GC he would be left behind if he didn’t get in one of the trucks. Etherington relented, and at 6:20 the convoy left out the back gate. Not a shot was fired as they drove through town. At 7:40, the convoy pulled into the MND base at Al Kut airfield. Pulling themselves out of the vehicles—tired, dirty, and worn—the KBR and RTI employees handed their weapons back to the Triple Canopy contractors and became civilians again. The United States had abandoned a CPA regional headquarters, but its inhabitants were safe. Shortly afterward, the Ukrainian Army turned control of the town over to Sadr’s militia, though U.S. forces would take it back from the Mahdi militia a couple of days later.
Later, the recriminations would fly. The Ukrainians insisted that their 1,650 men—the fourth-largest non-American contingent behind the Poles, the Italians, and the Brits—were there as peacekeepers, not combat troops, and thus were limited in their capability to respond effectively to heavy attack. Others members of the besieged teams would be more blunt. One described the Ukrainians as “cowards,” explaining, “They had all the resources and supp
ort to extract us and didn’t.” The CPA would blame KBR for not having delivered items like sandbags and SCUD bunkers, and for not having adequate communications. Etherington would come under scathing criticism for risking the lives of the civilian and security contractors, and RTI would reduce its commitment of employees to Iraq after the violence of Al Kut. For the third time that spring the contractors were the target and the thin red line. Although the incidents in An Najaf and Al Kut were downplayed by Bremer and never fully reported in the media, it was clear that Blackwater and other private teams were a far better and more willing partner than many in the war in Iraq. When under fire, the coalition of the billing had stood their ground while the coalition of the willing stood by and watched.
CHAPTER 7
* * *
The Dog Track and the Swamp
“We thought this was something that was scaleable.”
—ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF TRIPLE CANOPY
The Southland Dog Track lies just on the outskirts of West Memphis, Arkansas, set amidst a crowd of low-budget motels and twenty-four-hour diners. Traveling southward from Triple Canopy’s Chicago headquarters on Amtrak’s overnight City of New Orleans, I have come down to watch a few days of their training and selection process. The sixty men vying for spots on one of Triple Canopy’s contracts will bunk at the Ramada down the street but will split most of their waking hours showing off their driving ability at the dog track or their shooting skills at a private shooting range. The hardscrabble surroundings of the training enterprise offer a concrete example of the contrast between the big-money lifestyle of private security firm owners and the low-budget existence of those who make their contracts and business pay off.
Triple Canopy is one of the newest and most aggressive players to appear on the private security scene. The name refers to the multiple layers of greenery that protect the floor of the rain forest and draws a metaphor for the multiple layers of security Triple Canopy applies to keep their clients safe. The company was founded in September of 2003 by a group of friends and investors. The core group consists of two army buddies from Special Forces, Matt Mann and Tom Katis, and John Peters, an investment banker. Iggy Balderas, former command sergeant major for Delta, makes the fourth for the current board of directors. Within their first year of operations, the company had grown from the original core group to a business supporting over eight hundred employees, and had generated over $100 million in revenue.
Triple Canopy likes to promote their corporate culture as derived from Delta, in comparison to Blackwater’s SEAL legacy and HART’s SAS ethos. Promoting a Delta-based image implies a secretive and management-oriented method of doing business, compared to Blackwater’s boisterous and aggressive persona, while HART likes to maintain the lowest profile possible.
Like many start-ups in the exploding private security industry, Mann, Katis, and Peters started with little and scrambled to flesh out the corporate structure and hire and train operators after they had won their first bid. Matt Mann recalls how aggressively they worked to get that initial contract and the major financial risks they all assumed in order to pursue the opportunity. When a contract came up for bid to protect the governates in Iraq, Mann said, “The only catch is that to bid, you had to go over and do a security survey of the sites.” Of the four companies that were asked to bid on the $300-million blanket protection contract over six months, MVM and ArmorGroup never showed up, so Blackwater and Triple Canopy directly competed to win the contract. Matt Mann and former Navy SEAL Hal Poff “ran around the country in the back of a BMW with a towel around our heads,” but Blackwater only showed up to survey half the sites, opening it up for the nascent Triple Canopy to win the rest.
According to Matt Mann, “We won seventeen out of thirty-three [contracts]. The first six months was $80 million. The renewal was in the forty to sixty million range. We ended up lining up fifty million in credit from Wells Fargo and spending nine million in capital. To get in place, before we received one dollar, we would have to spend eight million. We had already spent a couple of million before we even had a contract. We were paying eight percent for our money, the penalty for being a new company. And it was a fixed-price bid so the government didn’t guarantee us a profit.”
Their investment has paid off, since Triple Canopy is now one of the biggest American providers of private security services, referred to as one of the “Big 3,” along with Blackwater and DynCorp. In early 2006, the “Big 3” won a shared $1-billion contract to provide American embassy security worldwide.
By the time of this writing, Triple Canopy had made the big jump from their original Chicago offices to a suite near the locus of power in Herndon, Virginia, outside of Washington, DC. They’ve also dramatically upgraded their training facilities, but when I visited them in mid-2004, they were still living in the spartan existence of a fledgling start-up. Spending a week with the men of Triple Canopy training in West Memphis, Arkansas, I got to know the blood and flesh on which the Triple Canopy empire has been built.
During the fighting in Afghanistan and very early in the Iraq war, private security contractors were drawn from the most qualified and experienced operators, but that pool of potential recruits has been depleted by the demands of the security problem in Iraq, and now the applicants span a wider spectrum. Triple Canopy gets in an initial pool of roughly eleven hundred résumés a month, of which about one hundred fifty have any real credentials. About 15 to 20 percent come straight from military service, and the rest come from private companies, though they may still have a military background. The men in this class come from a variety of backgrounds and range from the experienced and cool to the intimidated and desperate. They have passed the initial résumé review and background check by personnel, and now have to prove that they can do the job. The ages range from midtwenties to early fifties. None of them are being paid while they go through the training, but Triple Canopy buys them a ticket to Memphis and pays for their accommodations.
By the time I arrive, the aspiring contractors have checked into the Ramada, two to a room. The hotel also houses a gaggle of senior citizen tourists, who watch and whisper about the men as if they’re some variety of exotic species. The men sport what looks like all brand-new out-of-the-box 5.11 brand khakis and contractor gear—a fashion interpretation of OGA gear for plainclothes missions. Right now in West Memphis they belong to an ill-defined warrior class, but back home they are mostly average middle-aged men getting slightly paunchy and shaving their heads to hide the bald spot. They have wives, families, mortgages, car payments. Most possess a high school diploma and a decade or two of experience developing skill sets that have few applications in the civilian world. More than once in my time with them I will hear the common Special Forces joke that after twenty years in the service, an SF operator will have only a topaz ring, a Harley, an ex-wife, and can apply for a job as a Wal-Mart greeter.
A big, blond, and jovial Midwesterner named Jim Troutman—nickname Moose—heads the Triple Canopy training program. Jim holds court in a spartan suite on the second floor, though he tells me that his instructors stay at the nearby Holiday Inn because they don’t like the bedbugs here. An ex-army and former Delta operator, his health and demeanor make him appear at least a decade younger than the “pushing fifty” he gives me for his age.
He was in the military for twenty-two years and six months before he was shown the door. He phrases it, “You do your twenty years and phhhhht,” as he mimics the trash being thrown out. “I was in Beirut, El Salvador, Zaire—forty-six countries.”
Since then he hasn’t really retired. “I worked mostly in security—a year and a half in Bosnia, a year and a half in Kosovo. The Philippines. Afghanistan. After 9/11, I trained air marshals.”
Jim has been successful in his professional life, but as he advises me, “You can’t hold a personal life together in this line of work…. I am not married anymore. In this work, you can’t even keep a girlfriend.” He shows me a picture of his latest flame—a ver
y young and attractive Hispanic-looking woman. Since I spend so much time away from home, he offers me a tip he has picked up on how to manage personal relationships over long distances: “Go on FTD.com and set up everyone’s anniversaries and birthdays in advance.”
The ever-smiling and bespectacled Jim exudes pride about the quality of his makeshift training program, bragging that all his instructors have PSD and military training, and some have had recent combat experience in Iraq. He tells me the locals around West Memphis call his students the “Iraqi Killers” and claims that “crime has dropped dramatically in this town since we moved in.” He doesn’t believe that you need the affluence of Blackwater’s seven thousand acres and a bunch of bells and whistles to train and select. “It’s all about the quality of instructors and training,” he assures me. “We invest about twenty grand in these guys before we hire them. We don’t want their planes crashing, so we even stagger their flights.”
Corporate usually sends down about sixty men for a class, but Jim expects almost a third will be sent home without an offer of employment. Over the five-day course, they will cover State Department and higher protection detail skills and make sure the men can work cohesively on ever-changing teams. The men learn first aid, how to use a GPS (Global Positioning System), security fundamentals, advance work (checking out a location), and driving. The weapons training will start with the Glock 9-mm pistol using individual movement, and then advance to moving and shooting in large groups using the M4 rifle. As Triple Canopy gets up to speed, they will integrate heavier weapons like the Mark 19 grenade launcher, .50 cal machine gun, and more sophisticated group driving and shooting techniques.
Cecil, a sixtysomething ex–Special Forces who helps out with training, takes me to check out their driving course at the dog track—a dilapidated facility that can barely fill a dozen seats for the races. Luxuries for the mostly comatose dog race fans consist of plastic seats, cheap hot dogs, and watery beer. The muzzled greyhounds walk at a glacial pace to the starting booth. A starting bell sounds as a mechanical pink “rabbit”—actually just a bit of worn-out fluff—sets off on a circuit around the track with the dogs trying desperately to keep up. Somehow it seems it is a fitting allegory for the men who have come here to chase their dream to be contractors. From the bored looks of the few spectators, it seems that the shelter from the afternoon sun provides more of an attraction than the dogs.
Licensed to Kill Page 19