Licensed to Kill

by Robert Young Pelton

  Though they lost one man and one Mamba in the attack on Miyagi’s convoy, it wasn’t the deadliest encounter Blackwater had that day. Insurgents shot down—reportedly with missile fire—an Mi-17 transport helicopter leased by Blackwater, killing all except one on impact. The attackers had their propaganda tool at the ready and began filming the aftermath. When they discovered the one survivor, the pilot, they forced him to stand before executing him in a barrage of bullets, making for another very vivid and public broadcast of the fate that may befall a security contractor in Iraq. Six American Blackwater contractors, along with three Bulgarian crew members and two Fijian security guards, died in the Mi-17 attack. In total, on April 21, 2005, Blackwater Security suffered a loss of seven employees, four wounded, one torched Mamba, and one downed transport helicopter.

  By scouring the media for accounts of attacks like April 21, icasualties.org had come up with an unofficial count of 314 contractors killed in Iraq by the spring of 2006. The Department of Labor has had more than 400 death-benefits claims filed for Defense Bases Act insurance. This higher number also includes claims from the surviving members of Iraqis who had been employed by American companies, but likely also indicates that not all contractor deaths garner mentions in the press.

  It should not be surprising that neither the American nor Iraqi government keeps an official count of the number of contractors killed, since they can’t even seem to estimate the number of security companies now operating in the war zone or the number of contractors they employ. In the spring of 2006, 730 members of the Iraqi government alone required the services of private security details—all operating without direct control from either the occupying regime or the beleaguered Iraqi government. The proliferation of armed civilians providing security and the lawless environment in which the business has expanded have resulted in a flourishing of private militias, many of which double as death squads.

  To counter this trend, an organization called the Private Security Company Association of Iraq (PSCAI) has been established to try to organize the legitimate companies and to push for legislation to rein in the illegitimate ones. The problem the PSCAI has encountered is that the government of Iraq is simply not capable of or willing to regulate the contractors. Confidential PSCAI internal documents from early 2006 outline the response of the ministry of the interior after the first batch of security companies attempted to register with the MOI. Fifty of those who submitted the paperwork to the MOI either received no response or were rejected, while forty-eight were still waiting for their weapons permits four months after they had applied. The MOI had also admitted that there were at least fifty-four armed private “security” companies about which they had no information. A more disturbing revelation can be found in the notes of a PSCAI meeting, where discussion centered around their determination that 14,600 unregistered individual Iraqi members of armed personal security details were operating in Iraq, who therefore exist completely outside the boundaries of the current modicum of regulation now in place. Adding to that the additional 19,120 unregistered foreign security operators makes for an estimate of more than 33,720 men with a license to kill in Iraq. Another PSCAI internal document, discussing the accountability of those unregistered entities, states, “Each PSD is effectively its own entity, and subject to the perceived power of those whom they protect.” The implication is that the security situation is driving the country toward a kind of neo-warlordism. The PSCAI best estimate is that there are more than 70,000 privately armed men in Iraq, not including insurgents or militias.

  While waiting at BIAP with the Mamba team during my November 2004 visit, I chatted with two American security contractors working for one of Iraq’s largest employers at the time. They seemed freaked out and told me that their Kurdish owner would routinely leave their secure compound to extract payback for the death of family members during the Saddam era. “We have caught him more than once outside the wire before dawn,” they confided in me. Though it would be difficult, if not impossible, to verify their account, if true it would be entirely in line with everything I have learned in my journey about the lawless environment in which security contractors are operating in Iraq.

  An American partner in an Iraqi security company told me that his firm gave up on the Western-style PSD after finding it more effective for the security of their operations to hire Iraqi Sunnis from Saddam’s former elite guards. He told me that the effect of this shift in human resources recruitment policy is that “you shoot at us or cause a problem, and the solution is taken right down to the family level.” While he wouldn’t go into exact details of what that might entail, it suggests that his new contractors are using revenge as a tool aimed at preventing future attacks. The Iraqi security company al-Rawafid also employed many Sunni ex–security forces from the Saddam era and is owned by a prominent Sunni sheik and member of Parliament. In March 2006, armed men wearing Iraqi police uniforms abducted fifty employees of al-Rawafid. The ministry of the interior said that the attackers were insurgents with stolen uniforms, though al-Jazeera reported that Iraqi police had long-held suspicions about al-Rawafid’s manner of providing security. In Iraq, it is becoming increasingly unclear who is working for whom and to what end exactly.

  The one thing that has become clear is that Western contractors fire at or into Iraqi vehicles on a regular basis. The controversial Aegis video—taken out of context and judged by a public with a limited understanding of standard operating procedures and the working environment for security convoys—gave the impression that PSDs randomly shoot at Iraqis with the same restraint as a fourteen-year-old playing a violent video game. In reality, the video more likely portrayed an inexperienced and terrified contractor uncertain whether cars behind the convoy were friend or foe. A comparison could be drawn with the issues raised in the United States after an accidental shooting by police officers. Police have to make split-second decisions of life and death, and if they’re in what they feel is a dangerous situation, the heightened tension makes an irreversible mistake more likely. The most dangerous environment an American police officer might encounter, multiplied by a hundred, may begin to give a sense of the pressure under which PSDs working in Iraq must operate. Mistakes happen, but the lack of accountability for even justified accidental shootings makes abuses more likely.

  Neither the Pentagon nor the Iraqis keep statistics—at least publicly—on the number of civilians injured or killed by contractor shootings. However, in early 2006, the Pentagon did release a cache of four hundred serious incident reports that spanned nine months of 2004–2005. In analyzing the documents, Jay Price of Raleigh-Durham’s News and Observer determined that contractors in Baghdad had reported shooting into sixty-one vehicles during that nine-month period. Of those, only seven incidents involved the targets shooting back, threatening violence, or conducting threatening activities. In most cases, the contractors fled the scene after the incident.

  The four hundred reports represent only a portion of the actual incidents. Contractors are supposed to file an account about the reasons for every single weapons discharge, including warning shots. However, during my time with contractors in Iraq, I never saw a single report filed, even though gunfire against civilians was an everyday event, possibly to an average of three to six warning shots per run. I must add, however, that I never witnessed any of the men I rode with acting outside the bounds of the standard rules of engagement, but then again, none of the Iraqis they fired on were insurgents but normal commuters.

  When I ask Shannon, a Blackwater contractor with many tours of duty in Iraq, how extensive he thinks the problem of civilian casualties may be, he replies: “Contractors shoot at people all the time, but we don’t stop to see if anyone was killed or injured.” When I press him for more information on his memory of any specific incidents, the usually loquacious Shannon remains uncharacteristically circumspect. Shifting angles, I ask him what he views as the worst-case scenario for the security industry in Iraq, to which he offers: “The FBI showed
up once looking for a rogue group. And no one knows if the USIS rumors about contractors doing offensive operations in Fallujah are true. There are plenty of stories from Iraqis about drive-by shootings, but the fact is that there are plenty of white SUVs used by insurgents.” As a member of the close-knit, self-protective tribe of security contractors, it may be difficult for Shannon to acknowledge that his own contemporaries may actually represent a larger problem than any rogue group. Or he may just be putting a positive spin on the practices of his chosen profession.

  Most contractors I have asked about this issue have responded with a chuckle or a sarcastic remark, and the general consensus has been that the most serious incidents—the ones in which civilians were likely killed—are the least likely to be reported. The only negative elements of the security industry Shannon would comment on were two items that have already been reportedly resolved: “We had a problem with black-market weapons, but that got shut down. There was the whole steroid thing, but State clamped down on that.” Though I have spent years traveling with and talking to contractors and have made many lasting and meaningful friendships through the experience, it is obvious that on many levels their world will remain a closed society—even to me. But even as simply a close observer of the standards and practices of private security in Iraq, two critical issues have become glaringly obvious. They are that some Iraqi security companies are very likely operating as private militias, and that there has yet to be an accounting of deaths caused by contractors—men who for now still operate with a license to kill.

  As of spring 2006, there has not been a single contractor charged for any crime that occurred in Iraq, though hundreds of soldiers have been court-martialed for offenses ranging from minor violations of military code to murder. Even if a particularly negligent or intentional attack on civilians was publicly exposed, it is unclear what legal avenues would be used to hold the perpetrators accountable. The only contractor who has been charged with a crime during the War on Terror will be tried for a violation of the Patriot Act, even though the incident in question occurred in Afghanistan: David Passaro, an independent contractor working a covert paramilitary job, allegedly assaulted a prisoner in detention. He now awaits trial in his home state of North Carolina.

  It is evident that the depth and breadth of this problem has yet to be fully explored, though there is a clear need to understand the impact that hired guns have on the people and environment in which they operate—not just for today’s War on Terror, but also for the future.

  The rise of the private security company in war zones and high-risk areas has created a new breed of private soldiers, armed mercenaries, security guards, and companies who have the license to resort to full-scale violence if attacked—a potential freelance warrior class that operates under murky legal restraint. The commercial provision of an armed force has become a standard way of doing business, as well as a supplemental tool of foreign policy. The thing to watch in the future will be whether or not armed men hired on a contract basis become an integral tool of foreign policy.

  Some of the khaki-clad legions in Iraq do a ninety-day tour and realize that their life is worth more than $500 a day. Others will develop an addiction to the lifestyle and a dark craving for being “in the game.” The war against the Russians in Afghanistan drew legions of mercenaries to fight jihad, creating an army of thousands of trained, seasoned private soldiers with a tight network of contacts with aligned ideologies and capabilities. After the Russians withdrew, leaving the jihadis unemployed, some of them went home, but many ended up joining al-Qaeda and/or moving on to fight other Islamist insurgencies. Working in violent areas and being given a license to kill can be frightening to some and an addictive adrenaline rush to others. It is impossible to predict how successfully the thousands of security contractors now working in Iraq will integrate back into a normal civilian life after their wellspring of employment dries up.

  Examining the coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea provides a good model of how private military forces can be harnessed by well- or ill-intentioned wealthy patrons for their own personal and financial designs. Established military powers have little to fear from the designs of a few dozen men winging their way on a 727, but had the coup been successful in Equatorial Guinea, America would have had to protect its oil interests from being sold off or diverted to the highest or most corrupt bidder. A small group of men with experience as hired guns could be exponential in their influence, given the right opportunity. Just as Billy Waugh was sent in to train and hire foreign legions in Southeast Asia in the 1970s and more recently in Afghanistan, it would take only a limited number of willing participants to act as the catalyst for a much broader military action.

  Loosely organized old-boy networks and their financially motivated players have a proven ability to operate within clearly defined loopholes and then vanish when the gig is done. Even the more visible proponents of the soldier-for-hire club like Simon Mann, Tim Spicer, even Keith Idema, can relabel and reposition themselves as the times and opportunities dictate. The business has scurry holes where an egregious abuser can disappear, only to reappear with a different corporate label and purpose a few months later. I have met former Apartheid-era enforcers, dictators’ bodyguards, bounty hunters, and mercenaries working as contractors for large Western security companies. I have also met seasoned cops, decorated veterans, and highly educated intellectuals working on the same teams. The first set would likely not hesitate to take a gig like Equatorial Guinea, but it will be interesting to see if any “normal” Western contractors will take money to make a big jump to the dark side.

  In my years of travels among guns-for-hire, I have never seen an example of a clearly evil person deliberately doing evil things as a contractor. All have their own moral, professional, and emotional rationale for what they do. Their tribal nature forces reprobates out and word travels quickly. Many of the more recent initiates see their calling as identical to what they did in the military or police. Many switch back and forth seamlessly, such as the two men arrested in Zimbabwe with Simon Mann while they were on a “hunting vacation” from their jobs in Iraq. The more experienced ones see that times and rationale can change quickly, turning the savior into the demon.

  President Obiang’s lawyer, Henry Page, has spent quite a bit of time pondering the moral dilemma of employing a PMC to effect “regime change.” He has his own opinions about the future of the private security industry, and contrasts the post-9/11 “license to kill” to a passage from A Man for All Seasons in which Thomas More stands by the letter of the law against the wishes of the king, who wants to bend the rules to divorce his wife. In his terribly posh British accent, Page paraphrases, “If the laws protect you like trees from the devil, and you cut them down to get to the devil, what will protect you when the devil comes after you?”

  GLOSSARY

  * * *

  ABC—American Broadcasting Corporation

  AIC—Agent in charge

  AK-47—Avtomat Kalashnikov Model 47, a Soviet-designed assault rifle that fires heavy 7.62-mm rounds, developed for Russian motorized infantry in 1949

  AN/PRC 112—A palm-sized, 28-ounce survival radio/GPS for locating downed air crews and combat patrols

  ANC—African National Congress

  ASIS—American Society for Industrial Security

  BBC—British Broadcasting Corporation

  BBC—Bight of Benin Company

  BIAP—Baghdad International Airport

  Blackside SF—Covert Special Forces

  Blue Badger—Full-time CIA employee

  BMW—Bavarian Motor Works

  CAC—Common access card issued to contractors

  CACI—California Analysis Center, Inc

  CAMCO—Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company

  CASA 212—The newest version of Spanish-made short takeoff and landing transport aircraft, which can carry twenty-five equipped paratroopers or 6,500 pounds of payload

  CAS—Close Air Support, now called T
AC-P, Tactical Air Control Party

  CAT—Counterassault team

  CCB—Civil Cooperation Bureau

  CDI—“Chicks Dig It”

  CEO—Chief executive officer

  CH-47—U.S. twin rotor workhorse helicopter that can transport forty-four troops or lift up to 26,000 thousand pounds by sling

  CIA—Central Intelligence Agency

  CIDG—Civilian Irregular Defense Group

  Clandestine—Actions done in secret, often in order to conceal an illicit or improper purpose

  CNN—Cable News Network

  Covert—Activities conducted, planned, and executed so that any U.S. government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if the activities are uncovered, the U.S. government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them

  CPA—Coalition Provisional Authority

  CQB—Close-quarter battle

  CRG—Control Risks Group