Warriors for Hire
HEMINGWAY, MARK
Warriors for Hire Blackwater USA and the rise of private military contractors By Mark Hemingway Moyock, N.C. For obvious reasons, the location of the headquarters of Blackwater USA isn't...
...One of the single greatest factors that makes us who we are today is, one, we are always complete, correct, and on time with our services and, two, this facility—this is the greatest barrier to entry in the market of doing training and security operations...
...The company name sounds mysterious, but it's just the name of the region...
...Prince believes that an entrepreneurial spirit and the military go naturally together: "This goes back to our corporate mantra: We're trying to do for the national security apparatus what Fed Ex did for the postal service," Prince says...
...The massive double-door handles made from .50 caliber machine gun barrels get noticed, however...
...The only time you see people in their vehicles is when they were going to the tent cities, because there's a bar in every tent city...
...Nobody can say Prince is in it for the money, either...
...Officially, the only public trace of the world's largest private military training facility is a post office box in Moyock, North Carolina, an unremarkable rib-shack pit-stop on the way to the Outer Banks...
...However, it can be safely assumed that at each level of subcontracting, the companies mark up their costs, bloating the price to the taxpayer...
...The private sector can do many of those things, whether it's training or logistics or airlift— a lot of those kinds of peripheral issues...
...It's currently 7,500 acres...
...And we do it in a market-based manner and drive those efficiencies...
...By 1998 Sandline was embroiled in a much bigger scandal—allegedly violating a U.N...
...Blackwater has earned $505 million in publicly identifiable contracts since 2000— it's no wonder private military contractors jokingly refer to themselves as the "Coalition of the Billing...
...I'm not really good at math but it seems like a pretty simple equation to solve...
...When it was shuttered in 2004, the official reason given was that, owing to a lack of governmental support, "the ability of Sandline to make a positive difference in countries where there is widespread brutality and genocidal behaviour is materially diminished...
...Mann's failed coup made a huge splash internationally, in part because one of the people allegedly bankrolling the operation was Mark Thatcher, son of the former British prime minister...
...It was the end of the Cold War...
...And there's much, much more...
...He attended officer candidate school after finishing college in 1992, and the next year he joined SEAL Team 8 based out of Norfolk...
...agencies most directly responsible for Iraqi reconstruction...
...I will deploy on my terms, and if it ever gets too stupid, I will simply find another company that pays me more...
...Mann recruited a former lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards, Tim Spicer, to head up the operation...
...And there you have it...
...The company also came under scrutiny when videos of Aegis contractors indiscriminately firing at civilian cars surfaced on the Internet...
...He can rattle off any number of examples of mercenaries being used throughout history—many of whom were beloved figures in U.S...
...This time it's approaching one to one...
...These massive contracts are easier for the government to manage than multiple smaller ones...
...still the decidedly larger ratio is no doubt the result of the 20,000 or so serving in a quasi-military role—almost three times the number of British military forces currently in Iraq...
...His father Edgar started a small die-cast shop in Holland, Michigan, in 1965...
...The first shooter with all six targets on his side loses...
...Still, at a certain point touring their facilities, the immensity of the place seems like, well, overkill...
...Even those suspicious of Black-water's motives must realize it makes good business sense that they would be interested in the work...
...In fact, the company logo—a target sight superimposed over a bear claw—isn't entirely figurative...
...On the surface, it looked like a simple contract to protect a Kuwaiti food service company transporting food and kitchen supplies...
...For years, the company's bread and butter was its multimillion-dollar business designing and manufacturMark Hemingway is a writer in Washington...
...How can they convince the world that they are "committed to supporting humane democracy" when everyone else in their industry has been eager to sell it out...
...The Washington Post last week reported that the Pentagon counts about 100,000 contractors in Iraq...
...Get more people, skilled people, in there...
...Forsyth is one of a small number of private investors in the current business venture of Mann's good friend and former business partner, Tim Spicer...
...Clients included Texaco and DeBeers, but Executive Outcomes wasn't exactly discriminating about whose money it took...
...Blackwater vice-chairman Cofer Black, a former CIA agent and State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, made waves at a conference in Amman, Jordan, earlier this year saying the company is ready to provide brigade-size forces (1,500-3,000 soldiers) for peacekeeping missions around the world...
...It was Spicer and Mann who came up with the term Private Military Company and began rebranding mercenaries in earnest...
...Regardless of his inheritance, Prince's subsequent shepherding of Blackwater has proved him as adept a businessman as his father...
...KBR has an exclusive $7.2 billion contract with the military for managing the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP which handles global support functions for the military, e.g., food...
...We're not big outsourcers, which is kind of ironic because we play a big role in the outsourcing market...
...It's not their fault that everywhere—from Colorado to Iraq—business is so good...
...Nonetheless, private military contractors in Iraq are known for their aggressive behavior...
...The families of the four men—one of them a revered former SEAL instructor—are suing Blackwater, alleging that they were rushed out on the mission without adequate preparation or protection...
...The idea of private contractors doing this kind of work is not a recent phenomenon," he says...
...A personal favorite is the "Dueling Tree"—an upright stand with three targets on each side...
...The Aegis contract got the attention of Congress, and eventually the Pentagon admitted that its contracting officer was completely unaware of Spicer's background...
...The company has carried out high-profile assignments—such as their exclusive contract to guard Ambassador L. Paul Bremer when he was the top U.S...
...I called Erik on my sat phone and said, 'I was in Juba...
...He had been arrested along with a planeload of mercenaries and former EO and Sandline colleagues en route to foment a coup in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny despotic country in the armpit of Africa that happens to have substantial oil reserves off the coast...
...vehicles in a motor pool, there's any number of NGOs driving within a one-mile radius within Juba, and nothing's getting done...
...Retired Marine colonel Thomas X. Hammes is a vocal critic of Blackwater, having seen them guarding Bremer...
...While there may be other private military contractors that are larger, most of them support and conduct operations through a patchwork of subcontracts...
...His posture is ramrod straight, and his clipped sentences are true to his martial roots...
...Yet we still have to face critics who say everybody is a mercenary—they're only out for a buck...
...The country's largest tactical driving track, with multi-surface, multi-elevation positive and negative cambered turns, a skid pad, and a ram pad for drivers learning how to escape ambushes...
...The four American contractors killed in Falluja in March 2004 were providing transport security for a Kuwaiti food service company under a Blackwater Security Consulting contract...
...When combined with inadequate oversight, it creates a system ripe for inefficiency and abuse," Singer says...
...He sounds more like an MBA than a mercenary...
...Though his military career was brief, as a former Navy SEAL platoon commander, Prince is no dilettante...
...I do this job for the opportunity to kill the enemies of my country, and to finally get that boat I've always wanted...
...Despite the fact that he was called in for questioning by the British government and suspected of being involved in some capacity with Mann's 2004 coup attempt, in May of that year Aegis was awarded a $293 million contract from the U.S...
...Currently the U.N...
...And it drew national attention to the use of private contractors—"mercenaries" to their more vehement detractors—in Iraq...
...For a conservative like Prince, you can't make the world a better place without harnessing the power of free markets...
...Why chase after shady corporate clients when the mother lode is in helping people...
...hile Blackwater's training and logistics operations might be the heart of their operation, that's not the reason the company is on the verge of becoming a household name...
...In the first Gulf war, the ratio of private contractors to military personnel was one to sixty...
...The target systems remain a multimillion-dollar business, but now the corporate flagship is just one part of a very large fleet...
...The next year Erik left the Navy and founded Black-water...
...Enter the war on terror, and the military began looking for something beyond training and support services—actual manpower...
...Proving cost-effectiveness is nearly impossible as there are no comprehensive data on private military contractors and institutional savings...
...Not only can he buy and sell you, he can kill you before you even know he's in the room...
...But just in case the world needs them, in the swamps of North Carolina, a few thousand rough men stand ready—for a price...
...This despite the fact that the company had no previous experience in Iraq and clearly didn't have the resources to fulfill the contract...
...In 1996, one of EO's principals, Simon Mann, a former SAS officer and heir to a substantial brewing fortune, created a subsidiary called Sandline...
...I just got back from Darfur," says Chris Taylor, the vice president for strategic initiatives...
...his initial purchase of 6,000 acres in Moyock does not suggest his vision for the company was modest...
...In any combat zone, I will always locate the swimming pool, beer, and women, because I can...
...A Florida aviation division with 26 different platforms, from helicopter gunships to a massive Boeing 767...
...And from that start, it gradually expanded its roster of services available to the military...
...Blackwater is trying to emerge as a credible and ethical company in an industry with a reputation of being anything but...
...The company still executes that contract to this day...
...Of all the curiosities littered throughout the gargantuan property, it's hard not to be taken aback by "R U Ready High"—a firing range modeled after a high school, as well as an old school bus used for training in tactical hostage situations...
...The contract is shrouded in controversy...
...The suspension is being built by one of Blackwater's North Carolina neighbors—Dennis Anderson, monster truck champion and the man responsible for the "Grave Digger" (the ne plus ultra of monster trucks...
...Cofer and I have been speaking about our ability to help in Darfur ad infinitum, and that just pisses off the humanitarian world," Taylor says...
...arms embargo in Sierra Leone on behalf of an Indian client accused of embezzling millions from a Thai bank...
...The Clinton administration and Congress had been eagerly downsizing military facilities and training—much to the consternation of many officers, Prince included...
...For obvious reasons, the location of the headquarters of Blackwater USA isn't well-publicized...
...Well, for one thing, the humanitarian world has seen the ravages of mercenary activities in Africa for decades, and they have reason to be suspicious...
...How much anyone gets paid at any point along this long and winding paper trail is unknown, as KBR considers all LOGCAP billing confidential, something each of its subcontractors must agree to in writing...
...ESS in turn was a subcontractor of Kellogg, Brown and Root, which is itself a subsidiary of Halliburton...
...Black bears—at least one of which tops 800 pounds—roam freely all over the property...
...A sizable private armory...
...But somebody has to be in the business of worst case scenarios...
...Blackwater insists it is different...
...The company even has a Zeppelin...
...The Kuwaiti food service company itself was a subcontractor of a German company, Eurest Support Services...
...That same year, Mann was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in Zimbabwe...
...government overall, particularly the DOD, can get better value for the taxpayers is by improving the training, standards, and competence of their own contracting officers," he says...
...He is a staunch Christian—his father helped James Dobson found Focus on the Family—and his politically conservative views are well known in Washington, where Prince supports a number of religious and right-leaning causes...
...troops killed in action...
...that's seldom the case...
...Prince eventually deployed to Haiti, the Middle East, and Bosnia, among other assignments...
...But we're only scratching the surface...
...they know the best value and they expect execution complete, correct, and on time...
...One of the best ways the U.S...
...there's 300 U.N...
...While Mann began rotting in jail, Spicer was busy positioning himself and his new company, Aegis Defense Services...
...Blackwater objects to the use of the m-word for its employees, preferring the term "private military contractors...
...The DoD has lots of great people trapped in it...
...From its original product— a patented, reactive, reinforced steel target—the company now makes everything from modular, endlessly configurable "shoothouses," with doors and rooms that simulate urban combat, to concrete, reinforced shipping containers that can be set up anywhere in the world as self-contained ranges...
...Their bodies were dragged through the streets and the disfigured corpses were eventually strung from a bridge with an electrical cord...
...Along the way he patented the now-ubiquitous lighted vanity mirror in automobile visors...
...Blackwater insists the money is exaggerated...
...But this setup, in effect, gives companies more profit if they spend more...
...There's a lot more shortcomings that are allowed that go unpunished...
...Most notorious in this respect is Executive Outcomes, a mercenary company that started in South Africa in 1989, drawing personnel from the remnants of the outgoing apartheid regime's shady military and internal intelligence operations...
...Spicer was arrested as soon as Sandline forces attempted to enter the country and freed only after the British government intervened...
...Sure enough, shortly after my tour of the facilities, there were two school hostage situations within days of each other, again in Colorado and in Pennsylvania...
...Aegis's first DOD audit in 2005 was damning, including the charge that the company was trying to ramp up so fast to meet the contract requirements they were hiring poorly vetted Iraqis and giving them passes to the Green Zone...
...Of all the charges leveled at Blackwater, one of the most damning is that they are war profiteers...
...The one gun locker I saw contained close to 100 9mm handguns—mostly military issue Beretta M9s, law enforcement favorite Austrian Glocks, and Sig Sauers...
...That may be the "deeper view" of history—but it glosses over the recent history of mercenaries, which is horrifying...
...For one thing, "mercenary" is not accurate...
...the company has plans to relocate the Florida aviation division to North Carolina near its headquarters, as well as open training facilities in California and the Philippines...
...I would go back to a deeper view of history...
...Indeed, it would be hard to understate Blackwater's capabilities: • A burgeoning logistics operation that can deliver 100-or 200-ton self-contained humanitarian relief response packages faster than the Red Cross...
...If you're not willing to drink the Black-water Kool-aid and be committed to supporting humane democracy around the world, then there's probably a better place" to go work, "because that's all we do...
...In fact, Blackwater objects to its personnel being tarred as mercenaries mainly because they regard it as an assault on their character and their professionalism...
...Recognizing a major weakness, the Navy awarded an "urgent and compelling need" contract to Blackwater to train 20,000 sailors in force protection...
...Still largely subsumed by the swampland it occupies, the compound is mostly au naturel except for odd aircraft lying around...
...Time and again humanitarian efforts are foiled and set back because of the inability to provide the security that enables relief efforts to go forward in dangerous areas...
...nobody else has this...
...the prototype's angular steel plates are ferocious-looking...
...Blackwater's position on expensive military contracts seems to be that they didn't start the fire...
...Prince and Black-water have been involved in charities on the margins of the humanitarian world for some time now...
...A K-9 training facility that currently has 80 dog teams deployed around the world...
...Blackwater is a company most Americans first heard of when four of its contractors were murdered in Falluja, Iraq, in March 2004, and their bodies desecrated on camera...
...With a Democratic Congress and talk of withdrawal from Iraq, most private military contractors are wondering what's next...
...Ever wondered how to rappel down the side of nine stacked shipping containers with a bomb-sniffing German shepherd dog strapped to your chest...
...If you dig a few feet underground, the hole will quickly fill with the thick, dark peat water just under the surface...
...Though the company is less than ten years old, it's already become the alpha and omega of military outsourcing...
...It's true there may be no good way to calculate the marginal utility of one more life...
...It was the catalyst for the Battle of Falluja, a brutal but ultimately successful attempt to reclaim the city from insurgents, which resulted in 83 additional U.S...
...Creating a subsidiary with a different name was also an attempt in part to remove the stink that Executive Outcomes had acquired in its seven years of existence...
...The piece de resistance to this whole saga...
...This did not go well...
...Taylor patiently explains that the company built it immediately after Columbine and that local police forces and SWAT teams often have woefully inadequate training for such situations even to this day...
...At only 37, he remains in impeccable shape and looks as ready to step onto the battlefield as into a boardroom...
...They are quite serious about the moral importance of their work, a message that starts at the top...
...The only book on the shelf in the boardroom of Blackwater's Northern Virginia offices is a copy of the eminent conservative historian Paul Johnson's A History Of The American People...
...With government contracting officers that's not always the case...
...He is blond, handsome, and ridiculously all-American looking...
...Sandline's first big contract came in January 1997—$36 million from the government of Papua New Guinea, to help it regain control of a copper mine that had been seized by rebels...
...He hardly fits the soldier of fortune archetype...
...It seems that stratified layers of bureaucracy in military contracts are found both within and outside the DoD...
...A 1,200-yard-long firing range for sniper training...
...Blackwater is now one of the largest and most respected suppliers of "private military contractors" in Iraq...
...From Washington, D.C., head south...
...Neither ended well...
...The thing that gets all the attention is that it's a business, a going concern...
...As for the individual contractors on the ground, pay varies, but $600-$700 a day would not be out of line for a qualified armed guard, and higher figures are commonplace, depending on qualifications and experience...
...Aside from providing one of the most demoralizing images of the war, the killing of the four Blackwater employees did two major things...
...A 20-acre manmade lake with shipping containers that have been mocked up with ship rails and portholes, floating on pontoons, used to teach how to board a hostile ship...
...The problem is, in protecting the principal they had to be very aggressive, and each time they went out, they had to offend locals, forcing them to the side of the road, being overpowering and intimidating, at times running vehicles off the road, making enemies each time they went out," Hammes said in a PBS interview...
...We're in nine different countries," says Chris Taylor, "probably have about 2,300 people deployed today, another 21,000 in our database, and these are people the majority of whom have already had a career in public service, either military or law enforcement, who are honorably discharged, who have any number of medals for heroism...
...Public outcry over Sandline's contract very nearly destabilized the Papuan government, forcing the prime minister to resign...
...So why not send us...
...government to provide security for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Iraq Project and Contracting Office, the two U.S...
...And that's great, but the age-old question—is neutrality greater than saving one more life...
...The good pay is a bit of a joke within the industry...
...Circulating on the message boards and email lists of contractors for some time has been this tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless revealing "Contractor's Creed": I care not for ribbons and awards for valor...
...A single marksman could have taken out the approaching bomb-laden boat, but most soldiers on deck weren't even carrying loaded weapons at the time...
...Prince knew there would be a market for the kind of training Blackwater would provide...
...They are trapped in between stratified layers of bureaucracy that destroy innovation and efficiency...
...As if that weren't enough, it is quite credibly reputed that Forsyth himself bankrolled an unsuccessful 1972 coup attempt in the same country with funds from his first novel, The Day of the Jackal, and that Forsyth's real-life exploits were the basis of his allegedly fictional Dogs of War published two years later...
...So when they say 'Ah, we need about 100 guys to do that job,' we say, 'Actually, you only need about 10 to do that job,'" Prince explains...
...Even Sandline hid behind the excuse of humanitarian work...
...a year after his 1995 death, the family company sold for over $1 billion, an enormous inheritance for Erik and his sisters...
...Hit the target and it gets knocked over to your opponent's side where he can knock it back...
...What's the marginal utility on one more life...
...It would also require the humanitarian world to come to terms with one of its greatest failings...
...Blackwater thinks it has the answer...
...Hunter-Choat and Spicer were contemporaries in the British military and are known to have worked together previously in the Balkans...
...Prince and other key Blackwater leaders have also visited war-torn Darfur...
...In fact, as Singer pointed out in a cover story in Foreign Affairs, military contracts are seldom set up to achieve cost-effectiveness...
...Even in Darfur today, [there are only] 7,000 African Union troops in a place the size of France," Taylor says...
...The only building of any real size houses the company's brand new 60,000-square-foot corporate offices, a low profile building with a massive stone entry-way that blends into the surroundings nicely...
...civilian in Iraq—whose performance by a private company would once have been unthinkable...
...Weirder still, the coup attempt was likely inspired by Frederick Forsyth's 1974 bestseller The Dogs of War, about a band of mercenaries who attempt to overthrow the government of a fictional African country clearly modeled after Equatorial Guinea...
...Nobody wants to invest that, especially if you are going into a market where there already is a big dog...
...Among its initial government contracts was one for antiterrorist training in the wake of the USS Cole bombing...
...It is the most prominent of the private security contractors in Iraq...
...A cursory examination of the circumstances surrounding Blackwater's infamous Falluja casualties shows why...
...Private military contractors in Iraq do not execute offensive opera-tions—they only provide security, and their rules of engagement are to use proportionate force only when attacked...
...And it's a charge the company is eager to defend against, especially in light of the fact that it has been awarded numerous CIA and other no-bid "urgent and compelling need" contracts by the government, the terms of which are often shrouded in secrecy...
...They have problems with private security companies, not because of performance but because they think that in some cases it removes their ability to cross borders, to talk to both sides, to be neutral...
...The larger question for Erik Prince and Blackwater has to be: How to remove the stink that clings to their industry...
...as head of security for the Project Management Office (precursor to the Project and Contracting Office), British Brigadier General Tony Hunter-Choat wrote the terms of the contract...
...ing targets and shooting ranges...
...Sitting in his second-story office with expansive views of the grounds, Blackwater vice president for strategic initiatives and former recon Marine Chris Taylor makes a sound business case for the Blackwater facility...
...Despite the ethical perils inherent in such work, Prince insists not just that the future of warfare depends on private companies driving market efficiencies, but that this is the way of the world...
...So if private military contractors are considered cost effective, that's no doubt partly because they're being graded on a curve set by the Department of Defense—home of the $200 hammer and $500 toilet seat...
...Too often, the 'cost plus' arrangement has become the default form for all contracts...
...An armored vehicle still in development called the Grizzly...
...But the resistance is fierce...
...But there are nowhere near the profits that everybody thinks," Taylor says...
...Taylor continues: "To build this facility today—$40 or $50 million, and nobody's got that kind of coin...
...It is not clear that outsourcing always saves money," Brookings Institution scholar Peter Singer states in his book Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry...
...Firing ranges abound on the property...
...Executive Outcomes dissolved in 1999 in response to anti-mercenary legislation introduced in South Africa, but Sandline operated until 2004...
...But the place isn't hard to find...
...However, Hammes noted, "Blackwater's an extraordinarily professional organization, and they were doing exactly what they were tasked to do...
...The more layers of subcontracting, the harder it is for you to get a straight answer and get something corrected," Taylor says...
...Despite this, Aegis is carrying out extensive contracting operations in Iraq to this day...
...history, from Revolutionary hero Lafayette to the Flying Tigers in World War II...
...The company's work in Iraq has not been without incident...
...Sandline's closing in 2004 was not incidental...
...Private contractors are being used to supply everything from pizzas to porta-potties...
...As soon as you cross the state line, follow the sound of gunfire until you find an armed compound half the size of Manhattan...
...He attended Hillsdale College in Michigan, a font of conservative ideology, where he is remembered for being the first undergraduate at the small liberal arts school to serve on the local volunteer fire department...
...If Spicer and Mann were chastened by the incident, they didn't show it...
...Which is not to say the place sticks out—it's just very, very big...
...Another British general, James Ellery, who worked with Hunter-Choat at the Project Management Office and on the contract specifications, now works for Aegis...
...Violation of this privacy clause is punishable by $250,000 in fines...
...Blackwater can teach you...
...Blackwater was contracted to provide transport security for Regency Hotel and Hospitality...
...But as outlined in journalist Robert Young Pelton's thorough new book Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror, here's how the financial arrangement really worked...
...When you go to sell to a Fortune 500 company, their purchasing officer knows more about your process than you do—they really drill down...
...Of course, running into a bear is probably the least of your safety concerns at Blackwater...
...Think of it as tetherball with guns...
...Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, the company's founder, "believes to his core that this is his life's work," says Taylor...
...Reflecting on his experience in Darfur, Taylor says the solution to the situation is obvious...
...Blackwater prides itself on its cost-effectiveness...
...By contrast, Blackwater can offer every conceivable service its people might need, so when they go into an area their resources are entirely self-contained, making them ideally suited to humanitarian work in difficult conditions—they have the resources to provide both supplies and security with military precision...
...Department of Peacekeeping Operations has an annual budget of $7 billion, to say nothing of the billions in private charities and foreign aid pouring in to the world's worst places...
...Erik Prince—mercenary mogul and liberal America's worst nightmare...
...You might think of the North Carolina facility as Blackwater's Fort Benning or Quantico...
...Prince says that's a problem...
...They did many of the same services that the Postal Service did, better, cheaper, smarter, and faster by innovating, [which] the private sector can do much more effectively...
...It may seem callous that Blackwater is making a buck preparing police to deal with such horrific events...
Vol. 12 • December 2006 • No. 14
