They’re in Iraq. What you probably didn’t know is that they were in New Orleans right after Katrina. They were there before any government agency arrived. They were protecting private interests. They’re called private contractors, but they’re really just mercenaries. Hired guns. If you’re in the U.S. Army your salary is somewhere around $30,000 dollars. If you work for Blackwater you’re making six figures. How many of these “private contractors” are in Iraq? From Bill Moyers Journal,
“According to THE NEW YORK TIMES, there are between 160,000 and 180,000 private contractors in Iraq, including about 30,000 armed security forces. Blackwater employees represent about 1000 of these armed contractors. There were only about 9,200 total private contractors during the Persian Gulf War.”
Does the U.S. military have authority over these operatives? Does the Iraqi government? Who does? More from Bill Moyers Journal,
“Since the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians on September 16 by Blackwater contractors, which is currently under investigation by the FBI and the State Department, newspapers, talk shows and blogs have been buzzing with debate over the implications of a growing private sector “army” fighting alongside US Military officials in Iraq. Many believe these hired soldiers have not been properly held accountable for their mistakes…..But questions about accountability still abound: when mistakes are made, to which rule of law should contractors answer, military or US criminal law? Officials in the State and Defense Departments are currently debating this very question.”
Jeremy Scahill from The Nation has been covering Blackwater for three years. Read the transcipt or watch the video of his interview by Bill Moyers by clicking here.
When you you check out the interview you’re probably going to shake your head and chalk this up as another failure of the Bush Administration. We don’t need hired guns in Iraq, shooting randomly at people without being given any orders or being checked by any official authority.
Blackwater, “Buffalo Chip of the Week.”
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