[Peace-discuss] Martyrs or Mercenaries? *Blackwater USA* Triple Canopy * Aegis Defense Services * Zapata Engineering *

[Jan & Durl Kruse]

Sunday (8/12) News-Gazette has the article below, including a large 
photo.  N-G has changed and/or deleted some of the bold-faced captions 
from this article otherwise it is the same one that appears in today's 
paper (front page of section B Commentary).  Titled by N-G: Martyrs or 
Mercenaries?
Iraq contractors a reckless force?
Huge private force operates in Iraq with little supervision or 
accountability
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:33 p.m. CT Aug 11, 2007

There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are 
U.S. soldiers — and a large percentage of them are private security 
guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and 
bullet-proof trucks.

They operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the 
firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy 
and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately 
firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an 
unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily 
armed convoys.

Not one has faced charges or prosecution.

There is great confusion among legal experts and military officials 
about what laws — if any — apply to Americans in this force of at least 
48,000.

Murky set of rules
They operate in a decidedly gray legal area. Unlike soldiers, they are 
not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special 
provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from 
prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

The security firms insist their employees are governed by internal 
conduct rules and by use-of-force protocols established by the 
Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government that 
ruled Iraq for 14 months following the invasion.

But many soldiers on the ground — who earn in a year what private 
guards can earn in just one month — say their private counterparts 
should answer to a higher authority, just as they do. More than 60 U.S. 
soldiers in Iraq have been court-martialed on murder-related charges 
involving Iraqi citizens.

No prosecutions
Some military analysts and government officials say the contractors 
could be tried under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, 
which covers crimes committed abroad. But so far, that law has not been 
applied to them.

Security firms earn more than $4 billion in government contracts, but 
the government doesn’t know how many private soldiers it has hired, or 
where all of them are, according to the Government Accountability 
Office. And the companies are not required to report violent incidents 
involving their employees.

Security guards now constitute nearly 50 percent of all private 
contractors in Iraq — a number that has skyrocketed since the 2003 
invasion, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said rebuilding 
Iraq was the top priority. But an unforeseen insurgency, and hundreds 
of terrorist attacks have pushed the country into chaos. Security is 
now Iraq’s greatest need.

Efforts to boost accountability
The wartime numbers of private guards are unprecedented — as are their 
duties, many of which have traditionally been done by soldiers. They 
protect U.S. military operations and have guarded high-ranking 
officials including Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Baghdad. 
They also protect visiting foreign officials and thousands of 
construction projects.

At times, they are better equipped than military units.

Their presence has also pushed the war’s direction. The 2004 battle of 
Fallujah — an unsuccessful military assault in which an estimated 27 
U.S. Marines were killed, along with an unknown number of civilians — 
was retaliation for the killing, maiming and burning of four Blackwater 
guards in that city by a mob of insurgents.

“I understand this is war,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., whose 
efforts for greater contractor accountability led to an amendment in 
next year’s Pentagon spending bill. “But that’s absolutely no excuse 
for letting this very large force of armed private employees, dare I 
say mercenaries, run around without any accountability to anyone.”

‘The Iraqis are very angry’
Blackwater has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq, and at least $800 
million in government contracts. It is one of the most high-profile 
security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of “Little Bird” helicopters and 
armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond.

The secretive company, run by a former Navy SEAL, is based at a 
massive, swampland complex in North Carolina. Until 9-11, it had few 
security contracts.

Since then, Blackwater profits have soared. And it has become the focus 
of numerous contractor controversies in Iraq, including the May 30 
shooting death of an Iraqi deemed to be driving too close to a 
Blackwater security detail.

“The shooting of that Iraqi driver has intensified tensions,” 
Schakowsky said. “The Iraqis are very angry.”

Company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, 
said the shooting was justified. “Based on incident reports and witness 
accounts, the Blackwater professional acted lawfully and 
appropriately,” she wrote. There was no response to AP inquiries 
seeking further details.

Numerous allegations
Other alleged shootings involving private contractors include:

—An incident in which a supervisor for a Virginia-based security 
company said he was “going to kill somebody today” and then shot at 
Iraqi civilians for amusement, possibly killing one, according to two 
employees.

The two, former Army Ranger Charles L. Sheppard III and former Marine 
Corps sniper Shane B. Schmidt, were fired by the company, Triple 
Canopy, and responded with a wrongful termination lawsuit. Their suit 
did not identify the shift leader they said deliberately opened fire on 
civilians in at least two incidents while their team was driving in 
Baghdad. He was described only as a former serviceman from Oklahoma.

On its Internet site, the company said all three were fired for failing 
to immediately report incidents involving gunfire. Triple Canopy, after 
an initial investigation, reported no one had been hurt and handed its 
information to the U.S. government.

Patricia Smith, a lawyer representing Sheppard and Schmidt, said the 
U.S. Justice Department declined to investigate. The Justice Department 
declined comment on the case.

On Aug. 1, a Fairfax County, Va., jury ruled that Triple Canopy did not 
wrongly fire the two men. But jury forewoman Lea Overby also issued a 
scathing note on behalf of the panel, saying the company displayed 
“poor conduct, lack of standard reporting procedures, bad investigation 
methods and unfair double standards.”

The judge’s jury instructions, Overby said, left no choice but ruling 
against the former employees. “But we do not agree with the Triple 
Canopy’s treatment of (them),” she wrote.

Some shootings caught on tape
—Disgruntled employees of London-based Aegis Defence Services, holder 
of one of the biggest U.S. security contracts in Iraq — valued at more 
than $430 million — posted videos on the Internet in 2005 showing 
company guards firing automatic weapons at civilians from the back of a 
moving security vehicle.

In one sequence, a civilian car is fired on, causing the driver to lose 
control and slam into a taxi. Another clip shows a white car being hit 
by automatic weapons fire and then coming slowly to a stop.

In the videos, the security vehicle doesn’t stop. It speeds on, leaving 
the civilians and their shot-up vehicles behind.

After initially denying involvement, Aegis, run by former Scots Guard 
Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, issued a statement saying the shootings were legal 
and within rules-of-force protocols established by the now-defunct CPA. 
Those guidelines allow security guards to fire on vehicles that 
approach too close or too quickly. U.S. Army auditors, in their own 
investigation, agreed with Aegis.

An unknown number of victims
In the chaos of Iraq, where car bombings and suicide attacks occur over 
and over on any given day, such contractor shootings are commonplace, 
military officials say. The numbers of Iraqis wounded or killed by 
private guards is not known.

—Sixteen American security guards were arrested and jailed by U.S. 
Marines in battle-scarred Fallujah in 2005 following a day of shooting 
incidents in which they allegedly fired on a Marine observation post, a 
combat patrol and civilians walking and driving in the city, about 40 
miles west of Baghdad.

The guards, employed by Zapata Engineering of North Carolina, were 
imprisoned for three days. “They were detained because their actions 
posed a threat to coalition forces. I would say that constitutes a 
serious event,” Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said at the time.

The contractors were released and returned to the U.S., where they 
claimed the Marines humiliated and taunted them in prison, calling them 
“mercenaries” and intimidating them with dogs. The private guards 
denied taking part in the shootings.

Last year, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service closed its criminal 
investigation of the case “for lack of prosecutive merit,” a spokesman 
said. None of the 16 men where charged.

But days after the shootings, Marine Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, 
commander of western Iraq, banned the 16 contractors from every 
military installation in the area.

‘Your actions endangered ... lives’
In letters to each man, the general wrote: “Your convoy was speeding 
through the city and firing shots indiscriminately, some of which 
impacted positions manned by U.S. Marines.

“Your actions endangered the lives of innocent Iraqis and U.S. service 
members in the area.”

Since American contractors first swarmed into Iraq, animosity has run 
high between soldiers and private security guards. Many of the latter 
are highly trained ex-members of elite military groups including Navy 
SEALS, Green Berets and Army Rangers.

“Most military guys resent them,” said former Marine Lt. Col. Mike 
Zacchea, who spent two years in Iraq training and building the Iraqi 
army. “There’s an attitude that if these guys really wanted to do the 
right thing, they would have stayed in the military.”

‘Free agents on the battlefield’
Zacchea, now retired in Long Island, N.Y., said that as a senior 
battalion adviser, he was offered jobs by several security companies, 
with average salaries of $1,000 a day. He wasn’t interested. “I didn’t 
want to go to Iraq as a mercenary. I don’t believe in it. I don’t think 
what they’re doing is right.

“Really, these guys are free agents on the battlefield. They’re not 
bound by any law. They’re non-uniformed combatants. No one keeps track 
of them.”

In late 2004, the Reconstruction Operations Center (ROC) opened in 
Baghdad. Its purpose was to track movement of contractors and military 
troops around the country and to keep records of violent incidents.

Participation, however, is voluntary.

Military leaders say the government should demand that contractors 
report their movements and use of weapons. Last year, officials of the 
3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad told visiting GAO auditors that lack 
of coordination continued to endanger the lives soldiers and 
contractors. Private security details continued to enter battle zones 
without warning, the military leaders said. In some cases, military 
officers complained they had no way of communicating with private 
security details.

Many large contractors say their guards coordinate with the ROC, and 
file “after-incident reports” of shooting episodes. But government 
auditors in Iraq reported last year that some contractors said they 
stopped detailing such shootings because they occurred so often it 
wasn’t possible to file reports for each one.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not 
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20231579/
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