Rep John Murtha succumbs to infection acquired at National Naval Medical Center Bethesda
Contractors as well as soldiers have lost life and limb due to infections acquired at National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Walter Reed Army Medical Center , Lanstuhl, Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and the field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Feb 4 in stable condition with infection
Then
Virginia Hospital Center said Murtha died “despite aggressive critical care interventions.”
Another casualty of the contaminated Military Medical System?
Pentagon Identifies Contractor Missing in Iraq: Issa T Salomi
BAGHDAD — A Shiite militant group in Iraq has posted an Internet video showing an American it says it abducted and who appears to be a contractor reported missing by the U.S. military.
The U.S. Department of Defense said Friday that American contractor Issa T. Salomi, 60, went missing Jan. 23 in Baghdad and that search and recovery efforts were under way, but it released no other details. The U.S. military in Baghdad on Saturday confirmed Salomi is missing but would not provide additional information.
In the video, the man – who did not identify himself – says his abductors from the League of the Righteous are demanding the release of militants and the prosecution of Blackwater security contractors accused of killing 17 Iraqis in 2007 in Baghdad.
“The second demand is to bring the proper justice and the proper punishment to those members of Blackwater company that have committed unjustifiable crimes against innocent Iraqi civilians,” the man said. “And to bring justice by proper compensation to the families that have been involved in great suffering because of this incident.”
Blackwater security contractors were protecting U.S. diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a crowded Baghdad intersection, on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq.
There was no way to verify the authenticity of the video, but a high-ranking Iraqi defense official told The Associated Press that Salomi was abducted by the militant group in the central Baghdad district of Karradah. The official said Salomi is of Iraqi origin and that his abductors lured him to Karradah under the pretense of visiting distant relatives.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
“We obviously hope for his safe return,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. “We aren’t certain of the circumstances under which he disappeared.”
The Department of Defense said the missing contractor is from El Cajon, California.
Salomi’s family issued a statement, released through the FBI in San Diego, saying they were hoping for his safe return. The statement did not say whether Salomi was believed abducted.
“We are confident that everything is being done by the most capable people here and abroad to bring Issa home safely, and we all are anxiously awaiting his safe return,” the statement said.
The man in the video is seated in a chair and wearing what looks like a U.S. military uniform. Behind him is the black banner of the militant group, also known by its Arabic name, Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
He says his captors were also demanding the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq.
The militant group’s Web site claimed the man in the video is an American officer.
The same group was believed to be behind the kidnapping of British computer consultant Peter Moore in May 2007 along with his four British bodyguards. Moore was handed over to Iraqi authorities in late December. Three of the bodyguards were killed and the fourth is believed dead.
The British government has said no deals were struck for Moore’s release, though it coincided with the transfer of the head of the militant group from U.S. to Iraqi custody.
Qais al-Khazali, along with his brother, were accused of organizing an attack on a local government headquarters in the city of Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers on Jan. 20, 2007.
David Isenberg: Contractors and the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act
David Isenberg
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Congressman David Price (D-NC) have just announced a new bill to ensure accountability under U.S. law for American contractors and employees working abroad.
One might think, given the rush in recent years by various members of Congress to grandstand on this issue, that this is just more of the same. Industry trade groups have long claimed that private contractors operate under a myriad of international and national laws, rules, directives and regulations. That is true. But one has only to look at the most recent Congressional Research Service report on legal issues affecting private military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to see that there is still much ambiguity that needs to be clarified.
The bill’s co-sponsors alone mean that the bill will be worth examination. Rep. Price has long been one of the leading members of the House on this issue. He is known for a careful, dispassionate, non-polemical approach.
Sen. Leahy is better known for his long and admirable work on banning antipersonnel landmines, as well as his work on judicial issues, as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he too is known for his painstaking, and non-sensationalistic approach.
The proposed legislation allows the government to prosecute government contractors and employees for certain serious crimes. The legislation expands on the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), which provides similar criminal jurisdiction over Department of Defense employees and contractors but does not clearly apply to U.S. contractors working overseas for other federal agencies, such as the Department of State.
The Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act will:
- Direct the Justice Department to create new investigative units to investigate, arrest and prosecute contractors and employees who commit serious crimes.
- Allow the Attorney General to authorize federal agents to arrest alleged offenders outside of the United States, if there is probable cause that an employee or contractor has committed a crime.
- Require the Attorney General to report annually to Congress the number of offenses received, investigated and prosecuted under the statute; the number, location, and deployments of the newly created investigative units; and any changes needed in the law to make it more effective.
Currently, the Domestic Security Section of the Department of Justice Criminal Division provides preliminary liaison with the Defense Department and other federal entities and to designate the appropriate U.S. Attorney’s Office to handle a case.
But given the December 2009 opinion by Judge Urbina throwing our charges against five Blackwater contractors because of the way the Justice department handled the case it seems clear the Justice Department needs help.
It is also worth noting that currently the jurisdiction of MEJA for contractors working for a department other than Defense is uncertain. The decision by Judge Urbina meant that the defendants’ argument that MEJA didn’t apply to them as contractors working for the State Department in support of its mission never reached trial.
One irony is that back in October 2007 the House approved a bill introduced by Congressman Price which would ensure that the U.S. government has the legal authority to prosecute crimes committed by U.S. contractor personnel working in war zones. Defense Department contractors were already covered under U.S. law, but contractors who worked for the State Department and other agencies, were not liable for criminal activity under current law. Price’s bill extended the jurisdiction of MEJA to cover all contractors working for the government in a war zone.
Price’s bill also was supposed to ensure that the Administration has the tools it needs to investigate and prosecute allegations of abuse. The fact that two years later he is co-sponsoring another bill that, in part, has the same requirements as his previous bill shows how difficult it is to achieve meaningful governmental action in this area.
Kuwaiti Pentagon Contractor Faces Fraud Charges
by Pratap Chatterjee, Original here
Agility, a Kuwait-based multi-billion-dollar logistics company spawned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 8 on criminal charges of overbilling U.S. taxpayers for food supply contracts in the Iraq war zone that were worth more than $8.5 billion.
If the lawsuit is successful, the company could owe the U.S. government as much as $1 billion.
Originally known as Public Warehousing Corporation (PWC), Agility boasts that it once supplied one million meals a day to U.S. soldiers and contractors in the Middle East. The company’s Mercedes trucks hauled delicacies, from ice cream to lobster tails, to feed soldiers living on military bases scattered throughout Iraq.
Today, it has new contracts to provide food to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and – until about a month ago – was supposed to ramp up food delivery to the troops newly posted in southern Afghanistan.
In a lawsuit filed on Nov. 18, 2005, Kamal Mustafa al-Sultan accuses Agility of cheating him of a share of profits from the lucrative contract because he refused to go along with alleged corruption. A former business partner of PWC/Agility, Sultan is a cousin of the company founder and CEO, Tarek Abdul Aziz Sultan al-Essa.
After conducting a grand jury investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) joined Kamal Sultan and filed criminal charges against PWC/Agility on Nov. 9, 2009, immediately boosting the original lawsuit’s chances of success.
“We will not tolerate fraudulent practices from those tasked with providing the highest quality support to the men and women who serve in our armed forces,” said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, in a press release.
“As this case illustrates, the Department of Justice will investigate and pursue allegations of fraud against contractors and subcontractors, whether they are foreign or domestic,” he said.
Joint Venture Leads to Falling Out
PWC was part of the Sultan family’s business empire that is grounded in high-end supermarkets and mega-stores across the Middle East. Starting in the late 1990s, Tarek Sultan teamed up with ex-U.S. soldiers to bid on lucrative U.S. government projects.
PWC’s first major contract, initially advertised in May 2002, was for a U.S. Defense Supply Center called Prime Vendor Subsistence to supply food eaten on U.S. military bases in the Middle East in anticipation of the invasion of Iraq. (Halliburton/KBR cooks and serves the food, but it does not supply it.)
At the time, Tarek Sultan had no experience in food supply, nor did he have a personal track record with the U.S. military – a requirement for bidding on the contract. However, KMSCO – run by his cousin, Kamal Sultan – had multi-million-dollar U.S. military contracts dating back to 1996 for “life support, food supplements, and ice.”
In a January 2007 interview with IPS, Kamal Sultan says he agreed to create a joint venture with Tarek in June 2002 to provide PWC with the qualifications to bid.
A year later in May 2003, PWC won the initial Prime Vendor contract. Soon after that, Kamal Sultan alleges, PWC officials asked him to take part in a scheme to defraud the military. When Kamal refused, Tarek Sultan dropped KMSCO from the contract, thus depriving Kamal Sultan of his expected 30 percent profit share.
Over the next four years, the two men waged a series of legal battles in Kuwaiti courts, with each side alternately gaining the legal upper hand.
Supporters and Critics
The company has powerful supporters in the U.S. military. Its brochures quote Gen. David Petraeus, now the head of U.S. Central Command: “Agility has performed a miracle across Iraq.”
Some see less a miracle and more profiteering. Rory Mayberry, a Halliburton/KBR food production manager for a dining facility at Camp Anaconda, testified before Congress in June 2005: “For example, tomatoes cost about $5 a box locally, but the PWC price was $13 to $15 per box. The local price for a 15-pound box of bacon was $12, compared to PWC’s price of $80 per box.”
“PWC charged a lot for transportation because they brought the food from Philadelphia,” he said.
“They get options, privileges, that no one else can get, because they used to be part of the [Kuwaiti] government,” says Saad Salem al-Qattan, a Kuwaiti businessman who owns al-Rakeb Company Petroleum Electricity & Construction Services (RAPICO), which is involved in a land dispute with PWC/Agility.
Asked about the U.S. military contracts, he shrugs: “They [PWC/Agility] are greedy, and the [U.S.] military doesn’t know where to go.”
Several lawsuits have been filed against the company. Beth Hanken, an Iowa businesswoman, sued PWC/Agility when she lost contracts to supply pork to the military. The case was dismissed. The only lawsuit that has stuck so far is Kamal Sultan’s 2005 charge against PWC and its top officials.
After the court unsealed the records in November 2009 when the DoJ joined Kamal Sultan’s lawsuit, PWC/Agility posted a statement on its Web site: “Kamal Mustafa Sultan, owner of Kamal Mustafa Sultan Company … has a long history of strong animosity toward PWC, its officers, and its employees.”
PWC/Agility added that Kamal has filed more than 40 court actions against PWC, its executives, and its employees in Kuwaiti courts, but that “all of the court actions have been unsuccessful.”
But whether or not Agility wins in court, it is already losing at the cash register. Immediately after the DoJ joined the case, the Pentagon barred PWC/Agility and its subsidiaries from federal contracts by placing it on the “Excluded Parties List System.”
DynCorp, a business partner, followed suit in late December by dropping PWC/Agility from a major U.S. military logistics contract in southern Afghanistan.
In November, PWC/Agility said it “is confident that once these allegations are examined in court, they will be found to be without merit.”
Since then PWC/Agility has attempted to reach a settlement with the DoJ by offering to pay a $600 million fine, according to reports in the Kuwaiti press. “No agreement has been reached so far and there is no guarantee these negotiations will lead to a solution,” the company stated at the end of December.
A criminal arraignment of PWC/Agility scheduled for early January has been postponed five times so far, the latest delay coming at the eleventh hour on Jan. 29. U.S. Magistrate Christopher Hagy agreed to a new date of Feb. 8, although he expressed exasperation.
“There’s a point at which this stops,” Hagy said.
Unless these settlement discussions bear fruit, the arraignment could lead to a trial in which spectators can expect a fascinating view into the extent of corruption engendered by the U.S. occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Quadrennial Defense Review
The US DoD Quadrennial Defense Review
The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is a legislatively-mandated review of Department of Defense strategy and priorities. The QDR will set a long-term course for DoD as it assesses the threats and challenges that the nation faces and re-balances DoD’s strategies, capabilities, and forces to address today’s conflicts and tomorrow’s threats.
Number of Private Security Contractors in Afghanistan Doubles in Just Four Months
The military is increasingly relying on private security contractors as President Obama ramps up the war in Afghanistan, with contractors now making up as much as 30% of the armed force in the country, a just-released congressional report shows.
In the period roughly tracking with President Obama’s first nine months in office, the number of Defense Department armed security contractors soared 236% — from 3,184 to 10,712 between December 2008 to September 2009. The number roughly doubled between June and September 2009 alone.
The new Congressional Research Service report also calculates that contractors in Afghanistan make up between 22% and 30% of the armed U.S. force in Afghanistan.
The news of the surge in private security contractors comes as the total number of contractors — including those who do construction, cook meals, etc — is also soaring, with over 100,000 already in Afghanistan.
It’s worth noting two points here to clarify the role and makeup of the contractor army: first, 90% of the DOD private security contractors in Afghanistan are Afghan nationals, according to the report. Second, contractors are barred by DOD regulations from taking part in “offensive” operations. However, the numbers in this report refers to armed contractors who may well be taking part in combat.
“Many analysts believe that armed security contractors are taking part in combat operations, arguing in part that international law makes no distinction between the offensive or defensive nature of participation in combat,” the report notes.
The congressional report discusses pros (e.g., ease of firing and hiring) and cons of using private security contractors. Some analysts say contractor abuses, allowed in part by lax oversight, can badly damage U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan. The report says:
U.S. efforts can also be undermined when DOD has ties with groups that kill civilians or government officials, even if the perpetrators were not working for DOD when the killings took place. In June 2009, the provincial police chief of Kandahar, Afghanistan, was killed by a group that worked as a private security contractor for DOD.
An Army Times story in December described how Afghan national security contractors were “wreaking havoc” along a convoy route in Kandahar, including “killing and wounding more than 30 innocent civilians.”
The numbers in this report do not account for security contractors working for agencies like the State Department and the CIA (for example the two Blackwater guards who were killed at a CIA base in Afghanistan earlier this month).
Meanwhile, the number of security contractors is decreasing in Iraq, from 13,232 in June 2009 to 11,162 in September.
Contractor Legal Immunity and the “Political Questions” Doctrine
David Isenberg
Author, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq
Last fall an article was published last fall in Military Law Review by Maj. Chad Carter, an Air Force Judge Advocate.
The article “Halliburton Hears A Who? Political Question Doctrine Developments in the Global War on Terror and Their Impact on Government Contingency Contracting contests legal popular wisdom that the “political question doctrine” means that tort claim cases by military members and U.S. civilians injured in Iraq and Afghanistan must not proceed.
One can easily see why most defense contractors, including private military and security firms working under U.S. government contract, would like to prevent such suits from proceeding. The sheer number of injuries alone gives them reason to want to avoid possible suits. According to ProPublica as of last September 30 the number of private contractors injured in Iraq and Afghanistan totaled 37,652. Of course, not all those injuries are the result of something done wrong. But even a small fraction of them would entail considerable legal costs for a contractor so it is easy to understand why they would want to preventing such suits from being filed in the first place.
As I am not a lawyer the following is derived from Maj. Carter’s article.
Traditionally, the reason given for this is that such cases may involve “political questions” that the Judicial Branch is ill-equipped to decide. Thus defense contractor advocates claim these actions must be dismissed, else there be grim consequences for Government contingency contracting.
But according to Maj. Carter, “the recent developments in political question doctrine case law are significant to the future of Government contingency contracting. However, they are not catastrophic–although portrayed as such by some defense contractor advocates. There will not be an explosion of contracting costs passed on to the Government. There will not be a mass refusal of defense contractors to accept contingency contracts. There will not be chaos on the battlefield. Such predictions are nothing more than “bellowing bungle.”
Carter wrote:
What is the political question doctrine? According to Chief Justice John Marshall,
“[q]uestions, in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in [the U.S. Supreme Court].” In 2004, the Court held “[s]ometimes .. . the law is that the judicial department has no business entertaining [a] claim of unlawfulness–because the question is entrusted to one of the political branches or involves no judicially enforceable rights. Such questions are said to be ‘nonjusticiable,’ or ‘political questions.’”
What this means is that traditionally courts have deferred to the political branches in matters of foreign policy and military affairs. Policy decisions regarding the employment of U.S.military forces in combat belong to the political branches, not the courts. The Supreme Court has held that, due to their “complex, subtle, and professional” nature, decisions as to the “composition, training, equipping, and control of a military force” are “subject always” to the control of the political branches.
Tort suits that challenge the internal operations of these areas of the military are likely to be dismissed as political questions. Yet, notwithstanding the foregoing prohibitions on judicial conduct, the Supreme Court has cautioned, “it is error to suppose that every case or controversy which touches foreign relations lies beyond judicial cognizance.” As mentioned earlier, vast precedent exists for judicial involvement in foreign and military affairs. Case law establishes that military decisions are reviewable by federal courts. An assertion of military necessity, standing alone, is not a bar to judicial action. Merely because a dispute can be tied in some way to combat activities does not prevent a court from reviewing it. Although an action arises in a contingency environment, if a case is essentially “an ordinary tort suit” it is well within the competence of the courts to entertain. Courts have underscored the point: no litmus test exists that prohibits judicial action merely because an issue involves the military in some fashion.
Where plaintiffs seek only damages and not injunctive relief, such cases are “particularly judicially manageable.” When such a damages-only lawsuit concerns only a defense contractor (as opposed to the Federal Government), courts have held that such actions do not involve “overseeing the conduct of foreign policy or the use and disposition of military power.” Thus, those actions are less likely to raise political questions than suits against the Government, suits seeking injunctive relief, or both.
Given the enormous amount of money involved in Government contingency contracting and the correspondingly large number of contractors and contractor employees performing GWOT (Global War on Terror) contingency contracts, the number of plaintiffs seeking redress for tortious conduct was certain to rise–and it did. Universally, defendant defense contractors invoked the political question doctrine in order to shield themselves from liability in their performance of GWOT contracts, some with more success than others. The first significant case centered around the tragic events at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
In Ibrahim v. Titan Corp., Iraqi plaintiffs alleged they were tortured, raped, humiliated, beaten, and starved while in U.S. custody. Apparently fearing a dismissal on sovereign immunity grounds if they sued the U.S. Government, the plaintiffs instead chose to name as defendants the contractors who provided interpreters and interrogators for the prison. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, alleging the matter involved political questions. The court held the case should not be dismissed at such an early stage on political question grounds, especially because the United States was not a party to the case. Ibrahim is significant because it was the first GWOT case to underscore the need for full factual development of a case prior to an assessment of justiciability.
One particularly interesting point in Carter’s article is this:
Judges and scholars openly speculate about the possible consequences of defense contractor tort liability on the federal procurement process. In Boyle, the Supreme Court warned that “[t]he financial burden of judgments against [] contractors would ultimately be passed through, substantially if not totally, to the United States itself, since defense contractors will predictably raise their prices to cover, or to insure against, contingent liability . . . .”
Since private military contracting advocates claim that their firms are more cost effective than the government one might reasonably believe that they can be so only by preventing tort suits against them. If the cost of such suits were factored in, the presumed cost effectiveness could conceivably be significantly less, or perhaps not exist at all.
Carter asks “is the situation really this dire? Are contractors at a point where, because of
increased litigation risks, they will be forced to charge the Government more for their
services or elect to not provide services altogether?”
The answers may not be far away. In November 2008, Joshua Eller filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, as a result of injuries he suffered at Balad Air Base, Iraq, while deployed as a contractor employee of KBR from February to November of 2006. The complaint alleges defendants KBR and Halliburton “intentionally and negligently exposed thousands of soldiers, contract employees and other persons to unsafe water, unsafe food, and contamination due to faulty waste disposal systems . . . .” The complaint also includes allegations of injury from toxic smoke which emanated from an open air burn pit at Balad. The complaint alleges approximately 1,000 other individuals suffered similar injuries and it seeks to combine all of those actions into a single class action lawsuit. More significantly, this action is only one of several suits currently pending that relate to similar KBR activities in Iraq.
The political question doctrine will be a major factor in this coming storm of litigation. With the large number of potential plaintiffs compounded by the seriousness of the conduct and injuries alleged, these suits have the potential to dwarf the damages awards previously sought in earlier GWOT cases. Undoubtedly, KBR will seek to raise the political question doctrine as an absolute bar to these and any similar suits.
Defense contractor advocates warn of “deleterious effects” to the mission and the contractor–military relationship if tort suits against war zone defense contractors are allowed to proceed. They argue such tort claims “frustrate” and “conflict with” the Government’s ability to control contingency operations and would result in compromised logistical support and mission jeopardy. Furthermore, many companies, especially smaller ones, could be deterred from seeking contingency contracts. For those contractors who do elect to proceed, they will seek to insulate themselves from liability by either self-insuring or obtaining insurance coverage, if it is available. The argument continues that such costs will then be passed onto the Government in the form of higher contract prices. But, most alarmingly, some defense contractor advocates claim the impact of such suits “would be far more profound than financial” and defense contractors may, out of a fear of being sued, refuse to follow the military’s instructions altogether.
To this Carter writes:
the consequences predicted by defense contractor advocates vastly overstate the actual impact these GWOT tort suits will have on Government contingency contracting. Several reasons exist for this contention. First, the Government currently pays far too much money to defense contractors overseas for them to now decline performance of contingency contracts. The alleged dramatic price increases in U.S. Government contracts due to the increased litigation risk are unlikely as well. Contract prices may rise to some degree, but the Government can ill afford to refuse to pay them. Second, the U.S. military does not own the internal means to provide the goods and perform the services contracted for in a contingency environment–such goods and services are necessary for mission accomplishment. Finally, as discussed earlier, apart from the political question doctrine, defense contractors who face allegations of tortious conduct in a contingency environment have several legal defenses and other alternatives to limit or avoid liability, including insurance. Viewed together, these points counter forecasts of the impending ruin of Government contingency contracting. With their recent activity involving the political question doctrine, courts have hardly thrust open the floodgates to litigation. Rather, they have properly focused their attention on protecting military decision-making and policy from judicial intrusion, and limited their rulings accordingly. For those suits that do not question military decisions or policy, they will move forward (at least without political question problems). This may or may not cause an increase in contractor costs due to higher insurance premiums related to tort damages, which could then be conveyed to the U.S. Government in the form of higher prices. However, the political question doctrine’s purpose is not to inhibit the principles of accountability inherent in the American tort law system. For those who wish to change this system, they should look instead toward the political branches or state governments for relief. These entities have in their arsenals statutes, regulations, and other mechanisms more appropriate for change. Such methods are much more apt for this purpose than reliance on a mutation of the political question doctrine into a form beyond its established limits.
To argue that Government contingency contracting will break down unless the political question doctrine extends to all tort suits brought against combat zone defense contractors is disingenuous. Alarming predictions of compromised logistics and mission failure grossly exaggerate the effect of these GWOT tort suits on combat zone contractors and Government contingency contracting. Such hyperbole ignores the reality and degree of the U.S. Government’s financial commitment to and dependency on contingency contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, even if the consequences to the DoD procurement system are as dire as defense contractor advocates have alleged, the political branches are in a much more appropriate position to remedy them and can do so much more immediately and effectively.
The Newest Security Contractors in Iraq: Ex-combatants from Sierra Leone
Global Development Views from the Center
By Vijaya Ramachandran
This is a joint posting with Julia Barmeier.
A British private security firm, Sabre International, is sponsoring the employment of Sierra Leoneans for security jobs in Iraq. According to its own website, the company holds multiple aviation security contracts for three airports in Iraq (Baghdad International Airport, Mosul Airport, and Najaf International Airport).
Having undergone two weeks of preparation training, 400 to 1,000 Sierra Leoneans have already been sent to Iraq (and possibly Afghanistan) with a waiting list of over 10,000 who are interested in participating in the program. According to reports, the West African workers will receive $250 a month, $200 of which will be directly deposited into a bank account in Freetown. Compare this to the per capita Gross National Income in Sierra Leone in 2008, which was $320 a year. (Meanwhile, Sierra Leone Members of Parliament are petitioning for monthly salaries of $4,000-$6,000!) It’s no wonder thousands of people have signed up for this program: they are receiving a little less than 10x the amount they would earn in their own country! (Sierra Leone currently ranks 201 out of 210 countries in terms of its GNI per capita). Their salaries will not be taxed and they will be given free accommodation, free medical facility, free transportation, and free insurance. While a fabulous salary in Sierra Leone, their U.S. citizen contractor counterparts are averaging $100,000 a year, possibly in similar roles. In this regard, Sabre might be saving a tidy sum.
Post-conflict recovery researchers like Paul Collier and former CGD post-doc Chris Blattman emphasize the need to engage ex-combatants in productive activity, in other words, create an economic incentive to cease violence or prevent a relapse into conflict. This program is fulfilling this purpose. For example, news reports say the agreement welcomed by Youth for Middle East Overseas Group, which has apparently pressured the government of Sierra Leone to allow youths to seek work in Iraq. Said Secretary-General Akim Bangura, “Finally, we are breathing a sigh of relief over the positive outcome. We have fought a successful battle and I have been arrested a couple of times for leading campaigns for jobless youths to find jobs in Iraq. I am happy it all ended this way.”
On the other hand, the program perpetuates the environment of violence that surrounded these youth in Sierra Leone. While the country officially ended its decade-long civil war in 2001, it is still ranked among the most fragile countries. Of blood diamond and child soldier fame, the conflict in Sierra Leone was severely brutal and bloody, where rebel activity was characterized by hacking off the hands and feet of victims. It is unclear what kind of effect employment in a similar-but-different conflict region will have on these program participants.
Are agreements like these providing legitimate employment alternatives for ex-combatants? Or are they perpetuating reliance on conflict-related activity? Also, with unemployment rates at 18% to 30% in Iraq itself, why doesn’t Sabre seek local workers to fill these spots?
Iraq confiscates arms in private security crackdown
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Security forces confiscated hundreds of rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition and other military gear in a crackdown on private security contractors in Iraq, officials said on Saturday.
Police raided three locations in Baghdad on Friday, a week after Iraqi authorities were incensed by a U.S. judge’s decision to throw out charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing over a dozen Iraqi civilians in 2007.
Officials said they are targeting private security companies that are no longer legally licensed to operate in Iraq.
“All those companies with their work permits expired are not allowed to move one meter inside Baghdad, or own one piece of weaponry,” Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi said.
He would not reveal how many unlicensed contractors were on the target list, or their names.
Authorities raided the headquarters of a foreign security contractor, whose name could not be immediately confirmed, on Friday night and confiscated 20,000 rounds of ammunition and more than 300 armored shields.
In another location they found 400 rifles, helmets, radio devices and more than 35 vehicles believed to belong to the same company, officials said. No one was arrested.
Private foreign security contractors played a major role in Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003, in many cases hired by the United States to guard diplomats and other officials. Iraqis accused them of running roughshod over locals.
For a time, the foreign guards enjoyed immunity from prosecution. That ended with a bilateral agreement that took effect in 2009.
The Iraqi government called unacceptable the U.S. court’s December 31 dismissal of charges against five Blackwater guards accused of shooting indiscriminately in a Baghdad traffic circle, and said it is taking its own legal steps against the company, now known as Xe Services.
Major General Hussein Kamal, Iraq’s deputy interior minister, denied that the Baghdad crackdown was a reprisal for the Blackwater case. He said the ministry had given a group of security firms ample warning to renew their permits.
“We have closed some of the companies and confiscated their weapons and vehicles,” he said, adding, “We are not reacting to the (Blackwater) judge’s decision.”
Blackwater and the Khost Bombing: Is the CIA deceiving Congress?
A leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has told The Nation that she will launch an investigation into why two Blackwater contractors were among the dead in the December 30 suicide bombing at the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. “The Intelligence Committees and the public were led to believe that the CIA was phasing out its contracts with Blackwater and now we find out that there is this ongoing presence,” said Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, in an interview. “Is the CIA once again deceiving us about the relationship with Blackwater?”
In December, the CIA announced that the agency had canceled its contract with Blackwater to work on the agency’s drone bombing campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan and said Director Leon Panetta ordered a review of all existing CIA contracts with Blackwater. “At this time, Blackwater is not involved in any CIA operations other than in a security or support role,” CIA spokesman George Little said December 11.
But Schakowsky said the fact that two Blackwater personnel were in such close proximity to the December 30 suicide bomber–an alleged double agent, who was reportedly meeting with CIA agents including the agency’s second-ranking officer in Afghanistan when he blew himself up–shows how “deeply enmeshed” Blackwater remains in sensitive CIA operations, including those CIA officials claim it no longer participates in, such as intelligence gathering and briefings with valuable agency assets. The two Blackwater men were reportedly in the room for the expected briefing by the double agent, Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al-Balawi, who claimed to have recently met with Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.
“It’s just astonishing that given the track record of Blackwater, which is a repeat offender endangering our mission repeatedly, endangering the lives of our military and costing the lives of innocent civilians, that there would be any relationship,” Schakowsky said. “That we would continue to contract with them or any of Blackwater’s subsidiaries is completely unacceptable.”
Under the Obama administration, Blackwater continues to work for the Department of Defense, the State Department and, as evidenced by the December 30 bombing, the CIA in Afghanistan. The company even maintains its own forward operating bases in Afghanistan, including one along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “This is the closest base to the [Pakistani] border,” Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince recently bragged to Vanity Fair. “Who else has built a fob along the main infiltration route for the Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?”
Blackwater has been working for the CIA since at least April 2002. Prince recently claimed he was personally a CIA asset, conducting clandestine black operations around the globe. In June, Leon Panetta reportedly told Congress he had canceled the CIA assassination program involving Blackwater.
While the CIA said in December that Blackwater only continues its security and support role for the CIA, NBC News reported that the Blackwater men were not doing security at the time of the blast. The two Blackwater operatives killed in the bombing have been identified as Jeremy Wise, a 35-year old ex-Navy SEAL, and 46-year-old Dane Clark Paresi.
