Today on Democracy Now! Jeremy Scahill author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" debated Doug Brooks the president of International Peace Operations Association, a trade group for the private security industry of which Blackwater is a founding member. In the wake of the recent revelations that the Iraqi government wants to throw out Blackwater and take a closer look at all of the contractors in Iraq Scahill does an excellent job taking down one of these war profiteers and tears right through the rhetoric and also gets staight to the heart of just what we're doing in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, can you respond to the Iraqi government saying they’re throwing Blackwater out? And the latest news is that it looks like they may be looking at the contracts of all of the security companies.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, clearly, Nouri al-Maliki made the mistake of believing that there is a sovereign Iraqi government for about fifteen minutes over the past twenty-four hours, and it appears now that there's a real diplomatic shuffle going on. Condoleezza Rice called Nouri al-Maliki ostensibly to apologize, but it does seem that the US is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the Iraqi government not to expel Blackwater.
And, you know, what's important to understand about this is that Blackwater is a relatively small player, in terms of numbers in Iraq. They have about a thousand operatives on the ground inside of the country. But symbolically, this is of enormous importance, because Blackwater is the official mercenary company of the US government. They protect the senior US officials in Iraq, the US ambassador. My understanding is that it was a chief of mission operation that they were protecting yesterday, which could mean that it was a very senior US official that the principal or the noun, so to speak.
But we also have to say, there's nothing new here. Iraqis for four years have been terrorized by these mercenaries, who ride around the country, and they'll do anything to keep their ever-important US lives protected, even if it means shooting Iraqi civilians. And so, if Iraq does follow through on this and expel Blackwater, it would be an extraordinary development.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your response to Iraq announcing that they're going to throw out Blackwater, Doug Brooks?
DOUG BROOKS: Well, there has to be a process. There is -- the Ministry of Interior has sort of been set up several times. There's a licensing process that's incredibly arcane, and right now it takes, what, nine months to get a six-month license, which means you have to apply actually for renewal before your license is even approved. And the Ministry of Interior has had some real problems. And so, we're not quite sure what's behind this whole thing.
But I think these companies are providing a valuable service. I think this terminology of "mercenaries" -- I think if you're a serious researcher, you wouldn't use it. There's a clear international definition of what a mercenary is. These companies are not mercenary. They operate legally. They operate under rules and regulations. And that’s as it should be.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Doug, let me just respond to that. Blackwater, which, of course, is a member company of your association, doesn't just have former Navy Seals, Delta Force, Special Forces operators. They've hired Colombian soldiers, Chilean soldiers. In fact, Chile is very interesting, Doug, because the Chilean government is actually opposed to the occupation of Iraq. They refused to join the so-called Coalition of the Willing, and Blackwater turns around and hires up these Chileans and deploys them in Iraq. It's the very essence of being a mercenary. In fact, it's Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, it’s his definition of "mercenary," which is a professional soldier who serves a foreign power, and so the fact -- for money. And the fact of the matter is that Blackwater has hired up soldiers from countries around the world whose home governments are opposed to the war. They are mercenaries. Blackwater is a mercenary company.
DOUG BROOKS: May I respond? I actually met some of the Chileans while I was in Baghdad and had a good talk with them. I mean, some of them are mechanics. Some of them are drivers for the vehicles. Many of them had been there for several years, basically paying off their houses and paying for their wives’ educations, and so on. I mean, it's an individual option to do this kind of work. It’s security work. It’s stability --
JEREMY SCAHILL: And they’re not mercenaries -- because they're paying their houses off, that doesn't make them mercenaries?
DOUG BROOKS: No, because there’s an international definition of what a mercenary is. And these are clearly not. These are legitimate entities working over there, and they're valuable. Essentially, you need these sorts of --
AMY GOODMAN: Doug Brooks, let me ask --
DOUG BROOKS: Please.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your definition of a mercenary? What's the international definition?
DOUG BROOKS: It's a derogatory -- well, it’s a derogatory term. Basically, the international definition, and there's like six parts that weigh into it, but essentially you have to be -- to be a mercenary, you cannot have been sent by a government, you cannot be a party of the actual conflict, you cannot be from a country that’s a party of the actual conflict, your primary motivation has to be money. It’s --
JEREMY SCAHILL: Exactly what the Chileans working for Blackwater are, Doug.
DOUG BROOKS: Well, no, because, in fact, they are civilians. And I think one of the real distinctions we need to make is these are private security companies; they are not military companies. There are different rules for the military than there are for the civilians. The military has something called "rules of engagement." They're secret. Essentially it says that it allows the military to be proactive in their responses or in their offensive operations. For the security companies, they have something called "rules for use of force," RUF. It's quite different, quite a bit more restrictive, and it essentially boils -- it’s public, and it boils down to three things: they're allowed to protect themselves, they're allowed to protect whatever they've been contracted to protect, and they're allowed to protect Iraqi civilians under mortal threat. And that's it.
JEREMY SCAHILL: And so often they're also shooting Iraqi civilians. I find it amazing, Doug, that you continue to refer to these heavily armed mercenaries in Iraq as civilians. They are hardly civilians. And there’s nothing defensive about what Blackwater is doing in Iraq. Erik Prince’s men are at the vanguard of an offensive occupation. You cannot get more offensive than occupying someone else's country. And every time Blackwater engages in a firefight, it’s not because the Iraqis are just walking up and shooting at Blackwater. It's because Blackwater is occupying the country along with the US military.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we have some rules here. We have to break for stations to identify themselves, sixty seconds, and then we'll be back with our guests: Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, and Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
It's pretty apparent that Condi Rice was on the phone immediately to the Iraqi government letting them know who's really running the show over there, and it ain't the Iraqis. Day after day Democracy Now does some of the best reporting on what's really going on in the world and in Iraq and puts to shame our corporate sock-puppet press and Jeremy Scahill isn't half bad either...lol. How he is not being interviewed as a lead story on every network with this latest news that caused the "media" to blink for a minute and pay attention to this contracting debable but not enough to really report on it is just astounding. This is what real journalism looks like.