I have been blogging on the private security firm Blackwater for almost a year now. Now comes a most revealing email....
Crossposted at Texas Kaos and MyDD
I have called attention to their close ties with the Great Decider. I have discussed thier no bid contracts to provide security for our diplomats. Additionally, I have shown a spotlight on the dangers of an Imperial presidency coupled with an ever more well equipped private military sector. I have called attention to their efforts to sue the familiesof the contractors who died because they wanted to make more money in Iraq.
The one incident that brings all these themes together is the Fullujah debacle . Recall that four private security contractors were ambushed, mulitilated and then two had their burned bodies hung from a bridge in the city . There was evidence then that Blackwater had strong responsibility for this tragedy. In an effort to undercut the prices charged by other private security firms, it cut corners and those economies cost 4 men their lives.
The families of these young Blackwater operatives have been trying to hold Blackwater accountable for their unnecessary deaths. Well, as expected, the trial and the Congressional hearings on the murky world of Iraq contractors is revealing more of Blackwater's dirty secrets.
In particular this report from the Congressional hearings:
LINK WASHINGTON - A day before four of the company's security guards died in Iraq, an employee of North Carolina-based Blackwater USA wrote company officials that it was time to stop the "smoke and mirror show" and provide crucial equipment for the private army in the field.
"I need Comms (communications equipment). ... I need ammo. ... I need Glocks and M4s. ... Guys are in the field with borrowed stuff and in harm's way," said the e-mail, released at a House hearing Wednesday.
Blackwater's Iraq operations manager at the time, Tom Powell, wrote the memo to other company officials on March 30, 2004.
The next day, a mob in Fallujah ambushed a supply convoy guarded by Blackwater, killing the four employees who all were former members of the military.
The Powell memo was released after four family members of the men killed in Fallujah testified at the hearing that their loved ones were not given the armored vehicles, heavy weapons and other protections they were promised.
"I have requested Hard cars from the beginning and from my understanding an order is still pending. Why I ask," the Powell memo said.
Andrew Howell, general counsel of Blackwater, told the hearing the vehicles had some steel plates and were "believed appropriate by everyone involved."
"Did Blackwater meet its responsibilities?" asked committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
"Yes we did," Howell replied.
"Have you skimped on equipment?" asked Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah.
"We have not skimped on equipment, no sir," Howell said.
Howell said the U.S. military had classified the incident and he could not discuss the details.
As reported in the seminal article on this issue, Scott Helvenston, one of the four men killed had made exactly these complaints before he as coerced into taking on the mission that lead to his death. Indeed, there is some evidence that his complaints lead a vindictive supervisor to personally pick him for this mission.
Now, an email form a supervisor voicing the same complaints. I know who I believe. And, as if I needed, more reason to reject the self-serving lies coming out of Mr. Howell's mouth, there is that magic claim that the whole thing is "classified".
The response of the administration's flunkies on the committee that finally pried this evidence out of Blackwater is most revealing.
The Blackwater attorney and several Republican lawmakers said the families were improperly trying to argue their case in a congressional hearing rather than a courtroom.
[snip]
Howell said lawyers for the family members were using the hearing for their own purposes, and that it should not delve into an "incomplete and one-sided exploration of a specific battlefield incident."
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said he did not believe the testimony was germane to a house committee scrutinizing U.S. companies with Iraq contracts.