In this entry of my series on Blackwater, I want to look at what they were up to in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. It is disturbing enough that Blackwater is operating in Iraq and other nations, more so here in the United States. First, let's see what Jeremy Scahill has to say about it.
As Scahill points out, Erik Prince ordered about 150 of his men to New Orleans shortly after Katrina hit, even before he had a contract from the Department of Homeland Security. Now wait just a minute here, who is Erik Prince to order mercenaries armed with automatic weapons into an American city with no authority whatsoever from anybody? Did he get some orders from God? There's a word for such people, vigilantes. Before it was over, he would deploy around 600 men along the Gulf coast. According to Blackwater Tactical Weekly their official newsletter, and this press release, they were only donating services. To me it seems more likely that their true motive was to win a government contract, which they did. Of course Blackwater denies this.
"The calls came flooding in. It's not something that we went down and tried to develop," said Chris Taylor, Blackwater's vice president for strategic initiatives.
At this time the authorities were confiscating firearms from all civilians. From the New York Times.
Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.
So private security firms are not civilians but law enforcement? I guess wearing a uniform makes it offical. Although some of the Blackwater sercurity personel claimed to have been deptutized by the Louisiana state authorities, I can find no evidence of this. Here are two of their guards outside their Baton Rouge field office.
It's difficult to say exactly how many security personel Blackwater had in New Orleans. From the Guardian Unlimited.
David Reagan, 52, a semi-retired US army colonel from Huntsville, Alabama, who fought in the first Gulf war and is commander of Blackwater's operations in the city, refused to say how many men he had in New Orleans but indicated it was in the hundreds.
Blackwater secured a contract with the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Protective Service a week after the storm hit worth $33.3 million for the first four months. Extension of the contract has risen to at least $73 million. The total value of government contracts awarded to Blackwater for the hurricane relief efforts is unknown. This is in addition to an unknown number of contracts with private companies in the communications, petrochemical, and insurance industries. A memo from the Department of Homeland Security dated March 1, 2006 states that guard services from Blackwater may be required for a period of 2-5 years. After Katrina, Blackwater opened a new domestic division, putting former navy pilot Seamus Flatley in charge. From the Virgina-Pilot.
"Look, none of us loves the idea that devastation became a business opportunity," Flatley said. "It’s a distasteful fact, but it is what it is. Doctors, lawyers, funeral directors, even newspapers – they all make a living off of bad things happening. So do we, because somebody’s got to handle it."
Blackwater security personel on patrol in New Orleans.
Blackwater security officer and Louisiana State Police officer in New Orleans.
Although I've kicked over every rock I could find looking for any instances of abuse involving Blackwater in New Orleans, I could find nothing. Blackwater claims their people never fired a single shot while they were there and as far as I can determine they are actually telling the truth in this instance. I admit that my motivation in writing this series of diaries is to discredit Blackwater. I don't like these people. But I won't try to disort the facts in order to conform to my idiology. I'm not Bill O'Reilly after all. I ran into one blogger who was complaining about how the fanatics on both the left and right were distoring the facts about Blackwater. As an example of right wing fanatics he gave anncoultler.com and of the left, well, dailykos. That made me bristle a little bit. The first hand accounts by residents of New Orleans that I could find who had some contact with Blackwater security forces actually expressed graditude that they were there, saying that Blackwater was on the scene before law enforcement was. I've come to the conclusion that the reason I can't find any instances of abuse is that there is nothing to find. The only thing that I could find was an eyewitness account of Blackwater people who went into an unoccupied apartment and tossed the inhabitants belongings out into the street in order to set up a headquarters. Facts are facts. Fanatics indeed. Which brings me to this photo.
I saw this picture on many different websites listed as being a photo of Blackwater mercenaries marching through the streets of New Orleans. And in fact in an early draft of this diary I too depicted it that way. But as I dug deeper I found a problem. It just ain't so. This is not a photo of Blackwater security forces but of members of the New Orleans swat team. As far as I can tell, all the Blackwater people deployed to the Gulf area after Katrina were outfitted in khaki, not black. I want to always try to make my diaries as accurate as possible. Anyway, I'm eager to move on to what I believe may prove more fertile ground in hunting for abuses committed by Blackwater, the shootings in Baghdad this past September 16th.