As for the current hype, the day after the AP story broke, Blackwater's long-time spokesperson Anne Tyrrell was quick to clarify the matter. Blackwater, she said, has no immediate plans to exit the security business. "As long as we're asked, we'll do it," she said. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department, which renewed Blackwater's contract for another year in April, says it has received no communication from the company indicating it is not going to continue on in Iraq. "They have not indicated to us that they are attempting to get out of our current contract," said undersecretary of state Patrick Kennedy.
As of 2005-2006, according to the company, about half of Blackwater's business was made up of its security work in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and post-Katrina New Orleans. Today, Jackson says it is about 30%. ''If I could get it down to 2% or 1%, I would go there," he said in the interview.
Blackwater, like all companies operating in U.S. war zones, is following political developments very closely. The company may be bracing for a possible shift in policy should Obama win in November. Blackwater could be contemplating resignation before termination. On the other hand, Obama has sent mixed messages on the future of war contractors under his Iraq policy. While he has been very critical of the war industry in general -- and Blackwater specifically -- he has also indicated he will not rule out using private armed contractors at least for a time in Iraq.
Perhaps Blackwater has already gotten what it needed from Iraq: over a billion dollars in contracts and a bad-ass reputation, which has served it well. In May, Blackwater boasted of "two successive quarters of unprecedented growth." Among its current initiatives:
• Erik Prince's private spy agency, Total Intelligence Solutions, is now open for business, placing capabilities once the sovereign realm of governments on the open market. Run by three veteran CIA operatives, the company offers "CIA-type services" to Fortune 1000 companies and governments.
• Blackwater was asked by the Pentagon to bid for a share of a whopping $15bn contract to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties" in a U.S. program that targets countries like Colombia, Bolivia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The New York Times said it could be the company's "biggest job" ever.
• Blackwater is wrapping up work on its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly, as well as its Polar Airship 400, a surveillance blimp Blackwater wants to market to the Department of Homeland security for use in monitoring the US-Mexico border.
On top of this, Blackwater affiliate Greystone Ltd, registered offshore in Barbados, is an old-fashioned mercenary operation offering "personnel from the best militaries throughout the world" for hire by governments and private organizations. It also boasts of a "multi-national peacekeeping program," with forces "specializing in crowd control and less than lethal techniques and military personnel for the less stable areas of operation." Greystone's name has been conspicuously absent in this current news cycle.
At the end of the day, maybe this is just a story, a whole lot of a hype and a dash of misdirection from a pretty savvy company. Safe money would dictate that Blackwater plans on continuing to be, well, Blackwater.
Consider this. The other day Blackwater president Gary Jackson told the AP: "Security was not part of the master plan, ever."
Interesting claim. It was in fact Jackson himself who, back at the beginning of the Iraq occupation, described his goal for Blackwater as such: "I would like to have the largest, most professional private army in the world."
Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
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