Blackwater Worldwide

Blackwater Worldwide, formerly Blackwater USA, is a private military company specializing in security contracts. Blackwater was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark and is based in North Carolina, where it operates a 7,000-acre tactical training facility.1 Blackwater is the largest of the State Department’s three private security contractors and has provided security services in the Iraq War and other “war on terror” combat zones.2 In 2007, Prince said that at least 90 percent of Blackwater revenue came from government contracts 3 , two-thirds of which were no-bid.4 In 2007 the company drew heavy criticism after its guards in Baghdad killed Iraqi citizens while protecting a convoy, an incident that may have led to a company restructuring away from security services in 2008.

Prince was born in 1969 to a wealthy conservative family in Michigan with deep ties to the right wing (his late father Edgar helped set up and fund the Family Research Council, a Christian Right think tank and lobby group where Erik interned in college).5 6 Staunchly conservative, Eric Prince has donated hundreds of thousands to the Republican Party, religious groups, and conservative organizations (often through the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation), including the American Enterprise Institute 7 and the Alliance Defense Fund.8

After college, Prince joined the Navy SEALS and carried out operations in Haiti and Bosnia.9 This experience shaped his future career; in a 2006 interview he said, “As I trained all over the world, I realized how difficult it was for units to get the cutting-edge training they needed to ensure success. In a letter home while I was deployed, I outlined the vision that is today Blackwater.”10

Blackwater calls itself “one of the world’s most successful security services corporations” and “a leading provider of creative solutions for the United States government.”11 Founded “to support the training needs of the United States military and law enforcement communities,” during its first decade Blackwater claims that it “trained more than 100,000 local police officers, SWAT team members, homeland security professionals, military personnel, and others to help prepare them to serve and protect U.S. citizens at home and abroad. Blackwater trains approximately 500 members of the military and law enforcement agencies every day.”12

Blackwater has been called a “mercenary company,” most notably by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, because of the foreign soldiers it employees,13 but often pejoratively by critics who take exception to the outsourcing of U.S. military duties for profit. As of October 2008, Blackwater Worldwide divided its services into four categories: training centers; mobility and logistics; technology and innovation; and human and material resources. Its services are broad-ranging and global; for example, the company says, “With an extensive experience in both domestic and international air, ground, and sea operations, we can offer a variety of unique transportation services by air, sea or land.… From Afghanistan to Iraq or Azerbaijan to Alabama we can solve your unique mobility and logistics challenges.”14

Controversy and Accountability

Business at Blackwater boomed after the 9/11 attacks; an October 2007 congressional memorandum stated, “Blackwater's govemment contracts have grown exponentially during the Bush Administration, particularly since the start of the war in Iraq.”15 In 2000, the corporation only earned $200,000 in federal contracts, compared with $25 million in 2003 and $1 billion in late 2007.16 Much of Blackwater’s revenue has come from security contracts for guarding high-profile officials and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad; from 2001 through 2006, Blackwater had $832 million in two State Department contracts for providing “protective services in Iraq.”17 In July 2008, Prince announced a restructuring of his company away from security services (see “No More Security?” below).

Its rise in fame ran parallel to increasing public and official scrutiny. In October 2007, for example, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform questioned the cost-effectiveness of using Blackwater forces instead of U.S. troops, stating, “Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day for the services of a private military contractor. This is equivalent to $445,000 per year, over six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier.”18

Earlier, in March 2004, Blackwater—along with the topic of private military contractors—made headlines when Iraqi insurgents attacked and killed four Blackwater employees in Fallujah, hanging their bodies from a bridge.19 Even greater controversy erupted in fall 2007, after Blackwater workers guarding a State Department convoy opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing more than a dozen innocent Iraqi civilians.20 The scrutiny that followed this incident led to congressional hearings; a congressional committee document issued before the hearings “depict[ed] the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets,” according to the New York Times.21  

The outcry over the Fallujah and Nisour Square incidents sparked public debate about the role of private military companies in the Iraq War and the broader war on terror, notably over issues of accountability. According to Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), “their actions may not be subject to constitutional limitations that apply to both federal and state officials and employees—including First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from illegal searches and seizures. Unlike police officers, they are not trained in protecting constitutional rights.”22 In his book, Scahill reported, “With almost no public debate, the Bush administration has outsourced to the private sector many of the functions historically held by the military. In turn, these private companies are largely unaccountable to the US taxpayers from whom they draw their profits. As the Times of London put it [in 2004], ‘in Iraq, the postwar business boom is not oil. It is security.’”23 Blackwater has repeatedly refused congressional requests for information on its contracts, saying the documents are classified.24

The Associated Press (AP) reported, “Blackwater and other contractors operate in a legal gray area. They are immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. If the Justice Department wants to bring criminal charges such as assault, manslaughter or murder in a U.S. court, prosecutors would have to do so under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. That would require the government to show that State Department contractors were ‘supporting the mission of the Department of Defense overseas.’ Blackwater, however, claims that its contract guarding diplomats was purely a State Department function, one independent from the Pentagon. That could give Blackwater the legal cover it needs to avoid charges against its employees.” 25 A year after the Nisour Square killings, none of the Blackwater employees involved had been indicted, though the Justice Department was still considering issuing indictments.26

The story of Prince and Blackwater is, Scahill writes, “the living embodiment of the changes wrought by the revolution in military affairs and the privatization agenda radically expanded by the Bush administration under the guise of the war on terror. But more fundamentally, it is a story about the future of war, democracy, and governance.”27 Blackwater’s business model makes it ideally suited to enable governments to fight wars without heeding the public, thus undermining the democratic process, Scahill believes. He quotes Ratner: “The increasing use of contractors, private forces or as some would say ‘mercenaries’ makes wars easier to begin and to fight—it just takes money and not the citizenry.”2833

Mixing Business, Politics, and Religion?

Critics question whether Blackwater’s business interests are commingled with its executives’ religious motivations. According to Scahill, “What is particularly scary about Blackwater’s role in a war that President [George W.] Bush labeled a ‘crusade’ is that the company’s leading executives are dedicated to a Christian-supremacist agenda.”29 Prince is a staunch Catholic; Joseph Schmitz, another top Blackwater executive, said in 2004 that “no American today should ever doubt that we hold ourselves accountable to the rule of law under God. Here lies the fundamental difference between us and the terrorists.” In his official biography Schmitz proclaimed membership in the Order of Malta, a Christian militia formed in the 11th century with the goal of defending “territories that the Crusaders had conquered from the Moslems.”30

Before joining Blackwater, Schmitz (who had previously worked for the Reagan administration and represented ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich) was inspector general for the Department of Defense, nominated by Bush in 2001. As inspector general—a position he held until fall 2005—Schmitz was to prevent “fraud, waste, and abuse in the programs and operations” of the Pentagon. But under Schmitz, “corporate profiteers, many with close ties to the administration, thrived as they burned through resources ostensibly allocated for the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to Scahill.31

In February 2005, Blackwater hired J. Cofer Black as vice chairman.32 Black was director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center on 9/11, after which the “staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.”33 After President George W. Bush signed a secret act that “authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures and renditions,” the number of renditions (the controversial process in which suspects are captured and transported for interrogations) also ballooned.34 Black lost his job in May 2002, possibly because he criticized the Bush administration’s failure to capture Osama bin Laden.35 In December 2002 he was tapped to become the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, a position he held until November 2004.36 In 2006, Black and his former CIA and Blackwater colleague Robert Richer launched Total Intelligence Solutions, a privatized intel company run by the Prince Group, owner of Blackwater.37  

No More Security?

In July 2008, Blackwater announced that it would pull back from the security business. The AP reported, “Blackwater executives say they have unfairly become a symbol for all contractors in Iraq and thus the company is a target for those opposed to the war. It will continue guarding U.S. officials in Iraq but its future will be focused on training, aviation and logistics.”38 Prince told the AP, "The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk."39 Blackwater “has expanded its aviation division, which provides airplane and helicopter maintenance and also drops supplies into hard-to-reach military bases,” the AP reported. “A 6,000-foot runway is under construction and a large map in the company's hangar shows units based across the world, from Africa to the Middle East to Australia.”40

Commenting on Blackwater’s announcement, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote, “Come to think of it, 'training, aviation, and logistics' sounds a lot like military contracting. But who knows. Eric Kleefeld suggests another possibility. As a partisan Republican mercenary outfit, they may rightly anticipate slackening sales under a Democratic president.”41

Contact Information

Blackwater Worldwide
PO Box 1029
Moyock, NC 27958
Telephone: 252-435-2488
Fax: 252-435-6388

Company Profile 

“[Blackwater Worldwide was] initially envisioned as a basic training facility to support the needs of local and regional law enforcement personnel. Today, Blackwater Worldwide is capable of providing much more.… The company’s ability to deliver custom solutions is made possible through the integration of its four core competencies: Advanced Training, Logistics/Mobility, Technology/Innovation, and Human/Material resources. Headquartered in Moyock, North Carolina, Blackwater Worldwide is situated on 7,000 acres. The largest private training center in the United States, our corporate facility is comprised of many unique training ranges, special tactical training areas, and other training support activity centers. We also have extensive technology design and manufacturing capabilities making our Moyock Headquarters a one of a kind center for problem solving excellence. As one of the world’s most successful security services corporations, we are a leading provider of creative solutions for the United States government. We have designed and manufactured myriad innovative products; state of the art remotely piloted airships, IED safe armored personnel carriers, and effective training support systems to name a few.”42

Key Personnel

Publications 

Founded