Blackwater Probe Likely To Reveal Little
CBS News Reporter Charles Wolfson is a former Tel Aviv bureau chief for CBS News, who now covers the State Department.
There are three levels from which to look at the current investigation into Blackwater's activities in Iraq: legal, bureaucratic and ground truth. The State Department now has multiple investigations underway including one into the incident of Sept. 16; another being conducted jointly with the Iraqis on the overall role of private security contractors in Iraq; and a third ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in which a senior department management expert, Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, is leading a team which includes outside experts to examine how the department manages the role of these private security firms. The FBI will assist in this inquiry.
The aim of these investigations should certainly speak to questions raised at the legal and bureaucratic levels. Were procedures followed? If not, why not? Should anyone be held criminally responsible for events on Sept. 16? Whose legal jurisdiction is involved when the private contractors are accused (by the Iraqis) in the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians? Are the rules of engagement clear enough and are they being followed by Blackwater? These and many other questions about the day to day operations will be examined by one or more of the probes.
Sean McCormack, spokesman for Secretary Rice, said "she wants the review (conducted by Amb. Kennedy) to be unvarnished. She wants it to be 360 degrees. She wants it to be probing."
Testifying before a House investigative committee, Ambassador David Satterfield, Rice's Senior Advisor on Iraq, said "Without PSDs -- private security details -- we would not be able to interface with Iraqi government officials, institutions and other Iraqi civilians critical to our mission there." Put another way, American diplomats based in Iraq couldn't move outside the Green Zone without the protection of private security details.
The State Department's own Bureau of Diplomatic Security has a total of 1,450 agents. Of those only 36 are assigned to Iraq. Blackwater, under contract to the State Department, has 845 people there and two other firms have smaller contracts which brings the total to 1,150 private security contractors in Iraq, according to testimony by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Griffin. When assigned to Iraq these private contractors are under the jurisdiction of the U. S. ambassador in Baghdad.
The legal and bureaucratic answers will be relatively easy to come by compared to those which fall under the broad topic of "ground truth." At the end of the day everyone who serves on behalf of the State Department owes his or her personal security to private security contractors. Satterfield, who has served in Baghdad, put it bluntly: "I have personally benefited from Blackwater and other private security details … and witnessed firsthand their professionalism." So too have visiting members of congress and journalists (myself included) traveling with senior administration officials.
Everyone knows Iraq is a dangerous place to be and movements by motorcade or helicopter are always fraught with danger. Examining the details of how Blackwater operates will expose not only the company to the possibility of stricter accountability but also the State Department to the possibility of criticizing the very people they entrust with their protection.
Ground truth comes down to how individuals perceive the level of danger they feel in a certain circumstance. There isn't much time for second guessing when you are in a motorcade and someone starts shooting or a car bomb goes off. Perhaps there are Blackwater contractors who are "trigger-happy" and some who have little regard for the lives of Iraqi civilians as some have charged. There even may be a case or two where it can be legally proven that someone acted outside the rules of engagement or the law.
Blackwater's President, Erik Prince, says his security people are trained to take defensive actions to protect those in their charge. If a convoy comes under attack, or even if the security officials think it will happen, they are trained, Prince says, "to get off the 'X'" the place where those out to kill Americans seek to make it happen.
Will senior American officials who entrust their own safety to Blackwater's protection on a daily basis be likely to find they too often act like cowboys?
The ongoing inquiries will try to cover all the topics which have been raised but frankly it is not obvious that any of the investigations now underway will get a fix on ground truth. One thing is clear: there may be problems dealing with Blackwater but the State Department cannot do business in Iraq (and Afghanistan and elsewhere) without them.
By Charles M. Wolfson