Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army Revised and Updated

561 Pages·2008·1.36 MB·English

by  Jeremy Scahill

Praise for Blackwater
Winner of the George Polk Book Award
Winner of the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism
“A crackling exposé of the secretive military contractor Blackwater.”
—New York Times Book Review
“The biggest book of the year is Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater: The Rise of the
World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Long before the mainstream media and
Congress were paying attention, Scahill exposed the workings of this lawless
private army. It’s an amazingly researched and well-told story of the nexus
between far-right fundamentalists, the Bush-Cheney war machine, privatiza-
tion, and profiteering.” —Matthew Rothschild for The Progressive
“Scahill provided me information . . . which I have not been able to get
from the U.S. military. . . . I have read more from Mr. Scahill, than I’ve got
from our own government.”
—Representative Marcy Kaptur,
Defense Appropriations Committee
“[T]his is no uninformed partisan screed . . . Meticulously documented and
encyclopedic in scope . . . it’s a comprehensive and authoritative guide . . .
this book serves as a provocative primer for advancing the debate.”
—Bill Sizemore, Pulitzer-prize nominated journalist,
Virginian-Pilot
“The utterly gripping and explosive story of how the Bush administration
has spent tens of millions of dollars building a parallel corporate army that
functions in Iraq outside the law . . . When Blackwater first came out, it was
barely reviewed and TV news was so afraid of lawsuits that the book was
nearly shut out. Fast-forward to this autumn, when the Iraqi government
accused Blackwater of massacring civilians in downtown Baghdad. Sud-
denly the book looked prescient and we learned that the same press corps
that had cheered on the war had also missed the biggest story in the war
zone: that Iraq is more than a failed occupation; it’s a radical experiment in
corporate rule.” —Naomi Klein, The Guardian(London)
“Andy McNab couldn’t have invented this prescient tale of the private army
of mercenaries run by a Christian conservative millionaire who, in turn,
bankrolls the president. A chilling expose of the ultimate military outsource.”
—Christopher Fowler, The New Review’s “Best Books of 2007”
“Fascinating and magnificently documented . . . Jeremy Scahill’s new book is
a brilliant exposé and belongs on the reading list of any conscientious citizen.”
—Scott Horton, International and Military Law Expert,
Columbia University Law School
“Scahill is rightfully concerned about the moral and policy ramifications
of such a powerful and unaccountable surrogate military, let alone the
effect that its forces—who are paid six-figure salaries—have on the morale
of normal soldiers. But the sternest message of this book has to do with
the dangers a mercenary army poses, and always has: that it can always be
turned on its host.” —Star-Ledger
“[Scahill’s] book is so scary and so illuminating.”
—Bill Maher, host of HBO’s Real Time
“Jeremy Scahill’s account of the increasing governmental dependence on
private contractors who make massive profit via death and destruction
reads like a futuristic page-turner. Only he is not writing about the
future; he is writing about the present, and his research is encyclopedi-
cally d ocumented.” —Courier-Journal
“At Blackwater USA, Jeremy Scahill’s is the face they love to hate . . . [He is]
perhaps the private military company’s most dogged critic.”
—Virginian-Pilot
“Jeremy Scahill’s exhaustive Blackwater appears with perfect timing . . .
Dwight Eisenhower warned decades ago against the emergence of a mili-
tary-industrial complex. Scahill sees in the rise of Blackwater the fulfillment
of that dark prophecy.” —Weekend Australian
“Blackwater being rarely out of the news lately, this is a very useful survey
of modern mercenaries—or, as they prefer to be called, ‘private security
contractors’ in the ‘peace and stability industry’ . . . Scahill is a sharp inves-
tigative writer.” —The Guardian(London)
“It should be mandatory reading. It’s very interesting—and scary.”
—Scarlett Johansson, actor
“Jeremy Scahill actually doesn’t know anything about Blackwater.”
—Martin Strong, vice president, Blackwater Worldwide
B L A C K W A T E R
’
THE RISE OF THE WORLD S MOST
P O W E R F U L M E R C E N A R Y A R M Y
JEREMY SCAHILL
NEW YORK
Copyright © 2007 by Jeremy Scahill
Hardcover edition first published in 2007 by Nation Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Paperback edition first published in 2008 by Nation Books
116 East 16th Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Nation Books is a co-publishing venture of the Nation Institute
and the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
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without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied
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Designed by Maria E. Torres
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-560-25979-4
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-568-58394-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For unembedded journalists, particularly Arab media workers, who risk and
often lose their lives to be the eyes and ears of the world. Without their courage
and sacrifice, history would indeed be written by self-declared victors, the rich,
and the powerful.
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CONTENTS
ix
Author’s Note
1 THE FACE OF BLACKWATER
INTRODUCTION
3 BAGHDAD’S BLOODY SUNDAY
CHAPTER ONE
49 MAKING A KILLING
CHAPTER TWO
65 THE LITTLE PRINCE
CHAPTER THREE
89 BLACKWATER BEGINS
CHAPTER FOUR
113 FALLUJAH BEFORE BLACKWATER
CHAPTER FIVE
125 GUARDING BUSH’S MAN IN BAGHDAD
CHAPTER SIX
145 SCOTTY GOES TO WAR
CHAPTER SEVEN
155 THE AMBUSH
CHAPTER EIGHT
169 “WE WILL PACIFY FALLUJAH”
CHAPTER NINE
181 NAJAF, IRAQ: 4.04.04
CHAPTER TEN
197 “THIS IS FOR THE AMERICANS OF BLACKWATER”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
209 MR. PRINCE GOES TO WASHINGTON
CHAPTER TWELVE
231 CASPIAN PIPELINE DREAMS
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
245 BLACKWATER’S MAN IN CHILE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
275 “THE WHORES OF WAR”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
305 THE CRASH OF BLACKWATER 61
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
329 COFER BLACK: THE GLOVES COME OFF
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
349 DEATH SQUADS, MERCENARIES, AND
THE “SALVADOR OPTION”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
365 JOSEPH SCHMITZ: CHRISTIAN SOLDIER
CHAPTER NINETEEN
389 BLACKWATER DOWN: BAGHDAD ON THE BAYOU
CHAPTER TWENTY
409 “THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE”
EPILOGUE
447 BLACKWATER BEYOND BUSH
465
Acknowledgments
469
Notes
535
Index
AUTHOR’S NOTE
THIS BOOK would not have been possible without the tireless efforts
of my colleague Garrett Ordower. Garrett is a remarkable investigative
journalist who spent countless hours filing Freedom of Information Act
requests, researching complicated people and events, digging up facts
and figures, and interviewing sources. He also wrote solid first drafts of
some chapters for this book. I am forever grateful to Garrett for his dili-
gent and careful work on this project and his unflinching dedication to
old-fashioned muckraking. This book is as much his as it is mine. I look
forward to Garrett’s future endeavors in law and journalism and would be
honored to work with him again.