Matt Watson is the opinion editor at The Reflector. He can be contacted at [email protected].Over the past several days, Blackwater USA, a private military firm currently assisting in Iraq, has taken some of the spotlight.
Essentially, a new congressional report issued Monday exposed Blackwater for what it is: a tragic waste of American tax dollars.
The report seems to illustrate impeccably the faults of the company and underscores the unnecessary, catastrophic and suspicious presence of private military firms in general.
For instance, Blackwater is being investigated for three incidents in which civilian lives were lost.
Recently, Blackwater gunfire killed 17 civilians in Baghdad in what many witnesses claim was a grave overreaction by the company.
Last Christmas, a Blackwater employee shot and killed one of the Iraqi vice president’s security guards in a fit of drunkenness.
And in 2004, four employees were killed in an ambush because of a greedy, negligent decision by Blackwater to send an under-equipped team through Fallujah.
I could go on for pages about these kinds of incidents cited in the news and in congressional reports, and this only includes Blackwater, not the hundreds of other private firms in Iraq.
While some accusations are probably more well-founded than others, the increasingly obvious fact remains that military contractors, especially Blackwater, have acted irresponsibly.
In light of this, what has our government done about it?
According to the congressional report issued Monday, the answer is that the State Department has done nothing other than go easy on these firms and help cover up violent incidents by encouraging Blackwater to monetarily compensate victims’ families without further investigation.
The report also claims Blackwater has tried repeatedly to hide documents requested by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
And the Bush administration may prevent any checks on these firms since it objected to a bill Thursday that would have placed them under U.S. law. It is baffling to me why that isn’t already a law anyway.
The report also lays down indisputable figures of the cost of just one military contractor in Iraq, which is, quite simply, six times that of one U.S. soldier.
Despite the Bush administration’s vague claim that holding private military firms accountable to the law would carry “unintended and intolerable consequences,” I think we can safely say these firms have done more harm than good.
So, why does Bush insist on using them?
The current administration appears to be using these firms to do things that can’t be done legally with our military, which is very disappointing.
There also may be a money issue involved somewhere down the line. Critics think it could be Blackwater CEO’s sister-in-law, a major sponsor of Republicans and Bush.
Whatever the reasons may be, the president’s objection to the bill reminds me a little of our own Haley Barbour, whose family and Washington cronies have profited from Katrina relief. On the flip side, at least Barbour didn’t create Katrina himself.
From this week’s events, it seems dollar signs are preventing sober judgment for many of our politicians.