Military Contractor Skullduggery Afoot In Iraq On Thursday, the Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012803319_2.html?wprss=rss_world/mideast/iraq&sid=ST2009012803363&s_pos=";>reported the news that the Iraqi government had decided that they "will not issue a new operating license to Blackwater Worldwide," a private military contractor tasked with security operations in the Green Zone which has "come under scrutiny for allegedly using excessive force while protecting American diplomats." The news is captured with a tone of finality, citing the decision as a "bold move" on the part of the Iraqi government, and the end of a black period in the Iraq War. The widow of one of the men killed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Baghdad_shootings";>Nisoor Square shooting is quoted thusly: "Those people are a group of criminals...What they did was a massacre. Pushing them out is the best solution. They destroyed our family."
The Post should have dug a little deeper into the story, because as <a href="http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/blackwater-bann.html";>Noah Schactman from Danger Room reports, those Blackwater mercenaries might not be going anywhere:
Sure, Blackwater as a corporate entity probably won't be roaming the streets of Baghdad or Mosul for much longer. But the individual mercenaries who've been working for years in Iraq, serving as a Praetorian Guard for the State Department's diplomats -- those guys likely will be able to stay.
The State Department has a contract for "worldwide personal protective services" with three firms: Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy. If Blackwater is no longer allowed to operate in Iraq, a lawyer steeped in the field tells Danger Room, there's no legal reason why the other two firms can't scoop up Blackwater's employees. "State simply issues a new task order to DynCorp or Triple Canopy, who turn around and hire some or all of Blackwater's employees," he says.
Schactman points out that the likelihood of Blackwater personnel remaining in Iraq is high, because "it's not like there are tons of people with the experience, security clearance and willingness to work in a war zone that are needed to serve on the diplomat-protective detail." <a href="http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/01/29/i-go-where-i-please/";>Spencer Ackerman takes the matter a little further:
And that's why it's significant that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton backed away from her campaign pledge to ban private military companies from doing business with the department. Their contract is up in September. Why wouldn't Triple Canopy and DynCorp, who'll benefit from their suddenly-increased size of the Iraq contract, just hire the people with the most in-country experience? Blackwater's employees seem unable to quit Iraq.
A contractor died when a DynCorp manager used an employee's armored car to transport prostitutes, according to Barry Halley, a Worldwide Network Services employee working under a DynCorp subcontract.
"DynCorp's site manager was involved in bringing prostitutes into hotels operated by DynCorp. A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was travelling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission. I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by the contractor's manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad."
Two former employees of DynCorp, the government contracting powerhouse, have won legal victories after charging that the $2 billion-a-year firm fired them when they complained that co-workers were involved in a Bosnia sex-slave trade...
Because of a combination of international treaties, jurisdictional loopholes and bureaucratic confusion, employees of private military companies such as DynCorp can escape prosecution for crimes they commit overseas. Most common crimes committed outside the United States are beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, and the burgeoning local law enforcement systems in war-torn regions such as Bosnia are often insufficient or unwilling to police U.S. contractors.
Two war zones, two prostitution rings. Why are we still doing business with these guys, again?
The Central Council of Jews in Germany has come to an impasse with the Roman Catholic Church after Pope Benedict XVI reintegrated four bishops into the Vatican’s fold, including British cleric Richard Williamson, who has taken a revisionist stance on the Holocaust in recent public statements.
International Herald Tribune:
Williamson said in an interview with Swedish television a week ago that he believed that there were no gas chambers and that no more than 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, rather than the six million widely accepted by historians.
“Under these conditions, there will certainly be no talks between myself and the church for the time being - I stress the words ‘for the time being,’ ” Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Council of Jews, said in the Rheinische Post newspaper. “I would like an outcry in the church against such actions from the pope.”
Yesterday, our own Matt Yglesias appeared MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show to discuss recent conservative obstructionism of the stimulus package:
YGLESIAS: There’s a lot of business tax cuts in there, which were put in with the idea of making it more palatable to Republicans, that I think most Democrats and most progressives don’t think are the best possible policy. And if Republicans aren’t going support it no matter what you do, then it makes a lot of sense to look at putting more infrastructure projects in, look at more tax cuts weighted at working people.
Watch it:
Obama’s “first instinct has been to try and reach out, but of course, if that hand just gets slapped away, then you need to fight back,” Yglesias noted.
On Wednesday, when the House voted 244 - 188 to approve the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 11 Democrats joined with the entire Republican caucus in voting against the bill. Now, as the stimulus debate moves to the Senate, it appears that some Democratic senators are challenging the Obama administration’s stimulus plans as well.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who remains undecided about the bill, said he opposes money going to research projects at the National Institutes of Health and about $13 billion for Pell grants that help students pay for college. Nelson says the measures are worthy but do not belong in legislation designed to stimulate the economy.
According to Fox News, Nelson convened a meeting in his Senate office today with Senate Republicans and some Democrats who are seeking “common ground on how they can improve the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.” Nelson’s meeting included Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA).
In an interview with Fox News after the meeting, Nelson said he didn’t know how many Democrats, let alone Republicans, would vote for the stimulus plan “as it stands today”:
HEMMER: No Republicans voted for this measure in the House. Do you know of any Republicans on the Senate side that will vote yes as it stands today?
NELSON: I don’t know, I don’t even know how many Democrats will vote for it as it stands today because a lot of my colleagues are not decided. They’re undecided on the bill as it is right now. Fortunately, we don’t have to take the vote on it right now. We have an opportunity to make some improvements.
Watch it:
Nelson emphasized to Hemmer that he’s not “as concerned” about the size of the bill, but that some of “the actual ingredients within the program” were only “marginally stimulative.” He added that it was “a good sign” that “additional infrastructure pieces to the program” were being considered.
Earlier this week, under pressure from conservatives, President Obama agreed to remove a provision expanding access to comprehensive family planning services for low-income women from the economic recovery package. But TPMDC reports that at yesterday’s Lilly Ledbetter Act signing ceremony, Obama assured attendees “that the family planning aid would be done soon — perhaps as soon as next week, when the House is set to take up a spending bill that would keep the government funded until October.” As ThinkProgress reported earlier, the CBO estimates that this provision would save the government around $700 million over 10 years.
Over the past week, the fealty of GOP lawmakers to hate radio host Rush Limbaugh has become increasingly clear. They have been reluctant to criticize his comment that he hopes Obama fails, and those who have spoken out have been forced to retract their statements and beg forgiveness from the hate radio host.
Today on Fox and Friends, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) further circled the wagons, saying that Obama shouldn’t have made critical remarks about Limbaugh (which were made in a private meeting with Republicans and then leaked to the press):
McCAIN: I don’t know why he would do that. Mr. Limbaugh is a voice of a significant portion of our conservative movement in America. He has a very wide viewing audience. He is entitled to his views, and he has a lot of people who listen very carefully to him. I don’t know why that the President would take him on. He’s part of the political landscape, and he plays a role.
Watch it:
In September 2007, Limbaugh controversially claimed that U.S. service members who support withdrawal from Iraq are actually “phony soldiers.” At the time, McCain spoke out against the remarks and called on Limbaugh to apologize:
Any American who risks his or her life to defend us has earned the respect and gratitude of every American citizen, irrespective of their views on this war. If Mr. Limbaugh made the remark he is reported to have made, it reflects very poorly on him and not the objects of his offensive comment. I expect most Americans, whatever their political views, will have the same reaction. He would be well advised to retract it and apologize.
So before the election, when McCain was trying to establish himself as a maverick, calling on Rush to criticize for his offensive remarks was fine. After the election, McCain appears more than happy to join his caucus as a ditto head.
