A few days later, Blackwater’s Tactical Weekly newsletter carried the news headline “Border Patrol Should Consider Outsourcing Its Training, Lawmaker Says.”55 The article, from the Federal Times, reported that “[Congressman] Rogers said the government may need to turn to Blackwater USA or other contractor if they can do the job cheaper. ‘We have a fiduciary obligation to taxpayers to look at other options,’ Rogers said. ‘It’s irresponsible to go forward with that in the absence of supporting documentation.’”56
In November 2005, Blackwater and the American Red Cross held a joint “Gulf Region Relief” fundraiser that symbolically brought Blackwater’s diverse federal contracts full circle. The keynote speaker, welcomed with a standing ovation, was Blackwater’s once-prized client, L. Paul Bremer, whose book on Iraq had just been published. Blackwater claimed to have raised $138,000 that night57—about $100,000 shy of the company’s estimated daily take from the Katrina contracting jackpot. “Tonight was a success because it was about Americans helping Americans,” said Gary Jackson, repeating what had become Blackwater’s new mantra. “Our great employees and our special relationship with Ambassador Bremer and the Red Cross made it possible to pull off this event.”58 It was reminiscent of the tobacco industry cheering its own meager contributions to antismoking campaigns, while at the same time aggressively marketing cigarettes with exponentially more resources. In reality, Blackwater gained far more from the hurricane than New Orleans’s victims did from Blackwater’s services.
President Bush used the Katrina disaster to try to repeal the Posse Comitatus Act (the ban on using U.S. troops in domestic law enforcement), and Blackwater and other security firms initiated a push to install their paramilitaries on U.S. soil, bringing the war home in yet another ominous way. “This is a trend,” said one Blackwater mercenary in New Orleans. “You’re going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations.” Blackwater had now solidified its position not only as one of the great beneficiaries of the “war on terror” but as a major player in several of the key arenas of the neoconservative agenda. On the one-year anniversary of Katrina, Gary Jackson used the opportunity to showcase Blackwater’s services. “When the Department of Homeland Security called with an emergent and compelling requirement for a turnkey security solution for multiple federal assets, we responded,” he wrote. “Our Rapid Response Enterprise has global reach and can make a positive difference in the lives of those who are affected by natural disasters and terrorist events.”59
Shortly after Blackwater’s Katrina profits started rolling in, Erik Prince sent out a memo on Prince Group letterhead to “all Blackwater USA officers, employees, and independent contractors.” Its subject: “Blackwater USA National Security Oath and Leadership Standards.” It required Blackwater workers to swear the same oath to the Constitution as Blackwater’s “National Security-related clients” to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…. So help me God.”60
K Street Collapse
In January 2006, as Blackwater continued to enjoy the great windfall from Hurricane Katrina, its powerful lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group, was brought down in the flames of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Abramoff was a member of President Bush’s 2001 Transition Team, a powerful Republican lobbyist, and a close associate of many of the most powerful political players in the United States. In March 2006, after months of sustained revelations about Abramoff’s influence-peddling activities, he ended up pleading guilty to five felony counts in one of the greatest corruption scandals in Washington in recent history. ASG was one of several Abramoff-related casualties. The well-connected Republican lobbying firm, founded and run by former senior staffers of ex-House majority leader Tom DeLay, was also deeply entangled in several other scandals rocking Washington at the time. As Abramoff was going down, ASG’s lobbyists feverishly scrambled to dissociate themselves from the sinking ship.
A few months earlier, it would have been difficult to predict ASG’s downfall. The firm enjoyed a prosperous 2005, ranked as a Top 25 lobbying outfit by National Journal, with revenues on a steady rise—up 34 percent in one year, to $8 million from what the Washington Post termed “an A-list of about 70 companies and organizations.”61 In addition to powerhouses like PhRMA, Enron, TimeWarner, Microsoft, and Eli Lilly, ASG counted among its clients over the years several evangelical Christian causes and organizations—among them right-wing media operations like Salem Communications, the National Religious Broadcasters, and Grace News.62 ASG was also a quiet workhorse in procuring lucrative military contracts for some of its clients. At the time of its downfall, ASG was on the cutting edge of one of the fastest-growing industries within the military world—private security. That was thanks in large part to the long-term relationship between ASG partner Paul Behrends and Blackwater owner Erik Prince.
While Behrends had been lobbying for Prince and Blackwater almost from the moment the business began, the key assistance Behrends provided came in the immediate aftermath of the Fallujah ambush in 2004. In November 2005, when Blackwater and other private security firms began a push to recast their mercenary image under the banner of the International Peace Operations Association, the mercenary trade association, it was Behrends and ASG they enlisted to help them do it.63 Among those registered by ASG as lobbyists for IPOA were several former DeLay staffers, including Ed Buckham and Karl Gallant, former head of DeLay’s ARMPAC, and Tony Rudy, DeLay’s former counsel, who pleaded guilty in March 2006 to conspiracy to corrupt public officials and defraud clients.64 Interestingly, Rudy had also worked alongside Behrends in Representative Dana Rohrabacher’s office in the early 1990s—the same time Erik Prince claimed to have worked there as a defense analyst.65 According to Rohrabacher’s office, Prince was actually an unpaid intern. Rohrabacher remained an ardent defender of Jack Abramoff, whom he first met when Abramoff was a leading College Republican and Rohrabacher was an aide to President Reagan. When Abramoff was sentenced in 2006, Rohrabacher was the only sitting Congress member to write the sentencing judge asking for leniency. “Jack was a selfless patriot most of the time I knew him. His first and foremost consideration was protecting America from its enemies,” Rohrabacher wrote. “Only later did he cash in on the contacts he made from his idealistic endeavors.”66