After Nisour Square, Prince hinted that Blackwater might quit Iraq, at least in its overt capacity there. “It’s been a source of huge controversy and hassle for us,” he said.4 But Prince and Blackwater were clearly emboldened by the vivid demonstration of their centrality to the U.S. war machine, and in the days and weeks after Nisour Square, the Blackwater founder began speaking of his empire growing into “more of a full-spectrum” operation.5
A “One-Stop Shop” for the Government
In September 2007, it was revealed that Blackwater had been “tapped” by the Pentagon’s Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office to compete for a share of a five-year $15 billion budget “to fight terrorists with drug-trade ties.”6 According to the Army Times, the contract “could include anti-drug technologies and equipment, special vehicles and aircraft, communications, security training, pilot training, geographic information systems, and in-field support.”7 A spokesperson for another company bidding for the work said that “80 percent of the work will be overseas.”8 As Richard Douglas, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, explained, “The fact is we use Blackwater to do a lot of our training of counternarcotics police in Afghanistan. I have to say that Blackwater has done a very good job.”9
Such an arrangement could find Blackwater operating in an arena with the godfathers of the war industry, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. It could also see Blackwater potentially expanding into Latin America, joining other private security companies who are well established in the region. The massive U.S. security company DynCorp is already deployed in Colombia, Bolivia, and other countries as part of the “war on drugs.” In Colombia alone, U.S. defense contractors are receiving nearly half the $630 million in annual U.S. military aid for the country.10 Just south of the U.S. border, the United States has launched Plan Mexico, a $1.5 billion counternarcotics program. This and similar plans could prove lucrative business opportunities for Blackwater and other companies. “Blackwater USA’s enlistment in the drug war,” observed journalist John Ross, would be “a direct challenge to its stiffest competitor, DynCorp—up until now, the Dallas-based corporation has locked up 94% of all private drug war security contracts.”11 The New York Times reported that the contract could be Blackwater’s “biggest job ever.”12
As populist movements grow stronger in Latin America, threatening U.S. financial interests as well as the standing of right-wing U.S. political allies throughout the region, the “war on drugs” becomes an increasingly central part of U.S. counterinsurgency efforts. It allows for more training of foreign security forces through the private sector—away from effective U.S. Congressional oversight—and a deployment of personnel from U.S. war corporations. With U.S. forces stretched thin, sending private security companies to Latin America offers Washington a “small footprint” alternative to the politically and militarily problematic deployment of active-duty U.S. troops. In a January 2008 report by the United Nations working group on mercenaries, international investigators found, “An emerging trend in Latin America but also in other regions of the world indicates situations of private security companies protecting transnational extractive corporations whose employees are often involved in suppressing the legitimate social protest of communities and human rights and environmental organizations of the areas where these corporations operate.”13
In early 2008, Blackwater suffered a setback to its plans for work along the U.S. border. The company announced that it was abandoning its plans to build “Blackwater West” on 824 acres of land in Southern California, a stone’s throw from Tecate, Mexico. Blackwater had planned to use the camp to train border patrol agents and other law enforcement and military in a major front line in the immigration debate.14 Residents of the tiny town of Potrero—population 850—waged a heroic battle against the company’s presence there for more than a year. They expressed a wide range of concerns—from the company’s reputation in Iraq to environmental issues—and forced out local town officials who had attempted to push through Blackwater’s deployment in their community. Finally, in March 2008, Blackwater had had enough; it released a muted statement that said, “The proposed site does not meet our business objectives at this time.”15 A company spokesperson said the decision had nothing to do with the protests against Blackwater. In the bigger picture, this was a minor defeat for Blackwater’s growing business. Even without its desired California facility, Blackwater already annually trains more than 25,000 military and state, federal, and local law enforcement personnel at its Moyock headquarters. It also successfully established “Blackwater North” in Illinois.
If there is one quality that is evident from examining Blackwater’s business history, it is the company’s ability to take advantage of emerging war and conflict markets. Throughout the decade of Blackwater’s existence, Prince has aggressively built his empire into a structure paralleling the U.S. national security apparatus. “Prince wants to vault Blackwater into the major leagues of U.S. military contracting, taking advantage of the movement to privatize all kinds of government security,” reported the Wall Street Journal shortly after Nisour Square. “The company wants to be a one-stop shop for the U.S. government on missions to which it won’t commit American forces. This is a niche with few established competitors.”16
Grizzlies and Polars
In addition to providing armed forces for war and conflict zones and a wide range of military and police training services, Blackwater does a robust multimillion-dollar business through its aviation division. It also has a growing maritime division and other national and international initiatives. Among these, Blackwater is in Japan, where its forces protect the United States’ ballistic missile defense system, which, according to Stars and Stripes, “points high-powered radio waves westward toward mainland Asia to hunt for enemy missiles headed east toward America or its allies.”17 Meanwhile, in early 2008, Defense News reported, “Blackwater is training members of the Taiwanese National Security Bureau’s (NSB’s) special protection service, which guards the president. The NSB is responsible for the overall security of the country and was once an instrument of terrorism during the martial law period. Today, according to its Web site, the NSB is responsible for ‘national intelligence work, special protective service and unified cryptography.’”18 Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto reportedly tried to hire Blackwater to protect her as she campaigned for the presidency in 2007.19 Conflicting reports indicated that either the U.S. State Department or the Pakistani government vetoed the plan. She was assassinated in December 2007.
Back home, Blackwater has stepped up its work on creating military hardware and surveillance equipment and technology to be marketed to the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security.
Blackwater is hoping to sell its Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicle, the Grizzly, to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.20 The company says it is already using three of the twenty-two-ton vehicles in Iraq.21 The Grizzly is portrayed as combining the versatility of an SUV with the durability of a powerful armored car. It can be driven at speeds up to sixty-five miles per hour and is said to be able to deflect ordnance as large as .50 calibers.22 In September 2007, the Pentagon received the green light to purchase more than 15,000 MRAP vehicles for about $11.3 billion.23 Blackwater is hardly alone in producing them, but winning a share of that deal, which seems likely, would be yet another profitable arrangement. The company will manufacture the Grizzlies at its 70,000-square-foot plant, staffed in part by former Ford workers, in North Carolina, with company executives predicting it may eventually crank out as many as a thousand vehicles annually.24 “We’re going to see good, steady growth for at least ten years,” Blackwater president Gary Jackson said.25