“We tried several times to contact the U.S. government through administrative and diplomatic channels to complain about the repeated involvement by Blackwater guards in several incidents that led to the killing of many Iraqis,” said Kamal.76 However, U.S. Embassy spokesperson Mirembe Nantongo said, “We have no official documentation on file from our Iraqi partners requesting clarification of any incident.”77 But that statement was contradicted by another U.S. official, Matthew Degn, who served as a liaison to the Iraqi Interior Ministry until August 2007. Degn told the Washington Post that Iraqi officials had sent a flurry of memos to Blackwater and U.S. officials well before the September 16 shootings and had been rebuffed in their requests for action. “We had numerous discussions over [Iraqi government] frustrations with Blackwater, but every time [Iraqi officials] contacted the [U.S.] government, it went nowhere,”78 Degn said.
“Blackwater Provides a Valuable Service”
The day after the Nisour Square shootings, the U.S. State Department ordered all non-U.S. military officials to remain inside the Green Zone, and diplomatic convoys were halted. It was a stark reminder of how central Blackwater was to the U.S. occupation. As one Iraqi observer joked, the Green Zone became the “Green Zoo.”79 The Iraqi government, acting as though it was in control of the country, announced that it intended to prosecute the Blackwater men responsible for the killings. “We will not allow Iraqis to be killed in cold blood,” Maliki said. “There is a sense of tension and anger among all Iraqis, including the government, over this crime.”80
But getting rid of Blackwater would not prove to be so easy. Four days after being grounded, Blackwater was back on Iraqi streets. After all, Blackwater is not just any security company in Iraq; it is the leading mercenary company of the U.S. occupation. It first took on this role in the summer of 2003, after receiving a $27 million no-bid contract to provide security for Ambassador Paul Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority from May 2003 to June 2004. Since then, it has kept every subsequent U.S. Ambassador, from John Negroponte to Ryan Crocker, alive. It protected Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visited the country, as well as scores of U.S. Congressional delegations. From its original Iraq contract to late 2007, Blackwater had won $1 billion in “diplomatic security” contracts through the State Department alone.81
Blackwater’s presence on Iraqi streets days after Maliki called for its expulsion served as a potent symbol of the utter lack of Iraqi sovereignty. Maliki quickly found himself under heavy U.S. pressure to back off his initial demands of expulsion and prosecution. While Rice immediately called the Iraqi prime minister to apologize, she made a point of emphasizing publicly that “we need protection for our diplomats.”82 A few days later, Tahseen Sheikhly, a representative of Maliki’s government, stated, “If we drive out this company immediately, there will be a security vacuum. That would cause a big imbalance in the security situation.”83 Given the carnage of September 16, it was a difficult statement to wrap one’s head around.
In a telling 180-degree turn, Maliki swiftly agreed to withhold judgment on Blackwater’s status, pending the conclusion of a “joint” U.S.-Iraqi investigation. But he was also under intense pressure from Iraqis, with leading political and resistance figures demanding that Blackwater leave immediately. Clearly aware of this, while visiting the United States a week after the shootings, Maliki went so far as to call the situation “a serious challenge to the sovereignty of Iraq” that “cannot be accepted.”84
Despite Maliki’s wavering, back in Baghdad there seemed to be great and genuine determination to bring the perpetrators of the Nisour Square slaughter to justice. An investigative team made up of officials from Iraq’s Interior, National Security, and Defense ministries said in a preliminary report that “the murder of citizens in cold blood in the Nisour area by Blackwater is considered a terrorist action against civilians just like any other terrorist operation.”85 But, as with other deadly incidents, Iraqi investigators claimed that they had received little or no information from the U.S. government and were being denied access to the Blackwater operatives involved in the shootings. A U.S. official appeared to dismiss the validity of the Iraqi investigation, telling the New York Times, “There is only the joint investigation that we have with the Iraqis.”86
Still, Iraqi officials announced their intent to bring criminal charges against the Blackwater forces involved in the shooting, and the Iraqi ministries’ report stated, “The criminals will be referred to the Iraqi court system.”87 Abdul Sattar Ghafour Bairaqdar, a member of Iraq’s Supreme Judiciary Council, the country’s highest court, declared, “This company is subject to Iraqi law, and the crime committed was on Iraqi territory, and the Iraqi judiciary is responsible for tackling the case.”88
Unfortunately, things were not quite so simple.
On June 27, 2004, the day before Bremer skulked out of Baghdad, he issued a decree known as Order 17.89 This directive granted sweeping immunity to private contractors working for the United States in Iraq, effectively barring the Iraqi government from prosecuting contractor crimes in domestic courts. The timing was curious, given that Bremer was leaving after allegedly “handing over sovereignty” to the Iraqi government. The immunity conferred by Order 17 continues to this day and was firmly in effect at the time of Nisour Square. Industry representatives and U.S. officials have long argued that Iraq does not have a fair and stable judiciary system in place to handle prosecutions of foreign private contractors. Regardless of the legitimacy of that claim, if the United States took contractor crimes seriously, it would have pursued avenues of alternative prosecution or sanction of alleged killers—if for no other reason than to show the Iraqis that the United States would not simply shrug off their concern and outrage. But the fact is that not a single armed contractor, for Blackwater or any other firm, has ever been charged in any court anywhere with any crime against an Iraqi. As a result, these forces operate in a climate of total impunity, which some observers allege is deliberate and serves a larger purpose for the occupation. “The fact that they have immunity means that there is not even the possibility of them fearing any consequences for acts of killing and brutalization,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “None of this is by chance; their very purpose is to brutalize and strike fear into the people of Iraq.”90
At the time of the Nisour Square shooting, Blackwater was one of more than 170 mercenary firms offering their services in Iraq. While it was viewed widely as the most elite of these companies, there were two U.S. competitors, DynCorp and Triple Canopy, that would gladly have stepped in to fill its shoes in one of the most lucrative private security contracts in modern history. But what happened behind the scenes in the days and weeks after September 16 spoke volumes as to how deeply embedded Blackwater was in the occupation apparatus and how important Erik Prince’s company had become to the White House. Blackwater “has a client who will support them no matter what they do,” H.C. Lawrence Smith, deputy director of the industry-funded Private Security Company Association of Iraq, told the Washington Post shortly after Nisour Square.91
The dirty open secret in Washington was that Blackwater had done its job in Iraq: to keep the most hated U.S. occupation officials alive by any means necessary. “What they told me was, ‘Our mission is to protect the principal at all costs. If that means pissing off the Iraqis, too bad,’” recalled former U.S. occupation adviser Ann Exline Starr, who was protected in Iraq by both Blackwater and DynCorp.92 This “mission” encouraged conduct that placed U.S. lives at an infinitely higher premium than those of Iraqi civilians, even in cases where the only Iraqi crime was driving too close to a VIP convoy protected by Blackwater guards. “Those guys guard my back,” Ambassador Ryan Crocker said shortly after Nisour Square. “And I have to say they do it extremely well. I continue to have high regard for the individuals who work for Blackwater.”93 He was hardly alone in coming to the company’s defense. “Zero individuals that Blackwater has protected have been killed” in Iraq, said Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry, who represents Blackwater’s home state of North Carolina. “That is, I think, the operable number here.”94 “That’s a perfect record,” said Connecticut Republican Chris Shays, asserting Blackwater didn’t “get any credit for it for some reason.”95