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John Kerry Goes After Blackwater

Full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

In the continuing battle over Blackwater and America’s soul, Senator John Kerry called for hearings today into the renewal of Blackwater’s State Department contract.  Why? In Kerry’s words:

To learn that Blackwater’s no-bid security contract for Iraq was renewed even as a grand jury investigates the company and the IRS considers its own review of the company’s books, raises serious concerns that merit Senate hearings. How was this decision made? What was the process that concluded there were no alternatives? What was the extent of Blackwater’s lobbying effort?, said Senator Kerry. “Five years into this war, there’s been too much abuse of the contracting process in Iraq and too little oversight, and nowhere do the questions loom larger than in Blackwater’s role and the Administration’s apparent imperviousness to skepticism where this corporation is concerned.

Coincidentally, this news comes on the same day that news broke that Blackwater vehicle prototypes might be on the Defense Department’s shopping list. This is two more fronts in the battle over Blackwater’s legitimacy.  On the one hand, Blackwater continues to seek out new niches to keep itself afloat after we finally leave Iraq, and on the other hand, Democratic leadership continues to step to block Blackwater.  Kerry’s hearings will likely take place in the Middle East Subcommittee in the Foreign Relations Committee. Also serving there is Senator Barbara Boxer.  Now Senator Boxer has earned the benefit of the doubt over her years in the Senate, but this is a huge issue that goes well beyond this aspect of Blackwater or the State Department.  This is a statement about how we as a nation are going to treat organizations like Blackwater.

I have a lot of faith in Barbara Boxer to do the right thing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t vital that we watch and make sure she helps drive the point home here.  There’s simply never any excuse for Blackwater to be paid with our tax dollars. Until we can lay down a federal level smackdown (Rep. Schakowsky’s Stop Outsourcing Security Act is another great opportunity) on this sort of thing, it’s just gonna be more rounds of whack-a-mole around the country. It’s good to see more leadership in DC on this issue, but now we’ve gotta get the follow-through.

San Diego

Return of the Son of Blackwater

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Full Disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign

By now, nobody should be surprised by the resiliency of Blackwater.  They’ve come back from the brink so many times, it’s easy to allow yourself to think they’ll never really be gone.  So this weekend’s New York Times article on Blackwater’s comeback might be both demoralizing and par for the course if it wasn’t for the strong rhetorical pushback from members of Congress that line up encouragingly with local progress.

As the New York Times chronicles all the near death experiences that Blackwater has come through:

The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guard in the September shooting, either, and the F.B.I. agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards have committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.

Nevertheless, signs indicate that, ever so slowly, the worm is turning. The article notes that the State Department renewed its contract largely for lack of other options, to which Rep. Henry Waxman retorted “I can’t understand why Blackwater’s contract was renewed. It seems to me the administration should have looked for others who could do the job, including the U.S. military.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jan Schakowsky continues to push her “Stop Outsourcing Security Act” which has elicited 12,470 signatures of support from the Courage Campaign petition to Speaker Pelosi.

And as Blackwater continues to face the grim possibility of existing in a world after Iraq and no-bid, no-accountability government contracts, they’re trying with no small measure of desperation to diversify.  That means new facilities, new sorts of contracts, new public image.  But this is where the top-to-bottom pushback- from Schakowsky’s bill to tomorrow’s San Diego City Council hearing discussing Blackwater (10am if you’re in town)- can be effective.  Blackwater is at a public relations crossroads.  Nobody- from fellow contractors to investment groups– want the headache. PR is such a problem that the New York Times notes “Mr. [Eric] Prince until recently seemed eager to tell his side of the story, and there were reports that he planned to write a book. But on Friday, Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said Mr. Prince’s book project had been put on hold.”

Sunlight and tenacity can win this. It’s already starting to expose the cracks in Blackwater’s facade.  It’s just a matter of hanging in through all 12 rounds, because they won’t go down without a fight.