This morning, journalist Jeremy Scahill spoke the CBC Radio One program The Current about Blackwater USA. In its program notes, CBC Radio describes Blackwater thus:
In other words, it's an army for hire. And for the U.S. White House, Blackwater is proving to be a linchpin in the administration's Iraq war strategy. A means of outsourcing military personnel and as some argue... a way of reducing official US military casualty numbers.
Listen to the interview here.
Scahill is the author of Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books, 2007).
more on the flip side
In this interview, Scahill describes the creation and growth of Blackwater, from its earliest incarnation as a training center to its provision of mercenaries in Iraq--at a very high cost to the American taxpayer-and of six hundred "deputies" sent to New Orleans to thwart looters, at a cost of about $900 per day per "deputy", with the employee getting about a third of what was paid to the company by the federal government.
Scahill also spoke in some detail about the activities of Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq, and the lack of accountability to anyone. He said that either the hundred thousand or so mercenaries in Iraq now are all saints, or else they are not being held accountable for transgressions while there. He noted that one mercenary was charged for a crime that involved an attack on a fellow mercenary, but otherwise, nada. He said that the governments of the countries the mercenaries are from can take action--but how can this be done? For example, he noted that several hundred Chilean nationals have worked in Iraq as mercenaries, even though Chile is not participating as part of the "coalition of the willing," and opposes the war in Iraq. How would representatives of the Chilean government successfully monitor what their nationals are doing?
Blackwater is now offering its services as a "peacekeeping" force in Darfur--no doubt at its usual rates. What's going on when a mercenary army is promoted as a way to deal with the situation in Darfur, rather than NATO or the U.N.?
The interview covers a lot of territory, and is well worth listening to.
The audio version of the interview is available on-line at the CBC Radio website for The Current.
Update: greggp recently posted a diary on the possibilities that the Bush Administration might be planning to use Blackwater to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border: Blackwater on the Border