Blackwater USA

The presence of mercenaries in Iraq first received widespread notice after scenes of the gruesome death of four Blackwater hired-guns in Fallujah were televised worldwide. Blackwater is a Moyock, N.C. based 'security consulting' firm founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince.

Principals

• Erik Prince
• Cofer Black

In 2002, the company won a five year navy contract worth $35.7 million to train ten thousand navy personnel in seizing ships. More recently it won a $21 million contract with the Pentagon in Iraq to provide personal security detail for CPA head Paul Bremer and other high-level officials, besides its numerous other private ones. The company had reportedly grown 600 percent since the beginning of the war . The firm charges its clients $1,500 to $2,000 a day for each mercenary.

Blackwater mostly recruits from the ranks of active-duty American special-forces units some of whom earn salaries that run as high as $1,000 a day. In March 2004, it hired 60 former Chilean commandos at a monthly salary of $4,000. May South Africans are also on its payroll. Armed with weapons ranging from M4 rifles to 20mm cannon on its helicopters, its men have engaged in active combat - sometimes with regular US forces.

Blackwater mercenaries are notorious for their gung ho attitude and their mistreatment of Iraqis. Even the military seems to be concerned about their behavior, since they are invariably seen as part of the occupying army. Robert Fisk reported on their behavior in the Independent as thus:

Blackwater's thugs with guns now push and punch Iraqis who get in their way: Kurdish journalists twice walked out of a Bremer press conference because of their mistreatment by these men. Baghdad is alive with mysterious Westerners draped with hardware, shouting and abusing Iraqis in the street, drinking heavily in the city's poorly defended hotels. They have become, for ordinary Iraqis, the image of everything that is wrong with the West. We like to call them "contractors", but there is a disturbing increase in reports that mercenaries are shooting down innocent Iraqis with total impunity.

The firm drew attention again, when it was revealed in the Observer that a memo to its staff in Iraq stated that 'actually it is 'fun' to shoot some people.'

Blackwater also offers a psychological counseling programme to combat PTSD.

Related Articles

• Jeremy Scahill Interview by Amy Goodman, Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush's Undeclared Surge, Democracy Now, January 26, 2007
• Jeremy Scahill, Our Mercenaries in Iraq, Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2007
• Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater Shot Down in Federal Court, The Nation, August 24, 2006
• Jeremy Scahill, Blood is Thicker than Blackwater, The Nation, May 8, 2006
• Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater Down, The Nation, October 10, 2005
• Jeremy Scahill, Overkill: Feared Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans, Democracy Now, September 12, 2005