Jan Schakowsky is one of the few members of Congress who have made confronting the radically privatized war machine a legislative priority. Even before Blackwater operatives gunned down seventeen Iraqis and wounded some twenty-four others in Baghdad in September, propelling the issue of private forces to front-page news, Schakowsky had mercenaries in her scope. Now she is introducing legislation that seeks to end the use of companies like Blackwater in US war zones by 2009. Her Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act "would mandate that all diplomatic security in Iraq be undertaken by U.S. government personnel within 6 months of enactment." It would also allow Congress to view any current security contract greater than $5 million and require government agencies and the military to report the number of contractors employed in Iraq and Afghanistan, any disciplinary actions taken against them, the total cost of the contracts and the number of contractors wounded or killed. "Private contracting companies have forfeited their right to represent the United States," says Schakowsky, asserting that they "put our troops in harm's way, and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of many innocent Iraqi civilians. They have become a liability instead of an asset."
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The Expanding US War in Pakistan
Jeremy Scahill: Three US special forces soldiers were killed in northwest Pakistan this week, confirming that the US military is more deeply engaged on the ground in Pakistan than previously acknowledged by the White House and Pentagon.
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Video: Blackwater's Youngest Victim
Jeremy Scahill: On September 16, 2007, Blackwater employees killed at least 14 Iraqis in the infamous Nisour Square massacre. The youngest victim was nine-year-old Ali Kinani. In this exclusive interview, produced for Democracy Now by The Nation's Jeremy Scahill and Richard Rowley of Big Noise Films, Ali's father Mohammed talks about his son, the shootings, and his struggle to win justice.
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Blackwater's Youngest Victim
Jeremy Scahill: Nine-year-old Ali Kinani died from a gunshot wound to the head in the Nisour Square massacre. His father may be the one man standing between Blackwater and total impunity.
Some Democrats have already been moving in that direction. In an October letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Senator Joe Biden, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the Administration should examine "whether we should expand the ranks of Diplomatic Security rather than continue to rely so heavily on contractors." He called for hiring more agents, saying, "The requirement for extensive personal security to protect the employees of the U.S. mission will continue for several years to come--regardless of the number of U.S. forces in Iraq."
Firms like Blackwater operate in a demand-based industry, and it is this demand (which derives from offensive, unpopular wars of conquest) that must be cut off. If the positions filled by private security contractors are simply transferred to government employees without addressing the Administration's use of the diplomatic security division as a way of sneaking even more paramilitary forces into Iraq, it could result in a dangerous expansion of the war apparatus. While Schakowsky has worked tirelessly to hold mercenary companies accountable and now to ban their use by the government, Congress should aggressively investigate the Administration's expanded use of diplomatic security for war-related activities. Blackwater and its ilk are not simply bad apples. They are the fruit of a very poisonous tree.
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