Blackwater up in the air

Blackwater Buys Brazilian Bombers by James Dunnigan September 4, 2007

Security company Blackwater U.S.A. is buying Super Tucano light combat aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. These five ton, single engine, single seat aircraft are built for pilot training, but also perform quite well for counter-insurgency work. Brazil. The Super Tucano is basically a prop driven trainer that is equipped for combat missions. The aircraft can carry up to 1.5 tons of weapons, including 12.7mm machine-guns, bombs and missiles.

Blackwater already has a force of armed helicopters in Iraq, and apparently wants something a little faster, and more heavily armed, to fulfill its security contracts overseas. Initially, Blackwater is getting one two-seater, for pilot training in the United States.

This item has not appeared broadly, it seems, but has drawn some commentary (and see this).

But Blackwater is also busy getting geared up with the latest in laser technology. It is hoped, and Guambat appreciates the logic, that temporarily blinding someone is a useful alternative to shooting him/her/them dead.

Lasers, Helmet Cams Ordered for U.S. Convoy Guards

While there is some risk that a temporarily blinded driver might crash into another vehicle, that is considered by the State Department to be a better alternative than the deadly attacks that have killed hundreds of innocent civilians in Iraq.

The State Department plans to equip its motorcade security details in Iraq with lasers to "dazzle" suspect motorists and helmet cameras to record it all.

U.S. officials also say the State Department plans to double the number of its diplomatic security agents to 90 so that one of its agents can accompany every convoy guarded by Blackwater and other private security contractors.

The new equipment comes as a result of orders from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to crack down on the killing of innocent civilians by security guards in Iraq.

Brothers, Bad Blood and the Blackwater Tangle By SCOTT SHANE

They were smart, scrappy brothers who rose from modest circumstances in Baltimore to become lacrosse stars at Princeton, succeed in business and land big government jobs.

Now the Krongard brothers — who have carried childhood nicknames, Buzzy and Cookie, through long careers — are tied up in the tangled story of Blackwater, the security contractor accused in the deaths of at least 17 Iraqis while guarding a State Department convoy in Baghdad.

Alvin Krongard, 71, who left a $4 million-a-year job in investment banking to serve in top posts at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1998 to 2004, played what he describes as a routine role as an intermediary in helping Blackwater get its first big security contract from the agency for guards in Afghanistan in 2002.

A martial arts enthusiast and former Marine who has regaled friends with tales of punching a great white shark while scuba diving, Mr. Krongard said he later became friendly with the company’s founder, Erik D. Prince. They have hunted near Blackwater’s North Carolina training ground and at Mr. Krongard’s hunting club in Maryland.

Meanwhile, Howard Krongard, 66, a former general counsel at the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche who took the State Department job in 2005, was grilled this week by House Democrats. They accused Mr. Krongard (who does not use his nickname professionally, as his brother does) of alienating his staff and improperly interfering in investigations, including a Justice Department inquiry into allegations of weapons smuggling by Blackwater employees.

John A. DeDona, Howard’s assistant for investigations until August, said in an interview that he believed top State Department officials had influenced the inspector general to back away from tough investigations, including that of Blackwater, which diplomats depend on for protection in Iraq under a $1.2 billion contract.

From a distance, events might suggest that Mr. Prince chose to recruit Buzzy Krongard to curry favor with Howard Krongard and blunt any inquiry into Blackwater. But if that was Mr. Prince’s strategy, his intelligence was gravely flawed, according to people who know the family.

The Krongard brothers barely speak, friends say. In fact, Howard appears to be estranged from several family members, including his son Kenneth, whom he sued last year over a home loan. And Buzzy Krongard has said that when Howard called him a few weeks ago as he prepared his testimony, it was their first conversation in months.

Buzzy Krongard vigorously defends Blackwater’s record in Iraq. “It’s very easy to second-guess them when you’re sitting back in an air-conditioned office,” he said. After Mr. Krongard’s resignation from the Blackwater board was announced late Friday, Mr. Prince expressed his dismay at the politically charged maelstrom around the company.

“It’s a real shame in this country when honorable men and private companies are presumed guilty based on politicized allegations, even while investigations are under way,” Mr. Prince said.

Stand up to Blackwater

This is what we know. Bodyguards working for the Blackwater Worldwide security company shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians Sept. 16 in Baghdad. Federal agents investigating the incident have concluded that at least 14 of the shootings came without justification and in violation of the deadly force rules that are supposed to be in effect for security contractors in Iraq.

State Department investigators, against their better judgment, gave limited immunity to the Blackwater guards involved in the Baghdad killings in exchange for information. That means the security guards' statements can't be used against them, and requires other evidence to be compiled to make a case against them.

But then there are the politics of the larger war that relies so heavily upon somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 employees of Blackwater and other private security companies. Putting even one of them on trial could be quite embarrassing to the Bush administration. Simply putting up with the bad press and general outrage over what the FBI has found about the Sept. 16 mass killings might well be regarded as the easier course of action.

What's so troubling about such thinking is that it could succeed. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., needs some formidable allies in his fight to hold Blackwater properly accountable.

"Just because there are deficiencies in the law, and there certainly are, that can't serve as an excuse for criminal actions like this to be unpunished," Mr. Price tells the Times.

Guambat points out that unjustified homicide is not necessarily murder, notwithstanding the temptation to yell "bloody murder" over the outsourcing of the job of protecting our diplomatic staff.