Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of theWar on Terror (52 page)

“a sum this high will set a terrible precedent”
: Ibid.

“It would help the credibility”
: Ibid.

“This was an unfortunate event”
: Ibid.

“There is a party in Congress that does not like”
: Ibid.

“Isn’t it true that your family”
: Ibid.

“Wouldn’t it be fair to say”
: Ibid.

my company made news whenever we earned work
: August Cole, “Next Test for Blackwater,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 13, 2007.

President Pervez Musharraf refused
: Brian Till, “Could the U.S. Have Prevented Benazir Bhutto’s Death?,”
Atlantic
, May 23, 2011.

A UN investigation found
: Ibid.

“Blackwater’s not a partisan company”
: “Blackwater USA,” Hearing Before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, October 2, 2007.

“You have been paid over one billion dollars”
: Ibid.

U.S. force couldn’t match the 180,000 PMCs
: P. W. Singer, “Can’t Win With ’Em, Can’t Go to War Without ’Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency,” Brookings Institution, September 2007.

Department of Labor had counted
: David Ivanovich, “Labor Dept.: 1,001 Civilian Workers Have Died in Iraq,”
Houston Chronicle
, August 8, 2007.

the government’s “surrogate army”
: Mike Baker, “‘Cowboy’ Aggression Works for Blackwater,”
Washington Post
, September 24, 2007.

“Are we going to have to continue to privatize?”
: “Blackwater USA,” Hearing Before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, October 2, 2007.

“we’ll go do something else”
: Ibid.

CHAPTER
15:
A NIGHTMARE AND A MIRACLE

We did so dozens more times
: Jake Tapper and Matthew Jaffe, “The Story Behind Biden’s Emergency Helicopter Landing in Afghanistan,” ABC News, September 22, 2008.

arriving first on the scene
: Andrew Miga, “Senators in Emergency Landing,”
USA Today
, February 21, 2008.

“If you want to know where al-Qaeda lives”
: Jake Tapper and Matthew Jaffe, “The Story Behind Biden’s Emergency Helicopter Landing in Afghanistan,” ABC News, September 22, 2008.

The first helicopter, with medic
: “Five Examples of Superior/Heroic Contractor Performance,” U.S. Department of State, www.thespywhobi lledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2007/11/the-blackwaters.html, captured August 13, 2013.

Blackwater’s men saved
: Ibid.

Poland’s ambassador to Iraq
: Jay Price and Hussein Kadhim, “Blackwater Flies Injured Polish Diplomat to Hospital,” McClatchy Newspapers, October 3, 2007.

The convoy made it two hundred yards
: Ibid.

Then, two more bombs
: Paul von Zielbauer, “Baghdad Bombing Wounds Polish Ambassador and Kills 2,”
New York Times
, October 3, 2007.

Then two dozen insurgents swarmed
: “To the Rescue,”
State Magazine
, April 2008.

sustaining “massive wounds”
: Jay Price and Hussein Kadhim, “Blackwater Flies Injured Polish Diplomat to Hospital,” McClatchy Newspapers, October 3, 2007.

The reasons for the attack were never fully clear
: Kim Curtis, “Ambush Injures Polish Diplomat in Iraq,”
Washington Post
, October 3, 2007.

Three minutes after takeoff
: Dan Laguna and Michael S. Wren,
You Have to Live Hard to Be Hard
(Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2010), p. 215.

The pilot knifed between arcing streetlights
: Ibid.

Another Little Bird followed
: Ibid.

sustained internal injuries as flames shot into his nose
: “Polish Ambassador to Iraq in Coma,” PressTV, http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/26033.html, captured August 13, 2013.

Blackwater’s men and Pietrzyk’s guards
: Dan Laguna and Michael S. Wren,
You Have to Live Hard to Be Hard
(Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2010), p. 215.

“The patient is unable to breathe”
: “Polish Ambassador Wounded in Iraq Fights for Life,” Polskie Radio, October 5, 2007.

Orzechowski, the fallen guard
: “Funeral of Bartosz Orzechowski, GPB Officer Killed in Iraq,” Polish Ministry of the Interior, October 8, 2007.

On January 25, 2008, surrounded by U.S. Ambassador
: Dan Laguna and Michael S. Wren,
You Have to Live Hard to Be Hard
(Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2010), p. 219.

Fellow Blackwater contractors
: Ibid., p. 220.

“I’m here because of you”
: Ibid., p. 218.

“it is not fit to work in Iraq!”
: Kim Curtis, “Ambush Injures Polish Diplomat in Iraq,”
Washington Post
, October 3, 2007.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall
: Alex Graumann, Tamara Houston, Jay Lawrimore, David Levinson, Neal Lott, Sam McCown, Scott Stephens, and David Wuertz, “Hurricane Katrina: A Climatological Perspective,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, October 2005.

Together, those men soon moved
: Bill Sizemore, “Blackwater Employees Create a Stir in New Orleans,”
Virginian-Pilot
, September 15, 2005.

For two weeks, the Puma flew missions
: August Cole, “From Iraq’s Green Zone to the French Quarter,”
MarketWatch
, September 18, 2005.

“Every aircraft we had”
: Joanne Kimberlin and Bill Sizemore, “Blackwater: On American Soil,”
Virginian-Pilot
, July 27, 2006.

“We ran to the fire”
: Ibid.

more than fifteen hundred people were dead
: “Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared,” Special Report of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CRPT-109srpt322/pdf/CRPT-109srpt322.pdf, captured August 13, 2013.

“They are beating, they are raping”
: Jim Dwyer and Christopher Drew, “After Katrina, Crimes of the Imagination,”
New York Times
, September 29, 2005.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia”
: Joseph R. Chenelly, “Troops Begin Combat Operations in New Orleans,”
Army Times
, September 3, 2005.

“We’re going to go out and take this city back”
: Ibid.

“The only difference between here and Iraq”
: Ted Roelofs, “Iraq or New Orleans—It’s All Part of the Job for a Security Guard,”
Grand Rapids Press
, September 13, 2005.

CNN hired British security company
: Nichola Groom, “Private Security Firms in Demand in Katrina Chaos,” Reuters, September 2, 2005.

NBC News hired armed guards
: Ibid.

“The calls came flooding in”
: Griff White, “Private Security Contractors Head to Gulf,”
Washington Post
, September 8, 2005.

“I was scared to death coming back”
: Joanne Kimberlin and Bill Sizemore, “Blackwater: On American Soil,”
Virginian-Pilot
, July 27, 2006.

“They treated it as if that was their job”
: August Cole, “From Iraq’s Green Zone to the French Quarter,”
MarketWatch
, September 18, 2005.

“mercenaries from Blackwater USA”
: Larry Chin, “Private Security and Mercenary Companies Patrol New Orleans,” Global Research, September 8, 2005.

“extrajudicial slayings going on”
: Mac McKinney, “Explosive: Cynthia McKinney Told 5,000 Executed During Katrina,” OpEdNews.com, October 1, 2008.

“Communist and fascist movements during the last century”
: Chris Hedges, “What If Our Mercenaries Turn on Us?”
Common Dreams
, June 3, 2007.

private firms from around the world
: Annette Haddad, “Roadblocks to Rebuilding,”
Los Angeles Times
, September 4, 2005.

The Army Corps of Engineers hired
: Lisa Myers, “Is Katrina Cleanup a Fleecing of America?,” NBC News, June 5, 2006.

ambulance crews
 . . . mold-removal specialists
: Lolly Bowean and Deborah Horan, “Waves of Outsiders Come Looking for Work,”
Chicago Tribune
, September 18, 2005.

the Navy paid Kellogg Brown & Root
: “DHS Agents Head to Gulf Coast,” Associated Press, September 13, 2005.

FEMA awarded no-bid contracts
: Ibid.; Griff Witte and Spencer S. Hsu, “Big Katrina Contractors Win More FEMA Work,”
Washington Post
, August 10, 2006, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080901931.html, captured August 19, 2013; Raymond Hernandez and Eric Lipton, “In Shift, FEMA Will Seek Bids for Gulf Work,”
New York Times
, October 7, 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/politics/07home.html?_r=0, captured August 19, 2013.

the British company ArmorGroup
: Griff White, “Private Security Contractors Head to Gulf,”
Washington Post
, September 8, 2005.

“We used to go out in T-shirts”
: Joanne Kimberlin and Bill Sizemore, “Blackwater: On American Soil,”
Virginian-Pilot
, July 27, 2006.

“deemed the situation unsafe”
: Michael Gaynor, “The Hurricane Katrina Catastrophe Inside Story: Mike Brown Answers My Questions,” RenewAmerica.com, March 8, 2006.

That Homeland Security contract paid Blackwater
: Matt Jadacki, “Management Advisory Report on Armed Guard Services Provided by Blackwater Security Consulting, LLC Under Contract HSCEFC-05-J-F00002,” Office of Inspector General, March 2, 2006.

Almost immediately, we funneled
: Ibid.

“FPS considered this the best value”
: Ibid.

Within a year, some sixteen hundred
: Joanne Kimberlin and Bill Sizemore, “Blackwater: On American Soil,”
Virginian-Pilot
, July 27, 2006.

“This is not the occupation of Louisiana”
: Ibid.

Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership
:
“Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership,” U.S. Africa Command, www.africom.mil/NEWSROOM/Document/7432, captured August 13, 2013.

sent in by the Defense Department’s U.S. Africa Command
: Ibid.

“On one early mission in Mali”
: Author interview with David Dalrymple, July 2013.

“Those squall lines are preceded”
: Ibid.

With him was first officer
: Ibid.

“The wind is picking up again”
: Ibid.

“it felt like needles hitting you”
: Ibid.

“That local hospital”
: Ibid.

“I think the locals kind of put us up”
: Ibid.

“Just as the private sector has responded”
: Statement of Gary Jackson at the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Integration, and Oversight, U.S. House of Representatives, May 24, 2005.

those voters went so far as to recall
: Allison Hoffman, “Board OKing Blackwater Plan Recalled,”
Washington Post
, December 12, 2007.

the first of nearly two dozen blazes
: “California Fire Siege 2007: An Overview,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, www.fire.ca.gov/fire_protection/downloads/siege/2007/Overview_CompleteFinal.pdf, captured August 13, 2013.

largest evacuation in California history
: Ibid.

More than 450 structures were incinerated
: Stephen Badger, “2007 U.S. Multiple-Death Fires,”
NFPA Journal
, September/October 2008.

“just trying to show a good face”
: Amita Sharma, “Blackwater Provided Potrero with Relief Supplies During Fires,” KPBS, October 29, 2007.

We withdrew our proposal for a campus
: Miriam Raftery, “Blackwater Withdraws Plans for Camp in Potrero,”
Alpine Sun
, March 13, 2008.

“I’m going to continue”
: Amita Sharma, “Blackwater Provided Potrero with Relief Supplies During Fires,” KPBS, October 29. 2007.

“something we’ve always done”
: Anne Krueger, “Blackwater’s Relief Efforts Win Praise of Project Foe,”
San Diego Union-Tribune
, October 30, 2007.

Three college students from Grand Rapids
: “Kenyan Aid Workers Expected to Land at 4:30 p.m.,”
Grand Rapids Press
, January 7, 2008.

The students
: Ibid.

He was promptly sworn in
: Jeffrey Gettleman, “Disputed Vote Plunges Kenya into Bloodshed,”
New York Times
, December 31, 2007.

Some 350,000 across the country
: “2011 Human Rights Reports: Kenya,” U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, May 24, 2012.

Men, women, and girls
: Clar Ni Chonghaile, “Kenya Heads to Polls as Women Seek Justice for Violence During Last Election,”
Guardian
, March 1, 2013.

rebels set upon a church
: Nick Wadhams, “A Massacre in a Kenyan Church,”
Time
, January 1, 2008.

As many as fifty women and children
: Ibid.

“‘Stay safe’”
: Nardy Baeza Bickel, “With Blackwater’s Help, Aid Workers Flee Kenya,”
Grand Rapids Press
, January 6, 2007.

Two days later, the girls’ commercial flight
: Nardy Baeza Bickel, “Orphanage Volunteers Relieved to Be Home,”
Grand Rapids Press
, January 7, 2007.