Licensed to Kill (38 page)

We could discuss Spicer's self-chosen role as spokesman for regulation and accountability forever, particularly as it pertains to his own company's handling of the Aegis video controversy. But Spicer takes obvious pleasure in being able to say that he has conducted a thorough investigation, while concluding that, alas, it will never be publicly released. There's a bit of the old “fuck you” look in Spicer's eyes as he looks at his watch to let me know my time has run out.

It is oddly comforting to see Spicer back in his old form. Perhaps proof that there is an unbendable trajectory to some people. It is hard to decide if his success is a result of changing standards in how governments view contractors or whether Spicer has finally abandoned the path that Simon Mann set him on. This time, if he keeps his head down and keeps his legal and financial wingmen at the ready, he might make it through to the end of the Iraq gold rush a kinder, gentler, and wealthier Spicer.

CHAPTER 11

         

The Lord and the Prince

“I can launch a thousand armed and trained men.”

—E
RIK
P
RINCE, OWNER OF
B
LACKWATER AND
G
REYSTONE

“Yeah… Janjaweed-Be-Gone.”

—D
IRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FOR
B
LACKWATER

“We want to to be a PMC,” Gary Jackson, the president of Blackwater, tells me enthusiastically, indicating that one of the fastest-growing American private security companies has ambitions that go far beyond the functions it performs under current U.S. government contracts. The controversial history of Executive Outcomes and its morphed genesis in Sandline has put the term “private military corporation” into disrepute, creating connotations of foreign mercenaries wresting mineral wealth from the control of local insurgency groups. That doesn't stop Gary from becoming enamored with the possibility of future business expansion opportunities for Blackwater.

I've come to the Blackwater training facility and headquarters in Moycock, North Carolina, to meet with Gary Jackson and his manager of business development, Jerome McCauley, in order to learn more about the past development and future plans of Blackwater. An energetic man in his early forties, barrel-chested and gray-goateed, Gary Jackson has the kind of presence that seems to fill a room and create a draft behind him as he walks. He describes himself as a former SEAL instructor and proud member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Jerry McCauley is a lanky man and another former SEAL, and as quiet and reseved as Gary is animated and effusive.

After Gary's surprising admission about Blackwater's ambition, the M word comes to mind—not
military,
but
mercenary
. I remind Gary that if he presented his enthusiastic offer of a fully armed mercenary army-for-hire to the media, they might react with horror. Gary has somehow forgotten the negativity in the public perception of private soldiers fielding massive firepower for a paycheck, which is surprising given that Blackwater has become a member of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA). The IPOA organizes lectures, conferences, and other media engagements in an attempt to create awareness and garner support for the practice of using private military companies to bolster and/or supplant UN peacekeeping efforts—a remote but not unrealistic possibility.

To evaluate the viability of such a practice, we discuss the best-known private mercenary operations, agreeing that Angola in 1994 and Sierra Leone in 1995 both achieved their objectives, but that Sierra Leone in 1998 and Bougainville in 1997 were unmitigated disasters. Gary dismisses the idea that there might be anything ethically or philosophically questionable about standardizing the practice of guns-for-hire, and instead focuses on how Tim Spicer's management of the last two incidents led to their failure. He points out that an unfettered army in the field can change history by removing tyrants, establishing security, and propping up emerging democracies.

“We can field a full army or operational group at battalion level anywhere in the world. We can provide air assets, logistics, and everything needed to bring stability and security to a region…. We will have the complete capability to replace the military in some operations.”

Gary brings up Darfur as Blackwater's most recent pitch for business. Colin Powell called what was going on in Sudan genocide, but with the bulk of U.S. forces tied down in Iraq, the United States doesn't have the manpower to field soldiers to do anything about it. “The UN takes forever and we are ready to go. We would first send in a hundred guys to set things up,” Gary machine-guns me with enthusiasm, “then send in men and equipment.” He points to a picture recently taken in Iraq of three Boeing Little Birds hovering behind a row of four armored vehicles; in front, a dozen men pose with weapons, wearing armor and extra magazines.

“We are turning a CASA 212 into a gunship that would cruise around at thirty-eight degrees”—he mimics the angle with his palm—“and when we find the bad guys, we would lay into them.” Jerry smiles and drolly interjects, “Yeah, Janjaweed-be-gone!” They both erupt into hearty laughter at the joke.

Janjaweed is the camel-mounted militia that has been on a killing, raping, and village-burning rampage in Darfur. Given the snail's pace of response by the international community as the Janjaweed have steadily chipped away at the population of southwestern Sudan, few could argue against a private company making a humanitarian intervention an easier, faster, and more cost-effective option for the Western powers. However, regardless of the benign intentions proffered in this incipient stage, empowering an industry willing and able to mount a military offensive for profit could be considered a big step in a potentially dangerous trend. Since, according to Gary, about 15 percent of Blackwater's current business comes in the form of “black ops” for the CIA, it is not difficult to imagine a return to the pre–Church/Pike method of doing business abroad. With the lack of transparency, a check written to a private corporation for an “urgent and compelling need” could cover just about anything. The reality is that most of their secret work is simply static and personnel security.

“We are going to field a brigade-sized peacekeeping force. You can quote me on that,” Gary asserts with confidence.

The idea of fielding a private army should not be shocking to the United States, since privately sponsored militias helped mount the American Revolution. What is controversial is the idea that a private corporation can put together a paramilitary force and field it for a profit. However disconcerting the trend toward the privatization of the use of force may be, Gary and Jerry make clear that they view their current roles to be a mere extension of their obligations as SEALs and Americans. To be fair, Jackson does not suggest that Blackwater would field an army on behalf of any client or cause. Gary leaves out some key modifiers in his bombast and sales hype. He forgets to add “in the service of the U.S. government,” because as a former SEAL surrounded by other ex-military and -police, it is assumed that it goes without saying. I have no doubt that no matter what may come in the way of future opportunities for Blackwater, Gary and Jerry will never execute a contract in contravention with what the American leadership views as key to U.S. security and economic interests. But given the history of an unrestrained and aggressive CIA in the days before Church-Pike and Congressional oversight, acting on the orders of American leaders could be just as scandalously problematic. Here in the swamps of North Carolina, Gary Jackson insists quite correctly that a private army can be used for good.

Few people have the resources to recruit, train, and field an army, but the owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince, does. Prince works to communicate this message as he travels the halls of Capitol Hill, Langley, the Pentagon, and the State Department.

The New Industrialists

The President's Sport Bar at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC, is an odd place for a meeting between a lord and a prince. Lord Westbury, one of the founders of HART security; his head of operations, George Simm; and Erik Prince have arranged a meeting to talk shop in the nation's capital. Westbury, Simm, and I arrive early and settle into an empty corner of the pub for the privacy it affords our conversation.

In his midfifties, Lord Westbury, or Richard Nicholas Bethell as he was known before he inherited his father's title, is one of the seminal figures in the privatized security industry and one of the early major proponents of its expansion. A laid-back gentleman and former SAS officer, Richard wears tiger-striped reading glasses and dresses the part of a wealthy Englishman in crisp custom shirts and a dark blue wool overcoat. Often to be seen with an expensive cigar nestled between his fingers, he wears his flowing, silvery white hair down past his shoulders and expresses himself in an upper-crust accent with the incongruous attitude of a puckish eighteen-year-old.

George Simm is Richard's operations man, the wound-tight, go-to guy who makes it all happen—a position for which he is well qualified after his long career managing operations for the SAS. George is crisp, outspoken, and no nonsense, and looks like he could be a small-town cop. He speaks with pride of his upbringing as a coal miner's son and professes an unabashed admiration for Lord Westbury, someone he describes simply as “a legend.” He credits Lord Westbury with formulating the strategy that brought the IRA to the negotiating table, though he'll offer no further details. George and Richard are like opposite parts of the British military spectrum—Richard, an officer and lord; George, a well-read, intensely intelligent working-class man.

The sixth Lord Westbury has set up a number of security companies and is now the driving force behind HART. HART's president, Olle Sundberg, is a sagacious Swede with experience running an ad agency and a shipping company. Richard is their star “door knocker,” using his celebrity in the British military community to drum up support and business for HART.

In the UK, the modern era of private security businesses began soon after World War II when the founder of the Special Air Service, Scotsman Sir David Stirling, founded Kilo Alpha Services (KAS), a clearinghouse for ex-SAS to continue providing expertise and security services to industry and foreign potentates. Many UK companies, such as Olive, Kroll, Pilgrims, and AKE, still provide the low-key service of ex-SAS operators. For the former SAS, “invisibility” remains their key modus operandi.

Tapping the glowing ember of his Romeo y Julieta cigar into the pub ashtray, Lord Wesbury tells me, “The best are the Hereford boys,” or SAS. “The SAS…can deploy in ones if need be. Told to keep their eye on so and so or this group, salute, and they are off.” Former SAS are multiskilled and flexible in their approach to complex problems, “the result of sixty-four years of combat in low intensity and counterterrorist ops.” The other main source for British military contractors, the Special Boat Squadron (SBS), are Royal Marines at heart. Westbury considers them square pegged into a round hole when they try to work as security contractors on the ground. Woefully underequipped for modern scenarios and “not to be allowed out without an adult,” he says, “their success stories could be written on the back of a hamster's testicle.”

After retiring from the SAS, Richard Bethell joined Defence Systems Limited (DSL) in 1991, a company started by Alastair Morrison, former 22 SAS number two and Scots Guard officer. Although the founder of the SAS, David Stirling, had created his tiny consultancy in London, there had never been a proper corporate structure overlaid on the concept of providing expert military skills until DSL. British Petroleum (BP) did business in places where their operations and employees were rich targets for insurgent, criminal, and guerilla groups, and the nations they worked in had either limited resources or insufficient security. At BP's behest, DSL simply provided the ability to hire, train, and maintain an independent armed force to deter attacks. The potential of lost income for a pumping rig or pipeline made the costs of security insignificant.

Although DSL could be pointed out as the first modern private security company, the model was very similar to the use of “levees” or local soldiers under foreign officers to guard the colonial assets overseas. DSL would become a model for other companies that realized insurgents could more easily achieve their objectives by attacking undefended corporations and their assets, as opposed to military outposts. Some accused Bethell of being a mercenary because he trained local guards to defend BP's oil rigs in-country against rebel attacks, but Bethell and Morrison both made it clear they provided training only and were never involved in the actual operations.

In 1997, Bethell and Morrison sold their ownership in DSL (which then was grossing over £50 million a year) to a body armor manufacturer in Jacksonville, Florida, called Armor Holdings for £26 million pounds. Armor Holdings would go on to become ArmorGroup and provide armed forces in Iraq and around the world. Both DSL founders went on to start new security companies.

In July 1999, Bethell started HART and a sister company named Global Marine Security Systems Company (GMSSCO), which specialized in maritime security. One of HART's more innovative early projects was working for the president of Somalia. Fees derived from fishing are the lifeblood of the struggling Somalian government, and HART used their personal relationship with the president of Somalia to present a program to prevent piracy of their fishing grounds.

George explains, “Our first big job was Somalia. Our underlying mission was to license fishing ships to provide income to the government. Their main catch is tuna—a valuable catch. Blue fin tuna is the Rolls-Royce of fish. You can get twenty thousand dollars for one tuna. So we did the math. There is your hard cost and then there is overall revenue sharing from impounds and fines, but you have to be careful to balance things. You get too tough and the fishing goes away. Too little and the fish go away. We were authorized to impound the ships. Properly done, the concept we rolled out in Somalia would be a multimillion-dollar concept.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Our main thrust was to regulate the industry and make sure it was managed properly. You have to be careful how you define a pirate. We sit on the horn and then we see them “hoovering” their resources. We detained a Spanish boat that was fishing illegally. It goes back hundreds of years. The Spanish complained that we were English pirates. It was a fun job. Then the civil war broke out, and it fell apart.”

Other similar ventures by former soldiers have always collapsed due to the inherent corruption in local governments. In Sierra Leone, an identical concept launched by a former Executive Outcomes mercenary failed simply because the fishing companies found it cheaper to bribe the governing official, thereby eliminating the cost of a license or the threat of a fine.