Memos: Blackwater Team Sent Wrong Way

[The Old Guy]

Money corrupts and I have many SOF friends who will not work and do their best to sway individuals the other way and to find other employment. But I also have friends that work in BW and have for several years without many problems.

IMHO there are much better companies to work for than the above mentioned.

[hoot72]

There is a novel or book out about BW which I saw at a book store in Kuala Lumpur two weeks back; I didnt buy it as I had already bought the excellent book by former navy seal Couch book about becoming an SF....but might give it a look the next time I head over there...

I gather it gives a pretty negative look at BW and also how they got all their contracts....anyone read it yet?

Edited author of book.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by hoot72

There is a novel or book out about BW which I saw at a book store in Kuala Lumpur two weeks back; I didnt buy it as I had already bought the excellent Mst.Sgt Couch book about becoming an SF....but might give it a look the next time I head over there...

I gather it gives a pretty negative look at BW and also how they got all their contracts....anyone read it yet?

Dick Couch was not a Master Sergeant, he was a Navy SEAL officer.

TR

[Team Sergeant]

Blackwater manager blamed for 2004 massacre in Fallujah
Military contractors write that a site manager sent four Americans on an ill-advised, fatal mission


Joseph Neff, Staff Writer

When four Blackwater USA security guards were ambushed and massacred in Fallujah in 2004, graphic images showed the world exactly what happened: four men killed, their bodies burned and dragged through the streets. A chanting mob hung two mutilated corpses from a bridge.
Since then, Congress and the families of the murdered private security contractors have been demanding answers: Why did the lightly armed and undermanned team go through the heart of one of Iraq's most hostile cities? Why did the two teams sent out that day have four members, not the usual six?

Some answers can be found in memos from a second team for Blackwater operating around Fallujah on March 31, 2004.

Blackwater, based in North Carolina, sent two squads through Fallujah without maps, according to memos obtained by The News & Observer. Both of the six-man teams, named Bravo 2 and November 1, were sent out two men short, leaving them more vulnerable to ambush.

The Bravo 2 team members had protested that they were not ready for the mission and had not had time to prepare their weapons, but they were commanded to go, according to memos written by team members. The team disregarded directions to drive through Fallujah and instead drove around it and returned safely to Baghdad that evening.

The November 1 team went into Fallujah and was massacred.

The Bravo 2 team memos, in emotional, coarse and damning language, placed the blame squarely on Blackwater's Baghdad site manager, Tom Powell.

"Why did we all want to kill him?" team member Daniel Browne wrote the following day. "He had sent us on this [expletive] mission and over our protest. We weren't sighted in, we had no maps, we had not enough sleep, he was taking 2 of our guys cutting off [our] field of fire. As we went over these things we new the other team had the same complaints. They too had their people cut."

The memos surface amid heightened congressional scrutiny of Blackwater, a private security firm based in Moyock, and the private security industry, which grows ever more valuable to the Pentagon. Reports last week indicate that there are now more private contractors than troops operating in Iraq. Blackwater has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

The aftermath of the killings shows one difference between contractors and the military. Had an officer sent four lightly armed soldiers into Fallujah, he would likely have faced public scrutiny in the military justice system. In this case, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been trying to get documents such as these memos from Blackwater without success.

The families of the four men killed in the ambush -- Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Scott Helvenston and Michael Teague -- sued Blackwater in Wake County Superior Court in an effort to find out what happened. Blackwater countersued the estates of the four men in federal court, successfully arguing for arbitration, in which the proceedings are closed to the public and the investigation of the incident can be much more limited.

Continued here:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/630475.html

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

The families of the four men killed in the ambush -- Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Scott Helvenston and Michael Teague -- sued Blackwater in Wake County Superior Court in an effort to find out what happened.

Blackwater countersued the estates of the four men in federal court, successfully arguing for arbitration, in which the proceedings are closed to the public and the investigation of the incident can be much more limited.

May those at bw involved in this CRIME, be brought to justice! Then...may they burn hot in hell!

Holly

[magician]

TR makes a key point, in my opinion. Blackwater has enough funding to make sincere settlement offers to the estates of the deceased.

That would have been the right thing to do, in my opinion.

Maybe that was attempted. Whatever.

Playing legal games, trying to keep the lid on by going to arbitration, is not going to work.

Eventually, the truth will get out.

I'm not a big fan of such, but it might be just the ticket in this case.

[magician]

Originally Posted by Remington Raidr

I'm not a big fan of such, but it might be just the ticket in this case.

It would not surprise me if it is on "the list" of things to do on the Hill.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by magician

TR makes a key point, in my opinion. Blackwater has enough funding to make sincere settlement offers to the estates of the deceased.

That would have been the right thing to do, in my opinion.

Maybe that was attempted. Whatever.

Eventually, the truth will get out.

I was at BW headquarters shortly after this incident, and the impression I got was that just the opposite occurred.

The story I got there was that they tried to recover every dime they could from these guys, then shipped the bodies back as freight and told the families to come to Dover and collect them. They did start a victims' fund where people could contribute to a fund for the families to help them out. At the time, IIRC, the owner of BW was worth over $500,000,000.

Given the fact that they were allegedly providing fewer people than the contract required, working them excessive hours to make up for it, not providing key and essential contractor provided equipment, etc., I wonder if the US government recovered a portion of the contract payment?

Wouldn't billing the USG for personnel and services agreed to in the contract, but not provided, be prosecutable as fraud?

TR

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Blackwater manager blamed for 2004 massacre in Fallujah
Military contractors write that a site manager sent four Americans on an ill-advised, fatal mission
The Bravo 2 team memos, in emotional, coarse and damning language, placed the blame squarely on Blackwater's Baghdad site manager, Tom Powell.

Team Sergeant,

Looks like you are correct in damning the “right people” (Eric Prince, et al) --- I do not know Tom Powell, or his role in the assignment, but based on the following it looks like he tried to give Hdqs a rocket that he was in need of equipment. If he made the assignment without outfitting his men, then he should be pitchfork to pitchfork with Mr. Prince.

"(AP) Blackwater E-Mail Outlines Gear Shortage"
A day before four of the company's security guards died in Iraq, a Blackwater USA employee wrote company officials that it was time to stop the "smoke and mirror show" and provide crucial equipment for the private army in the field.
"I need Comms (communications equipment). ... I need ammo. ... I need Glocks and M4s. ... Guys are in the field with borrowed stuff and in harm's way," said the e-mail, released at a House hearing Wednesday.
Blackwater's Iraq operations manager at the time, Tom Powell, wrote the memo to other company officials on March 30, 2004.
http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/a...tage/76231.htm

SnT

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Wouldn't billing the USG for personnel and services agreed to in the contract, but not provided, be prosecutable as fraud?

If done with "scienter" (a type of intent), yes.

[frostfire]

Al Clark, Blackwater initial founder and Erik Prince's SEAL instructor, left Blackwater in 2000 over "philosophical differences."
(copy and paste)content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=108025&ran=16612

I wonder if Blackwater current reputation reflects that differences.

The full transcript of the house oversight here
(copy and paste)iraqslogger.com/downloads/February_7__2007__HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_ON_FRAUD.pdf

The news back then gave me chills as I and a colleague was planning to find engineering jobs in Iraq. What breaks my heart is Scott's mother was told her son was still alive when dragged through the streets before being decapitated and torched. RIP to the Navy SEAL and Rangers

[504PIR]

I have never worked for BW, but have lived & worked with them in Iraq over the last 3 years. You will find some great, squared away guys and you will also find some true s$%^bag, non-tactical, pretty-boy, drunken, un-professional oxygen theives.

At one time there were many, older SEAL type guys running the show.As they got bigger, I've seen more and more.....shall we say less qualified people. I'm not saying "less -qualified" because they are not SEALs, but folks that display poor judgement, lack of SA, ego and problems with alcohol. There is often a certain arrogence about them because they are "Blackwater". IE because they are BW, they are better than "Big Army", other IC's doing security work and they far more HSLD.....than they actually are. I think allot of this has resulted in BW as a company be held low regard by the more experianced folks in the security business. Personnally I do not want to work for them.

I can't comment on Eric Prince or how coporate operates as I have no experiance with them. So I will not repeat rumors. Every outfit has its 10% that are turds....unfortunately BW has higher percentage.

You can be just south of superman, but if your check, active duty or contact, is signed by a dickhead, you are screwed. I hate to sound negative, but if you read this thread, I would think, even if you had the skills, you just might be reluctant to hang them out, AD or contract. Fvcking sad.

[The Reaper]

It occurs to me that once God and Country are out of the equation, and you are a contractor, professionals in this business take risks for adequate compensation.

When the risks outweigh the compensation, professionals will no longer take the job.

Also, once professionals get wind of the fact that they are considered to be expendable by the company, they will leave. Unless the compensation is exceptional.

When that happens, you have to increase pay, reduce risk, or hire people who don't know any better.

You can find people who will clean a nuclear reactor core with a toothbrush, if you offer enough money. You can also find someone who will do it for a lot less if you are willing to waive the prereqs and standards, and they don't know any better.

I think that most of the pros there voted with their feet, won't take the jobs with the risk involved for the money offered, and the company had no choice other than to recruit, train, and place people who were not experienced professionals and who did not understand the risk-benefit ratio on the payroll.

Just my .02, YMMV.

TR