Majority Makers

Floor Speech

MAJORITY MAKERS -- (House of Representatives - September 19, 2007)

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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I am really honored to join my members of this freshman class. I am so proud to be a Member of the 110th Congress.

I just wanted to point out that this week as we contemplate and as we've seen the three reports, the GAO report, the report from General Petraeus, the report from General Jones, we are at a point where we have to make a big decision. The people of America and Iraq want our troops to have a safe but clear end point to this conflict. The surge has not been successful, as we see 11 of 18 legislative security and economic benchmarks set down have not been met.

But I just wanted to talk about a very interesting and curious development in this whole conflict, which is that part of the story of the Iraq conflict is the contractors. Blackwater is the most well known of them, but that's not the only one. There's DynCorp, there's Titan, there's Casey, there's many of them. As a matter of fact, what we have seen is a privatization of this conflict. We've seen the privatization of this conflict as literally estimated at upwards of 150,000 contractors have been in Iraq. And the question is, since we've never privatized a war, since we've always kept an essential governmental function, which is defense of the Nation, within the firm hands of the government and we've never really privatized a military conflict before, what does all of this mean? Interestingly and sadly, we've seen this privatization situation devolve into a very dangerous situation which I believe has in many ways compromised national security and has damaged the reputation of the United States and has led, in my view, to a situation where the Iraqi Government, even though it is a government under occupation, under U.S. military occupation, has had to make a statement to throw Blackwater out of its country.

Now, think about that. This is a government that is not in full control of its own country but has mustered itself and said, Look, in order to go forward, this institution, Blackwater, must leave our country. I just want to talk about this a little bit because I think that it's an important part of the story and it needs to be told even from the floor of Congress.

The recent incident that I'm talking about has caused the Iraqi Government to revoke the license of Blackwater. This is the result of a situation, of a killing of Iraqi citizens that happened on September 11, 2007 and the wounding of 14 others by a Blackwater USA security company. Ostensibly, this private security company guards U.S. Embassy personnel in Iraq. Blackwater USA is based in North Carolina and is one of the largest of at least 28 different private security firms that have received governmental contracts to work in Iraq, paid for by at least $4 billion in taxpayer dollars.

This group, funded by American taxpayer dollars through their contract, seems to hold very few American values, it seems to me, except for making money, by some accounts as much as five times the amount that our brave soldiers make. Five times the amount the average soldier is making is what one of these contractors can make, particularly one that was in Blackwater. According to one source, in February 2004, Blackwater started training former Chilean commandos, some of whom were serving during the Pinochet years in Chile, for duty in Iraq. People who know the Pinochet regime know that this regime was known for people disappearing in the country. Torture was routine. Other news reports indicate that four of the guards killed in January while working for a subcontractor had served in South Africa's security forces during the apartheid era, and one of them had applied for amnesty for crimes that he committed while operating under the apartheid regime. Not good news.

Press reports further indicate that this latest incident was not isolated, with Iraqi Interior Minister spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf calling the episode the ``last and biggest mistake'' committed by Blackwater.

Khalaf went on to say, ``Security contracts do not allow them to shoot people randomly. They are here to protect personnel, not to shoot people without reason.''

Mr. Speaker, we are not in a position to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people if we have cowboy mercenary vigilantes. Blackwater seems to be accountable neither to the Iraqi Government, and there are serious questions as to whether they're even accountable to the U.S. Government. They are not subject to the Geneva Convention, which our soldiers are. If accounts of this and other incidents prove to be accurate, and of course due process is critically important, then the Iraqi Government's actions to expel Blackwater from Iraq could indicate the first concrete sign that a real government may exist in Baghdad. Who knows. We'll see.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very critical that we continue to look into this issue of private contractors. It is an important part of the story of Iraq. It is a critical and fundamental part of this dialogue that we're having. We can't privatize our Nation's national defense. When we do, we lose control of these people.

Mercenary actions are not deemed sanctioned by U.N. charter. And to hire a private mercenary army is something that we should not be associated with. They call themselves security contractors, and yet they have been involved in major military actions in Najaf. Everybody remembers the horrific incident that occurred in Fallujah that was succeeded by a major action against that city. At this point I think it's important for us to pay much closer attention to this situation and put some real accountability on this situation.

I yield back at this time, but I do ask that we raise these important issues and focus on exactly what this means for our country and our national security.

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