It’s been more than a month since President Barack Obama announced his plan to remove combat forces from Iraq. Yet that plan – which will take 19 months and leave behind a residual force of up to 50,000 troops – has many worried that Obama’s foreign policy is much more hawkish than promised.
Though Obama has abandoned the use of Bush-era rhetoric such as “The War on Terror” and branded himself as a peacemaker, the reality of his foreign policy so far is eerily similar to that of the former president. Case in point: This week the State Department revealed it is signing a lucrative contract with private security contractor Triple Canopy to guard administration officials in Iraq.
Triple Canopy was founded in 2003 in Illinois and has been working in Iraq since 2004. So far, it’s taken a backseat to Blackwater, the Bush administration’s preferred private mercenary firm. The Obama administration paid Blackwater $70 million for private security services in Iraq for the month of February, but appears to have grown wary of the firm’s sordid reputation.
Blackwater came under harsh criticism for its actions in the Nissour Square shoot-out in 2007, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed. Five of its operatives were indicted for manslaughter in December 2008, the first prosecution of private contractors in Iraq. Obama’s decision to cut some of its ties with Blackwater is politically pragmatic, but replacing the firm with Triple Canopy does little to solve the problem of violent U.S. paramilitary firms operating with impunity in Iraq. According to investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, whose book “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Largest Private Mercenary Firm” is a New York Times bestseller, Triple Canopy is notorious for staffing its units with veterans of violent counterinsurgencies from nations such as Columbia, Chile, Peru and El Salvador. The firm has also been implicated in a number of indiscriminate shootings, though no charges have been filled against any of its employees to date.
While many progressive journalists have dropped the ball on revealing the burgeoning militarism of Obama’s Iraq plans, Scahill has been a dogged reporting voice on the issue of private security contractors and a consistent critic of Obama’s foreign policy.
In his April 2 Alternnet.org article “Obama’s Blackwater,” Scahill revealed he had obtained documents from the State Department proving that the Obama administration continued a Bush-era program by paying Triple Canopy millions of dollars for private security work in Israel in February and March.
So what gives? Is Obama breaking his commitment to inducing peace by funding paramilitary squads of brutal foreign commandos and trigger-happy ex-military personnel to provide muscle in Iraq, Israel, and other U.S. war zones?
Yes and no.
On the campaign trail, Obama said that he wouldn’t rule out the continuation of private contractors, though his aides told reporters that he frowned upon their use and planned to take a “serious look” at the role of contractors in Iraq. Obama repeatedly expressed his discontent with the lack of accountability of private security contractors and even sponsored a bill in February 2008, intended to prosecute State Department contractor crimes in U.S. courts.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a much more vocal critic of private security contractors on the campaign trail. In 2008, she signed on as the first co-sponsor of a bill intended to ban the use of State Department private security contracts, saying, “The time to show these contractors the door is long past due.” Now Clinton is apparently quite comfortable with lining the pockets of private security forces. Private security operatives in Iraq make up to $600 a day, more than three times the salary of most military personnel, but most disconcerting is the relative impunity with which they operate.
Until the recent Blackwater indictments, mercenary forces benefitted from a sea of confusion regarding who, if anyone, had legal jurisdiction over them. Blackwater attorneys are fighting the current indictment on the grounds that employees in Iraq are exempt from prosecution because the companies are employed by the State Department and not the Defense Department.
Regardless of the legalese, one thing is crystal clear: The war in Iraq is not finished, it’s just evolving, and a residual force of 50,000 “contingency troops,” a cluster of massive permanent military bases and roving phalanxes of mercenaries dot the horizon.
For progressive-minded activists and journalists – many of whom railed tirelessly against the private militarization of the Bush administration – it is time to turn the same meticulous attention toward the foreign policy of Obama. While reporters like Scahill have employed ideological consistency, many have traded the role of critic for cheerleader over the last few months. With the potential of a truly de-militarized Iraq seeming less likely every day, it’s time to the drop the pom-poms and get back to work.
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