by Jeremy Scahill

The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina
hit. The company known for its private security work guarding senior
US diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid
organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf. About 150
heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out
into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company boasted of its
forces “join[ing] the hurricane relief effort.” But its men on the
ground told a different story.

Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted windows and the
Blackwater logo splashed on the back; others sped around the French
Quarter in an unmarked car with no license plates. They congregated on
the corner of St. James and Bourbon in front of a bar called 711,
where Blackwater was establishing a makeshift headquarters. From the
balcony above the bar, several Blackwater guys cleared out what had
apparently been someone’s apartment. They threw mattresses, clothes,
shoes and other household items from the balcony to the street below.
They draped an American flag from the balcony’s railing. More than a
dozen troops from the 82nd Airborne Division stood in formation on the
street watching the action.

Armed men shuffled in and out of the building as a handful told
stories of their past experiences in Iraq. “I worked the security
detail of both Bremer and Negroponte,” said one of the Blackwater
guys, referring to the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul
Bremer, and former US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. Another
complained, while talking on his cell phone, that he was getting only
$350 a day plus his per diem. “When they told me New Orleans, I said,
‘What country is that in?’” he said. He wore his company ID around his
neck in a case with the phrase Operation Iraqi Freedom printed on it.

In an hourlong conversation I had with four Blackwater men, they
characterized their work in New Orleans as “securing neighborhoods”
and “confronting criminals.” They all carried automatic assault
weapons and had guns strapped to their legs. Their flak jackets were
covered with pouches for extra ammunition.

When asked what authority they were operating under, one guy said,
“We’re on contract with the Department of Homeland Security.” Then,
pointing to one of his comrades, he said, “He was even deputized by
the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use
lethal force if we deem it necessary.” The man then held up the gold
Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. Blackwater
spokesperson Anne Duke also said the company has a letter from
Louisiana officials authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons.

“This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government,”
says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional
Rights. “These private security forces have behaved brutally, with
impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is
frightening and possibly illegal.”

Blackwater is not alone. As business leaders and government officials
talk openly of changing the demographics of what was one of the most
culturally vibrant of America’s cities, mercenaries from companies
like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut
and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI)
are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as
government projects and institutions. Within two weeks of the
hurricane, the number of private security companies registered in
Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235. Some, like Blackwater, are under
federal contract. Others have been hired by the wealthy elite, like F.
Patrick Quinn III, who brought in private security to guard his $3
million private estate and his luxury hotels, which are under
consideration for a lucrative federal contract to house FEMA workers.

A possibly deadly incident involving Quinn’s hired guns underscores
the dangers of private forces policing American streets. On his second
night in New Orleans, Quinn’s security chief, Michael Montgomery, who
said he worked for an Alabama company called Bodyguard and Tactical
Security (BATS), was with a heavily armed security detail en route to
pick up one of Quinn’s associates and escort him through the chaotic
city. Montgomery told me they came under fire from “black gangbangers”
on an overpass near the poor Ninth Ward neighborhood. “At the time, I
was on the phone with my business partner,” he recalls. “I dropped the
phone and returned fire.”

Montgomery says he and his men were armed with AR-15s and Glocks and
that they unleashed a barrage of bullets in the general direction of
the alleged shooters on the overpass. “After that, all I heard was
moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped. That was it. Enough
said.”

Then, Montgomery says, “the Army showed up, yelling at us and thinking
we were the enemy. We explained to them that we were security. I told
them what had happened and they didn’t even care. They just left.”
Five minutes later, Montgomery says, Louisiana state troopers arrived
on the scene, inquired about the incident and then asked him for
directions on “how they could get out of the city.” Montgomery says
that no one ever asked him for any details of the incident and no
report was ever made. “One thing about security,” Montgomery says, “is
that we all coordinate with each other–one family.” That
co-ordination doesn’t include the offices of the Secretaries of State
in Louisiana and Alabama, which have no record of a BATS company.

A few miles away from the French Quarter, another wealthy New Orleans
businessman, James Reiss, who serves in Mayor Ray Nagin’s
administration as chairman of the city’s Regional Transit Authority,
brought in some heavy guns to guard the elite gated community of
Audubon Place: Israeli mercenaries dressed in black and armed with
M-16s. Two Israelis patrolling the gates outside Audubon told me they
had served as professional soldiers in the Israeli military, and one
boasted of having participated in the invasion of Lebanon. “We have
been fighting the Palestinians all day, every day, our whole lives,”
one of them tells me. “Here in New Orleans, we are not guarding from
terrorists.” Then, tapping on his machine gun, he says, “Most
Americans, when they see these things, that’s enough to scare them.”

The men work for ISI, which describes its employees as “veterans of
the Israeli special task forces from the following Israeli government
bodies: Israel Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter
Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National Police Counter
Terrorism units, General Security Service (GSS or ‘Shin Beit’), Other
restricted intelligence agencies.” The company was formed in 1993. Its
website profile says: “Our up-to-date services meet the challenging
needs for Homeland Security preparedness and overseas combat
procedures and readiness. ISI is currently an approved vendor by the
US Government to supply Homeland Security services.”

Unlike ISI or BATS, Blackwater is operating under a federal contract
to provide 164 armed guards for FEMA reconstruction projects in
Louisiana. That contract was announced just days after Homeland
Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the Washington Post
he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private
security firms. “We believe we’ve got the right mix of personnel in
law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of
public safety,” he said. Before the contract was announced, the
Blackwater men told me, they were already on contract with DHS and
that they were sleeping in camps organized by the federal agency.

One might ask, given the enormous presence in New Orleans of National
Guard, US Army, US Border Patrol, local police from around the country
and practically every other government agency with badges, why private
security companies are needed, particularly to guard federal projects.
“It strikes me…that that may not be the best use of money,” said
Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

Blackwater’s success in procuring federal contracts could well be
explained by major-league contributions and family connections to the
GOP. According to election records, Blackwater’s CEO and co-founder,
billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands to Republicans,
including more than $80,000 to the Republican National Committee the
month before Bush’s victory in 2000. This past June, he gave $2,100 to
Senator Rick Santorum’s re-election campaign. He has also given to
House majority leader Tom DeLay and a slew of other Republican
candidates, including Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince
interned with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained at the
time that he “saw a lot of things I didn’t agree with–homosexual
groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act,
those kind of bills. I think the Administration has been indifferent
to a lot of conservative concerns.”

Prince, a staunch right-wing Christian, comes from a powerful Michigan
Republican family, and his father, Edgar, was a close friend of former
Republican presidential candidate and antichoice leader Gary Bauer. In
1988 the elder Prince helped Bauer start the Family Research Council.
Erik Prince’s sister, Betsy, once chaired the Michigan Republican
Party and is married to Dick DeVos, whose father, billionaire Richard
DeVos, is co-founder of the major Republican benefactor Amway. Dick
DeVos is also a big-time contributor to the Republican Party and will
likely be the GOP candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. Another
Blackwater founder, president Gary Jackson, is also a major
contributor to Republican campaigns.

After the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries in Falluja in March
2004, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, a PR firm with
close ties to GOPers like DeLay. By mid-November the company was
reporting 600 percent growth. In February 2005 the company hired
Ambassador Cofer Black, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the
State Department and former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism
Center, as vice chairman. Just as the hurricane was hitting,
Blackwater’s parent company, the Prince Group, named Joseph Schmitz,
who had just resigned as the Pentagon’s Inspector General, as the
group’s chief operating officer and general counsel.

While juicing up the firm’s political connections, Prince has been
advocating greater use of private security in international
operations, arguing at a symposium at the National Defense Industrial
Association earlier this year that firms like his are more efficient
than the military. In May Blackwater’s Jackson testified before
Congress in an effort to gain lucrative Homeland Security contracts to
train 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, saying Blackwater understands
“the value to the government of one-stop shopping.” With President
Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse Comitatus (the
ban on using US troops in domestic law enforcement) and Blackwater and
other security firms clearly initiating a push to install their
paramilitaries on US soil, the war is coming home in yet another
ominous way. As one Blackwater mercenary said, “This is a trend.
You’re going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations.”

Jeremy Scahill is a correspondent for the national radio and TV
program Democracy Now!. He can be reached at:
jeremy(at)democracynow.org

This article originally appears in the October 10, 2005 of The Nation and is also featured on NYC Indymedia.

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