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reserve military components, its civil servants, and its Casey defended the contracting system but said armed contractors contractors—constitut[ing] its warfighting capability and "are the ones that we have to watch very carefully". Senator Joe capacity. Members of the Total Force serve in thousands of Biden, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, has also locations around the world, performing a vast array of duties to indicated he will hold hearings on contractors. Parallel to the accomplish critical missions." This formal designation ongoing investigations, there are several bills gaining steam in represented a major triumph for war contractors—conferring on Congress aimed at contractor oversight. them a legitimacy they had never before enjoyed. Occupying the hot seat through these deliberations is the Contractors have provided the Bush Administration with shadowy mercenary company, Blackwater USA. Unbeknownst to political cover, allowing the government to deploy private forces many Americans and largely off the congressional radar, in a war zone free from public Blackwater has secured a position of scrutiny, with the deaths, injuries and remarkable power and protection crimes of those forces shrouded in Contractors allowa within the US war apparatus. This secrecy. The Administration and the company's success represents the Republican-controlled Congress in government to deploy realisation of the life's work of the turn shietaed the contractors rom private forces in a war zone conservative of icials who formed the accountability, oversight and lega . . core of the Bus ministration's war constraints. Despite the presence of free from public scrutiny, team, for whom radical privatisation more than 100.000 private contractors with the deaths, injuries and has long been @ cherished ideological on the ground in Iraq, only one . mission. Blackwater has repeatedly contractor has been indicted for crimes crimes of those forces cited Rumsfeld's statement that or violations. "We have over 200,000 shrouded in secrecy. contractors are part of the "Total troops in Iraq and half of them aren't Force" as evidence that it is a being counted, and the danger is that legitimate part of the nation's there's zero accountability," sai "warfighting capability and capacity". Democrat Dennis Kucinich, one of the leading congressional Invoking Rumsfeld's designation, the company has in effect critics of war contracting. declared its forces above the law—entitled to the immunity from While the past years of Republican monopoly on government civilian lawsuits enjoyed by the military, but also not bound by have marked a golden era for the industry, those days appear to be the military's court martial system. While the initial inquiries into ending. Just a month into the new congressional term, leading Blackwater have focused on the complex labyrinth of secretive Democrats were announcing investigations of runaway war subcontracts under which it operates in Iraq, a thorough contractors. Representative John Murtha, chair of the investigation into the company reveals a frightening picture of a Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Defense, after politically connected private army that has become the Bush returning from a trip to Iraq in late January, said: "We're going to Administration's Praetorian Guard. have extensive hearings to find out exactly what's going on with contractors. They don't have a clear mission and they're falling all Blackwater Rising over each other." Two days later, during confirmation hearings for Blackwater was founded in 1996 by conservative Christian Gen. George Casey as Army Chief of Staff, Senator Jim Webb multimillionaire and ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince, the scion of a declared: "This is a rent-an-army out ther." Webb asked Casey: wealthy Michigan family whose generous political donations "Wouldn't it be better for this country if those tasks, particularly helped fuel the rise of the religious right and the Republican the quasi-military gunfighting tasks, were being performed by revolution of 1994. At its founding, the company largely active-duty military soldiers in terms of cost and accountability?" consisted of Prince's private fortune and a vast 5, 00- -acre plot of TandAl qd nan at Ds al vr tha O government to deploy private forces in a war zone free from public scrutiny, with the deaths, injuries and crimes of those forces Blackwater Rising Blackwater was founded in 1996 by conservative Christian multimillionaire and ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy Michigan family whose generous political donations helped fuel the rise of the religious right and the Republican revolution of 1994. At its founding, the company largely consisted of Prince's private fortune and a vast 5,000-acre plot of land located near the Great Dismal Swamp in Moyock, North Carolina. Its vision was "to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing of firearms and related security training". In the following years, Prince, his family and his political allies poured money into Republican campaign coffers, supporting the party's takeover of Congress and the ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency. While Blackwater won government contracts during the Clinton era, which was friendly to privatisation, it was not until the "war on terror" that the company's glory moment arrived. Almost overnight, following September 11, 2001, the company became a central player in a global war. "I've been operating in the training business now for four years and was starting to get a little cynical on —— how seriously people took security," Prince told toner efile Fox News host Bill O'Reilly shortly after 9/11. "The phone is ringing off the hook now." 12 = NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2007 Contractors allow a shrouded in secrecy. www.nexusmagazine.com