Jeremy Scahill on Soldiers of Fortune (Blackwater)

[marmar]

from Truthdig:

Jeremy Scahill on Soldiers of Fortune


Posted on Mar 30, 2007


Transcript:
James Harris: This is Truthdig. James Harris here with Josh Scheer on the other side. We have author, writer and journalist Jeremy Scahill on the phone. Before we get into the book, how are you?

Jeremy Scahill: Good, it’s good to be with you and with Truthdig.

Harris: All right, you’ve written a new text, “Blackwater USA,” and we’ve been reading some of the reviews. Some good, obviously, and some bad. I read the bad stuff, but I’d like to know what your intentions were in writing this book—what drove you.

Scahill: I’ve spent many years going in and out of Iraq. I first went to Iraq in late 1998 when the Clinton administration was gearing up to attack the country, and indeed President Clinton bombed Iraq for four days in December of 1998. And that was my first visit to the country, and I went in and out of Iraq many times between then and 2003. And I actually spent a fair bit of time in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. And so, on the morning of March 31st, 2004, four men identified as civilian contractors were ambushed and killed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, and then the Bush administration responded with this merciless revenge attack, laid siege to the city, killed hundreds of people, displaced tens of thousands of others. I started to investigate: Who were those guys who got killed in Fallujah? Whose lives were so valuable that the Bush administration felt it was necessary to go in and essentially wipe out an entire city? And that began a several-year process of investigating the company Blackwater USA.

Josh Scheer: And some of the background information I was reading, it talked about the USS Cole bombing and that was their first big government contract and that’s what kind of led us to them now. Can you give us a brief history of this company and ... you talk about who their founder is and his support for this president. ... How did you guys cover that in the book?

Scahill: Blackwater USA was founded by a man named Eric Prince. And Eric Prince is ... currently in his late 30s, but at the time of founding Blackwater in 1996 he was believed to be the wealthiest person that had ever enlisted in the U.S. Navy SEALs, which is widely considered to be the most elite force within the U.S. military. And Eric Prince came from a very conservative evangelical Christian family in the state of Michigan. His father was a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps businessman who started a very successful auto parts manufacturing business called Prince Manufacturing. And what the company was best known for was inventing the now ubiquitous lighted sun visor. Any time you’re in your car and you pull down that visor and it lights up, that’s Eric Prince’s family that invented that. So this company was very successful throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and really, young Eric Prince watched as his father used his very successful business as a cash-generating machine to fund the rise of the Republican revolution in 1994 that brought Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America to power. To give the kick-start money to Gary Bauer to start his group, the Family Research Council. They were heavy funders of James Dobson and Focus on the Family. And so young Eric Prince grew up in this family that was very strict Calvinist in their religion and then real free-market-gospel followers. And so he saw this sort of model from his father, and that really has been the model that he has picked up and ran with as he’s built up his Blackwater empire.
...snip...

Scheer: Jeremy, I want to ask you about this because, there was the Greenwald movie, <"Iraq For Sale"> about private contractors and there’s CACI. ... They’ve sued now, people with ... blogs, and they’ve gone after, say, Randi Rhodes on Air America, and they’ve gone after these people. Do you feel safe with going after someone like this? Because they’re connected to military, they seem not to have any oversight. What was your opinion writing this book? When you were at people’s homes and talking to people at the company and doing the research, did you feel like you were in danger? Or that Blackwater might sue you? Or that now you’re a target?

Scahill: I think all of us as journalists, when you take on powerful people, when you take on powerful corporations, you have to know what you’re getting into. I think the fact of the matter is, when you look at the lawyers that represent Blackwater, it’s almost overwhelming. Their current counsel of record is Kenneth Starr, the man who led the impeachment charge against President Clinton in the 1990s. Their former lawyer was Fred Fielding, who is now Bush’s White House counsel. They have an army of powerful Republican lawyers. And also, the fact of the matter is, this is a mercenary company. These are guns for hire. These are frightening guys. But if I spent too much time wondering about if someone is going to break my kneecaps, or am I going to get sued, I’d be paralyzed. And the fact of the matter is, I believe with all of my heart that these guys need to be exposed, because I do think that it cuts to the very heart of the threats facing not only us in this country and the future of American democracy but people in Iraq, Afghanistan, countries throughout Africa—the mercenaries would love to deploy in Darfur. They’re already going into Somalia. These are life-and-death issues, and I think that if we truly want to be independent journalists, we have to be willing to take risks. And part of that risk of going up against a major war contractor or mercenary company like Blackwater is maybe they’ll sue you, maybe they’ll break your kneecaps. ......(more)

The complete interview, in transcript and audio forms, is at: http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070330_jeremy_scahill_on_soldiers_of_fortune/