Legislators explore gray areas in security contractor oversight

Lawmakers expressed concern Tuesday that private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly those working for the State Department, might fall through the cracks of legal oversight.

In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Erik Prince, chairman and chief executive officer of Blackwater USA, said his employees serving as State Department contract guards in Iraq or Afghanistan are bound by a long list of U.S. statutes and regulations, as well as international treaties.

Some lawmakers, however, were skeptical that the statutes Prince listed, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the War Crimes Act, apply to contractors working for agencies other than the Defense Department.

At the beginning of the hearing, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the committee, said he would abide by the Justice Department's request that witnesses not discuss the Sept. 16 incident involving Blackwater in which 11 Iraqi civilians were killed, since there are several ongoing investigations. But lawmakers highlighted several other incidents involving Blackwater employees to demonstrate their concern that contractors who engage in criminal or reckless action may fall into a lawless gray area.

Committee members cited the killing of the Iraqi vice president's security guard on Dec. 24, 2006, by an intoxicated Blackwater employee. Lawmakers grilled Prince and State Department officials as to why the employee was removed from Iraq within 36 hours of the shooting. Prince insisted that Blackwater did all it was able to do by firing the employee, denying him the bonus he expected and forcing him to pay for his flight back to the United States. State Department officials said the incident remains under investigation by the Justice Department.

"If [the employee] lived in America, he would have been arrested and facing charges. If he was a member of the military he would be facing a court-martial," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. "But it appears to me that Blackwater has special rules. If you're really concerned about accountability, you would have gone in and done a thorough investigation . . . . But the response was to pack him up and ship him out of the country within two days."

Prince answered questions for almost four hours. On the legal ramifications of misconduct by Blackwater employees, he repeatedly said the company had done all it could by firing and fining employees and cooperating with investigations by the State and Justice departments. "As a private organization, we cannot flog [an employee]. We cannot incarcerate him," Prince said. "We are not empowered to enforce U.S. law."

Prince said he would welcome increased accountability and oversight of his company and security contractors in general. He said he supports legislation (H.R. 2740) offered by Rep. David Price, D-N.C., which aims to ensure that private security contractors are held to the standards in the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.

In a statement released Tuesday, the International Peace Operations Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group that represents a number of private security companies including Blackwater, formally endorsed the legislation, saying "effective legal structures are necessary to ensure ethical operations in the field, and are not just valued by clients and local populations, but are also viewed as being in the long-term interest of our industry."

Doug Brooks, the organization's president, said the companies have always assumed they fell under the extraterritorial jurisdiction act. But the legislation offers an important clarification of that point, he said.

Whether praising Blackwater for its record in protecting important personnel or lambasting it for alleged employee misconduct and corporate cover-up, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed that oversight of private security contractors is insufficient. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said the State Department, as the agency responsible for contracting with Blackwater and several other companies to protect diplomatic and VIP convoys, "could do a better job enforcing and holding contractors accountable."

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., expressed concern that the department likely also feels deeply indebted to the security contractors that protect its personnel on a daily basis. "That's an impossible conflict for them to resolve," Lynch said, advocating that an independent inspector general, rather than the State Department inspector general, be put in charge of contractor oversight.

"It is simply unclear after a full day's hearing whether these employees, whether this company, is subject to law in the way the American people expect anybody in a field of combat to be," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.