Militia attack repelled by private security firm

By Dana Priest
The Washington Post

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Before U.S. reinforcements could arrive, the firm, Blackwater Security Consulting, sent in its own helicopters amid an intense firefight to resupply its commandos with ammunition and to ferry out a wounded Marine, the sources said.

The role of Blackwater's commandos in Sunday's fighting in Najaf illuminates the gray zone between their formal role as bodyguards and the realities of operating in an active war zone. Thousands of armed private security contractors are operating in Iraq in a wide variety of missions and exchanging fire with Iraqis every day, according to informal after-action reports from several companies.

In Sunday's fighting, Shiite militia forces barraged the Blackwater commandos, four MPs and a Marine gunner with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 fire for hours before U.S. Special Forces troops arrived. A sniper on a nearby roof apparently wounded three men. U.S. troops faced heavy fighting in several Iraqi cities that day.

The Blackwater commandos, most of whom are former Special Forces troops, are on contract to provide security for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Najaf.

With their ammunition nearly gone, a wounded and badly bleeding Marine on the rooftop, and no reinforcement by the U.S. military in the immediate offing, the company sent in helicopters to drop ammunition and pick up the Marine.

Sources who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of Blackwater's work in Iraq reported an unspecified number of casualties among Iraqis.

A spokesman for Blackwater confirmed that the company has a contract to provide security to the CPA but would not describe the incident that unfolded Sunday.

A Defense Department spokesman said that there were no military reports about the opening hours of the siege on CPA headquarters in Najaf because there were no military personnel on the scene.

The Defense Department often does not have a clear handle on the daily actions of security contractors because the contractors work directly for the coalition authority, which coordinates and communicates on a limited basis through the normal military chain of command.

The four men slain Wednesday in Fallujah were also Blackwater employees and were operating in the Sunni triangle area under more hazardous conditions — unarmored cars with no apparent backup — than the U.S. military or the CIA permit.
 
The four victims of that attack, according to Blackwater spokesman Chris Bertelli, were escorting trucks carrying either food or kitchen equipment.

Blackwater, a security and training company based in Moyock, N.C., prides itself on the high caliber of its personnel, many of whom are former U.S. Navy SEALs. It has 450 employees in Iraq, many of them providing security to CPA employees, including the U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, and to VIPs visiting Iraq.

Blackwater has applied to occupy a former MiG air base near Baghdad as a counterterrorism training facility for Iraqi forces. The State Department lists 22 companies that can provide private security in Iraq. The Coalition Provisional Authority has awarded six contracts totaling more than $58 million for security, all but one of them on a no-bid basis. Scores of contractors — such as Halliburton of Houston, the biggest contractor in Iraq, and SkyLink Air of Washington, which runs the Baghdad airport — also have hired security to protect their workers and projects.

The contractors have no common standard for training, weapons, appearance or tactics. Uniformed American troops, by contrast, operate under strict command and tight rules governing use of deadly force, and are accountable to combat commanders and to military law for their treatment of civilians.

For months, the presence of security firms has been hard to ignore. Their large four-wheel drive vehicles whiz by highways, traveling at speeds well over 100 miles per hour to discourage potential assassins from tailing them.

Contractors are "easy targets" and insurgents see attacks on civilians as a way of forcing the United States to leave Iraq, said retired special forces Sgt. Maj. Steve Greer, who teaches at the American Military University.

Information from the Los Angeles Times and Newhouse News Service is included in this report.

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