By Robert Schlesinger
Salon.com
From Blackwater to CACI, mercenary companies in Iraq have a warm and cozy
relationship with the Republican politicians who are employing them.
Private armies have become ubiquitous in Iraq, supplying everything from support
services to mercenary soldiers to interrogators. While Halliburton's contracts for
logistical support have been widely reported, until the firefight in Fallujah in late
March left four Blackwater Security employees dead, the public knew little about the
extent to which the estimated 20,000 private military forces in Iraq are participating
in direct military action.
The shocking photographs of the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison raise
anew questions about the U.S. military's use of private contractors. Maj. Gen.
Antonio Taguba's report about practices at the prison contained information that
two CACI employees "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at
Abu Ghraib." Contractors from Titan International were also present during the
abuses.
"This industry really didn't exist 10 years ago," says Peter Singer, a national
security fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of "Corporate Warriors: The
Rise of the Privatized Military Industry." A decade ago, mercenary soldiering was
less the stuff of corporate America than the inspiration for Soldier of Fortune
fantasies. Now, as Singer reported in Salon, the industry generates over $100
billion annually worldwide.
As little known as these companies are to the general public, they are only too
familiar in Washington, where they have deployed a different kind of mercenary
force -- phalanxes of lobbyists -- along with the ammunition of modern political
warfare, campaign contributions. And they have found eager friends, particularly
among Republican leaders in and out of Congress.
"The move into the political game tends to happen for three reasons," Singer says.
"One, this business is growing. Second, companies that are in other industries
move into the sector, bringing influence and lobbyists to bear." Examples include
Halliburton and, in the case of private security firms and other companies that
provide combat- or intelligence-oriented services, firms like CACI and Titan. Finally,
Singer says, "A lot of firms have picked up lobbyists as they've gained a public
profile."
Blackwater, the firm that guards Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer,
and whose men were killed at Fallujah, has hired the well-connected Alexander
Strategy Group to guide it through the current publicity storm and help influence
Congress on whatever rules are generated to govern private militias in war zones,
according to the Hill newspaper.
Alexander may turn out to be a clever choice: Ed Buckham, former chief of staff to
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, is Alexander's chairman. Tony Rudy,
another former top DeLay operative, and Karl Gallant, who once ran DeLay's
leadership PAC, are also onboard.
Blackwater also works other angles. One of the firm's founders is Michigan native
Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL. His father, Edgar Prince, helped religious right
leader Gary Bauer found the Family Research Council in 1988. Erik Prince's sister,
Betsy DeVos, is the chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party. But Blackwater is
a relative newcomer to the Washington influence game, especially compared with
CACI and Titan, which have been trailblazers.
For more than four years, CACI has employed the Livingston Group and its
"strategic partner," Louisiana law firm Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere
and Denegre, to represent the company's interests in Washington. Since 2000,
CACI has poured $160,000 into Livingston and $150,000 into Jones, Walker.
The Livingston who gave the firm its name is former House Appropriations
Committee chairman Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican designated as Newt
Gingrich's successor to the speaker's gavel in 1998. Amid the House debate over
the impeachment of President Clinton, Livingston dramatically announced his
retirement because of his own sexual peccadilloes. "Livingston is the only former
chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee now in private practice," reads
a bio on his firm's Web site.
Livingston's former top staffers, who have joined him in the private sector, also
work on the CACI account, according to lobbying filings with the House and Senate.
In addition, the two firms employ former legislative liaisons (bureaucratese for
lobbyists) from the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard -- all registered to lobby for
CACI.
More than 92 percent of CACI's $843 million in revenues last year came from the
federal government -- 63 percent from the Pentagon alone. The company's
lobbyists are essential in the continuing effort to grease that wheel of fortune.
Titan's lineup of lobbyists is even broader. Its in-house team includes chairman
Gene Ray, a former top Air Force official; John Dressendorfer, a former White
House lobbyist under President Reagan who also worked in President Nixon's
Pentagon; Lawrence Delaney, who closed out his service to the Clinton
administration as acting undersecretary of the Air Force; and, for good measure,
Susan Golding, a former Republican mayor of San Diego.
Titan's hired guns include the law firm of Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton and
Shockey, which employs Letitia White, a longtime staffer to Rep. Jerry Lewis,
R-Calif., to work on Titan's issues. Lewis, by the way, is the chairman of the
defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. The firm American
Defense International, also employed by Titan, includes Van Hipp, a former deputy
assistant secretary of the Army under then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney who
was later appointed the No. 2 lawyer in the Navy, and Michael Herson, a former
special assistant to then Secretary Cheney.
What's more, Titan has engaged the services of NorthPoint Strategies, composed
mainly of former top staffers to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.
Cunningham, a former member of the Armed Services Committee, as it happens
sits on the Appropriations defense subcommittee as well as the Intelligence
Committee.
All told, Titan has spent $1.29 million since 2000 on Washington lobbying. In 2003
alone, it paid NorthPoint $240,000. And its lobbying has paid off. Last year, the
company had revenues of $1.8 billion, according to its annual report: "Our revenues
from U.S. government business represented approximately 96% of our total
revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003."
This revolving door between congressional staffers or retired military personnel and
lobbying firms is not cir*****scribed by the requirements of the House and Senate
lobby registration. Most of the private contractors operating in Iraq have
high-ranking retired brass in their executive suites. CACI's board of directors, for
example, features retired Gen. Larry Welch, a former Air Force chief of staff. Carl
Vuono and Ronald Griffith, the president and executive vice president, respectively,
of Alexandria, Va., firm MPRI, which is helping to train and equip the new Iraqi
Army, are both retired generals.
But preexisting relationships are only one weapon in the Washington operator's
arsenal. Money remains one of the most important tools.
Not surprisingly, these companies have been very generous to the Republican
Party. Titan's PAC, for example, has contributed a dozen times more money to
Republicans than to Democrats during this election cycle: It kicked in $182,000 to
Republican committees and candidates, including $10,000 apiece to the leadership
PACs of Lewis, Cunningham, Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ted
Stevens, R-Alaska, and House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter,
R-Calif. (whose leadership group is called Peace Through Strength PAC). Titan's PAC
also gave the maximum $10,000 to the campaign committees of Cunningham,
Lewis and Hunter. Democrats have received a mere $15,000 from Titan.
In addition, top executives with Titan have contributed in excess of $58,000 to
political candidates and committees since 2000, more than $49,000 of that amount
going to Republicans. Ray alone gave $28,000, the bulk of it to Republicans. Reps.
Cunningham and Hunter each got from Titan executives at least $10,000 (not
including the $3,000 given to Hunter's Peace Through Strength PAC). The
Democrat who has received the most money from Titan executives is Rep. John
Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee's
defense subcommittee.
CACI executives gave a total of $29,250 over the same time period, $25,750 of it
to Republican interests. J.P. "Jack" London, CACI's CEO, alone gave $10,000, all to
Republicans.
Some of the private security firms in Iraq are clearly fresh to the political game:
Three executives from Triple Canopy -- whose forces fought a pitched battle
against Iraqi insurgents in April -- each wrote $2,000 in checks to the Bush-Cheney
campaign in March.
While Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has now testified on Iraqi prisoner
abuse -- some of it carried out by workers employed by private firms -- no hearings
have yet been scheduled on the widespread use of mercenaries to fill jobs once
performed by U.S. soldiers. And deployment of such workers is unlikely to decrease
as election year contributions grow: The number of hired mercenaries is expected
to double after the June 30 hand-over of "limited sovereignty" to an Iraqi
government.
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information for research and educational purposes.)
May 11th, 2004
