Still Armed & Dangerous In Iraq

As the last combat unit still remaining in Iraq quietly crossed out of Iraq and into Kuwait in August of this year, the official combat mission in Iraq came to an end roughly seven years after the offensive began with complete ‘Shock & Awe’.

It was the 4^th Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division that had the honor of being the last combat unit to leave Iraq. Right before his unit made the long trip, under cover of darkness, to the Iraq/Kuwait border, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Lawrence said, “This is going to put the finishing touches on seven years here. What has been achieved is going to echo throughout the region, prosperity, peace, truth, and freedom: the works”.

Two weeks after the 4^th Stryker Brigade left Iraq in their rearview, President Obama addressed the nation at which time he made mention of the Brigade when he said that they “journeyed home in the predawn darkness. Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of vehicles made the trip from Baghdad, the last of them passing into Kuwait in the early morning hours. Over seven years before, American troops and coalition partners had fought their way across similar highways, but this time no shots were fired. It was just a convoy of brave Americans, making their way home”.

However, amidst all of the media buzz regarding the end of the “official” combat mission, not many people have mentioned, or even noticed, that there are still quite a few Americans who have not made their way home. Yes… And the absence of these specific Americans may point to an “unofficial” combat mission that may not have been called off just yet.

You may recall an incident that made international headlines in 2007 in which a firefight in Baghdad broke out that eventually left 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians dead & 20 others wounded. The shootout involved Blackwater Worldwide, a North Carolina-based U.S. security contractor that has profited to the tune of nearly $1 billion since the war began. That is an awful lot of money that our government is paying, in all honesty, to mercenaries.

After the 2007 incident, the Iraqi government made the announcement that they were cancelling Blackwater’s operating license. However, as recently as August of 2009, Blackwater, by then renamed Xe (pronounced Zee) Services, still had armed personnel in-country performing the duty of “providing security for diplomats and diplomatic facilities only”. At any rate, the fact that the remaining Blackwater/Xe personnel were only supposed to be providing security was of little comfort to Iraqi citizens as it was this exact same role that they were supposedly playing when the 2007 incident occured. What was to stop it from happening again?

Today, Xe Services has expanded through the use of numerous shell corporations and they continue to secure very lucrative government contracts. And, while the official combat mission in Iraq may be over, one has to wonder just how many of these shell corporations still have armed mercenaries embedded there under very different orders?

This clip, “Blackwater, America’s Private Army” , digs deeper into the background of this controversial “security firm”. It is well worth the six minutes of your time that it will take to watch it.