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October 22, 2007
BY TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
WASHINGTON -- As Blackwater USA's owner, Erik Prince can rattle off reasons for its meteoric success getting work as security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But his family's political connections, its vast giving to Republican, Christian and conservative causes and campaigns aren't among them, he says.
I'm not a zealot," he said. "I'm a businessman."
Prince, a 38-year-old former Navy SEAL officer who grew up in Holland, Mich., remains at the center of an expanding controversy over his contractors' use of force in Iraq and, specifically, whether they killed 17 Iraqis without provocation Sept. 16. The FBI is investigating, and questions were raised last week about whether the company or the State Department will renew Blackwater's contract next year.
In an hour-long interview with the Free Press last week, Prince welcomed the FBI investigation, saying the incident reports he has seen suggest his contractors acted appropriately. If they did, he said, they deserve to have their names cleared; if they did not, they should be punished under U.S. law.
But Prince, who lives in McLean, Va., also raised several other points -- to counter suggestions that Blackwater failed to adequately supervise its guards -- noting that Blackwater personnel work under the government's operational command in Baghdad, not his or his company's direct supervision.
"We're a temp provider," said Prince.
He praised the State Department's decision this month to require cameras on government vehicles used by Blackwater to guard diplomats and dignitaries as a means of settling any discrepancies between Blackwater and civilian accounts after the fact.
"We asked for that two years ago, in writing. For that very reason," he said. "I think it was kind of lost in the bureaucracy."
Asked if Blackwater made such a request, State Department officials said they were looking into the matter last week.
Prince deflected accusations of a cowboy mentality within his company, that his contractors shoot first and ask questions later in protecting dignitaries and diplomats.
"They're out there doing a very difficult job," he said, noting contractors' military and law-enforcement backgrounds.
No longer secretive
At an Oct. 2 hearing before a House committee, critics questioned whether Prince was raising a private army -- staffed with contractors who felt they could shoot with impunity -- outside the reach of U.S. law, which he denied.
An Iraqi investigation called the Sept. 16 shooting "premeditated murder," as the government there seeks to eject the company.
All of that has made the media-averse Prince a more familiar face, talking to national newspapers and appearing on "60 Minutes" in an attempt, he said, "to clear up some gross misperceptions people had about the company."
"No one calls me secretive anymore," he said.
The Prince family is well known in western Michigan and in Republican and conservative circles nationwide. His father, Edgar Prince, who died in 1995, owned an auto parts company in Holland, and the family has long been a financial backer of social conservative causes and organizations.
His sister Betsy, former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, is married to Dick DeVos, who ran for Michigan governor last year.
Erik Prince said while Blackwater's founding was tied to the fortune he made from the sale of his father's company for $1.3 billion, its success isn't connected to family or political ties.
"I'd say my family was mostly involved in ... call it social policy, family law, that kind of stuff that had no basis of contact in military, training, security."
Instead, he said, the company's success grew because, after he opened the 7,000-acre base in North Carolina as a training facility for military units like his old SEAL team, it earned a solid, and solidly deserved, reputation.
"You know, look, with government contractors ... you say, 'Hey, this is the kind of stuff we can do. If we can ever be of assistance, call.' And you know what, somebody called."
He said Blackwater never received congressional earmarks or tax breaks to get going. "Any family contacts, unfortunately, had no bearing," he said. "There was no wind at my back on that one."
Feelings for military
There's no doubt he knows people in the government, however. He's hired several.
Vice Chairman Cofer Black was a counterterrorism director at both the State Department and the CIA. Joseph Schmitz, a former inspector general at the Defense Department, works as an executive for the Prince Group, which owns Blackwater.
Its lobbyists also have close ties to Capitol Hill and the U.S. intelligence community.
Success for Prince, who chafes at bureaucracy and believes in small government, low taxes and free markets, has come from more than $1 billion in contracts with the U.S. government and military.
His feelings about the military run deep, Prince said.
On his seventh birthday, his family traveled to Berlin, and saw communism up close. He said it affected him. Later, he would see the Normandy coast, where D-day forces stormed the German defenses.
He wanted to be a pilot, went to the Naval Academy, then to Hillsdale College, before working as an intern in Washington. But by then, he knew he wanted to be a SEAL and re-entered the Navy for training.
He went on missions to Bosnia, to Haiti. He was getting ready for deployment again when his father died. By then, he'd already had the idea for Blackwater, he said -- as a state-of-the-art training facility. He returned to western Michigan to tend to the family business and its eventual sale.
As a security provider, Blackwater has become synonymous with the private security industry, to the point, says Prince, where incidents involving other companies (and there at least 170 in Iraq, he says) occasionally are attributed to Blackwater.
"We've kind of become that broad-brush term for private security, and that's really frustrating," he said.
Prince reiterated, as he has often recently, that if the United States no longer wants Blackwater's services, Blackwater can return to its roots -- training law-enforcement workers.
"We've certainly been, I think, a high-end private security provider -- a lot of demand for that type of service has propelled our growth, but at our core we are trainers and could survive very nicely just being trainers again. And with a whole lot less heartache."
Contact TODD SPANGLER at tspangler@freepress.com.
This is a good article for those of you who know little about the company. I would recommend spending a good 5 minutes on their website as well.
:brave:
BY TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF
WASHINGTON -- As Blackwater USA's owner, Erik Prince can rattle off reasons for its meteoric success getting work as security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But his family's political connections, its vast giving to Republican, Christian and conservative causes and campaigns aren't among them, he says.
I'm not a zealot," he said. "I'm a businessman."
Prince, a 38-year-old former Navy SEAL officer who grew up in Holland, Mich., remains at the center of an expanding controversy over his contractors' use of force in Iraq and, specifically, whether they killed 17 Iraqis without provocation Sept. 16. The FBI is investigating, and questions were raised last week about whether the company or the State Department will renew Blackwater's contract next year.
In an hour-long interview with the Free Press last week, Prince welcomed the FBI investigation, saying the incident reports he has seen suggest his contractors acted appropriately. If they did, he said, they deserve to have their names cleared; if they did not, they should be punished under U.S. law.
But Prince, who lives in McLean, Va., also raised several other points -- to counter suggestions that Blackwater failed to adequately supervise its guards -- noting that Blackwater personnel work under the government's operational command in Baghdad, not his or his company's direct supervision.
"We're a temp provider," said Prince.
He praised the State Department's decision this month to require cameras on government vehicles used by Blackwater to guard diplomats and dignitaries as a means of settling any discrepancies between Blackwater and civilian accounts after the fact.
"We asked for that two years ago, in writing. For that very reason," he said. "I think it was kind of lost in the bureaucracy."
Asked if Blackwater made such a request, State Department officials said they were looking into the matter last week.
Prince deflected accusations of a cowboy mentality within his company, that his contractors shoot first and ask questions later in protecting dignitaries and diplomats.
"They're out there doing a very difficult job," he said, noting contractors' military and law-enforcement backgrounds.
No longer secretive
At an Oct. 2 hearing before a House committee, critics questioned whether Prince was raising a private army -- staffed with contractors who felt they could shoot with impunity -- outside the reach of U.S. law, which he denied.
An Iraqi investigation called the Sept. 16 shooting "premeditated murder," as the government there seeks to eject the company.
All of that has made the media-averse Prince a more familiar face, talking to national newspapers and appearing on "60 Minutes" in an attempt, he said, "to clear up some gross misperceptions people had about the company."
"No one calls me secretive anymore," he said.
The Prince family is well known in western Michigan and in Republican and conservative circles nationwide. His father, Edgar Prince, who died in 1995, owned an auto parts company in Holland, and the family has long been a financial backer of social conservative causes and organizations.
His sister Betsy, former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, is married to Dick DeVos, who ran for Michigan governor last year.
Erik Prince said while Blackwater's founding was tied to the fortune he made from the sale of his father's company for $1.3 billion, its success isn't connected to family or political ties.
"I'd say my family was mostly involved in ... call it social policy, family law, that kind of stuff that had no basis of contact in military, training, security."
Instead, he said, the company's success grew because, after he opened the 7,000-acre base in North Carolina as a training facility for military units like his old SEAL team, it earned a solid, and solidly deserved, reputation.
"You know, look, with government contractors ... you say, 'Hey, this is the kind of stuff we can do. If we can ever be of assistance, call.' And you know what, somebody called."
He said Blackwater never received congressional earmarks or tax breaks to get going. "Any family contacts, unfortunately, had no bearing," he said. "There was no wind at my back on that one."
Feelings for military
There's no doubt he knows people in the government, however. He's hired several.
Vice Chairman Cofer Black was a counterterrorism director at both the State Department and the CIA. Joseph Schmitz, a former inspector general at the Defense Department, works as an executive for the Prince Group, which owns Blackwater.
Its lobbyists also have close ties to Capitol Hill and the U.S. intelligence community.
Success for Prince, who chafes at bureaucracy and believes in small government, low taxes and free markets, has come from more than $1 billion in contracts with the U.S. government and military.
His feelings about the military run deep, Prince said.
On his seventh birthday, his family traveled to Berlin, and saw communism up close. He said it affected him. Later, he would see the Normandy coast, where D-day forces stormed the German defenses.
He wanted to be a pilot, went to the Naval Academy, then to Hillsdale College, before working as an intern in Washington. But by then, he knew he wanted to be a SEAL and re-entered the Navy for training.
He went on missions to Bosnia, to Haiti. He was getting ready for deployment again when his father died. By then, he'd already had the idea for Blackwater, he said -- as a state-of-the-art training facility. He returned to western Michigan to tend to the family business and its eventual sale.
As a security provider, Blackwater has become synonymous with the private security industry, to the point, says Prince, where incidents involving other companies (and there at least 170 in Iraq, he says) occasionally are attributed to Blackwater.
"We've kind of become that broad-brush term for private security, and that's really frustrating," he said.
Prince reiterated, as he has often recently, that if the United States no longer wants Blackwater's services, Blackwater can return to its roots -- training law-enforcement workers.
"We've certainly been, I think, a high-end private security provider -- a lot of demand for that type of service has propelled our growth, but at our core we are trainers and could survive very nicely just being trainers again. And with a whole lot less heartache."
Contact TODD SPANGLER at tspangler@freepress.com.
This is a good article for those of you who know little about the company. I would recommend spending a good 5 minutes on their website as well.
:brave:
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