Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of theWar on Terror (22 page)

The worst part of those accusations about runaway charges and pay rates is the insinuation that Blackwater somehow defrauded the government and, by extension, American taxpayers. “
This war has produced some of the most lavish
, most fiscally excessive, and most exorbitantly profitable contracts in the history of the world,” Representative John Duncan, a Republican from Tennessee, said in 2007. “It seems to me that fiscal conservatives should feel no obligation to defend [Blackwater’s] type of contracting. In fact, it seems to me that fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by this!” It made for a great sound bite—yet not only was Blackwater not defrauding anybody, those pay rates that launched a thousand headlines were actually
saving the government money
.

For years, those of us at Blackwater beseeched lawmakers to analyze the true costs of the government providing its own security services, and how those numbers compared to the rates we charged. My company’s entire business model was predicated upon hyperefficiency and excellent results; we would gladly have sponsored an activity-based study to determine the cost of our Diplomatic Security work being performed by the military, or brought in-house at the State Department. Ultimately, we didn’t have to: An August 2008 Congressional Budget Office report, “Contractors’ Support of U.S. Operations in Iraq,” finally offered the
first thorough, nonpartisan examination of the issue
. It took immediate aim at those frequently quoted congressional memorandum figures, and concluded this:

Those figures . . . are not appropriate for comparing the cost-effectiveness of contracting the security function or performing it using military personnel. . . . A better comparison would involve estimating a soldier’s “billing rate”—the total cost to the government of having a soldier fill a deployed security position for one year. . . .

CBO performed such an analysis, comparing the costs of a private security contractor with those of a military alternative. That analysis indicates that the costs of the private contractor did not differ greatly from the costs of having a comparable military unit performing similar functions. During peacetime, however, the military unit would remain in the force structure and continue to accrue costs at a peacetime rate, whereas the private security contract would not have to be renewed.

That report firmly established Blackwater as a more cost-effective security option in Baghdad for the short term than the Defense Department. Then, in 2010, a GAO analysis of the WPPS II, “Warfighter Support: A Cost Comparison of Using State Department Employees versus Contractors for Security Services in Iraq,” turned the microscope on the State Department.

“
Because of the broad level of interest
by Congress in issues dealing with Iraq,” the report began, “the Comptroller General performed this review under his authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative.” The GAO’s conclusion? “For the Baghdad Embassy Security Force contract for static security, State Department’s estimated annual cost would be over $785 million more than [Blackwater’s] cost if the decision was made to have the State Department provide these services rather than using a contractor.”

The report noted that by using federal employees
, State might be able to perform Blackwater’s motorcade security services for less annually—$240 million vs. our approximately $380 million—but also that “because the State Department does not currently have a sufficient number of trained personnel to provide security in Iraq, the department would need to recruit, hire, and train additional
employees at an additional cost of $162 million.” Furthermore, “[The State Department] said it could easily take them three years or longer to hire, train, and fully staff all positions necessary to accomplish the [various security missions].”
Those statistics echoed a 2007 refrain
from Ryan Crocker, then the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “[T]here is simply no way at all the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security could ever have enough full-time personnel to staff the security function in Iraq. There is no alternative except through contracts.”

With Blackwater, of course, there was no wait to get men on the ground, and they had only the shortest of learning curves. That was the work we all knew how to do. It was the fight that came next that blindsided us—because I learned there’s another difference between the military and the contractors: We get sued.

2005–2007

For years following the murders of Wes Batalona, Scott Helvenston, Mike Teague, and Jerry Zovko, some of their family members were lost in grief. Donna Zovko, Jerry’s mother, who had been so gracious to me that night around the dining room table, was inconsolable. Over and over again
she reportedly drove the forty-five miles
south of Cleveland to Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery, where we’d once stood together as her son was laid to rest, to weep at Jerry’s grave. Four months after his murder, she even traveled to the Vatican, in hopes that an audience with Pope John Paul II would help provide closure. “
God has accepted Jerry’s soul
,” the Holy Father told her—yet he could do little to fill the hole left in hers.

Katy Helvenston-Wettengel, Scott’s mother, had a similarly difficult time picking up the pieces. She asked those of us at Blackwater to help find her a job in Baghdad, to see the land where her son had been taken from her. Maybe that could somehow fill the void, she
hoped. Unfortunately, the U.S. government had restricted civilian travel to the country unless on official state business; there was little we could do.
Racked by insomnia and grief
,
Helvenston-Wettengel reportedly read
endless news reports about the murders.

The families had previously requested any internal information Blackwater had about that fateful convoy, and the events surrounding their loved ones’ deaths. It was an understandable thing to ask. Yet the press had already reported nearly everything we knew.

Suddenly, Helvenston-Wettengel decided the news accounts raised damning questions about Blackwater’s policies, and the mission Scott had been sent on. She determined we must be hiding something. It was then that she reportedly suggested Donna Zovko help her scout law firms to come after us. “The lawyers we hire not only have to be mean SOBs,” Helvenston-Wettengel reportedly emailed Zovko, “but they have to be wealthy, mean SOBs because this thing is not gonna go away in two months.”

Soon, the phone rang at the offices of Daniel J. Callahan, a founding partner of Callahan & Blaine, a Santa Ana, California, law firm specializing in civil and business litigation. Callahan’s claim to fame came just months before the Blackwater killings, when he won a $934 million jury verdict after a ten-week corporate fraud trial—the
highest award ever in Orange County
. He was, as Helvenston-Wettengel might have described him, a “wealthy, mean SOB.”

According to a 2006 story in the
OC Weekly
newspaper, Callahan’s
business card boasts his being named
“Attorney of the Year” in 2003 by
California Lawyer
magazine, as well as one of the “Top 10 Attorneys in the U.S.” in 2004 by the
National Law Journal
. He was also a man who never seemed to shy away from a chance to raise his own profile—and in a wrongful death suit against Blackwater, the lawyer surely saw the opportunity to do just that. Whereas the killings had brought widespread visibility to the contracting industry, a landmark lawsuit against my company would have wide-ranging accountability implications for PMCs everywhere.

One can only imagine how much money Callahan suggested could be won in order to land the case. Whatever he deluded them into believing, it was enough for Helvenston-Wettengel to reportedly recruit Zovko, then the Batalonas, and finally Rhonda Teague to go along with it.

On January 5, 2005,
Callahan’s team filed the wrongful death lawsuit
,
Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security
, in Wake County, North Carolina, on behalf of the families of the four deceased contractors. The suit alleges Blackwater did not provide appropriate manpower or vehicle armor for the mission into Fallujah. In addition, according to the suit, Blackwater did not give its men enough time to adequately review their route and complete risk assessments. “
Had they been provided
with the protections, tools and information they were promised when they signed up for their job at Blackwater, Helvenston, Teague, Zovko and Batalona would be alive today,” the suit claimed. In what I’ve always thought was a grand irony, the case marked the only time Blackwater was ever accused of not providing
enough
firepower, or not reacting with
enough
violence in a given situation.

The families sought a jury trial, compensatory damages in excess of $10,000 each, and punitive damages “in the discretion of the jury.” According to that
OC Weekly
profile, “[Callahan] says he
can’t wait to grill Blackwater
executives in front of a jury. ‘The underlying facts of this case are so hideous, and it will be on the national scene,’ he says. ‘I think it will be like the tobacco cases or the gun cases.’”

In reality, I felt Callahan’s case was merely a combination of self-aggrandizement and unsubstantiated attacks tied openly to partisan politics. But the accuracy of the suit took a distant backseat to the lawyer’s grandstanding and public pillorying of Blackwater—and, counterintuitive as it may seem, it didn’t matter whether there was any truth to the allegations at all. The legalese varies a bit from state to state and country to country, but the crux of it is that
statements made by parties, attorneys, and witnesses in the course of a judicial proceeding are protected—that is, those individuals can’t later be sued for defamation or slander for even the most outrageous things they’ve said in court or written in legal documents, so long as the allegations are somehow pertinent to the issue being resolved in the proceeding.

That insulation was intended to provide protection for victims or witnesses to come forward with legitimate claims and factual statements without fear of potential legal reprisal. Since the statements will be made as part of a legal proceeding, the theory goes, the would-be defamed party has a chance to clear its name and exact ultimate vindication through the courts. Which Blackwater went on to do, repeatedly. Yet cases like Callahan’s can take years to wind their way through the judicial system—and for that entire time, even the most ridiculous allegations simply sit there as fodder for critics and pseudo-pundits to seize upon. That PR damage—not the search for justice—is what spurs the periodic lawsuits alleging bizarre improprieties by celebrities, for instance. Make the story salacious enough, the hope is, and the famous figure won’t even wait for the case to get through the courts—he’ll just dump cash on the accuser to make the headlines go away.

But I’ve never backed down from a fight in my life.

Did the families of those four slain men realize then that Callahan would drag them through a bizarre, bruising legal battle that lasted more than seven years? No, I don’t believe they did. They understood their loved ones’ contributions to Blackwater’s vital work and the way we tried to support the families of those we’d lost—even amid the legal chaos that unfolded. In fact, in March 2005, just two months before the lawsuit was filed, Blackwater held an anniversary event in Moyock, inviting the four contractors’ families to be our guests. It was a way for our entire community to celebrate the lives of those we’d lost. In preparation for the occasion, Rhonda
Teague wrote to our staff
, thanking us for the memorial.

“You and your staff have turned a day that [my son] and I were both dreading so very much into a day we are very much looking forward to. . . . You have no idea what this means to him!”

Today, it can be hard to remember how in the aftermath of the attack Blackwater personnel became so close to those families. The lawsuit was sad and painful on every front—engaging my company in a new kind of battle that signaled the start of its second act, and the gradual erosion of its entire foundation.

•   •   •

C
allahan had a weak case from the beginning. The lawsuit’s contention of Blackwater negligence over the fact that there were four men on the escort mission instead of six fell apart because Team November 1 had required only four men for its original mission—transporting the ESS Support Services worker from Baghdad to Camp Taji. There, team leader Wes Batalona made the decision that November 1 could take on the additional job with the manpower and matériel they had, and alerted his superiors. As such, Blackwater’s managers had never actually assigned anyone to the fateful mission to Camp Ridgeway.

As for having less than the standard twenty-four hours to plan and scout a route, that, too, was a result of the team’s willingness to accept the new job on the fly.
Our security contract stipulated
that “Regency will request that ESS provide a schedule of activities and movements in need of security services at least twenty-four (24) hours in advance and for all missions of the Blackwater Protection Service Details. Emergency requirements (those with less than 24 hours’ notice) will be considered but cannot always be guaranteed because of the threat level in the Iraq environment or the inability to change prior commitments.” Batalona gave the emergency mission the go-ahead; then November 1 stopped for the night at Camp Fallujah, about halfway to its intended destination, around five thirty p.m. on March 30. The team had hours to
consider its next moves before leaving around nine a.m. on March 31. That does not support the tale of a rushed or disorganized mission.

Further, Callahan’s team made disgusting claims about Blackwater cutting corners with safety to maximize profits. “
Blackwater was able to save
$1.5 million in not buying armored vehicles, which they could then put in their pocket,” said Marc Miles, a partner at Callahan & Blaine. The accusation that those men died because of profit margin is offensive. Moreover, as part of our deal with Regency Hotel & Hospitality Company, vehicle cost was never a consideration of ours. Regency was responsible for supplying them.
The contract explicitly stated
, “Upon signing this agreement, Regency will provide to Blackwater equipment for thirty-four (34) personnel to include: 12 Vehicles, Security, with protection kits.”

That fact was only underscored by internal company emails that later became public. In one exchange between Tom Powell, Blackwater’s operations manager in Baghdad, and Mike Rush, one of our vice presidents, Powell lamented the perils of operating in the unarmored SUVs available to Blackwater’s men at the time of the Fallujah attack. He wanted to know when the far stronger vehicles would arrive. “
There is no order
for ‘hard cars,’” Rush replied. “The contract [with Regency] only allows for ‘hardening,’ and yes, I realize that is not optimum. . . . I am including [the Regency contact] on this email since it is, in fact, up to [Regency] to fix some of the things you mentioned, particularly [supplying] reliable vehicles.”

The glacial pace of providers actually
providing
the gear, weaponry, and vehicles they are obligated to is a never-ending struggle in the contracting realm—as evidenced a year later, when I bought those armored personnel carriers for the WPPS contract with my own money because State wasn’t delivering acceptable SUVs in Baghdad. Further, Team November 1 entered Fallujah a day before Blackwater’s security contract even officially began. When
Blackwater’s men took on that mission at the end of March 2004, Regency’s vehicles with protection kits simply hadn’t arrived yet.

But as lawyers traded repeated motions, countersuits, appeals, and further appeals, Callahan’s legal team faced larger challenges than the mere facts of the case.

Before coming on board, every Blackwater contractor and employee had to sign a service agreement that included a waiver acknowledging he could suffer serious wounding, dismemberment, and/or death during the course of his duties.
That waiver stated
:

The risks include, among other things and without limitation, the undersigned being shot, permanently maimed and/or killed by a firearm or munitions, falling aircraft or helicopters, sniper fire, land mine, artillery fire, rocket-propelled grenade, truck or car bomb, earthquake or other natural disaster, poisoning, civil uprising, terrorist activity, hand-to-hand combat, disease, poisoning, etc., killed or maimed while a passenger in a helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft, suffering hearing loss, eye injury or loss; inhalation or contact with biological or chemical contaminants (whether airborne or not) and/or flying debris, etc.

We had signed contracts from all four men indicating they undertook those potential dangers voluntarily.

Then there was another wrinkle: Much as the families of deceased soldiers are entitled to Dependency and Indemnity Compensation and survivor benefits, widows and minor children—though not parents—of the four slain contractors had been receiving benefits under the United States Defense Base Act (DBA). Established in 1941, the DBA provides disability compensation and benefits to civilian employees, including security providers, construction workers, interpreters, medics, and others who are contracted by the government for work outside the continental United States.
Some of the Fallujah families
had been receiving a few thousand dollars a month under the program since the attacks. But the DBA also bars benefit
recipients from filing lawsuits against companies covered by the insurance. So the plaintiffs’ lawyers had to somehow argue that the DBA didn’t apply in this case—and, in effect, that the families never should have received all the money from the government they’d been receiving.

Regardless, in an effort to stop the lawsuit in its tracks, Blackwater’s legal team initially brought a separate argument to bear. Counselors contended that we should be insulated from these sorts of lawsuits under the sovereign immunity principle—which prevents wounded soldiers from suing the government, for instance—because contractors are considered by the Pentagon to be an arm of the Defense Department’s “Total Force.” Subjecting PMCs to the destabilizing wrath of tort lawsuits arising from combat zones, we said, would fundamentally weaken the ability of the commander in chief to execute the military component of American foreign policy. It was a position that struggled to gain traction, however; our legal team made appeals that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which ultimately declined to hear the case.