| | Webb: Blackwater contracts 'awarded for political reasons'
By Mike Aivaz
The security contracts awarded to Blackwater USA in Iraq were done so for primarily political reasons, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia told Joe Scarborogh today on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
In an extensive discussion about US foreign policy, Webb brought up the controversy over Blackwater's actions in Iraq and the attempt by congress to bring them under US law.
"With respect to Blackwater, we've allowed mercenaries to actually conduct combat operations, and we've never done this before," Webb said. "And they're doing this with no legal structiure over them."
There are also no international agreements that govern the handling of mercanries, Webb said, and it now up to the Congress to decide how best to deal with them, Webb said.
"But the other piece of it, let's be honest about it, a lot of the contracts, under this quasi military functions have been awarded for political reasons, and Blackwater is a really good example of that," Webb added. "That's something like half a billion out of their nearly billion dollar contracts were awarded without proper competition, according to the house committee report last year."
The following video is from MSNBC's Morning Joe, broadcast on October 8, 2007
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT (via Closed-Captions)
iraq and other foreign policy issues, we were basically up a c senator johnson was ill and then we are now a 50-50 tie trying to get stuff through. Foreign policy is gintrinsically and that was alluded to before. We've been able to hold here and able to push this a little bit, but we have an administration that won't talk to people.(sx we had hearings week on this situation in myanmar. I was in myanmar as a private citizen in '01. You could see, quite frankly, that the sanctions that were put into place were working against the ability of the people in myanmar to become a3o part of the upside world and then we see these blowups like we had last week, and we become very frustrated about the immediate incident, but we forget how to affect the long-term goals that we have. You can only do that through the right kinds of relationships and these people haven't been talking to the people they disagree with. Including iran and syria.
: let's apply that same question to iran. I d?p know if you saw the mario cuomo piece over the weekend.
: no. Hillary clinton go before congress to ask for a declaration of war before any military action against iran or other nations. He says you're missing the mark. He says that you should go further and not fund any action without a proper declaration of war. That this legislation would probably be another failed democratic effort reminding voters that democrats have not been as effective as they promised they would be.-t4~ kind of harsh, but is it true and where do we go with iran then?
: well, I didn't see his piece, so it's a little difficult for me to respond to specifics, but the intention of the amendment that I offered in march was exactly to say that. It was to say that you could not fund any actions inside iran, other than ppursuit or preemptive strikes. "tpgjupen in the region focusing down order to resolve the problem. And33|x we're in a situation where potentially are going to widen the nature of the conflict, and,n,a| if that happens, congress has to get involved.
: I think this is just a hole. We had never anticipated in our history that we would have such a wide set of responsibilities for these quasi military units, and they don't want iraqi law to apply because of all the reasons that you were talking about, joe, that you don't know how this fledgling government is going to handle americans. Like the status of forces agreements that were in countries particularly in asia with american -- regular american troops. And then we can't put them under the ucmj because they shouldn't be there. They're not military people and it takes a crisis for people to start reacting to this. But the other piece of it, let's be honest about it, a lot of the contracts, under this quasi military functions have been awarded for political reasons. And blackwater is a really good example of that. That's something like half a billion out of their nearly billion dollar contracts were awarded without proper competition, according to the house committee report last year.
: wow.
: so it's a situation2f that I don't think we fully appreciate it or anticipated and it really begs for some -- not only for some oversight, but we need to get these mercenary units out of combat.
: and what happens when they get out of combat? I guess here's my question. My point earlier was that don rumsfeld thought he'd win this war on theaes{{ cheap. What you're suggesting though if they decide to}'i give them the troops that they asked for at the beginning of the war, we'd be in this position that we're in now.
: well, i said what happened, you can't put this on the I think a big part of this is the administration was worried. You can see a whole series of issues that they ducked before this authorization to go to war. I think that if they had put the same focus on the ramifications out there in a visible they probably wouldn't have gotten the resolution to go to war. Including by the way, the north korea -- we found out they had nukes. Like a week before the authorization vote. So I think the administration was holding back onq:k some realities that most military planners could have told you about. And here we are, suffering the consequences. But I think we have to get these people out of the line of fire. There are 180,000 private contractors in iraq right now and 160,000 troops. I heard your comment earlier about, well, you know, the size of the troops, you have to have the ancillary forces. I think when you listen to admiral allen -- admiral fallen, instead of asx petraeus, it's not the number ofiwl troops in iraq, but what you have them do. We have to take a hard look at what they're doing.
: sometimes it takes something like this to focus americans. And i'm sure the focus is going to be there. You're right, if we fight these type of wars, we need to fight these wars with men and women that live and breathe under military codes and mika talks about talking of the moral code by which they conduct their operation operations.
: it affects the way that iraqis look at americans because itp00 spills over into our military people.
: thank you so much for being with us. Greatly appreciate it. Mika?
: we appreciate you coming on. We'd like to have you back.
: all right. Thanks so much. There you go. You said you needed somebody that knew more than I did. To come on. Well, we just found him.
: i'm not going to pick on you anymore. ,, .. ,, .. ,, .. ,, .. Blanchett play bob dylan, I guess investors don't flock to it.
: not the way we want to see cate blanchett, I guess.
: but i've heard it's wonderful.
: see you next week. Take care.
: bye, everyone.
: all right.
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