There are many questions raised by the US contracting with Blackwater USA, questions which are researched and documented in the new book by Jeremy Scahill entitled Blackwater, the Rise of the World’s most Powerful Mercenary Army, which is excerpted here at The Nation.

The basic push and pull of Blackwater is that the Bush administration is attempting to use private contractors more and more for security in Iraq, and Congress is trying to rein them in. Scahill does an excellent job of reviewing the history of Blackwater’s rise to power and the ways in which this privatizing of the military is damaging our country. You can listen to a Canadian Broadcast interview with Scahill here.

Some of the big issues raised by Blackwater: Should the US be privatizing its army? How does this affect the army’s ability to authorize and carry out war efforts? Concerns have been raised about whether private contractors can do things illegal and not be held accountable, since there is a great deal of murkiness about whether they are governed by the Army’s courts or by the laws of the lands in which they are working. As noted in this quote from Scahilll’s book, Lindsey Graham recently inserted legislation that will place military contractors under military law:

Senator Lindsey Graham, an Air Force reserve lawyer and former reserve judge, quietly inserted language into the 2007 Defense Authorization, which Bush signed into law, that places contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), commonly known as the court martial system. Graham implemented the change with no public debate and with almost no awareness among the broader Congress, but war contractors immediately questioned its constitutionality. Indeed, this could be a rare moment when mercenaries and civil libertarians are on the same side. Many contractors are not armed combatants; they work in food, laundry and other support services. While the argument could be made that armed contractors like those working for Blackwater should be placed under the UCMJ, Graham’s change could result in a dishwasher from Nepal working for KBR being prosecuted like a US soldier. On top of all this, the military has enough trouble policing its own massive force and could scarcely be expected to monitor an additional 100,000 private personnel. Besides, many contractors in Iraq are there under the auspices of the State Department and other civilian agencies, not the military.

Another big question: are we saving money by using Blackwater? Who will pay for the long-term care of Blackwater contractors who are injured? It doesn’t appear this is a money-saving thing, although it is being spun that way by high-powered Washington insiders. The reason we are probably not going to save money in the long run is because the soldiers are getting paid a much higher rate up front (about $10,000 a month, or $120,000 a year) and then they are required to carry insurance through the Defense Base Act, which will cause the government to pay for short-term and long-term disability and other benefits.

There is also growing concern about whether soldiers working for Blackwater have been adequately protected and provided for, as evidenced by the recent hearings on this, in which families of four Blackwater employees killed in 2004 have sued Blackwater. From Wikipedia:

The families allege that they are not suing for financial damages, but rather for the details of their sons’ and husbands’ deaths. They claim that Blackwater has refused to supply these details, unless the families sue. Four family members testified in front of the House Government Reform Committee on February 7, 2007. They asked that Blackwater be held accountable for future negligence of employees’ lives, and that Federal legislation be drawn up to govern contracts between the Department of Defense and the defense contractor.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill) has been a vocal critic of the country’s increased use of outsourcing. From Scahill’s article:

Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky, a member of the House intelligence committee, has been a leading critic of the war contracting system. Her Iraq and Afghanistan Contractor Sunshine Act, introduced in February, which bolsters Obama’s, boils down to what Schakowsky sees as a long overdue fact-finding mission through the secretive contracting bureaucracy. Among other provisions, it requires the government to determine and make public the number of contractors and subcontractors (at any tier) that are employed in Iraq and Afghanistan; any host country’s, international or US laws that have been broken by contractors; disciplinary actions taken against contractors; and the total number of dead and wounded contractors. Schakowsky says she has tried repeatedly over the past several years to get this information and has been stonewalled or ignored. “We’re talking about billions and billions of dollars–some have estimated forty cents of every dollar [spent on the occupation] goes to these contractors, and we couldn’t get any information on casualties, on deaths,” says Schakowsky. “It has been virtually impossible to shine the light on this aspect of the war and so when we discuss the war, its scope, its costs, its risks, they have not been part of this whatsoever. This whole shadow force that’s been operating in Iraq, we know almost nothing about. I think it keeps at arm’s length from the American people what this war is all about.”

While not by any means a comprehensive total of the number of contractor casualties, 770 contractor deaths and 7,761 injured in Iraq as of December 31, 2006, were confirmed by the Labor Department. But that only counts those contractors whose families applied for benefits under the government’s Defense Base Act insurance. Independent analysts say the number is likely much higher. Blackwater alone has lost at least twenty-seven men in Iraq. And then there’s the financial cost: Almost $4 billion in taxpayer funds have been paid for private security forces in Iraq, according to Waxman. Yet even with all these additional forces, the military is struggling to meet the demands of a White House bent on military adventurism.

I predict that the issues raised by Blackwater will be headlining over the next few months. Like Walter Reed Hospital, it’s one of those scandals that’s been sitting there for years, waiting to be investigated. Now that the families of some of Blackwater’s fallen are suing and testifying before Congress, and Scahill’s book is coming out, and new deaths and controversies are appearing, Blackwater is likely to show up on the homepage of your favorite major media source soon.