Dyncorp CEO Blasts Blackwater

The CEO of Dyncorp, Herb Lanese, no doubt sensing that now is the time to reach out to the small community of businesses and government agencies that need personal security contractors, fires off a series of damning charges against Blackwater:

Before I turn the call over talk the question-and-answer session though, I want to spend a moment discussing two items that have been in the news lately, because they affect DynCorp. One is Blackwater, and the second is the report of Special Investigate -- I always mess up this wording, excuse me, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, SIGIR.

First, talking about Blackwater, it's very important for our shareholders to understand that we compete with Blackwater in a very narrow field that currently represents 2% of our revenue -- I want to repeat that -- 2% of our revenue. So when you compare us to Blackwater, 2% of our revenue is on the same basis as Blackwater.

Unfortunately, it's very visible work that tends to attract a disproportionate amount of attention that I believe unfairly distorts the image of DynCorp. I don't need to tell you what kind of work we do or how long we've been at it, because I realize all of you understand and know that. But I do want you to know that in this narrow space in which we compete with Blackwater, we believe we are a very different company.

For example, we are highly selective in our hiring practices. We operate very, disciplined security teams. We enforce a strict, no-alcohol policy, strict no-alcohol -- not eight hours prior to going up on a work assignment, but no alcohol period.

And we've developed our own rules for the use of force that are more detailed than those issued by the U.S. government. In fact, our rules for the use of force are based on the most conservative elements of the three sets of rules in effect in Iraq.

And let me just take a moment to explain a couple of these points that are off from my prepared remarks. On the selection process, roughly 50% to 65% of the people that we interview in this protection area are declined for employees either because of background checks, physical exams or lack of experience. An additional 15% are rejected because they don't pass our psychological tests.

We're not in the game of firing people after we hire them. We're in the game of being selective in hiring the right people upfront. That is a really important distinction.

When you look for the rules for the use of force or rules of engagement in Iraq, there really are three sets of rules. And I think in recent Blackwater testimony, when asked, the person who was testifying said, "Well, we follow the rules of force -- rules for the use of force in Iraq." Well, there's three of them. Which one do you follow? All three are not the same.

I don't think any of this is about what's going on right now--it's about 2009 and it's about future contracts. Lanese is clearly agitating against the idea that anyone would renew their contracts with Blackwater. What better way to do that than to suggest that Blackwater hires unfit people? Why didn't he just come out and say it--we don't hire the guys who are going to shoot someone's Iraqi gramma in the gut for looking at them crosseyed.

How many private conversations between CEOs like Lanese and decisionmakers are being held right now, concerning Blackwater? There must be a lot of things being said like you're not really going to renew their contract, are you?

Anyway, it's good business. If Dyncorp was in trouble, a free market capitalist like Erik Prince would be out there, throwing more chum in the water, trying to get an angle on the next contract bidding process. This is usually when your tax-cut happy, let the markets decide, privatize everything-type Republican throws a temper tantrum and demands some form of government intervention or protection from having their overpaid gig taken away.

Erik Prince will, no doubt, walk away from the mess called Blackwater a very rich man. But a few thousand guys are going to see their paychecks stopped one day and they won't know why. Well, they should have been paying attention to what Herb Lanese said.

Erik Prince can't catch a break...and doesn't deserve one...

Sometimes, when the proverbial chickens start coming home to roost, the truly black-hearted have a moment of reckoning as the sky grows dark and a massive murder of crows begins to descend, seemingly right on your head.

That moment of reckoning has either happened, or is imminent, for Erik Prince, the CEO of Blackwater, the mercenary outfit that murdered 17 civilians in Nissour Square in Baghdad on September 16.

The Iraqi government, desperate to prove that it is relevant in it's own right and not a puppet of the United States, is still insisting on kicking them out of the country, and the State Department isn't going to bat for them. Their current contract expires in May, and it is practically a given that it won't be renewed. "There will be some sort of disengagement process, but it won't be that they're shown the door," said a State Department official. "As one [mercenary outfit] builds down, another builds up."

That is gonna sting the old bottom line. Currently the ratio of State Department dollars that go to Blackwater -vs- all other companies is 8:1.

State isn't gonna be a lot of help to their hired guns. Their inability to control their mercs and Condi's general incompetence are enjoying the unwanted glare of the scrutiny spotlight in the form of two new reports on the State Department and the security situation in Iraq. What it boils down to is this: The idiots in charge could not organize a two-pony parade. They are inept and incompetent to the point of criminal complicity at least, and probably overt criminality.

But the schadenfreude just gets sweeter...Waxman is now on his ass for tax evasion.

Isn't that how they got Al Capone?

It's one thing to commit wanton murder - another entirely to screw Uncle Sam out of his cut.

Jeez - I thought everyone knew that!

Erik Prince: not just a mercenary-thug-cowboy, but a rustler, too!

In the old west, they would just hang the mother fucker and leave him danglin' for the buzzards.

And frankly, that's about what the mercenary freak deserves.

After due process, of course.

Which is more than his thugs give Iraqis who cross their paths.

The Associated Press is reporting that two years ago, Blackwater tried to abscond with two military aircraft that belonged to the state of Iraq. When Iraqi officials protested and attempted to reclaim them, Blackwater refused, and to this day the whereabouts of the aircraft in question are unknown.

Blackwater CEO: "We will not let our people be taken by Iraqis"

In an interview with the far-right propaganda rag the Moonie Washington Times, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince (of Darkness) defiantly insisted that he will not allow his thugs to be held accountable by Iraqi authorities for murderous rampages that have left scores of Iraqi civilians dead.

"We will not let our people be taken by the Iraqis," Mr. Prince told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. At least 17 of 20 Blackwater guards being investigated for their roles in a Sept. 16 shooting incident are still in a secure compound in Baghdad's Green Zone and carrying out limited duties.

Two or three others have been allowed by the State Department to leave the country as part of their scheduled rotation out of Iraq and are expected to return.

"In an ideal sense, if there was wrongdoing, there could be a trial brought in the Iraqi court system. But that would imply that there is a valid Iraqi court system where Westerners could get a fair trial. That is not the case right now," said Mr. Prince.

Mr. Prince also expressed his disappointment that the State Department has not come to the company's defense, even though it has never lost a State Department client in years of protecting them.

"For the last week and a half, we have heard nothing from the State Department," said Mr. Prince. "From their senior levels, their PR folks, we've heard nothing — radio silence.

"It is disappointing for us. We have performed to the line, letter and verse of their 1,000-page contract," he said. "Our guys take significant risk for them. They've taken a pounding these last three years."

This defiant posturing comes amid insistence by the Iraqi government that the mercenary outfit get the hell out of Iraq and cease operations in the country. Additionally, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is said to be pushing for a centralized authority over the private “security” companies operating in Iraq.