America's Other Army

By Brian Bennett

Close to midnight last Christmas Eve, a Blackwater security contractor named Andrew Moonen emerged from a boozy party in Baghdad's Green Zone and took a wrong turn on the way back to his hooch. There is as yet no satisfactory explanation for what happened next. An Iraqi guard named Raheem Khalif, who was protecting the compound of Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, was fatally shot three times. TIME interviewed three Iraqi guards who were on duty that night and reviewed two signed witness statements: all say the shooter was a white male, wearing an ID badge typically used by security contractors. The day after the shooting, Moonen was fired by Blackwater and flown out of Iraq. His name was not directly linked to the incident until earlier this month, when a Seattle lawyer told the New York Times he was representing Moonen, 27, a former Army paratrooper, in connection with the investigation into the shooting.

The killing of Khalif barely registered outside the Green Zone. For Iraqis, it was just another in a long series of stories -- stretching back to the early days of the U.S. occupation -- about how private security contractors seem to operate with impunity in their country. Brought into Iraq because an undermanned U.S. military couldn't guard vital facilities and top American officials, contractors were armed with a decree by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer that made them practically exempt from prosecution under Iraq law. They quickly earned a reputation as cowboys, the kind that shoot first and never have to answer any questions afterward. As the number of contractors has grown, so has the volume and frequency of Iraqi complaints. A report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that Blackwater alone has been involved in 195 "escalation of force" incidents since early 2005.

But these went largely unnoticed outside Iraq until Sept. 16, when a Blackwater security convoy shot and killed 17 civilians at a major traffic intersection in western Baghdad. The company claimed its men were responding to an attack on the convoy, but an investigation by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior the week of the shooting said the contractors had fired first. The incident sparked furor in the U.S., where it was seized upon by Bush Administration critics as yet more proof of botched planning of the Iraq war and the consequence of outsourcing too many military tasks.

Back in Baghdad, the Iraqi government briefly pulled Blackwater's authorization to carry weapons and gave the U.S. embassy six months to end all contracts with the firm. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched an internal review to determine if U.S. embassies are too reliant on contractors.

Guns for Hire

Blackwater has more than 1,000 men under arms in Iraq, but it is just one of dozens of security companies there. Across the country, there are now anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 armed contractors, many of them performing duties that in previous conflicts were the domain of uniformed soldiers. Contractors are often the first line of defense on roads and at checkpoints to government compounds. They guard food and fuel convoys that supply the troops and protect embassies, aid workers and foreign businesses. Hundreds of contractors are based in the Green Zone, 4 sq. mi. (about 10 sq km) of riverfront buffered from the rest of Baghdad by concrete walls and manned checkpoints. Conversations with current and former guns for hire paint a picture of a world unique unto itself: insular, tribal, wary of the limelight, competitive and, for the most part, highly professional. The contractors -- and they are almost all men -- tend to be former soldiers and come from the U.S., as well as Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Nepal, Fiji, Russia, Australia, Chile and Peru. Their motivations vary from a thirst for adventure to a desire for a nest egg (or to pay down debt) to a refracted form of patriotism.

James Thornett was typical. The rugged 34-year-old fought in the invasion of Iraq as a British paratrooper. When the war ended, he left the military rather than take a quieter assignment. "I didn't join the military to sit at a desk," he says. "I joined the military to jump out of airplanes and fight." Seeking that excitement, he returned to Baghdad with Global Risk Strategies, a London-based firm that had set up security for the U.S. embassy. Thornett discovered that he liked Baghdad, and the money was "great" -- contractors can make up to $12,000 to $33,000 a month. So he stayed on, switching first to Edinburgh Risk and Security Management, then to Aegis, both British firms. Then, for a change of pace, he set up a bar and restaurant in the Green Zone called the Baghdad Country Club, a popular hangout for contractors until it was shut down last May.

Not all contractors have Thornett's entrepreneurial instinct, and their lives in the Green Zone are far from plush. The typical contractor lives in half an aluminum trailer that has been reinforced with sandbags. The work is often dangerous, especially convoy duty beyond the concrete walls in what is known as the Red Zone.

Some security convoys keep a low profile, using cars and dress that blend into the bustling streets of the city. Others -- especially Blackwater -- "roll heavy" in large convoys of big, armored SUVs, driving aggressively to keep a 100-ft. (about 30 m) bubble of space around the client at all times, intended to ward off suicide car bombers. To maintain that bubble, convoy drivers bump other cars off the road, and gunners fire shots into radiators. Iraqi drivers have learned from painful experience to stay well clear of convoys, but in crowded Baghdad streets it's not always possible to swerve out of the way. All too often, accidents turn fatal. (There are no reliable statistics on the number of Iraqis killed or hurt in such incidents.)

Contractors defend their actions by pointing out that they are targeted by insurgent and terrorist groups; convoys frequently come under fire or are hit by roadside bombs and suicide bombers. Aggressive driving is a defensive measure, they say, designed to safeguard their clients. And it works. Blackwater founder Erik Prince told a congressional hearing this month that although 27 of his employees have died in Iraq, no one under the firm's care had been killed. President Bush on Wednesday praised Blackwater, saying, "They protect people's lives. And I appreciate the sacrifice and the service that the Blackwater employees have made."

But some security men carry the aggression too far, treating all the Iraqis they encounter as potential enemies, using hostile body language and verbal abuse -- and sometimes worse. Many uniformed American soldiers regard the contractors with disdain, describing them as reckless and trigger-happy. Since Iraqis don't always distinguish between private and military convoys, soldiers say, bad behavior by contractors only deepens Iraqi antagonism toward the military. "The contractors caused problems that the Iraqi leaders -- imams, tribal sheiks, elected officials, military commanders -- expected the U.S. [military] to solve," says retired Army Major General John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and '05. "Their attitude was, They're Americans and therefore they work for you." Last December, a few weeks before the Christmas Eve shooting, a senior Western diplomat told TIME he was especially alarmed by the attitude of the men guarding senior U.S. embassy officials. "They behave like Iraq is the Wild West and Iraqis are like Injuns,' to be treated any way they like," he said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of inter-embassy relations. "They're better-armed and -armored than the military, but they don't have to follow military rules, and that makes them dangerous." The men he was describing worked for Blackwater.

Who Guards the Guards?

Ten months after the Christmas Eve shooting, there has been little movement on the case. Moonen's lawyer tells TIME his client has not been charged with any crime. Blackwater won't confirm or deny that Moonen ever worked for the firm but has said that an employee was fired for handling a weapon while using alcohol -- and that it is cooperating with the FBI investigation into the shooting. The FBI collected forensic evidence at the crime scene, but none of it has been tested in court. Neither the U.S. government nor the Iraqi government can say what laws apply in this case or who has jurisdiction. Vice President Abdul Mahdi's office is angry and frustrated that the U.S. has done little to catch Khalif's killer. "We had hoped the trial would be here in Baghdad, " says Azaid Saeed, the Vice President's head of security, "but, of course, it won't happen; it's only our dreams."

Erik Prince confirmed to the House committee that Blackwater had paid the guard's family $20,000 in compensation. Reached by phone in Baghdad, Khalif's widow Wijdan Muhsin Said would not comment on the payment but told TIME she was disappointed that the Iraqi government had not put her husband's killer before a judge. She said she expected nothing to come from the U.S. investigation: "Unfortunately, it seems that Iraqi blood is cheap to them."

In the days after the shooting, relations between Abdul Mahdi's staff and the U.S. embassy grew testy. Some embassy staffers were nervous about driving past the Vice President's guards every day. "We were getting death stares," says an American official. Saeed had to keep his men from storming the gate of the chancellery, where Khalif's killer had taken shelter. He calmed them by saying, "We already lost one. We don't need to lose another 10 and gain nothing."

Inside the embassy, debate about Blackwater's conduct heated up. Stories of Blackwater guards throwing full water bottles at pedestrians and indiscriminately firing warning shots made some diplomats feel as if their security details were undermining their efforts to win Iraqi hearts and minds. Some felt that the embassy's diplomatic-security team, which is meant to supervise all security contractors who protect embassy personnel, was too close to its charges to police its conduct. "They're all drinking buddies, and they cover for each other," says a U.S. embassy official who recently served in Baghdad

But no serious attempt was made to rein in Blackwater until the Sept. 17 shootings. When the Iraqi government temporarily rescinded the firm's gun permits, it forced the embassy to cancel all convoys into the Red Zone. As a compromise, the embassy announced that all future Blackwater convoys will include video cameras and a diplomatic-security agent to keep a close watch on the contractors. Some U.S. Congressmen have proposed legislation to close the legal loopholes that exempt contractors from Iraqi and American laws.

As the larger issues are parsed in Washington, there's a growing sense in Baghdad that private security companies have to change their ways. On Oct. 9, with Blackwater still dominating the headlines, two women were shot and killed by contractors from Unity Resources Group, a Dubai-based Australian firm. It was the same old story: the women's car had come too close to a convoy protected by Unity. It was the sort of incident that only a few months ago might have gone unnoticed. Now Unity is being investigated by the Iraqi government. The days of the cowboy contractor may be numbered.

With reporting by Mazin Ezzat and Mark Kukis/Baghdad and Massimo Calabresi and mark Thompson/Washington