Hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - Blackwater USA's Iraq Mission

Interview

Hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - Blackwater USA's Iraq Mission

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REP. DARRELL E. ISSA (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to continue along that line because I think it's a very good line of questioning, and I appreciate this part of the hearing because I think we're getting to some fundamental questions about -- you know, we're supposed to be Oversight and Reform, and if at the end of this day the oversight doesn't lead to constructive dialogue on reform then we didn't do our job.

When we look at nominally 1,000 security people related to the State Department, 800 -- almost 900 in Iraq, if hypothetically they all were standard, you know, pays and training that you have somewhere else in the world, how often would you have to be rotating these people in? This is assuming that they -- that every one of those 900 or so positions were standard security within, you know, the State Department security apparatus. What would that do to your rotation into Iraq? How often would these people be going to Iraq?

MR. GRIFFIN: Presently the rotation is one year.

REP. ISSA: No, no, that's not what I'm saying. What's the total number of government employee RSOs and below that you have at your disposal worldwide, not including contractors?

MR. GRIFFIN: Our total staffing is roughly 1,450.

REP. ISSA: Okay. So every -- every year almost, figuring schooling and retirement, every year you'd be rotating half your people in. We have 1,400. If we added 1,000, then you'd have 2,400 and you'd need a thousand of them in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is that right?

MR. GRIFFIN: (Off mike.)

REP. ISSA: Okay, so this is a surge of huge proportion, isn't that right?

MR. GRIFFIN: Yes, it is.

REP. ISSA: But let's go to a couple other areas.

Ambassador Satterfield, you and I have known each other for a few years because of my travels to Lebanon while you were there, and you've been a specialist in the Middle East. When you were ambassador in Lebanon, this is an area in which the State Department contracts itself for its employees, is that correct?

MR. SATTERFIELD: That's correct.

REP. ISSA: Okay. At the time that you were ambassador in Lebanon, what was your amount of career Foreign Service personnel that were security -- your RSO and so on -- versus the contracted personnel that were mostly Lebanese?

MR. SATTERFIELD: We had a team of approximately eight RSOs. We had approximately 450 local guards who mainly performed static guard duties at the mission. We had a team of about 75 bodyguards who had a specialty protective role both at the compound and, more importantly, outside the compound.

REP. ISSA: And substantially that's still what's going on at Embassy Beirut.

MR. SATTERFIELD: Those ratios have changed, Congressman, in terms of the number of local guards, the number of bodyguards and the number of RSOs, but the ratios in general are similar.

REP. ISSA: So I'm trying to understand, from a standpoint of how you do business in a situation like Beirut, which since 1983 has been unique, you've refined it, but for all practical purposes what you do is you use your career State Department people, many of them at the pinnacle of their training and experience, to oversee essentially 75 mostly national --

MR. SATTERFIELD: All national.

REP. ISSA: What?

MR. SATTERFIELD: All national.

REP. ISSA: -- all national trigger-pullers, to use a term that's been used here today, and another 450 watchtower people, and that's an efficient way to leverage your U.S. citizens relative to the total exposure to the U.S. government at Embassy Beirut.

MR. SATTERFIELD: In Beirut we found it a highly effective way to run the operation.

REP. ISSA: Okay. So this is a model that would not be unreasonable if we knew we were going to be doing the next 20 years in Iraq at this level. Is that true, Ambassador Griffin?

MR. GRIFFIN: That is true. And the fact is that if you look at all of our posts worldwide, we have in excess of 30,000 local guard force employees that secure our embassy and consular facilities overseas.

REP. ISSA: Okay. So I'm going to ask you the question -- this is the reform question again -- do you have or are you working out plans for areas like Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq to increase the number of direct contract personnel, particularly indigenous, where appropriate in order to both increase the domestic participation and reduce the reliance on out of country and comparatively expensive contract people?

MR. GRIFFIN: I think Mr. Moser can talk about the cycle for our contracts and the fact that they are short term. And we're always looking for ways to improve the way we do business.

REP. ISSA: Now, I understand that you can terminate Blackwater at the end of a year, anytime you want, but I guess the question -- because this is a committee that should be looking at the long-term cost. And I share with the chairman the fact that we shouldn't be spending $200,000 forever if we could be spending in some cases a lesser amount and getting as good or better service, whether or not that is a career Foreign Service person or an indigenous person taking the place.

MR. MOSER: Mr. Issa, I've been in the Foreign Service for a number of years too, and I've actually been in -- visited or actually served in a couple posts in the Middle East. And I think my career colleague from diplomatic security would agree that our preference is to always use local personnel for these services if it's possible to do so. We have -- it is not in the State Department's interest to have expatriate contractors for these kinds of services. It's only something we do in the most extreme circumstances.

Just as he's pointed out, in Mr. Satterfield's experience in Beirut, that's more -- closer to our traditional model.

REP. WAXMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Issa.

REP. ISSA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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REP. ISSA: We were going to alternate the time.

REP. WAXMAN: We had Mr. Cummings take the questions. Do you want to ask a question or two? Do you want a minute?

REP. ISSA: I do. My understanding, Mr. Chairman, was --

REP. SHAYS: Yeah, do take a minute. Give him a minute.

REP. WAXMAN: Can you do your questions in a minute?

REP. ISSA: I will be brief.

REP. WAXMAN: The gentleman is granted a minute.

REP. ISSA: The recent report by retired General Jim Jones and Chief Ramsey appears to say, in pretty much no uncertain terms, that there are roughly 300,000 police forces throughout Iraq, 85 percent of whom are Shi'a, who are constituted in large amounts by people who are not working in the best interest of fairness and justice in Iraq and that they have been so infiltrated by people who will, in fact, kill Sunnis and do other things wrong, that they should be, for all practical purposes, torn down and started over again.

In that environment -- and this is for Ambassador Griffin -- what does that mean to anyone, (DS ?) or contractor, trying to protect your people when Iraqi police forces appear to be coming on the scene?

MR. GRIFFIN: As you can well imagine, it's an extremely difficult task as is. And if you're not sure if the people who are supposed to be supporting your mission are really with you or not, it only makes it more complicated.

We recently had an incident in Baghdad in September where one of our convoys that was out to do an advance for a chief-of-mission motorcade proceeded through an intersection where the traffic was being held up by a police official in order to clear the way for our motorcade, which was promptly hit by an EFP, an explosively formed penetrator.

REP. ISSA: The worst of all IEDs.

MR. GRIFFIN: The worst of all. It resulted in three injured Blackwater employees, who had to be medevac'd to the combat support hospital after small arms fire ceased, because it was a complex attack. So it makes it extremely difficult, and it's part of this environment that I alluded to where you have 6,000 attacks a month. You don't always know who's with you and who's against you.

REP. WAXMAN: Thank you, Mr. Issa.

REP. ISSA: A final question --

REP. WAXMAN: No, Mr. Issa, your time has --

REP. ISSA: Mr. Chairman, the rules of the committee, if I may --

REP. WAXMAN: Your time has expired.

REP. ISSA: Mr. Chairman, are we going to have regular order?

REP. WAXMAN: Now Mr. Shays is recognized for any closing comment he wishes to make. Your time has expired. I'm only going by the rules.

REP. ISSA: Mr. Chairman -- would you yield for a comment?

REP. SHAYS: Let me just thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and making sure it didn't focus on an incident we do not yet know the facts on. I want to thank our first panel and also our second panel and say, as I wrestle with this issue, it seems to me we are really debating whether, one, we want contractors or we want the Army, or a second issue is, do we want the State Department to have its own protective force that would be paid employees? And I think these are all issues that are valid, and we need to have dialogue on.

And I want to say again to you, Mr. Satterfield, when I've been in Iraq, you've been at the forefront of tremendous sacrifice for our country. And Mr. Griffin, our paths didn't really cross. But I just want to say to you, Mr. Satterfield, thank you for your service in Iraq.

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you.

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