Hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform - Blackwater USA; Private Security Contracting in Iraq & Afghanistan
Interview
Hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform - Blackwater USA; Private Security Contracting in Iraq & Afghanistan
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REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think it's been made incredibly clear by the previous statement on the Democrats' side that this is not about Blackwater. When they talk about being paid six times as much, when they talk about the president shouldn't have gone into this war, when they talk about -- what we're hearing today is, in fact, a repeat of the MoveOn.org attack on General Petraeus's patriotism.
What we're seeing is that, except for the 79 members who voted against denouncing MoveOn.org, eight of whom are on the dais here today, what we're seeing is what they couldn't do to our men and women in uniform, they'll simply switch targets. The bodies were not cold in Iraq before this became a story worth going after here in committee.
The second panel today will include people from the State Department who will tell us about the command-and-control rules, about whether or not Blackwater made mistakes, whether they did their job, and whether they're going to be continued as a contractor. That's appropriate. I'm not here to defend Blackwater.
But I am here to defend General Petraeus and the men and women in uniform who do their job, who were first denounced by MoveOn.org, then not denounced by members of Congress, many of whom are on the dais today, speaking as though they don't support attacking every possible way the administration's war in Iraq.
We are going to get to the bottom of what happened on September 16th. But quite frankly, when we're done with that, we're still going to have the same problem, with all due respect to the members on the other side of the aisle. We do not want the military guarding State Department personnel. There is a long tradition, in fact, of very limited military guarding of even our embassies, a limited amount of Marines.
The fact is, the State Department has a surge responsibility in Iraq and Afghanistan. They're meeting with private contractors. When that ends, do we really want to have 1,500 Special Ops people working for the State Department in career positions?
I look forward to the debate on that and not on whether this war was ill-founded, which has been the Democrats' mantra.
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REP. ISSA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. PRINCE: Mr. Chairman, may I have one minute? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. : Thank you, sir -- sorry.
REP. WAXMAN: Thank you.
Mr. Issa.
REP. ISSA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Boy, there's so many inaccuracies, so little time. Perhaps let's start with something from the gentlelady from Hollywood. Isn't it true that in fact the military's mission has historically not been to guard either VIPs or the State Department as a whole?
MR. PRINCE: Correct. Yes, sir.
REP. ISSA: Isn't true that in fact your organization works under the Regional Security Officer for Baghdad?
MR. PRINCE: Yes, sir.
REP. ISSA: And isn't it true that contractors have been used -- directly and indirectly -- in other words, nonfederal employees -- in places like Beirut, Afghanistan, Bosnia, under the Clinton administration, routinely? Isn't there a historic time in which we use non-career RSO, you know, Foreign Service Officers for these jobs?
MR. PRINCE: Since the founding of the republic.
REP. ISSA: Okay. So we're not talking about the military here at all, including, with all due respect to Secretary Gates, somebody -- if the State Department recruited for the positions you're presently providing, they would be in all likelihood recruiting either current or prior military, wouldn't they?
MR. PRINCE: Yes, sir.
REP. ISSA: Okay. And is it reasonable for the State Department to own attack helicopters -- or Bell helicopters that are weaponized?
MR. PRINCE: That's up to them. And our helicopters aren't weaponized so --
REP. ISSA: Well, let's look at it a different way. Yeah, let's look at it another way. Outside of the two theaters, Afghanistan and Iraq, do you know of any place in which the State Department owns or directly controls weapons -- gunships, if you will -- to protect convoys?
MR. PRINCE: They do some crop eradication -- some cocaine eradication work in Columbia -- that's the only place I know of.
REP. ISSA: Okay, so this is an unusual mission and one that begs for not creating a career position for, you know, Foreign Service Officer-helicopter pilot. There'd only be about two or three places they'd ever be. Isn't that true?
MR. PRINCE: Well, actually those are all flown by contractors as well, sir -- down in Columbia.
REP. ISSA: I agree. I'm very well aware of that. And that's the point I guess is that we're having a hearing that is supposed to not be about your company and supposed to not be about one incident on September 16th -- it's supposed to be about cost effectiveness of contractors, isn't it?
MR. PRINCE: Yes, sir.
REP. ISSA: And I wish we were bringing in facts and figures about, let's say $600 billion of DOD cost into 1 million soldiers so that we could kind of go, well, isn't that 600,000 for every soldier? Isn't in fact the cost of the Department of Defense, the military far greater than what we pay our men and women in uniform at the times that they're in combat?
MR. PRINCE: I don't know what those numbers are, sir, but that would be a great fully burden cost study that Congress could sponsor. They don't have to do the whole thing, just take some key nodes and really study it.
REP. ISSA: Well -- and hopefully we will, hopefully we will get to serious discussion on these issues because I think that looking at the cost benefit should always be done and I don't want to -- for permanent requirements -- I don't want to use contractors if in fact federal employees would be more appropriate.
I will mention one thing is if you're feeling a little pressure today, if it's a little tough, just be glad you don't make a diabetes drug. We have --
MR. PRINCE: To where, sir?
REP. ISSA: Be glad you don't make a diabetes drug -- compared to what we did to the Avandia makers, Glaxo SmithKline, you're getting off easy, trust me. They had their product destroyed by jury-rigged testimony and studies that were essentially co-opted in advance.
But let's just go to one area that I think hasn't been discussed and others might not discuss it. Is your sister's name Betsy DeVos?
MR. PRINCE: DeVos.
REP. ISSA: Yes. Is that your sister?
MR. PRINCE: Yes it is.
REP. ISSA: And was she a former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman?
MR. PRINCE: Yes, she was.
REP. ISSA: And was she a pioneer for Bush?
MR. PRINCE: I don't know -- could be.
REP. ISSA: Okay. Was she a large contributor of President Bush?
MR. PRINCE: They probably were.
REP. ISSA: And raised a lot of money for President Bush?
MR. PRINCE: Could even be.
REP. ISSA: Went to the Republican Conventions in 2000 and 2004.
MR. PRINCE: I would imagine they did, yes.
REP. ISSA: Isn't it true that your family, at least that part of the family, are very well-known Republicans?
MR. PRINCE: Yes.
REP. ISSA: Wouldn't it be fair to say that your company is easily identified as a Republican leaning company and in fact the Amway company somewhat so because of family members there? Just to -- you don't have to speculate overly, but isn't that generally something you understand?
MR. PRINCE: Blackwater's not a partisan company. We haven't done any -- you know, we execute the mission given us whether it's training naval sailors or protecting State Department personnel.
Yes, I've given individual political contributions. I've done that since college and I did it when I was an active duty member of the armed services. And I'll probably continue doing that forward. I don't -- I didn't give up that right when I became a defense contractor.
REP. ISSA: Mr. Chairman, just to finish the thought like we did on the other side of the isle.
REP. WAXMAN: The gentleman's time has expired.
REP. ISSA: I think you're exactly right that in fact while being identified as partisan Republican, in fact your company appears to have done what all companies do which is in fact to operate to do the job they're doing in a nonpartisan way. And I would hope that this committee and the public takes note that labeling some company as Republican oriented because of family members is inappropriate and I would hope that we not do it again.
And I yield back.
REP. WAXMAN: Well, the only one that's done it is you. (Laughter.)
REP. ISSA: Mr. Chairman, I think it's been made -- I think the report made it very clear --
REP. WAXMAN: Maybe that's why all the Republicans are defending the company.
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REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CA): I thank the gentleman.
And I just wanted to point something out. Mr. Prince, did you see the memorandum dated October 1st -- that's yesterday -- that is entitled "Additional Information About Blackwater USA"? It comes out of Mr. Waxman's office. It's 15 pages.
MR. PRINCE: I did see that, yes, sir.
REP. ISSA: Okay. Did you note that on page five, Mr. Waxman and/or his staff said the following? "Blackwater is owned by Erik Prince. Mr. Prince is a former Navy SEAL who owns the company through a holding company." After that it begins to talk about the White House, your father, your father-in-law, your sister, et cetera, and basically talks about everything I asked you -- the Michigan Republican Party, the donations.
So, Mr. Chairman, hopefully you'll appreciate that it was your staff that created everything that I brought up, and you put it out in writing one day before this hearing.
And my question to you, Mr. Prince, is, have you ever seen a bio about your life that starts off you were a Navy SEAL and then goes on to everything your sister did on behalf of the Michigan party and your Republican credentials? Is this the first time you've seen a bio like this?
MR. PRINCE: I love my sister very much, but it's not often our bios get printed together.
REP. ISSA: Well, and, you know, it's interesting, because, you know, I'm noticing, you know, that for this committee, you know, a donor search done on the 29th of September at OpenSecrets.org was done to find out how much money you gave to who. Did you know that?
MR. PRINCE: I did not know that.
REP. ISSA: And do you think that's really germane to today, or do you think that attempts to taint you as a Republican supporter?
MR. PRINCE: I don't think it's germane today. I think we do good work, and mighty proud of the folks who we have doing the work.
REP. ISSA: Okay. And I heard a rumor that your company or someone in your company had given to the Green Party. Do you -- do you know about that?
MR. PRINCE: Could have been.
REP. ISSA: Okay. I just -- I just wanted to know that there were people on both the far Left and far Right, relative to the chairman, who may have benefited by your company.
But Mr. Chairman, I would ask that page five of your memo be considered as what I called it: an attempt to paint this gentleman and his company through Republican eyes to a Democrat base for political purposes. And I stand by my statement, Mr. Chairman.
Yield back to the gentleman from Ohio.
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