Clocking in several weeks late and after Mayor Sanders secured re-election, San Diego's internal audit of Blackwater's permit process "found no evidence that the contractor misrepresented itself in its permit applications."

This is not an encouraging development, heading off the best opportunity for the city to intervene and block Blackwater's new facility. It's hardly the end- just a detour- as the fight continues. Nevertheless, Blackwater has moved into its facility in Otay Mesa and training has already begun. Moving forward, it will be vitally important (while keeping up the heat to close the facility outright) to keep a close eye on Blackwater's own claim that the facility will only be used for Navy training. Via Blackwater's own press release:

Critics of the project have used blatant fabrications -- claiming that the facility will be used for border security or immigration purposes -- to build support for their opposition of the facility. The proposed facility will be used for training alone...

So when the inevitable grab for exactly those sorts of functions arrives, we'll have to be ready to fight back.

But in the meantime, this proves to reinforce the necessity of federal action to put companies like Blackwater out of business. Localities can keep up this fight but ultimately the fix must come from DC. Already, presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama has led the party to reject lobbyist and PAC money. If we can stop taking dirty money, we can stop paying money out to dirty contractors and murderers. In the meantime, Rep. Shakowsky's Stop Outsourcing Security Act is a bill whose time is past due. Blackwater relies on being indispensable to military operations, largely because Pentagon leadership gamed the system to create such failings. It's vital to start now on the road to fixing our military system and Blocking Blackwater.

Cross posted at Calitics.

In the continuing battle over Blackwater and America's soul, Senator John Kerry called for hearings today into the renewal of Blackwater's State Department contract. Why? In Kerry's words:

To learn that Blackwater's no-bid security contract for Iraq was renewed even as a grand jury investigates the company and the IRS considers its own review of the company's books, raises serious concerns that merit Senate hearings. How was this decision made? What was the process that concluded there were no alternatives? What was the extent of Blackwater's lobbying effort?, said Senator Kerry. "Five years into this war, there's been too much abuse of the contracting process in Iraq and too little oversight, and nowhere do the questions loom larger than in Blackwater's role and the Administration's apparent imperviousness to skepticism where this corporation is concerned.

Coincidentally, this news comes on the same day that news broke that Blackwater vehicle prototypes might be on the Defense Department's shopping list. This is two more fronts in the battle over Blackwater's legitimacy. On the one hand, Blackwater continues to seek out new niches to keep itself afloat after we finally leave Iraq, and on the other hand, Democratic leadership continues to step to block Blackwater. Kerry's hearings will likely take place in the Middle East Subcommittee in the Foreign Relations Committee. Also serving there is Senator Barbara Boxer. Now Senator Boxer has earned the benefit of the doubt over her years in the Senate, but this is a huge issue that goes well beyond this aspect of Blackwater or the State Department. This is a statement about how we as a nation are going to treat organizations like Blackwater.

I have a lot of faith in Barbara Boxer to do the right thing, but that doesn't mean it isn't vital that we watch and make sure she helps drive the point home here. There's simply never any excuse for Blackwater to be paid with our tax dollars. Until we can lay down a federal level smackdown (Rep. Schakowsky's Stop Outsourcing Security Act is another great opportunity) on this sort of thing, it's just gonna be more rounds of whack-a-mole around the country. It's good to see more leadership in DC on this issue, but now we've gotta get the follow-through.

Cross posted at Calitics

By now, nobody should be surprised by the resiliency of Blackwater. They've come back from the brink so many times, it's easy to allow yourself to think they'll never really be gone. So this weekend's New York Times article on Blackwater's comeback might be both demoralizing and par for the course if it wasn't for the strong rhetorical pushback from members of Congress that line up encouragingly with local progress.

As the New York Times chronicles all the near death experiences that Blackwater has come through:

The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guard in the September shooting, either, and the F.B.I. agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards have committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.

Nevertheless, signs indicate that, ever so slowly, the worm is turning. The article notes that the State Department renewed its contract largely for lack of other options, to which Rep. Henry Waxman retorted "I can't understand why Blackwater's contract was renewed. It seems to me the administration should have looked for others who could do the job, including the U.S. military."   Read More »

On the ground in San Diego, Blackwater's latest move to impose itself on the local community has been a shock. Obscuring their purpose on any number of levels, it's a game of catch-up just to establish the ground on which we'll fight back. What's clear above all else is that these guys aren't going to give up. No matter how many times local activists pull together to fight them off, they'll always come back. It has to find a federal solution.

That's where the whole country needs to continue in the anti-Blackwater business just like San Diegans are revving up for another knock-down and drag-out. The long term solution here comes from bills like the Stop Outsourcing Security Act, and Rick Jacobs has the rundown on how we can help get things rolling a little faster:

Blackwater is back in California.

Just a few months after the courageous people of Potrero kicked Blackwater out of their small town on the California border, Blackwater has announced plans to open a 61,600 square-foot "training facility" in San Diego just THREE blocks from Mexican border.

In other words, Blackwater is using your tax dollars on a mercenary war in Iraq -- $320 million paid so far, over 60% in no-bid contracts -- to subsidize building a base of operations inside California.

Blackwater's border bait-and-switch has shocked the citizens of San Diego. Shortly before pulling their plans on Potrero, the private military contractor quietly used a shell company called "Southwest Law Enforcement" to gain city permits for a "vocational trade school" a stone's throw from the Tijuana Airport. While Blackwater denies that this deception is a trojan horse to land border security contracts from the federal government before George W. Bush leaves office, the ominous writing is on California's wall.

What will it take to stop Blackwater for good in California and Iraq? Local and national pressure. This time, the Courage Campaign plans to fight a two-front battle against Blackwater -- on the border in San Diego and in the halls of Congress.

To block Blackwater in California for good, we need to put them out of business in Iraq forever. That's why we're supporting Rep. Jan Schakowsky's "Stop Outsourcing Security Act" (H.R. 4102), which would phase out private security companies like Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan. An identical bill in the Senate (S. 2398) has been co-sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton.

   Read More »