One of Ours

Under assault by insurgents and unable to rely on U.S. and coalition troops for intelligence or help under duress, private security firms in Iraq have begun to band together in the past 48 hours, organizing what may effectively be the largest private army in the world, with its own rescue teams and pooled, sensitive intelligence.

Many of the firms were hired by the U.S. government to protect its employees in Iraq. But because the contracts are managed by the Coalition Provisional Authority and the coordination between the CPA and the U.S. military is limited, and by their accounts inadequate, the contractors have no direct line to the armed forces. Most of the firms' employees are military veterans themselves, and they often depend on their network of colleagues still in uniform for coordination and intelligence...

...There are about 20,000 private security contractors in Iraq now, including Americans, Iraqis and other foreigners. That number is expected to grow to 30,000 in the near future when the U.S. troop presence is drawn down after the June 30 handover to Iraqi authorities...

...As the security situation in Iraq has deteriorated in recent days, the security contract workers have been exposed to some of the same dangers U.S. soldiers face -- and have defended their posts as soldiers would, but without the support of the military with which they share the battlefield...

...U.S. and coalition military forces were called for help but did not respond in a timely manner, according to U.S. government and industry accounts. The private commandos fought for hours and eventually were able to "self-evacuate,"...

...On Monday, eight commandos from Blackwater Security Consulting repulsed an attack by the militiamen of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr against the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Najaf. After hours of calling the U.S. military and CPA for backup, Blackwater sent in its own helicopters -- twice -- to ferry ammunition in and carry a wounded Marine to safety...

...The U.S. military does not have enough specially trained troops or Iraqi police officers to guard its civilian employees, said defense and CPA officials. As a result, the U.S. government has turned increasingly to private firms. Blackwater even provides personal security to U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer...

We just got back on base. For a while there, I didn’t think that would happen. We got ambushed yesterday, except it was a twenty-one hour ambush. We made CNN, except of course they got it wrong.

At about four AM the other day, the coalition force rode out the gate and took back the town. At nine thirty we rolled out, arrived at our usual destination, and by ten thirty, we were under fire. We were in a compound of five or six major buildings, large enough to be hotels, not quite large enough to be palaces, that had once been owned by Chemical Ali.

We started out on the roofs, looking for snipers. But RPGs and mortar fire forced us down and as we retreated, the shooters started hitting the building more often because they were walking their weapons closer. Eventually, our safe area was reduced to just one hallway in a central building.

I have never been so scared in my life. Scared doesn’t cover it: terrified doesn’t, either. I'd never known it was possible to be terrified and be totally calm...

...No other government building in the province was not under his control. Our little force, outmanned and outgunned, held him off for better than twenty hours, and then slipped out under his nose. He wanted to keep us there, be his bargaining chips while he tightened his fist around the province. And that fucking governor went along with it. We eventually found out the governor was contacting the command and telling them, no, no Evac behind our backs. He wanted US Marines dropped off and the civilians put in the helicopters while they secured his villa and offices. His own people were running around trying to arrange Evac, and kept counter-manding him. Then he’d go on the air and countermand them...

...All three of the other guys got wounded slightly----nothing much. I wasn’t one of them, obviously. One guy fell down when an RPG whistled too close and fell, but he’s okay. Everybody else got chipped by flying bricks and mortar, stuff like that. We had one guy who got clipped on the head a little bit closer than I did. That bullet gave him a permanent part to his hair, a real good story to tell---assuming he can ever put it into words----and took one of his nine lives. A coalition soldier died, and two were wounded.

Two Iraqi guards stayed with us. I’m very impressed with that. Everyone else fled...

...We did have choppers and the occasional F-16, but the gov wouldn’t allow them to drop any bombs. He never did explain why. All I know is, when I looked up at the chopper, and it was close enough to see the pilot’s profile in the sunset, I thought that was as close as I was going to get to getting out.

I can’t do anything but repeat myself, now, so I’m just going to go shake.

...are we staying home? No……Are we seeing any fights in streets? No……... Also we meet people from Sadir city and Adhamiya city every day and they are attending their jobs, and not standing against coalition forces……. Also I hade a phone call from a relative in Basrah and he said its calm and the damn media is lying as usual. We even sent an employee to Basrah to take care of a container coming to Om Qasir by sea………….And I would like to tell you about the made we have in office and she is from Sadir city. Her brother was arrested the day before yesterday morning for wearing a black shirt and was suspected to be Mahdy army member. He was released yesterday and said that the coalition forces treated them well and been told to stay home and not to resist the coalition and to tell their neighbors and relatives to do so...

I can feel the people of Sadir city uncomfortable with what Muqtada saying or doing, but they cant announce it for religion matters, (he is SAEED you know, and that’s mean he is a grand sun of prophet Mohamed so any one talk bad on him get cursed).

...Are we going to leave every thing for the coalition forces? And then start to criticize. What would happen if that trouble and rebel happened after June?. Then we would call for American army from its bases to help. Why turning authority to an Iraqi government then?.

...a united militia with the same uniform should be created grouping all the guards and armed people from the parties’ members and the followers of the GC members to enforce order in streets. It’s their duty and our duty would be to defend our democracy and freedom against terrorists and trouble makers and kayos lovers.

The time of negativity is gone, and no more place for one man to tell all Iraqis what to do, we should deserve our freedom by acting as civilized people or the world will let us kill each other, as it happened in Rwanda, Lebanon, Somalia, and many other countries.

We don’t want to be the land of clearing debts between any two forces in the world, and that’s also the duty of the real patriotic parties of Iraq to educate the people how to behave. It happened before in Kurdistan, and the Kurdish people deserved the prosperity they live in today, because their leaders and parties educated the people how to behave to deserve to be a state.

I beg each and every man and woman in our GC and Iraqi parties to gather as many people as they can to be members of those parties and educate them against any destructive thoughts may be spread from all those who want to delay prosperity for Iraq and Iraqis for reasons any one with a clear mind can see.