Families say 4 private security guards killed in Iraq lacked armor, heavy weapons
WASHINGTON: The families of four private guards whose bodies were burned and dragged through the streets by a mob in Iraq told Congress on Wednesday that the security company that hired them failed to provide armored vehicles and other promised protections.
The guards' families have sued the company, Blackwater USA, telling a House of Representatives hearing it was the only way they can learn all the circumstances of the deaths. Blackwater and several Republican lawmakers said the lawsuit should not be argued at a congressional hearing.
The deaths of the four, all former members of the military, brought to U.S. television some of its most gruesome images of the Iraq war. A frenzied mob of insurgents ambushed a supply convoy the guards were escorting through Fallujah on March 31, 2004. The men were attacked, their bodies mutilated; two of the corpses were strung from a bridge.
At the hearing, Kathryn Helvenston-Wettengel, mother of Stephen Helvenston, read a statement on behalf of the families. She stopped several times to collect herself as she recounted the emotional day.
She said the security guards were denied armored vehicles, heavy weapons and maps for their convoy routes, and that the rear gunners were removed from vehicles to perform other duties.
"Blackwater gets paid for the number of warm bodies it can put on the ground in certain locations throughout the world," she said. "If some are killed it replaces them at a moment's notice."
Helvenston-Wettengel said her son was alive when Iraqis tied him to his vehicle and dragged him through the streets. He eventually was decapitated.
In a statement prepared for House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Blackwater USA general counsel Andrew Howell said lawyers for the family members were using the hearing for their own purposes and that the case should be heard in court, not in Congress.
Howell said the hearing should not delve into an "incomplete and one-sided exploration of a specific battlefield incident."
Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican, said he did not believe the testimony was germane to a House committee scrutinizing U.S. companies with Iraq contracts. He pressed the witnesses on whether their lawyers wrote their statement, but Ms. Helvenston-Wettengel said each of the four women at the hearing wrote a portion of the statement.
The three men killed in addition to Helvenston — a former Navy SEAL — were Wesley Batalona, a former Army Ranger represented by his daughter Kristal; Michael Teague, formerly in an Army helicopter unit, represented by his widow Rhonda; and Jerry Zovko, a former Army Ranger represented by his mother Donna.
The committee also is looking into Blackwater's contract to provide security services in Iraq. After numerous denials, the Pentagon has confirmed that Blackwater provided armed security guards in Iraq under a subcontract that was buried so deeply the government at first could not find it.
The secretary of the Army on Tuesday wrote two Democratic lawmakers that the Blackwater USA contract was part of a huge military support operation by run by Halliburton Co. subsidiary KBR. Dick Cheney ran Halliburton before he became vice president.
Several times last year, Pentagon officials told inquiring lawmakers they could find no evidence of the Blackwater contract. Blackwater did not respond to several requests for comment.
The discovery shows the dense world of Iraq contracting, where the main contractor hires subcontractors who then hire additional subcontractors. Each company tacks on a charge for overhead, a cost that works its way up to U.S. taxpayers.
"This ongoing episode demonstrates the Pentagon's complete failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat and one of the lawmakers who had asked about the Blackwater contract and received denials.
"They continue to look the other way in the face of overwhelming evidence that Halliburton was charging taxpayers for unauthorized security services," Van Hollen said.
Blackwater employees have suffered heavy casualties in Iraq. In addition to the four killed in Fallujah in 2004, the company said three of its employees were killed in Mosul in 2005, and last month, five of its employees died when a helicopter went down in Baghdad under heavy fire.
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On the Net:
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: http://oversight.house.gov
Blackwater USA: http://www.blackwaterusa.com
The United States Army has confirmed that private security guards of the North Carolina security services company Blackwater USA were employed in Iraq by military subcontractors, reversing earlier statements in which army officials denied knowledge of the contracts. 

Four security guards employed by Blackwater were killed by Iraqi militants in March 2004. Their families have sued the company, claiming the suit was the only way to disclose the events surrounding the deaths.

Locating the contract awarded to Blackwater has proved difficult -- the Pentagon has denied repeatedly that such a contract exists. The contract was extremely deeply nested beneath other contracts, obscuring its existence: KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, has subcontracted to ESS Support Services Worldwide, which provides dining services. ESS hired Blackwater, but only indirectly, through a third company.

This was confirmed yesterday by Army secretary Francis Harvey, in a letter to Representatives Henry Waxman and Chris Val Hollen. This reverses earlier statements by Harvey, for example, in July he stated that KBR "has queried ESS and they are unaware of any services under the ... contract that were provided by Blackwater USA."

Van Hollen said, "This ongoing episode demonstrates the Pentagon's complete failure to safeguard taxpayer dollars."

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has scheduled a hearing on the Blackwater contract, to take place next Wednesday.