of dollars in u.s. government contracts and billions more than a billion dollars in u.s. government contracts to an area for over twelve years and yet a scathing u.s. state department investigation found that blackwater quote was over billing the state department and manipulating personal records its guards were partying drinking and even crashed an armored car and saw themselves as quote above the law pretty damning the u.s. state department saying this but the company they've given contracts to over billing and manipulating we never paid any fines for anything like that that's a fact you paid fines for a lot of things the only thing we paid a fine for it was a elation and i gave an example of the o.t. said the only thing you paid a fine for you paid seven point five million dollars fine and twenty twelve to settle seventeen criminal charges you paid a full million dollar settlement are a department in two thousand and ten for illegal arms sales. two thousand and twelve it already sold the business i sold it in two thousand and ten but the cases go back beyond two thousand and ten the criminal charges raided all sorts of things that went back years including south sudan you broke u.s. sanctions to try and sell weapons to south sudan knowing going to there's no

weapons in south sudan there was a proposal on the mill you will never put a proposal on table to salvage his government one hundred million dollars actually the issue there was a satellite phone so you did put a proposal on the table to salvage his government no wonder what the state department complained about then that was back in two thousand and five was a point in actual a very dangerous satellite phone the same thing you can buy and he threw dutifully we can argue about the fines let's just deal with this report the u.s. state department said you were manipulating personal records over billing the state department and your gods were partying drinking and even crashed an armored car a state department investigation in two thousand and seven. look we employed thousands of people and i would never say that the men were perfect we didn't employ angels we employed veterans who volunteered to serve their country again in a very dangerous place and like i said forty one of them paid the ultimate cost and hundreds more were seriously wounded it's amazing that when you say we didn't employ angels we employed veterans but right now you want to do it all again that's the problem is it not. well here's the thing after after seventeen years of war ok

where the united states is spending more than the entire you gave the budget defense budget just this year and still losing in afghanistan i think it's time to look at a different way i want to talk about afghanistan but just before we get to your afghan plan i just want to get to what drives you when you kind of come up with these plans to do private security especially at these muslim majority countries because you yourself have referred to the people your men were fighting in iraq as barbarians who crawled out of the sewer you say in your memoir these were the chanting barbarians american troops have been sent to liberate sure if you people that think it's ok to drive a car bomb into the middle of a square in the middle market place while to attempt to kill an american and in doing so they kill dozens and dozens of civilians absolutely that's barbaric which is true i think if you've read charity called whatever you want but you said these were the chanting barbarians american troops have been sent to liberate you weren't sent to liberate terrorists sounds like talk about iraq e s. . certainly look this very day will was for you remember the decision this is.

the u.s. decision to go to. liberate iraq from saddam hussein who did a lot more horrid things than we can even speak of here that was certainly the intent i certainly had no role in that policy decision ok but you don't you don't believe iraq is above areas of you know but i believe that terrorists that car bombs in the city square certainly are ok you're proposing now to privatized the u.s. led war in afghanistan you suggested replacing almost fifty thousand nato troops and private contractors with two thousand u.s. special operators and six thousand contractors and you want to cut spending there you think by thirty billion dollars which sounds great and i think one thing we can definitely grown as we both think the afghan war is not going well and has been a bit of a failure but given one hundred forty thousand nato troops couldn't control that country would defeat the taliban back in twenty eleven what on earth makes you think that a few thousand contractors are going to do it now under your command because after

nine eleven i'll take you back in the five days after nine eleven happened when president bush had a war cabinet meeting up at camp david the pentagon the best thing that the most expensive military in the world came with was a missile and some bombing strikes and then a conventional invasion via pakistan the following april case literally while the headquarters of the pentagon is still smoldering the best the u.s. military came with was the most conventional and most cumbersome approach it was the cia that said money authorities the right people who were going after the taliban and that worked ok less than one hundred special operators cia case officers paramilitary guys in s.f. guys backed by air power. and they smash the taliban and their whole peoples on but that's fine you topple them you have control of the country because more than six thousand people sure wrecked but then the united states repeated the soviet battle plan so it's not i would even battle plan that six thousand people can do what one hundred forty thousand couldn't show i'm not an expert on mouth but that seems we

did well here's the thing you have fifteen thousand u.s. troops there now there's about seven thousand nato and another thirty thousand contractors so i'm not advocating a privatization of advocating a rationalization at a significant cost savings the way the us has been deploying there they send a unit for seven or eight months they spend the first two or three months getting to know the area and then a couple of months they're very productive in the last month they're ready to pack up and they lift and shift and they go home ok and then you're rinse and repeat you do that again and we've done thirty plus rotations of troops like that you know and as you have no continuity instead i would take the same special forces veterans that have been working there from the u.s. from nato and the usa and not angels. these are the same people the u.s. military and nato has been spending sending there for the last seventeen years but the difference is as a contractor they can go and attach to the same unit and live in the same valley and live and work and train and fight with those guys with afghan counterparts month after month for years so they have that continuity is that second resume the

afghan government they don't like your plan they say it's a nonstarter they said under no circumstances will we allow the war to become a quote private for profit business to form afghan president hamid karzai said even when the opposes your proposal i think you would say differently if you asked him now i literally asked his office on friday and they said the dead against it. live talk to other people i talk to other people his office who disagree with. the current government here's a change their position is well. under no circumstance i doubt very much that ashraf ghani will win the next election but you're waiting for a change of president to get your plan. here's the thing if they don't do a plan like this if there is not a skeletal structure support supporting the afghan forces the next president's going to wind up like knowledgeable that did the problem is the way you pitched it is giving was helpful to tell the afghans we're going to be like quote the east india company which violently ruled india on behalf of the british empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth century was it wise to talk about having a viceroy in charge of the country i mean you know hiding the fact that this is

a colonialist project when you use language like that but here's the thing the united states has no one person that's in charge of afghan policy there's nobody that the president can turn to and say why is afghanistan after this and. yeah sure that doesn't help he doesn't control the military his intro the intelligence funding he doesn't control if i agree with do you think you need someone a vice we're in charge of east india company is going to go down well with brown folks. look for two hundred fifty years that security model largely worked of mostly local forces with a few professional mentors only acting as a structure support but the difference is i'm not there as a colonial power these these these mentor. right the contractors and special forces veterans are serving as adjunct in the afghan forces accountable to the afghan ministry of defense and of course the president if they're flying aircraft we actually found two seater aircraft where the contractor never makes the weapons release decision it is always the afghan but he flies to play safety pilot ok in

two thousand and four in afghanistan a blackwater pilot flying a plane with u.s. soldiers on board flew the plane into the side of a mountain he crashed the plane into the mountain killing six passengers on board including three u.s. soldiers the captain's last words blackwater employee flying the plane his last words were i swear to god they wouldn't pay me if they knew how much fun this was you were paying him eric prince said only been in the country two weeks have you your employees learned any lessons from that horrific incident before you go back into afghanistan sure we operated fifty six aircraft there safely for many many years we flew tens of thousands of missions safely the difficult thing is when the your customer asks you or tasks you to change your route so that the colonel onboard could go view an enemy area on the way to as a deviation from the planned navigation accidents happen that's right it's a danger and yes there is going to end and safety board on the u.s. military both said the black will to provide sufficient oversight and guidance to

the pilots involved in the crash the widow of that colonel says that there was a gross lack of judgment in managing this company who was managing the company at that time in two thousand full that just sold them the former operations officer of the former operations officer sixty the most elite helicopter unit in the world so you have people that definitely understand aviation were in charge of the u.s. military the national transportation safety board criticized your company's role in the accident and they reinstated this and we were flying missions again within five days of that incident gray needed a very good job bush administration that's got nothing to do with the culpability that your company had for the deaths of those u.s. soldiers they didn't die at the hands of the taliban they died at the hands of blackwater they died at the hands of an accident made by a pilot flying in a very difficult area i mean blackwater executives were. emailing each other at the time the e-mail came out said by necessity the initial group hired to support the afghanistan operation did not meet the criteria identified in e-mail traffic and had some background and experience shortfalls overlooked in favor of getting the requisite number of personnel on board to start up the contract you're saying

internally your own company's admitting to each other these guys on experience but need to get the contract up and running is this what you want to replicate in afghanistan now the pilots flying the mission that day had come from alaska they or they were literally high country bush policies are not people that are flying in the over the swamps of florida they were flying on you when you were executives e-mailing each other saying that we have experienced shortfalls but we need to get the contract up and running what were they saying that because the transportation because the army material command was demanding the missions to support the missions here's the families felt no no no no trying to serve a customer in a very difficult place we flew tens of thousands in hundreds of thousands of missions after that safely and no incidents ok let's go to our panel here in the oxford union sean mcfate is a former private military contractor former officer in the u.s. army a professor at georgetown author of the book the new rules of war sean you've said u.s. generals of loft at eric's plan for afghanistan you've called it unworkable and even magical thinking why blackwater if this was

a job interview i would not give you the contract because blackwater was simply a body guard shop in iraq you've never raised or deployed a military like you're advertising now i have in places and it takes hold it's a lot more sophisticated than just mentors in the field it doesn't quite require up to political leadership in kabul and they have already the message that they don't support this this is a dead deal in my opinion well and that you're mistaken because we built the entire afghan border police it was fifteen thousand people we did all the recruiting the training the vetting and we actually had mentors that went the field with them and the success rate of these units when our guys were allowed to go with them. effectively as training wheels there their success rate went very very high and it worked ok so you know i guess i'm the only guy that can say i've had fifty six of my own aircraft in country doing that kind of work for the u.s. military ok ghaith abdul-ahad is an award winning guardian journalist from iraq

you've covered conflicts in iraq afghanistan yemen and beyond that gate how did the iraqi people remember blackwater and erik prince in your view i mean it's amazing to kind of sit here and listen to a kind of speak of a block or so in the services they did in iraq because the word blackwater is synonymous with the words of the american occupation of iraq that is not a single iraqi that i you know i mean i'm one of those barbarians that was liberated by your country but there is not a single you who would you just mention the word black was to who would not say corruption violence and i'm not talking only about the messiah square kind of massacre but i'm talking about the whole ten years of the existence of these muslims and i think part of the fear of the american project and out of was due to the using of the continent is a major problem that you could concede that even if your plan is a good one you shouldn't be the one doing it given the legacy you've left behind with certainly here is the thing your math is a little skewed because the u.s.

didn't invade iraq till two thousand and three i sold the company in two thousand and ten so that's certainly not ten years the company and the company traveling with it we we tracked all the vehicles where everybody was moving ok and there is dozens and dozens of times that it was brought up there was a blackwater event here blackwater went there and we didn't have people within two hundred kilometers of that location the sad thing is blackwater became likely nexus between wanting to do you know why because you became this because we were the largest one doing you know because you were very worthwhile mission is the reason i mean you gave the world i mean in iraq now or in yemen or any of these places they don't use the word contract or something they use black water in yemen in in somalia they don't use mercenaries ok if you've been in afghanistan region is a lot of if you're reporting do the afghans will welcome this plan eric is putting on the table. i've met administrator high security officials of the count of one of them astray sions opposition and some of your own friends in afghanistan and all

agree on one thing it's not going to work and i agree with you totally the seventeen years have been total waste the fall of the you know copy. the soviet plan this is something we agree on however we're not beating government officials are not talking to the minister you're talking to all the letter you're mistaken i meet with dozens of afghan officials both in and out of the government from all over the country be they go tariq back. and the warlords write all the people that are going to be voting in the afghan allies so we're going to get american to go on was in one more level we need to come in colonel tim collins is here tim you once commanded british troops during iraq you gave that famous speech that a lot of us remember in two thousand and four you quit the army and founded new century a private minter consulting company how would you evaluate what happened on his watch what's the hold it a different thing i think what we have to remember and indeed i've discussed this with that many times with the u.s. state department the u.s. military asked for services they encouraged they were enthusiastic to

a point of hysteria that blackwater go into these missions when it went wrong they ran a mile and so you have to look at those people and say at a point where there was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff were visiting the facility and encouraging more and more of these services to be privatized and that always and when things went wrong they turned their back on you saying the prince about what was scapegoated by the u.s. government well i think that as a result of the rather expensive court case that you've been through i think that was the conclusion in the end is that the criticism i as a contractor would level is that blackwater and the organization probably grew too fast there was people who went initially. who were of the highest delta force seal team six thousand and sixty some of the people who were coming in at the end of nowhere near and it's

a question of who supervising them because the people when we look at them who were in court and convicted we're not of the quality we're not of the few how did they get there how did they get there while we're hearing paul quality circle towards the end of your beard in iraq well because there's literally not enough delta force or seal team six or even seals for that matter to do that mission you go to marine infantry or army infantry the one fair characterization that i will say is. blackwater did two types of missions you work for the state department they dictated you must drive a polished waxed suburban. armored eleven thousand pounds lights and sirens down the road and when you drive the same route every day that the state department tells you to it's very easy for the enemy to set up an ambush you keep saying engagement ambushes just to be clear for the audience one study found you black hole to open fire first in eighty four percent of the shootings is a little defensive because you're the first ok but it's not just

a matter of the enemy opening fire with a firearm to attack they open fire with a trigger switch and they drive up to you and destroy you me literally but there's also you know a million strong as nine year old children taken away to work whether it's hamas in palestine in pakistan afghanistan or iraq bad guys like ambulances with explosives and kill innocent people not in the cases i cited we're going to take a break in part two we're going to talk to erik prince about some of his work in china and his relationship with the trumpet ministration and we're going to hear from a very patient audience here in the oxford union join us for part two. africa's most populous nation the bloodiest economy as a youth unemployment problem in a bid to control the internet of the future some say a kind of digital. we bring you the stories that are shaping the economic world we live in. counting the cost on. this is

a boon for point people right now and technology there is so much going to help people it's from thanks for calling i read this is there and what are you looking like today. with their day to day tasks and give them more in-depth and then. this . exploration process. and we have that technology available to us. well i'm down in jordan in doha with the headlines here on al-jazeera rival demonstrations have been held on the streets of venezuela's capital caracas but in supporters of president nicolas maduro and opposition leader one guy door of the country remain without electricity for a third day one of the worst blackouts in decades. speaking at

a so-called anti-imperialist march president maduro called us puppet. look at philip killer can we have defeated their coup they tried illegitimately to tell oppression into a president and now today it is obvious to the world he's not a president not anything he's a clown and a puppet delinquent citizenship and why does calling for more protests. before the region wants to wear us out. to wear us out brothers and sisters and yes the road has been very long the road is worn out but we will never tire in the search for freedom and we will stay in the streets algeria's government as though to the closure of universities is the largest anti-government protests in decades continue their shot on sunday two weeks ahead of schedule for the spring break student protests at the move will deter the. lawyers in sudan say nine women

protesters have been sentenced to twenty lashes and a month in jail for rioting that comes a day after president omar al bashir ordered the release of all women detained of anti-government demonstrations students have continued to protest in the capital khartoum despite a state of emergency. u.s. backed fighters in syria say they are about to launch a final offensive against iso but do as the last remaining area under i suppose control the kurdish led s.d.f. recently pose the fighting to allow civilians to leave. satellite images released in the us by the news outlet n.p.r. suggest that north korea could be preparing for a new missile launch increased activity at the site near pyongyang comes two weeks of the talks between leader kim jong un and president trump ended without an agreement. and protesters have been out on the streets of paris for the seventeenth successive weekend this time it was women leading the march they've been calling for equal treatment just a day after international women's day the protests were mostly peaceful the number

of those taking part fell to its lowest level since demonstrations began late in the november. those are the headlines now it's back to head to head station but what. welcome back you'll want to head to head on al-jazeera english my guest today is erik prince the founder former c.e.o. of blackwater also a big supporter of and donor to president donald trump eric i want to talk to you about your relationship with president trump moment but before i do just very briefly your currently executive deputy chairman of frontis services group f s g a hong kong based security logistics firm that you found it why is f s g opening a training center for security guards in of all places province in china where up to a million muslim we are being held in basically concentration camps right now there's a lot of mis reporting on that the company is not opening any training facility up there that was actually discussed at

a board meeting the reporting got it wrong the only there was some kind of memorandum signed for construction services now training the company doesn't do any training of any police or security forces why did i say that at all why did your company say it was establishing training facilities it was going to sign him or you for construction without a press release march the second with your name on it for contract not my name we are going names on the press release your names in the press to me several times and it says i've got the press release. china establishing training facilities and buying security equipment in vehicles. again it was for construction services to straining the facility if you look at the actual translation from mandarin to english it was structured services the only other is we don't need only as your company's english press release will result in the only training service is the only thank you that. is for people like bank of china employees or china airlines employees because they travel the world and they go to dangerous

places and so you are waiting people in should know their presence was wrong there is the company has zero footprint in china so it's not establishing the training facility it said it was establishing a much as i can twenty in english language press release. the board has discussed this twice in there is not one dollar or r. and b. allocated for anything like that ok and you've got nothing to do with what's going on with the weaker muslims and zero ok but you do have a lot to do with the chinese government so for someone who sees himself as a great american patriot veteran navy seal america first donald trump support isn't all that you do so much security business with the chinese government which is seen by many including by president trump as a major geopolitical adversary of the united states and that way it is not a conflict again the company doesn't do any security perceval does some training for people to avoid being a victim of a terror of a terrorism is that if there is no blackwater sorry no no. you're right there is no way no official employee that's armed doing that kind of secure working

in china your hong kong based the majority of you're certainly going to come to me as a chinese owned is it not it's well it's retail investors everything from mutual funds in the currency chinese own yes or no i don't know if it's a majority but there's a lot of chinese ownership sure how much the company or the executives deputy trade know it's publicly listed it's all publicly disclosed tell us the fact is the company does grocery delivery trucking all through southern africa we do medivac with the biggest medivac provider but there's no conflict between working for the chinese and working for the u.s. as you want to do now in afghanistan you don't think there's a conflict there but american patriot acts veteran look america is a big trading partner of china and helping china connected logistics lines for better trade i think countries that trade together tend to not fight together ok but against sure it is a form of private military contract to form officer in the u.s. army professor at georgetown university author of the book the new rules of war short is there a conflict of interest it is a concern do you think in washington d.c. where you are based yes there is a big interest so last year the national defense strategy which is the pentagon's

strategy for the world shifted the first time in years away from counterterrorism counterinsurgency into the threats of russia and china and we all know that china. uses its economic instruments of power to you know it's to look at they did to sri lanka they took over a port as if they were a mafia don so it's not just economic trade there's also a darker aspect to it and many in washington see you as one of their sort of weapons of war and you're a chinese weapon of absolutely not and because we're not doing any kind of training building their tactical was a lever to show a new building about the fact is what does the company do now i just trucking in transportation from southern africa you can deliver groceries from cape town all the way up to the d.r. see we medivac we fly people all over the continent and we do significant air operations out of malta supporting hopefully oil operations in countries like iraq

or pakistan or the hydro dams look at countries around the world. if china shows up a lot of money a lot of people to do infrastructure projects the russians are showing up with muscle and weapons the united states is largely missed the boat the one positive change the trump administration has made is that the law changed last october for opec the overseas private investment corporation the only part of the u.s. government that actually makes money and now they're shifted a huge budget away from the state department of opec so that it is managed and it allows more investment also launch a trade war with china which might put you into different comes at the same time let me ask little tim collins this question is here you are a famous officer in the british army now you're chairman of your own private security consultancy new century how do you respond to critics who say when you run these private for profit companies you're only loyal to yourselves or to your bottom lines you're not loyal to a national government and that's a problem that's that makes you conflicted what's your response to people who say that well in the day there's a thing called international law nobody does anything on its side and if they do

and then the the must be held accountable the difficulty is the only people who will subject to a law themselves to be regulated all the good guys there are mercenary activity all over the world the reality is that many people in this room don't realise that many governments in the world particularly in pakistan india around the middle east maintain people who they pay and deploy as contractors and these are people who are committing atrocities they won't be regulated ok so let me put up one very briefly sean very briefly what's your response to the point about regulation do you think companies like erik's as regulators they should be well i'm a little bit more skeptical about the power of international law in general about mercenaries because the thing about you know who's going to go into yemen and arrest all those mercenary at the u.n. and if so the mercenaries can shoot back right they can kill your law enforcement and i'm not suggesting that eric's that would be eric's plan but eric as part of

a broader. strand of the rise of mercenaries what word is this and you know private wars wars without states that's of and what if the us to partake in this area let me ask you this you're a big supporter of donald trump you've been questioned by special counsel robert muller over the russia gate investigation he looked at your laptop and your phones i believe you also testified to congress in november twenty seventh when you told congress under oath that you played quote no official or really unofficial role in the trump campaign what you didn't tell congress is that on august third twenty sixteen you were at a meeting during the campaign at trump tower with don jr trump son which stephen miller then a campaign advisor to trump with george nader a former blackwater colleague of yours who acts as a back channel to the saudis there moralities you're supposed to be convicted paedophile and also joel's an israeli expert on social media manipulation how come you didn't mention that meeting to congress given it's so relevant to their

investigation. i did as part of the part of the investigations i certainly disclosed in the any meetings the very new i had on the congressional testimony you gave to the house we went through it you didn't mention anything about august twenty sixth meeting in trump tower they specifically asked you what context you have and you didn't answer that. i don't believe i was asked that question you were asked whether any community for communications or contact with the campaign you said apart from writing papers putting up yard signs know what you said i've got the transcript of the conversation here. i might have been i think it was at trump headquarters or the campaign headquarters third twenty sixteen usable and is really due to a back channel to the emirate in the saudis don't jr and even miller were there to talk about iran policy through that about iran policy do you think that's something important to disclose to the house intelligence committee while you're under oath you did you didn't we just went through the testimony there's no mention of the trump tower meeting because twenty sixteen were not i don't know if they got the transcript wrong. they got the transcript wrong so we could i don't know i remember

i remember certainly does dismiss it with you because we know that robert mueller he hasn't been able to establish collusion it but he has got a lot of guys for lying to the authorities and not telling the whole truth is that a problem now even if you accidentally didn't tell them that could come back and haunt you fully cooperated i haven't heard anybody i haven't heard from anybody in more than nine months i mean i mean members of congress after they discover this media have talked about certain witnesses not telling the truth but you believe you told congress about this meeting even if no in the transcript just to be clear i believe so ok you had another meeting which they did talk to you about in the seychelles on eleventh jahnu twenty seventeen a week before trump's inauguration where good old george nader was there again on behalf of the amorality as was top russian oligarch cheryl dimitri of a close ally of blood amir putin's the emirates he saw that meeting as a as a way of creating a back channel between putin this guy dimitry of and trumps you didn't they i don't think so i was there to talk to the iraqis about somalia and some of the other

problem areas that we did help with before it was also about iraq you know and it was so how did you end up with a with a russian oligarch who runs the russian direct investment fund and is seen by the iraqis as the messenger to putin they call him well as i recall the immoralities were investors in that fund and any fund manager fun any fund manager tends to travel to where their lp their investors need to be but what we chatting about with the russian dude. i've talked about in testimony and that's all i mean to say. but it was just a kind of accidental meeting yes even though georgia nader your fund raising like i said before it lasted one beer which doesn't take me very long. so you flew halfway around the world to a secret meeting in the seychelles to have one beer with. i was there to see the american leadership that's not what george nader seems to be telling the mother folks right now that worry you the native country that your former colleague i

think it's amazing for you to try to view into the miller testimony that it's my impression to i mean ok that's that's what that's what's being reported ok. i want to bring in you mentioned iran interesting enough to bring in very briefly before we move on and i know the audience are waiting ghaith abdul-ahad is an award winning guardian journalist from iraq you've covered conflicts across the middle east when you hear about the amorality s. and trump and the saudis and the israelis what is that all about i mean it mentioned iran is this all about iran i mean of course we're living kind of people say it's a cold war it's not a cold war game or between their morality so does the israelis and the iranians on the other side and what the monarchies are doing for example in yemen and i think you work with the iraqis and you advise them at one point they are actually implementing you are of i understand plans so if you see the morality war in the air and it is tens of thousands of most reasonable forces with skeleton troops from the iraqis a war that is being followed so viciously with no accountability whatsoever within

the big arch of fighting the iranians who did exist in yemen have you advocated using private private contractors to take on iran to the trumpet ministration you know you have people have accused of advocate in the past you've talked about using private contracts to confront iran no no you see no role for blackwater s.-g. in any relation to iran now ok just to check before going to tell you what i've got asked one question last question you are part of a group of high profile trump supporters including steve bannon sheriff david clarke and others who are planning on raising private money to build a wall along the us mexico border you even have a go fund me paige. what i don't get though is i'm pretty sure i heard donald trump say that mexico would be paying for the war. don't discount mexico actually paying for the wall i think most of us have but yet more and more news on that look there's a lot of places where it's federal land and in a go fund me individual effort is not possible but there's a lot of places where.