the 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 and that's effect 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 otoh if you say the only thing you paid a fine for you paid $7500000.00 fine and 2012 to settle 17 criminal charges you paid a full $1000000.00 settlement are a department in 2010 for illegal arms sales. 2012 it already sold the business i saw that in 2010 but the cases go back beyond 2010 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 naval you never put a proposal on table to salvage his government $100000000.00 actually the issue

there was a satellite phone so you did put a proposal on the table to sell the kids government no wonder what the state department complained about then that was back in 2005 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 it was a state department best occasion in 2007. 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 41 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 17 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 yes. sir look this very day 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 the snow 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 $50000.00 nato troops and private contractors with 2000 u.s. special operators. and $6000.00 contractors and you want to cut spending that you think by $30000000000.00 a year which sounds great and i think one thing we can definitely groom is we both think the afghan war is not going well and has been a bit of a failure but given 140000 nato troops couldn't control that country would defeat the taliban back in 2011 what on earth makes you think that a few 1000 contractors are going to do it now under your command because after 911 and we take you back in the 5 days after 911 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 100 special operators cia case officers paramilitary guys in s.f. guys backed by air power. and they smashed the taliban and they were all peoples of them but that's fine you toppled them yet control of the country because more than 6000 people sure wrecked but then the united states repeated the soviet battle plan so it's not i believe in battle plan 6000 people can do what 140000 couldn't sure i'm not an expert on mouth but that seems we did well here's the thing you have 15000 u.s. troops there now there's about $7000.00 nato and another $30000.00 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 the unit for 7 or 8 months they spend the 1st 2 or 3 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 rinse and repeat you do that again and we've done 30 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 17 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 2nd 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 they're dead against it. but i've talked to other people i've talked to other people his office who disagree with ok the current office and government here say things their position is well. under no circumstance i doubt very much that ashraf ghani will win in 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 18th and 19th centuries 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 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. yeah sure that doesn't help he doesn't control the military his intro the intelligence funding he doesn't control but if i agree with do you think you know wanting someone to viceroy in charge of east india company is going to go down well with brown folks. look for 250 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 mentors are right the contractors the special forces veterans are serving as adjunct in the afghan forces accountable to the afghan minister of defense and of course the president if they're flying aircraft we actually found to see the aircraft where the contractor never makes the weapons release decision it is always the afghan but he flies the plane. safety pilot ok in 2004 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 6 passengers onboard including 3 u.s. soldiers the captain's last words this 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 2 weeks have you your employees learned any lessons from that horrific incident before you go back into afghanistan sure we operated 56 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 are national heroes in the engine safety board and 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 2000 full i just told them the former operations officer of the former operations officer 60 the most elite helicopter you know 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 5 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 e-mailing 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. old to start up the contract you're saying internally your own company's admitting to each other he's got his own experience but i 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 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 have loft 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 up to political leadership in kabul and they've already had 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 that was 15000 people we did all the recruiting the training the vetting and we actually had mentors that went the field with them in the success rate of these units when our guys were allowed to go with them effectively as training wheels their 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 56 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 gave how do the iraqi people remember blackwater and erik prince in your view i mean it's amazing to kind

of sit here and listen to eric and 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 as to who would not say corruption violence and i'm not talking only about the kind of massacre but i'm talking about the whole 10 years of the existence of these muslims and i think part of the failure of the american the project and out of was due to the using of the continent is it not 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 your math is a little skewed because the us didn't invade iraq till 2003 i sold the company in 2010 so that's certainly not 10 years the company and the company traveling work 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 200 kilometers of that location the sad thing is blackwater became likely next a big name wanted to 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 work i mean in iraq now or in yemen or any of these places they don't use the word contract or something that was blackwater in yemen in whatever in somalia they don't use mercenaries ok so you've been in afghanistan reaches well over if you're able to do the afghans will welcome this plan eric is putting on the table. i've met administrator in office wills high security officials of the count of one of them stray 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 17 years have been total waste the fall of the you know copy. of 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 either 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 one more person 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 2004 you quit the army and founded new century a private manager 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 odds 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. we were of the highest delta force seal team 6060 some of the people who are 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 hue how did they

get there how did they get there while we're hearing poor quality circle towards the end of your beard in iraq well because there's literally not enough delta force or seal team 6 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 2 types of missions you work for the state department they dictated you must drive a polished waxed suburban should be armored 11000 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 in gauge when ambushes just to be clear for the audience one study found that you black hole to open fire 1st in 84 percent of the shootings is a little defensive because you're the 1st ok but it's not just a matter of the enemy opening fire with a firearm to attack they opened fire with a trigger switch and they drive up to you and destroy you me literally but there's

also you know millions drum as it's 9 year old children taken away for work whether it's hamas in palestine in pakistan afghanistan or iraq bad guys get ambulances with explosives and kill innocent people not in the cases i cited we're going to take a break in part 2 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 our very patient audience here in the oxford union join us for part 2. by several women of. this country confinements all the while you have refrained from speaking to the media why have you trolls into. islamic studies professor tied to ground. 0 about the ongoing rate characterisations and against. every year 50000000 tons of electronic waste is thrown away the majority is

a leak in the dumps in developing countries right now electronic waste is the most traded as of this with we trace the tech through the criminal organizations making a profit and asking why the west is turning a blind. on the waste trail on al jazeera. hello i'm doing a pilot and these are the headlines at al-jazeera the foreign minister of yemen's internationally backed government has blamed ron for the conflict in his country karen has been accused of arming the who the rebels speaking at the un general assembly of mohamed al had tommy thanked saudi arabia for its role in helping fight the rebels but criticize its coalition partner the u.a.e.

for supporting separatist fighters and southern yemen. our army has had to face myriad direct military attacks in violation of international law these attacks were mounted by immorality air assets these attacks have undermined the stability of our homeland and in this way the immorality aggression has undermined the noble goals of the coalition. well earlier yemen's who the rebels said that thousands of saudi backed fighters had surrendered during a months long military campaign that these have been targeting the southern saudi region of niger on a spokesman says they've also captured several saw the army officers. we have taken a number of military positions and we have captured over 4 military brigades those prisoners of war just a few in number in comparison to the thousands who have been arrested and surrendered themselves we tell our leaders sayyid up told by like al who see that

we are going to chart our slogan and raise our flag until we reach riyadh and to the white house. a series of attacks as well as technical delays didn't stop people from turning out for afghanistan's 4th presidential election since the fall of the taliban there were nearly 70 attacks across the country killing 5 and injuring hundreds of others syria's deputy prime minister has used his address at the un general assembly to demand the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces in his country while it mention turkey and the u.s. specifically and said syria is open to dialogue but not at the expense of its national integrity police in hong kong have fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse antigovernment protesters near the chinese army headquarters the demonstration couldn't side to the 5th anniversary of the umbrella movement it's a series of protests against increasing chinese control in the territory

and those other headlines of the more news but head to head continues now. welcome back you're watching we 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 frontier 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 1000000 muslim we are being held in basically concentration camps right now there is 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 is a 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 at about press release march the 2nd with your name on it for contract now my name we are going names on the press release your names on 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 this training facility if you look at the actual translation from mandarin to english it was not a production service it's ok the only other is that we don't need only as your company's english press release we really only training services the only thank you . 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 0 footprint in china so it's not establishing the training facility it said it was

establishing a much as i can 20 in english language press release. the board has discussed this twice in there is not $1.00 or r. and b. allocated for anything like that ok and you've got nothing to do with what's going on with the week of muslims and 0 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 1st 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 it 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 you hong kong based the majority of your shirt if you really really come to me as a chinese owned is it known it's well it's retail investors everything from mutual

funds in their 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 your company or the executives deputy chair 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 we're 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 but against fate 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 1st 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 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 will absolutely not and because we're not doing any kind of training building their tactical what about the leverage shown building about the fact is what does the company do now does trucking in transportation from southern africa you can deliver groceries from capetown all the way up to the d r c 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 hydra dams look at countries around the world with 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 change 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 a little bit of trade 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 that side and if they do them 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 meshing reactivity. all over the world the reality is that many people in this room don't realize 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 that point very briefly sean very briefly what's your sponsors point about regulation do you think companies like erik's are as regulated as they should be while 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 erik's that would be eric's plan but eric as part of a broader trend of the rise of mercenaries what word is this and you know private

wars wars without states that's of and what if the u.s. 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 mueller over the russia gate investigation he looked at your laptop and your phones i believe you also testified to congress in november 27th and 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 3rd 2016 you were at a meeting during the campaign at trump tower with don junior 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 ne meetings the very new i had on in the congressional testimony

you gave to the house we went through you didn't mention anything about august 26th 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 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 probably 2016 usable and israeli do a back channel to the emirates on the saudis don't junior steven miller over there to talk about iran policy through that about iran policy don't think that's something important to disclose to the house intelligence committee while you're under oath he did you didn't we just went through the testimony there's no mention of the trump tower meeting because 2016 were not i don't know if they got the transcript wrong. or 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 yet 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 9 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 not 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 11th jahnu 2017 a week before trump's inauguration where good old george nader was there again on behalf of the as was top russian oligarch cheryl dimitri of a close ally of blood amir putin's the emirates he stole that meeting as a as a way of creating a back channel between putin's 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 was also about iran 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 admiralty as the messenger to putin they call him well i say 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 them to be but what we chatting about with the russian dude. i've talked about in testimony that's all i meant to say but it was just a kind of accidental meeting. yes even though georgia nader your fund raising like i've 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 iranian leadership that's not what georgia nader seems to be telling the mother folks right now is that were you the native country where you are a former colleague i think it's amazing for you to drag a 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 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 emerald tease and trump and the saudis and the israelis what is that all about i mean 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 anymore between their morality so these are the israelis and the iranians on the other side and what the minorities 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 understand plan so if you see the morality war in the air and it is tens of thousands of mercenaries local forces will skeleton troops from the immoralities a war that is being followed so viciously with no accountability whatsoever with then 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 advocating the past you've talked about using private contracts to confront iran 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 page 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.