because they make breaking up protest easy and safe for the cops remember in the old days when you had to physically break up protests well things like el read allow any coward to just flip a switch to disperse a crowd with not a drop of blood visible and the fact that it seems not harmful as the police to be justified in using it whenever they want for the sake of the constitution i think no police forces should be able to use a spell read technology but that's just my opinion.

crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. hello welcome to sophie and co i'm sophie shevardnadze and heir to a fortune turned mercenary boss erik prince founded blackwater the world's biggest private military company scoring billions in government contracts in iraq and afghanistan but a public backlash that followed news of atrocities committed by his people forced him out of the business are mercenaries bonds to cross lines can they be controlled

and suffering inevitable when people are given a license to kill well we'll ask the man himself in our program today. blackwater the world's most powerful drug a darling of the u.s. government they made a killing plugging holes in america's war on terror as soon as it is until. washington is accused of fighters to draw. guns really go out of control in the war zone were they just thrown under the bus by the white house or did they get what was coming to. the biggest u.s. private military contractor blackwater welcome to the program it's great to have you with us so i'm just going to start from the very beginning q created blackwater to train u.s. navy still so how did it become one of the biggest security contractors in the world. well you know i i guess i was an accidental tourist i got out of the navy

out of the seal teams because my father died my wife was sick with cancer so i built a facility to stay connected to the seal teams you know the seal team special operations units in america had been using private this ill at ease really since the one nine hundred seventy s. and no one had ever done it on an industrial scale and so i did i was you know we had sold my father's business i took some of the money from that bill to the syllabi and then you know one thing led to another there is a terrible tragic shooting in colorado called the columbine shootings and then the u.s.s. cole was blown up in yemen in two thousand. and then of course after nine eleven. you know we kept we kept saying yes when the u.s. government called the need our help for training or logistics support aviation support security one thing led to another and and we grew very quickly so yes we got in numerable a number of government contracts how do you explain your success there because the military wasn't able to their job properly. our success was based on you know

we had primarily former special operations people in our management team many of whom had gone on to business school and worked in in regular industry and combining the best of industry knowledge with kind of the seal team special operations can do attitude it worked and you know look the u.s. military is very large very capable very good at conventional operations but when you stop a massive conventional operation and now have to to retasking and become a counterinsurgency force there create some gaps you know you can't take that air defense missile guy and make him into a policeman or do a body guard that quickly so by our skill set was taking existing pools of talent guys that is served before giving them the right training the right equipment the right of. capabilities to go out and doing a job on a temporary basis if that's what you are essentially a policeman and private guards bodyguards is your main difference with the military

. you know our main are the main missions of a contractor like that is not to do often see of combat operations but to do to play defense when necessary whether it's guarding a base guarding people guarding a convoy providing support aviation support so we're not going out there doing offensive missions but rather supporting the the uniformed services while they're doing their offensive missions you know and certainly. operating that close or along the edge of battle means that sometimes we get shot at and so whether we were helicopter shot down or aircraft were shot at and certainly our men were shot at on an almost daily basis. but you were operating in a war zone right so that the military in iraq and afghanistan for example had very strict rules of engagement did you follow them. sure depending on which customer you're working for whether you're working for the u.s. military or u.s. state department they all have very similar rules of engagement. and ours were

defensive you have to go through a whole use of force continuum kinds of things you have to do before lethal force would be would be used but i guess what i'm what i'm asking is that if a mercenary commits a crime in combat who holds them responsible because in an army for example there was a hierarchy always someone above you looking over your shoulder and if you do something that you know. who who was doing that inside blackwater thing the hierarchy think well you know the rules of engagement again come from the government that you're working for technically you know the work we're doing for the state department which we got a lot of unwelcome attention for they were not mercenaries i mean they were american guys. former u.s. servicemen themselves that had served honorably in the u.s. military that went back to work volunteered to go back and serve in a and e. body guard or security capacity if there is wrongdoing it can be investigated by

the by the military or certainly prosecuted to the u.s. civil justice system. about what am i going to get that is when you say so just what i'm asking is that within the blackwater was there a hierarchy to convict them of crimes was there someone to tell them this is wrong or iraq's duty or will you just wait for the state department to tell you it's wrong. then and certainly we had internal internal mechanisms for policing our people for. the equipment they're using for equipment countability where they're supposed to be the rules of engagement all the rest but you know as a private company we're not empowered to prosecute a guy i can't incarcerate someone i can't i can't punish them all we could do is fire them or find them but beyond that we don't have the authorities to to do more than that to an individual that is the whole realm of the government all right but you've said that your men wear guards not investigators stationed to kill and on check the policy and that's from your book that said direct quote what gave you the

right to behave in that way well look they're there they're performing a defensive mission so you know every day between iraq and afghanistan the company did more than one hundred thousand missions protective missions and no one under our care was ever killed or injured and each time there was a in the event where our men had to use their weapons it was documented in of all those times it use the weapons it still comes out to less than one half of one percent. of those of those incidents so the idea that they were trigger happy is just it's not accurate. if they are attacked if they are threatened if they are. whether it's the threat of a car bomb a small arms ambush sniper fire whatever all the things that. they had the equip the tools and equipment that they had do defend themselves or defend their protective. how did you as a had of that organization back in back in those times make sure that someone you

were hiring would be a shot first ask questions later kind of a person. there is actually very detailed hiring requirements for our company and then also to perform on those contracts of course a criminal background check would be performed to check their service records to make sure they were honorably serve the u.s. military most of them already were decorated for. for merits and for valor in combat they have to go through a psychological evaluation and then they go through hundreds of hours of additional training and qualification under our supervision under this also under the supervision of the of the state department or military customer before they could go out so it's not like we're just hiring someone off the street we're hiring proven professionals that are again tested evaluated stressed to make sure that they're they're competent and able and have good judgment to serve in those kind of situations and what about they use of drugs while so heard in court was that individual a slip ups or and to just look the other way to let the employees blow off the

steam. well that's another one of those nonsense charges and we had routinely drug tested the men they were certainly drug tested as part of the prescreening hiring process but not only were were normal drugs not permitted but steroids as well any kind of. body altering or mind altering drugs was not permitted and as a former it was a firing offense and and and if someone was found to have been using them they were immediately immediately left the company they were fired but what did you have any instances where he had to fire people for that. sure i mean when we fire people for having the wrong site on their weapon we fire people for having bad haircuts we fire people for for minor theft issues we fired a lot of people because we held a very very tight standard and we didn't we didn't permit nonsense but as a former had of the blackwater back then can you say one hundred percent certainty

that you knew what went down on the ground that you control the situation completely. well you know anytime you we employ people and you know people make mistakes we as a company did a very good job i'm confident of screening vetting of training putting people out but if you have you know one bag one bag out of a thousand sure they can make a mistake or do something stupid and you fire them you know even a turbine engine which maybe has two or three moving parts breaks once in a while when you have moving parts of thousands of people operating in a warzone under stress and under danger they can make bad mistakes and you have to adjust that's that's the downside of employing people not robots are going to robots break as well i know but people's lives aren't machines or relevance of course not but the same way you have to maintain an aircraft sometimes that

aircraft breaks. accidents can happen in a you know. we're very confident with the with the stress testing with the evaluation and the proven judgment i mean these are the same people that the u.s. military had serving. as recently as six months before they were deployed for us so the same kind of competencies the same kind of skill sets the same kind of value system we reemployed to do that job. part we're going to go to a short break right now eric and we'll be back with erik prince founder of the notorious military contractor blackwater right after they so stay with us folks.

try to. look. like. it's a sure thing everybody. in the law know what. it's like but. let's say. something for nothing. it's not just stupid you'll be shocked if you see the state eight looking. but the other.

and we're back with erik prince founder of private military company blackwater so eric obviously there one incident that's received most attention is to shooting in a store square and the u.s. military labeled the shooting a criminal event and provoked shooting who should bear the brunt of her sponsibility. well i don't know the u.s. military labeled that at all that might have been one person's opinion that was given a look at say. anytime innocent civilians are injured or killed in battle it's a tragedy. as you're seeing played out in syria on

a daily basis when you have one hundred thirty thousand people killed by the regime bombing civilians bombing schools that's awful what happened in this era square just to give you context. there was a very dangerous time in iraq there was thousands of attacks on a daily basis across the country one of our helicopters were shot down a few days before two other small arms ambush but some were men in the hospital big roadside bomb attack that morning started with a suicide car bomb that blew up outside of a venue where a state department person was was at a meeting. we then sent a support team to clear one of the traffic circles making it possible for those. for the team to get that person back to safety and while they're waiting there some cars didn't stop didn't obey all the rules of engagement you know there was flashing lights sirens. even a laser. a laser beam that you'd shine even warning shots

a car kept coming so shots were fired to stop that car and then other small arms fire started hitting our vehicles and the reason the guys stayed there so long is because one of the incoming rounds actually severed the radiator hose at the bottom of their truck in the radiator fluid drained out. causing them to stay much longer and so there is lots of incoming rounds and certainly the men had to defend themselves any time an innocent civilian is injured or killed it's a tragedy do you personally feel any remorse for their dad innocent victims i mean i understand it's the war i add i get that but still you are a human being after all do you feel any remorse for that. sure i feel i feel great remorse for the forty one of our men that were killed in action doing the work between iraq and afghanistan i feel bad for the iraqi or the afghan people who are suffering. under way but i mean i know that you know that this morning civilians just walking around are passing by your man where contracted military workers we're

talking about the civilian casualties correct and unfortunately there was thousands of iraqi civilians killed before that event and tens of thousands killed after that . trying to work in a country that's a very active war zone where the country is ripping itself apart unfortunately there's a lot of people suffering and going in trying to to help that situation sometimes accidents can happen but. you know there's there's been tens of thousands of people killed by suicide car bombs by militias by them killing each other the same is still happening in syria i mean there's an add on we're told human suffering happen on a daily basis here in syria every day but you are like a serious private military for him you're not suicide car bombs what about the u.s. government do you feel like the u.s. government used you as a scapegoat to avoid responsibility in terms that yeah these guys went nuts and shop people will prosecute them just because they're perhaps for. you know in the vietnam war the anti-war left went after the u.s.

troops and this time the anti-war left went after any contractors serving in that in that mission and because you know i was the sole owner of the company i was a navy seal mike came from a conservative republican family my father was very wealthy. in our men were armed and we had the largest weapons training facility in the country privately owned so . we made a perfect target to go after. and we really got caught in the politics of the of the left versus right to the left trying to go after george bush and his policies. unfortunately we were we were a victim of those kind of plate tectonics growing against each other but do you feel betrayed by your own government that's what i'm asking because you served them after. having you know building your business based on the merits winning competitively bid contracts performing well doing one hundred thousand missions with no one under care killed or injured and then having it trashed because of

politics yeah that's a. you don't want to go through that again but when this source story broke out i remember the government gave you sort of a limited immunity they immunized you and then all of a sudden it all changed what happened there. again that's the politics of congress and of washington and and that's why i've i've moved on i sold all the blackwater related businesses i'm now the chairman of a company based in hong kong. and we were building out an aviation logistics capability to provide secure logistics for mining or energy companies infrastructure companies doing business in africa or another front or markets getting back to diplomatic security of sad that you recall in many many instances you regret working for the state department but you took so much pride in working for them are so government but of what you are so proud to work for the government would you do this again no. you know if i had to do it all over again i would have stayed in the oil and gas industry or mining and build

a business that way again i never never set out to really be a defense contractor i built a training facility that performed really well and we kept answering the phone with the u.s. government call the needed help and in the end we were kind of betrayed politically and i guess in u.s. parlance you've thrown under the bus you know some claim that blackwater was involved with the u.s. special forces in pakistan and in syria those are countries that us isn't officially at war with so it's not like you were doing the dirty work for them look i sold the business back in two thousand and ten and i've had nothing to do with it since then. so i can't speak to any involved in pakistan and certainly not in syria yet what about the cia contacts that were out in two thousand and nine well if you read the last chapter of my book there's a reason it's written by a third party. you know certainly the work that i did or the company did is been

leaked many times by by politicians that talk too much. you could read through the detail there but you know in tradition with a guy named bill donovan who was the founder of the o.s.'s the predecessor of cia he believed that. there's a lot to be gained from from using the civilian capability from the know how of americans that have capability courage you know how to do things in difficult places and so i tried to continue that tradition. you personally do you believe the wars in iraq and afghanistan where necessary or it's just a business opportunity. well look. nine eleven really damaged the american psyche you know when you have. you know the two tallest buildings in new york and the pentagon and even a fourth aircraft trying to attack simultaneously sure the taliban were hosting al qaeda. and they would reject him iraq and afghanistan war was absolutely necessary

hindsight it probably should have been more of a punitive raid and then leave not stay for you know twelve years. iraq again you have a state sponsor who is willing to use chemical weapons on its own people. but there were no chemical weapons that's not going to matter as of the right but there were no chemical weapons found there well there were some and i still believe they're out there what about now blackwater as it was formerly called is staying behind in afghanistan after the u.s. troops leave are they just the army's trojan horse i know you know they have anymore but i'm sure you have an answer to that well look any time you know there's going to be a diplomat be an embassy there will be some kind of a training or support function i'm sure left behind for the afghans because the you know they're they need support combat service support aviation support for the afghan army to try to continue to defend the country so there certainly be a role for private sector companies to do that i mean private sector companies have

played a significant role in the american national security really since the founding of this country why do you think that private military contractors are so widely used nowadays to even think of modern war is possible without mercenaries. well when you look back at military history for the last few thousand years contractors mercenaries if you will have been very much into woven into those fabrics nowadays when you have big convention militaries built to fight conventional fights you know the u.s. military was built to square off against the soviet union over western europe but when you take that conventional military and now try to retasking it as a counterinsurgency force it creates a lot of gaps and that's the kind of private sector stuff so i mean you can call you know if you want to say mercenaries would be cooks or cleaners or guys to do laundry or deliver the mail or drive trucks look there's lots of private sector functions and i guess one of the by products of modern capitalism is seeking the

most efficient way to deliver a good or a service in that sense the u.s. military figured it's cheaper for us to hire a contractor to do the laundry or to cook the food that it is to have you know a thousand or two thousand extra u.s. soldiers at a much higher cost basis to do that job right but you aren't exactly cooking fit her doing laundry but tell me who else do they share but whether whether it's whether it's a laundry or security or fixing aircraft or or operating a drone whatever those narrow skill sets are they have to be quickly assembled to do the other thing and i've given this example before. i could talk about in my book as well the you know we took over through a competitive bid the vertical replenishment mission which is when you embark a helicopter on a supply ship our helicopter and it flies from supply ship over to warship wherever those ships are out at sea and we showed up to do that job with two helicopters and eight guys the navy that we replaced was doing it with two helicopters and thirty

five guys same kind of helicopters really and so you know the problem is the navy admiral that said i need thirty five people to do that mission isn't having to pay for those so that's the danger of separating cost from demand and you tend to demand a lot more people so wait what now we're getting back to the beginning of the show where i tell you where you hired because the u.s. military wasn't as efficient as a private military firm turns out yes. well you know because we're not a business as are often told our employees we're not a line item in the federal budget if we don't convince our customers to hire us if we don't add the value and save the money then we're done so the private sector will always find a more innovative way to do things why not privatized the military altogether well because the realm of offensive combat operation should remain the realm of the states. but the support functions which is really where they spend a lot of their money can be privatized and can be done very efficient. and

a lot of that is done now i don't want to end on a dire note but we you are very proud of what you've achieved do you explain maine times why and you argued very well but for a for people in general blackwater thrived on conflict and misery did it ever bother you if you look at it that way. no you know. when i look at used it we used to build the afghan border police we built the bases we ran the base we trained tens of thousands of afghan policemen border police and you know we'd have to take that we actually had to adjust our schedule because these guys couldn't read couldn't write they'd never seen a flush toilet before many of them and so to take them through that and for eight weeks we had them in those programs and by the end of it they were so proud because it was the first time they've ever been part of something first class in their life that when they woke up in the morning there was hot food waiting and there was fuel for the vehicles in the instructors knew what they were teaching there was ammunition for the guns and

a curriculum that they could learn from again these guys had never been to a middle school or high school but they went to our program and they definitely benefited from it and we made them into a competent police officer that could they could operate in survive they were enormously proud of that and i said look at the graduations we're here because thirty years of constant war in afghanistan is enough and we're happy to help make peace and look you have to have a security presence you have to have security before you can have peace and before those people can can go from shifting thinking very very very short term because they're not sure they're going to live for another week or two into planting a farm growing our flock starting a business living a normal peaceful life and we're happy to be part of that solution eric thank you very much for that interesting insight into blackwater. that was erik prince founder of the private military company formerly known as blackwater thank you very much for this edition of said think well we'll see you next time.

in fish farms waters today you have a problem a because. i saw it spread all over norway is the most toxic food you have in the whole world profit drama zones on the tissue inquiry furthermore tells restrictions . that. really knows what's been signed the. law. says the media lead us so we leave

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crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. masta surgeon for ukraine's army as over four hundred soldiers cross into russia asking for shelter and the largest but not the first such case give those promises a rapid victory over the militias. not been duped and. broken through this now a sunni and say israel has violated its own ceasefire by attacking a refugee camp in gaza and killing a child there just twenty minutes after announcing the latest humanitarian window. and jihad islamic state fighters consolidate their hold over iraq by capturing another oil field down and three more town.