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#796
09-14-2005, 06:42 PM
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Overkill: Feared Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans
By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo
NEW ORLEANS -- Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force. Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served in Iraq on the personal security details of the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. "This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS (Continental United States)," a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. "We're much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq." Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans returned from Iraq as recently as 2 weeks ago. What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract from the federal and Louisiana state governments. Blackwater is one of the leading private "security" firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has several US government contracts and has provided security for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations. The company rose to international prominence after 4 of its men were killed in Fallujah and two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge in March 2004. Those killings sparked the massive US retaliation against the civilian population of Fallujah that resulted in scores of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees. As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." Officially, Blackwater says it forces are in New Orleans to "join the Hurricane Relief Effort." A statement on the company's website, dated September 1, advertises airlift services, security services and crowd control. The company, according to news reports, has since begun taking private contracts to guard hotels, businesses and other properties. But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general law enforcement activities including "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals." That raises a key question: under what authority are Blackwater's men operating? A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington Post he knows of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security. "We believe we've got the right mix of personnel in law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of public safety." he said. But in an hour-long conversation with several Blackwater mercenaries, we heard a different story. The men we spoke with said they are indeed on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and the Louisiana governor's office and that some of them are sleeping in camps organized by Homeland Security in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. One of them wore a gold Louisiana state law enforcement badge and said he had been "deputized" by the governor. They told us they not only had authority to make arrests but also to use lethal force. We encountered the Blackwater forces as we walked through the streets of the largely deserted French Quarter. We were talking with 2 New York Police officers when an unmarked car without license plates sped up next to us and stopped. Inside were 3 men, dressed in khaki uniforms, flak jackets and wielding automatic weapons. "Y'all know where the Blackwater guys are?" they asked. One of the police officers responded, "There are a bunch of them around here," and pointed down the road. "Blackwater?" we asked. "The guys who are in Iraq?" "Yeah," said the officer. "They're all over the place." A short while later, as we continued down Bourbon Street, we ran into the men from the car. They wore Blackwater ID badges on their arms. "When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?,'" said one of the Blackwater men. He was wearing his company ID around his neck in a carrying case with the phrase "Operation Iraqi Freedom" printed on it. After bragging about how he drives around Iraq in a "State Department issued level 5, explosion proof BMW," he said he was "just trying to get back to Kirkuk (in the north of Iraq) where the real action is." Later we overheard him on his cell phone complaining that Blackwater was only paying $350 a day plus per diem. That is much less than the men make serving in more dangerous conditions in Iraq. Two men we spoke with said they plan on returning to Iraq in October. But, as one mercenary said, they've been told they could be in New Orleans for up to 6 months. "This is a trend," he told us. "You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations." If Blackwater's reputation and record in Iraq are any indication of the kind of "services" the company offers, the people of New Orleans have much to fear. Jeremy Scahill, a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!, and Daniela Crespo are in New Orleans. Visit www.democracynow.org for in-depth, independent, investigative reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Email: jeremy@democracynow.org http://www.democracynow.org/static/Overkill.shtml
__________________
"To acknowledge death is to accept freedom and responsibility." "Fleetwood Mac and its fans remind me of a toilet plunger...keep bringing up old sh*t..." 
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#797
09-14-2005, 06:47 PM
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#798
09-14-2005, 06:48 PM
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__________________
 save the cheerleader - save the world
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#799
09-14-2005, 06:56 PM
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On what Brian posted - NOLA is in a bad way now. Many people have millions in art in some of those houses. Many have hired private security that helicoptered in a few weeks ago. If it were my art in my house, I would probably do the same. Also, it is widely reported down there that there is well organized art and other theft going on outside of any looters that remain and the police are too busy to stop it nor would it be fair to expect them to. I mean it would be a little hard to justify using public forces to save your Monets instead of someone's life or recovering someone's body and giving it a burial. Interestingly, the police are seemingly glad these private security forces are taking care of blocks as it frees up the police to go after other crime.
Anyway - I am not justifying the stuff in that article, I am just explaining why many have hired private security details.
__________________
save the cheerleader - save the world
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#800
09-14-2005, 07:16 PM
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Quote:
 everybody should adopt one
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#801
09-14-2005, 10:24 PM
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 I'm going to be sick. 
__________________
~Suzy
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#802
09-15-2005, 12:30 PM
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Oh that Karl Rove
September 15, 2005 Bush to Focus on Vision for Reconstruction in Speech Tonight By ELISABETH BUMILLER and RICHARD W. STEVENSON WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 - President Bush is to pledge in an address to the nation from New Orleans on Thursday night that the federal government will provide housing assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina and also help reimburse the states for costs they have absorbed in taking in evacuees, a White House official said Wednesday. The commitments are part of a series of initiatives that the president is expected to announce as he tries to recover from the political fallout over the government's handling of the storm. The initiatives will encompass education, health care and other social services, with specific housing and job assistance for people who return to New Orleans to live. White House officials said the president would not call for any set-asides or quotas for minorities in reconstruction contracts. The proposals were still in the planning stages on Wednesday night, and officials said the 9 p.m. address, the president's first major speech on the hurricane, would not be a State of the Union "laundry list" of proposals. Instead, they said, it would focus more generally on Mr. Bush's vision for the reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, with the federal government playing a supportive role to what White House officials are calling a "home-grown" plan that must be created by city and state authorities. "We're in the beginning of the rebuilding at this point, and there are a lot of ideas that people are expressing," Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday. "The president wants people to think big." Mr. McClellan indicated that Mr. Bush would not use the speech to name a "reconstruction czar" to oversee the effort. A number of White House officials have advised the president to name such a czar, with Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of forces in the 2001 war in Afghanistan, being a favorite of Republicans who are pushing the idea. White House officials also played down the notion that Mr. Bush would offer a "Marshall Plan" for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, as the Senate Republican leadership called for in a letter to the president on Wednesday. "We stand ready to work with you to lay out a comprehensive approach to the coordination of relief and development efforts through a 'Marshall Plan' for the Gulf Coast as soon as possible," said the letter, signed by Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and others. Instead, administration officials and a Republican close to the White House said Mr. Bush would offer some general principles about "building a better New Orleans" with stricter construction standards to try to avoid a replay of the recent catastrophe. Republicans said Mr. Bush would not mention a price tag, in large part because of budget and political pressures from House Republicans and other supporters angry about administration spending. Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort, which reaches across many agencies of government and includes the direct involvement of Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development. As of Wednesday, few if any members of Congress had been informed by the administration of the president's plans. But Congressional leaders nonetheless offered Mr. Bush advice on his speech. "I want him to reassure the people that the big part of this fight is ahead of us, and he's going to make sure that the federal government does a better job, does its part," Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, said in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday night. "We're all to blame to a degree." Mr. Lott added that Congress should never have passed legislation, as the White House wanted, that made the Federal Emergency Management Agency part of the Department of Homeland Security. "We went along with that, and I guess we'll have to go back and try to rewrite the history, but that should be an independent agency reporting only to the president of the United States," Mr. Lott said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/po...gewanted=print
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#803
09-15-2005, 12:34 PM
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^^^^
1. Note the Frist posturing 2. Rove is already in charge - so what's the big deal 3. Though I despise Lott, at least he had the sand to admit an error.
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#804
09-15-2005, 12:59 PM
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OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But, I hear from my friends there that the ins. companies are behaving mostly okay. I hear State Farm is issuing $2,500 initial checks to all policy holders with coverage and they will consider that amount int he final total. So, at least those people have some cash. ___________________________________________________________ Flood-damage insurance limits dismay residents Homeowners policies cover only so much Federal flood policies don't cover loss of use By Jeffrey Meitrodt Staff writer Carol Hess hoped she had shed her last tear over the ruins of what used to be her lovely four-bedroom house in Slidell. But an hour after the adjuster from State Farm came to visit her hurricane-ravaged property this week, Hess was crying again. Though Hurricane Katrina's storm surge dumped the contents of two neighboring townhouses into her back yard, crushing the back of her garage and driving a mountain of debris into her living room, the adjuster told Hess that virtually none of the damage would be covered by her homeowner's policy. His explanation: The debris came by water, not wind. And that means Hess' claim will be filed through her flood insurance policy. The debate about whether claims should be filed under homeowners or flood insurance policies is one that several hundred thousand policyholders are coming up against as they try to figure out how to pay for Katrina-related property damage. "It's not a black-and-white answer because each claim is different," said Bill Mellander of the Allstate Natural Catastrophe team in Northbrook, Ill. Homeowners policies provide compensation for damage resulting from high winds, but do not cover flood damage. The only water losses covered under a homeowners policy are those that occur after a windstorm has damaged a building, such as when water pours into the structure because a fallen tree created a hole in the roof. Flood damage is covered by federal flood insurance, which is a type of coverage held by a fraction of homeowners. Flood insurance, however, only covers damages up to $250,000. As a result, many homeowners would prefer to see their claims handled through homeowners insurance. And some policyholders are arguing that wind from the storm caused the levee breach that flooded the city, and that any water damage should be covered under a traditional storm policy. "In this event, the big (question) will be: What's wind and what's water?" said Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America. Hunter said it will be hard to make a case that wind led to the flooding. "I think that argument may have a class-action lawsuit to follow it," he said. The debate was addressed on Friday at a meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on Insurance. At the meeting, some Louisiana lawmakers said they would like the federal government to create a special appropriation to cover the difference between flood insurance and homeowner's policy payouts. Carol Hess and her husband, Bobby, have paid $364 a year for their flood policy. And State Farm adjuster Steve Evans said his week that the Hesses will be able to recover a maximum of $155,800 for damage to their Eden Isles home and its contents under the policy. If the adjuster had blamed the damage on the hurricane, the Hesses could have gotten as much as $277,918, according to their homeowners' policy, which cost $1,640 annually. The news blew them both away. "My house is demolished and you're telling me it was a flood," complained Bobby Hess, 58, a retired air-conditioning mechanic. "But water didn't pick up this roof and dump it in my back yard. This furniture didn't come by water. It was pushed here by the wind. It makes no sense to me. I am totally disgusted with the whole thing." Carol Hess couldn't hide her disappointment: "I paid $1,600 a year for nothing." This scene will likely be replayed countless times in the coming months, as insurance adjusters spread out across southeastern Louisiana, where most of the damage from Katrina was caused by water, not wind. While representatives of various insurance companies promise that each claim will be handled on an individual basis, they also note that the rules of the insurance business haven't changed in Katrina's wake. That means any damage caused to a home by rising water is covered by flood insurance, not a homeowner's policy. "A flood is defined as rising water, and it doesn't matter why the water is rising," said Jeff Albright, chief executive of the Independent Agents and Brokers of Louisiana. "If it rains faster than it can be pumped away, that's a flood. If a wind blows the Gulf of Mexico or some other body of water ... into the city, that is a flood and it is covered under flood insurance. Rising waters, by definition, are excluded from a homeowner's policy." For insurers, the distinction could save them billions of dollars. Any losses from flood insurance are covered by the federal government, and with damage from Katrina now estimated at $200 billion, it's easy to see why adjusters aren't anxious to make exceptions. In many parts of New Orleans, most of which lies below sea level, flood insurance is required by mortgage companies. But according to the Insurance Information Institute, about half of New Orleans residents still don't have flood insurance, compared with a national average of about 80 percent. Some homes in the New Orleans area that were affected by the 17th Street Canal flooding don't carry flood insurance because they are not in a flood plain. Bobby and Carol Hess could have gotten rid of their flood policy last year, when they paid off their 15-year mortgage. But they didn't even consider a change. "I always took the advice of my insurance agent," said Carol Hess, 57, an administrative worker for the IRS in New Orleans. "I asked several times if I had adequate coverage, and they said yes." Based on several property sales near their home on Moonraker Drive, Hess figures her house was worth about $350,000 before the storm. She estimates the family's personal property, including two small boats, was worth about $70,000. Most of that property is now lying in her driveway or the front yard. "This is the worst I've seen so far," said Evans, who has visited hundreds of water-logged homes in his six years as a catastrophe specialist for State Farm. To mitigate the damage to the two-story home, Bobby Hess removed everything that got wet when 3 feet of water inundated the property, including the kitchen cabinets, the first-floor furniture, the carpeting and the appliances. He even ripped out four feet of sheet rock on every wall, figuring it was the only way to stop mold from taking over the entire house. He also hauled out an eight-foot dresser that belonged to a neighbor across the nearby canal. It was one of many artifacts that washed up in his living room. The fact that so much debris made it into his house still stuns him. As he does ever time a major storm marches across the Gulf toward New Orleans, Hess covered each door and window of his home with a half-inch of plywood, all of it carefully labeled. Then he and his wife headed to a hotel in Montgomery, Ala. Despite his precautions, storm surge drove debris right through his sliding glass doors, shattering the glass and bending the frames. The water also dumped about five feet of shattered timber in his back yard, as well as a water heater and two refrigerators. The only thing Carol Hess recognizes in the mess is their riding lawnmower, which is barely visible. "Who is going to clean up this mess?" she asks Evans, who works as an adjuster on behalf of both the National Flood Insurance Program and State Farm. "The majority of this is not ours. Does the parish pick this up? Does the insurance company?" Once again, because Evans has determined that the primary cause of the damage was rising water, the answer comes as a blow. Hess is told that her policy will only cover the removal of debris that is in her house or touching it - she and her husband are responsible for everything else. After studying a copy of her homeowners' policy, Carol Hess walks over to Evans and points to an item marked "loss of use." She asks him what it means. Evans acknowledges that her home is now "uninhabitable," and says that if the damage had been caused by a hurricane, she would have been entitled to up to two years of additional living expenses. But the government offers no such coverage with flood policies, he notes. For Carol Hess, the answer is the last straw. She and her husband have been living in their son's small Madisonville home for the past two weeks, but their daughter-in-law is expecting a baby next month. They will have to move out soon and were hoping to rent a trailer and live in their driveway with air-conditioning supplied with a generator. Now, they don't know how they will pay for it. "What are we supposed to do?," asks Hess, crying. Evans suggests contacting FEMA, which is expected to hand out billions of dollars in disaster relief. "There is a lot of money coming into this state," Evans says. "I'm sure a lot of it is going to help people like you with your uninsured losses." That doesn't console Hess. "I called FEMA a week ago. I have yet to hear from them." Six hours after arriving at their home, Evans hands Bobby Hess a check for $10,000 to cover damage to their personal belongings. Ultimately, he says, the couple will get $31,400 for their personal property - he just needs them to finish an inventory first. Evans said it would take another week to give them a check for the damage to their home. Again, he said it could reach their policy limit of $124,400 - or less than half of what the owners think it is worth. Evans is apologetic. "I wish there was something different I could tell you," Evans told the Hesses. "But the government wrote this policy; we're just here to administer it." Carol Hess isn't mollified. "I know the coverage is dictated by the government, but the damage is being determined by State Farm." Staff writers Mary Judice, Jaquetta White and Rebecca Mowbray contributed to this report. Jeff Meitrodt can be reached at meitrodt@cox.net. www.nola.com
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save the cheerleader - save the world
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#805
09-16-2005, 02:34 PM
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Just to update...our 'family' will be here tomorrow. One of the churches has sent a van for them today. 2 parents, 3 kids, and a grandmother. The place is too small for that many to stay for a long time, but they will be staying temporarily until they find a more suitable place. Then someone else will likely move in. Kelly 
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#806
09-16-2005, 02:35 PM
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 I hope it works well and that you and your home can be of good comfort to them.
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#807
09-16-2005, 02:40 PM
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Thank you. I hope it works well for them too. I'm excited... and really want them to be able to rest comfortably without worry for a little while. Kelly
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#808
09-16-2005, 03:01 PM
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__________________
~Suzy
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#809
09-16-2005, 04:16 PM
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Who! Just read your update Kelly -that's awesome!!
I really hope that it goes well for you - and for that family
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#810
09-16-2005, 07:05 PM
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Eeek, who saw the police chief and the city official going at it on AC 360?
And that interview right afterwards was even more vicious. I am in shock that these people have been without shelter or any type of roof over their heads for three weeks now. Where is the relief?
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