Ripped from Yahoo News:
“Blackwater hires Public relations giant Burson-Marsteller”
Three sentances to sum up the issue quite neatly in a soft little package:
“According to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Blackwater has received federal contracts worth more than a $1 billion, with the bulk of its earnings coming from the State Department.
On Tuesday, Prince, 38, spent several hours at the witness table as Democrats on the oversight committee accused his company of being above the law and his guards of being indifferent to Iraqi casualties.
The fees Blackwater charges are excessive, they said, and Prince and his associates have become wealthy because of the war.”
full(er) story HERE
and helpful commentary HERE by Mark Rose in a blog post Titled “Burson digs itself deeper” which is lucky winner of today’s quote of the day: “Now, Blackwater has hired Burson to put a positive gloss on gun-toting, outside-the-law vigilantes who siphon off hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to wage a private war in Iraq. I am sure that Burson has a ready-made defense for accepting this client – everybody deserves representation, and all that – but the reality is that Burson is part of WPP Group plc and the parent company demands constant escalation of the revenue stream. And you can bet that Blackwater has very deep pockets, thanks to our tax money. The equation has a perverse elegance when you think about it: We pay Blackwater over $800 million to shoot first and ask questions later, and they pay Burson a few million to tell us what we should really think about it. Isn’t PR beautiful?”
Near-hopeless PR challenge?
-PJT
1 response so far ↓
Aaron R. Linderman // October 10, 2007 at 2:52 pm
The claim that Blackwater is outside the law simply is not true. In fact, private military contractors are accountable several times over. First, they are accountable to the tightly-written terms of their State Department contracts. As a result of Congressional legislation, they are also accountable to FBI investigation and US criminal prosecution. Finally, the claim that they are immune from Iraqi prosecution is mostly false. Order 17, issued in 2004, stipulates that “Contractors shall be immune from Iraqi legal process with respect to acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract or any sub-contract thereto.” In other words, contractors getting drunk and causing trouble in their spare time get no immunity. This is quite different from national military forces, which are unequivicolly “immune from Iraqi legal process.” In this regard, Blackwater is actually MORE accountable than the US military.