Licensed to Kill (30 page)

The young marine asks, “You guys Blackwater?” with a sense of awe palpable in his voice.

“Everything all right?” Guy asks again in his best cool-guy voice.

The soldier hunches his shoulders against the cold, his breath making small white clouds. “Fine, sir.”

In the cold night, the marines guarding the gate appear just scared, tired, pimply kids. The contractors of Blackwater are the war's rock stars to them, and one asks, “Hey, can we come by your compound and get a hat?”

Guy answers, “No problem.”

As we drive off, Guy says, “Those guys are the front line. I always take the time to ask them how they're doing. When there are suicide attacks, they go against this gate.”

Despite the considerable drawbacks of the job, American military contractors are the top of the food chain in the war on Iraq, though they'd never admit it. They get the most pay, and even though insurgents may target them during their daily routine, they don't have to go down dark alleys, kick in doors, or spend a whole year away from their family. One of the scared, tired, pimply faced marines guarding the gate that night will be shot in the neck and killed by a sniper tomorrow. Others will go home in a few months to broken marriages, high debt, and nothing in the bank. The contractors know they can change jobs, change their minds, or just go home at any time. Unlike the marines shivering at Gate 12 and counting the minutes until daylight, the experienced know war is too ugly and dangerous to fight for too cheap. As Rick tells me on the drive home, “some people are making a thousand dollars a day; some make two-fifty doing static. Everybody is making money here, except the soldiers fighting the war.” In addition to their day rate, Blackwater contractors also get to cash checks for $650 a week, just to have a little spending money in-country. Gecko recently purchased a $1,300 MP5 submachine gun. T-Boy bought a used BMW 7 series for $5,000. Some have never had this much money. But considering our earlier death-related discussion, the possible trade-off just doesn't seem worth it to me. I soon realize, however, that each contractor I meet uses his own personally unique calculus to weigh the risks and rewards of the job.

The next morning is so cold that the generator has to be jump-started. After fixing the problem, Rick, the logistics manager, stays outside for his first Newport menthol of the day, and I join him for what has become our routine early morning chat. As he takes a drag off the cigarette, Rick absentmindedly rubs the large scar on his neck that marks where he had his lymph nodes removed after a cancer diagnosis a few years back. I half-ass suggest that he might one day think about quitting smoking, which spurs the response: “Hey, you want to hear a sad story?” Rick apparently did stop smoking for a while after his brush with cancer, but started again when he couldn't handle the stress of estrangement from his daughter. He tells me, “I gave her anything she wanted, but then I had to put my foot down. I said, ‘No more money; you're on your own.' She said she hates me. I started smoking again.” The rift obviously weighs heavily on him, but he doesn't think there is any way to resolve it yet. I ask him if he is worried about getting cancer again. Rick shakes his head and says, “We all have to die sometime.” Rick usually volunteers to drive the slow and unarmored bongo truck.

Later that afternoon, I'm sitting in the TV room writing when I hear a roar of truck engines that fades into the unmistakable guitar riffs of AC/DC. I walk outside to see a thick cloud of dust floating over the compound walls from streetside. The Blackwater Hillah team has arrived.

They've pulled up outside the Blackwater compound in their convoy of three armored GMC Suburbans and a soft-skin, “trash-armored” hate truck. In official nomenclature, the “hate truck” is the counterassault team, or CAT, since it hangs back so it can rush into an ambush in progress to engage attackers long enough for the VIP to escape. Inside, rusty steel plates have been fitted to the doors, making for a cheap but effective armor. The team keeps the Suburbans immaculate for VIP transport, but it looks like they have swathed the hard welded steel plates of the hate truck in silver duct tape, and road dust coats both the outside and the interior. The well gunner rides with the rear gate open, which sucks dirt into the back end, covering everything with a fine brown powder. The “trunk monkey,” a lanky, blond ex-SEAL, wants to give me a tour of his position to show off his toys. In the back, he rides in a homemade steel box with a selection of weapons hanging from the ceiling: a pump-action shotgun “for up close,” and a SAW machine gun for “serious shit.” Unlike the air-conditioned civility of the armored Suburbans, the hate truck exudes, well, hate—from the four-inch white plastic skull mounted on the dashboard to the raw, rusty metal edges of the homemade armor to the pounding rock music that blasts from the mutilated vehicle.

The Hillah-based Blackwater contractors dismount their mechanical steeds and literally strut around the yard, stretching their legs after the long run from Hillah. They're dirty and tired, and have some time to waste before they have to pick up an incoming crew from the airport. Even though they have time to relax for a while, the Hillah team doesn't switch off. They don't even really come into the house, preferring to stand around and keep watch, not straying too far from their war wagons. The Hillah team and the Mamba team are going to roll out to the airport together in one long convoy, though the plan doesn't sit well with the Hillah guys. “We gotta roll with the Mambas? We are going to get shot to shit!” one bearded man jokes, displaying a kind of interteam suspicion common throughout the security industry.

The Mamba team is mostly marines; the Hillah team is predominately SEALs. Even though they all do the same thing for the same company, each team within Blackwater represents its own tribe. Sometimes teams are fully stocked with either retired SEALs, marines, or SF, making the group identity even stronger. The only guys who don't seem to trash-talk the others are the ex-cops. They just don't have the necessary ego and swagger. Team cohesiveness is so strong, one may hesitate to trust or rely on anyone outside their own tight circle, always suspecting that another team's methods are somehow less safe than their own.

I start snapping pictures outside as they get ready to leave. Before he poses with the group, the tail gunner rips off a piece of black tape to hide his eyes. “Hey, don't they add those later?” one asks jokingly. Another shouts out his suggested caption for the portrait: “Mercenaries in Iraq.” A short, burly ex-marine fully decked out in heavy gear and walking bowlegged like a cowboy lets out a stream of brown tobacco juice as he stops to tell me, “I got twenty years in the Marine Corps. I don't know what else I could do. Hell, I don't know what else I am good for!” The contractors load up the convoy, check gear and communications, and disappear in a rolling cloud of dust and a blast of Metallica.

A few hours later, on their way home from the airport, the Hillah team will be ambushed by a group of trucks that materialize out of nowhere and begin hammering the Suburbans with PKM heavy-machine-gun fire. The insurgents don't seem to notice the hate truck, with its blaring music and skullhead talisman, bearing down on them at high speed from behind. The blond tail gunner pulls his SAW and continuously drills holes into the trucks, killing one attacker and forcing the others to break contact and flee. As the insurgents speed off in disarray, the amped team has a split second to decide whether or not to pursue and keep firing, but they choose to get off the X instead. The blond tail gunner will angrily tell me later that he wishes he could have finished the job, particularly since the insurgents returned to the attack site later to booby-trap the body of the man he had killed. The trap ends up killing two marines who come by to inspect the site and roll over the body.

Leaving Iraq

A few days later, I head out with the Mamba team on an airport run from which I won't return. My month is up. I'm going home. On my last ride down Route Irish, all the blackened, gravel-filled craters and burnt car hulks along the way look familiar. It has become much easier to distinguish the suspicious from the mundane. I say my good-byes to the team in the shade of the airport Arrivals lobby, and they all wish me well. I have enjoyed being the Mamba team's bullet bitch, late-night confessor, and chronicler. Some of the guys will rotate out in a month, and despite the intensity of violence, I think Miyagi and his no-nonsense coplike view of the job will keep them safe.

With one last wave, I head inside to meet the crew of the Blackwater CASA 212, a small private plane that ferries contractors in and out of Iraq. Unlike the Royal Jordanian flight that uses a pressurized Fokker twin engine jet, the CASA is a long, noisy, cold ride over a featureless tan desert.

Preflight procedures at BIAP comically replicate the diligence of the Transportation Security Administration in the United States. Young Iraqi women search carefully through our baggage but miss anything tucked away. At the gate, an older American with a bad comb-over pats us all down in a needlessly touchy body search—particularly needless when a flight crew member admits to Mr. Comb-Over that he is wearing a loaded 9-mm Glock. He gets searched anyway, and they hilariously put his gun through the X-ray machine before returning it. Noncrew members are not allowed to carry any weapons onto a flight, and one of our team has a folding knife seized. The security guard hands it to our pilot, who just hands it back to the contractor. The outgoing contractors wear looks of disgust as they go through the charade. We are all well aware that only days before someone managed to sneak an entire Mercedes loaded with explosives aboard a DHL plane. Wearing a loaded gun or carrying a pocket knife seems minor, particularly since we'll be traveling on a private Blackwater flight.

As we walk across the tarmac and out to the plane, one of the guards yells at us to walk between the yellow barrier tape. It makes no sense, but then again, it is BIAP.

Once we're on board the plane, the Blackwater crew breaks open a large aluminum box and hands out loaded M4 weapons to each passenger. If this plane gets shot down and anyone survives, they won't go without a fight. To make sure we can escape a crash, the pilot lowers the rear hydraulic ramp. The CASA doesn't just take off; it leaps into the air and heads straight up—the much more violent reverse of the corkscrew spin the Royal Jordanian flight does when it lands. Only the ground is visible through the open rear door. Once the CASA has rocketed up to a safe cruising altitude above the range of surface-to-air missiles, the weapons are put back on safety and locked up again. What may seem like a bit of overly paranoid precaution will prove to be an appropriate security measure three months later when insurgents shoot down one of Blackwater's helos and drag the injured pilot out to shoot him at point-blank range.

After we land in Jordan that night, a single bullet found in one of the contractors' luggage causes us onerous delay in Jordanian customs. Although Jordan has shipped thousands of tons of light and heavy weapons to Iraq, they don't want any returning. The Blackwater fixer is a former officer in the Jordanian secret police who works out the problem with customs and gets us out of there in a little over an hour.

A generic Amman hotel houses the incoming and outgoing Blackwater contractors, and Justin “Shrek” McQuown is there to greet us when we arrive. Though it is the first nightspot the outgoing contractors have seen in at least three months, and the last one the incoming will see for three more, a grim atmosphere hangs over Players Sports Bar on the eighth floor. The outgoing sit silently thinking of the thousands of mundane things that need to be taken care of when they get home. The inbound reflect on the risks and rewards of being thrust in between the insurgency and the U.S. occupation. With early flights to catch, bags to pack, and phone calls to make, the contractors clear out of the bar early.

As I sink into bed, I think about the dozens of runs back and forth along Route Irish. Throughout my month in Iraq, Blackwater PSD teams had come and gone, new ICs rotated in and others rotated out. Car bombs, snipers, blocked roads, suspicious packages in the median, and the high-speed drive to and from the airport all turned into a day at the office. The morning briefings, once ominous and frightening, became routine as Miyagi reminded us at the beginning and the end: “New Day, New Mission.” Every successful run the Mamba team made reduced the odds that the men would not make it home safely to their families. T-Boy told me before I left that I must be a lucky charm, since none of the Mambas had been hit or any of the close-knit team killed or injured while I was riding along. I didn't know that in a few weeks the Mamba team would be blown up by an IED, killing one and seriously injuring two, including Miyagi. For now, I was out.

Part Three

Of Rogues and Tycoons

CHAPTER 9

         

An Army of One

“I want to kill every fucking Afghan I can.”

—“J
ACK” IN
T
HE
H
UNT FOR BIN
L
ADEN

“The only thing that that Jack should be allowed to attack and kill is his bar tab.”

—O
WNER OF THE
M
USTAFA
H
OTEL IN
K
ABUL

On September 10, 2001, Jonathan Keith Idema was living the less-than-idyllic existence of an ex-soldier and convicted felon in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The next day, as he watched thousands of Americans murdered on the command of a turbaned and bearded Arab hiding in a South Asian cave, Idema discovered a new sense of purpose. He was going to kill bin Laden, along with any other suspected terrorists he could find. He informed friends and family immediately that he'd be packing his bags and heading to Afghanistan as soon as he could find a way. For Idema, President Bush's demand in a nationally televised address a few days later for bin Laden to be brought in “dead or alive” was the directive he sought to buttress his already-simmering ambitions. The post-9/11 world opened a Pandora's box of prospects for adventurers, conmen, and opportunists, and created the perfect environment for a man like Idema to satisfy the most dominant aspects of his character: his fervid patriotism and need for action and admiration. The multimillion-dollar bounty on bin Laden's head also stimulated his ambition. He soon began planning his first trip into Afghanistan—the beginning of a dark odyssey that would ultimately see him arrested in Kabul for operating an illegal prison and torturing its prisoners.

Idema's transformation from a down-on-his-luck ex-soldier and felon to the “superpatriot” he now calls himself began on September 12, 2001, when he managed to arrange an appearance on Fox affiliate KTTV, billing himself as a counterterrorism expert. In this capacity, he suggested to viewers that three Canadian aircraft may have also been hijacked the day before. While the idea seems preposterous, Idema offered it with the same characteristic bluster that would enable him to operate so successfully in the many roles he would assume over the next three years. From his first appearance as an expert on September 12 until his arrest in July of 2004, Idema would come to be known as many things—documentary producer, humanitarian, CIA contractor, DoD contractor, Special Forces member, Northern Alliance advisor, tour guide, Pentagon official, media consultant, freelance prison operator, torturer-interrogator, and bin Laden bounty hunter. Some roles were real, some imagined, but few were questioned or investigated until overwhelming pressure from Idema's victims spurred authorities to arrest him and his tiny band of mercenaries. Idema's exploits were no more than a sideshow to the real action in Afghanistan, and Jack himself was no more than a bit player with no real role in the legitimate private security industry. However, what Idema did manage to accomplish in Afghanistan speaks to a hidden danger created by the increasing profusion of armed civilians in a theater of war.

The many layers of deception in which his life is shrouded makes it difficult to fully dissect the enigma of Jonathan Keith Idema, and the wildly incorrect and compulsively dishonest tales he has fed to the press suggest that an interview with him would be more for entertainment than illumination. But through my conversations with many associates and others who've known Idema, a very disturbing portrait has emerged of how easily an ordinary, if deeply flawed, individual can take advantage of the shadowy modus operandi of covert operators and the recent explosion in the U.S. government's use of private contractors. Idema has proven that an ambitious civilian upstart with certain key skills can soldier on independently of any government oversight, command, external financial support, or approval.

After 9/11, spurred by anger and his deep sense of patriotism, Idema felt certain he could hunt down bin Laden if given the opportunity, but he had to find a way into Afghanistan first. For his first trip into the war zone, he managed to create an opportunity for himself working on a National Geographic–financed documentary that was supposed to chronicle the work of two humanitarian organizations. While that sounds like an innocuous and even valiant endeavor, in reality Idema ended up scamming two well-meaning NGOs and attempting to make a documentary of his own dramatized heroism.

A small man with a tiny frame, bad eyesight, and black-dyed, thinning hair, Idema has a dominating persona and a talent for charm, when he chooses. Although he only stands five foot nine, he makes a lasting impression on the people who meet him. Edward Artis, director of one of the scammed NGOs, holds Idema in about as much regard as many others who have crossed the man's path: “If his hod is full of shit and falls on him, that's okay with me.”

Artis, a former army airborne soldier from the 82nd, has specialized in frontline humanitarian work since the early 1970s, including many trips to Afghanistan. His tiny NGO, Knightsbridge International, keeps things simple and moves fast. Though he already had a filmmaker following him to South Asia, ever mindful of the donation-generating benefit of publicity, Artis agreed to allow another film crew from National Geographic television to join his caravan when a friend referred Idema.

“The Nat Geo thing happened through Idema. I admit, I fucked up. In October of 2001, Jim Morris, who is a fellow Knight of Malta, a former Special Forces major, and writes for
Soldier of Fortune,
contacted me. Then Idema approached me via e-mail after being introduced by Morris. The way I figured it back then, Idema was a guy just out of prison, looking to do something honest…. He said he was producing a documentary for National Geographic with producer Gary Scurka and former CBS cameraman Ed Caraballo.”

Despite Artis's first impression, Jonathan Keith Idema did not view himself as a felon trying to go straight. He had reinvented himself as “Jack,” a crime-fighting, bad-guy-punching, ex–Green Beret using his amazing skills and secret connections to save the world from evil. In reality, Idema was broke and involved in multiple frivolous and self-enriching lawsuits, including suing Dreamworks for allegedly stealing his life story and even suing a company for repossessing his Jeep when he missed payments. A cursory investigation into Idema's background would have found arrest records for receiving stolen property, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, being a fugitive from justice, two counts of assault by pointing a firearm, discharging a firearm into a dwelling, communicating threats and assault on a female, and federal convictions on one count of conspiracy and fifty-five counts of wire fraud. Idema had never been to Afghanistan or been seriously involved in humanitarian work but saw an opportunity to use the lens of a documentarian's camera to record for posterity all the heroic deeds he intended to commit, or at least to dramatize.

The Nat Geo documentary wasn't the first time Idema had tried to cast himself in the role of hero. In May 1995, Jim Morris had sent a film pitch to Steven Spielberg entitled
Loose Cannon: The Keith Idema Story,
described as a “treatment based on Idema's exploits but replete with fictionalized accounts,” a pattern Idema followed faithfully even in real life. This film treatment became the basis for a 2000 lawsuit brought by Idema and Morris against Steven Spielberg, Dreamworks, George Clooney, and others involved in the 1997 nuclear smuggling film
The Peacemaker.
They sued for $150 million, but the case was dismissed and Idema was later ordered to reimburse Dreamworks's legal fees of $273,000.

As sketched out in
Loose Cannon,
Idema claims that while he was in Lithuania training police in the early 1990s, he learned about an extensive network of black-market smuggling in nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union. Upon his return to the United States, Idema reported this information to the Pentagon and the FBI, but when pressed to turn over his contacts for this information, he refused. When Idema was later arrested on more than fifty counts of wire fraud, he contended that the FBI was unfairly punishing him for not turning over his sources. He says this conspiracy was behind his prosecution, conviction, and stint in federal prison, not his actions in falsifying credit lines to purchase, but not pay for, supplies for his failing mail-order business. Abuse by conspiracy, hatred of the FBI, alleged theft of property, and total denial of any wrongdoing had been common themes in Idema's life for years before he capped off his life's performance in Afghanistan.

During his trial, Idema ignored his court-appointed attorney and acted as his own lawyer. He constantly made claims of conspiracy and belittled the evidence, as well as the judge and prosecutor. The judge presiding over the case took umbrage at Keith's claims, excuses, and behavior. Magistrate Wallace Dixon told Idema, “In my assessment, you are a bully who apparently likes to talk, to hear his own tongue wagging.” Later, Dixon continued, “I think you are sick. I don't know of any other way to say it. I think you have a mental illness.” Judge Terrence Boyle's opinion of Idema was equally harsh: “All of the things you purport about what a wonderful patriot you are and what a singled-out person you are is pure fantasy.” Idema's response was typical: “I'm going to sue the FBI,” he said. “They know I'm going to go on TV. They know I'm going to go to Congress. They know I'm not going to give up until I prove my innocence.” On April 11, 1995, thirty-eight-year-old Keith Idema was sentenced to four years in prison and fined $250,000.

Defeated and chastised in the courts and penal system, Idema did turn to the media to fight his battle. Jim Morris, a longtime friend and co-complainant in the Dreamworks lawsuit, supported Idema's tale of persecution and reported on the case of the Lithuanian nukes for
Soldier of Fortune
in April and May of 1995. It didn't take long for CBS to send one of their top investigative journalists, Gary Scurka, to interview Idema in prison. The October 1995
60 Minutes
segment on Lithuanian nuclear smuggling ended up winning awards for investigative journalism, but those assembling the broadcast felt uncomfortable about the quality of one of their sources and completely excluded the interview with the bug-eyed federal prisoner from the segment.

Idema reconnected with Scurka after being released from jail in 1997, and the two started a production company together called Point Blank News. Idema pushed for their first project to be
Any Lesser Man: The Keith Idema Story,
but despite Scurka's belief in Idema's story, networks and financial backers did not share their enthusiasm. Of the $1 million they needed to start production, they managed to raise only about a quarter, and ended up shelving the project.

Mr. Potato Head

After September 11, when Idema heard about Ed Artis's planned trip into Afghanistan, it must have sounded like an opportunity for the reformulation of
Any Lesser Man.
Though the documentary pitch ostensibly focused on the work of Ed Artis, Idema envisioned a starring role for himself as another ex-soldier turned humanitarian braving danger to lessen the suffering of poor Afghans. As war against the Taliban loomed, and the American public thirsted for any information on their newly discovered enemy, media organizations scrambled to fill programming hours with anything related to Afghanistan. In this environment, it seemed of little consequence that Idema had no humanitarian, military, business, or any other connection to Afghanistan. The pitch to National Geographic, called “Operation Pathfinder,” portrayed “Keith” as a leader of a team of ex–Green Berets who would come to the rescue of “Sir Edward Artis,” a Vietnam vet and “one of the world's most renowned humanitarians.” The pitch describes Keith as a man who did time for a crime he did not commit and now wants to “get back into the action.”

Idema first contacted Ed Artis as Artis was waiting in Tajikistan for passage into Afghanistan with filmmaker Adrian Belic, who was shooting a documentary,
Beyond the Call
. Even in that first conversation, Artis remembers Idema as being less than forthcoming about the focus of the documentary. Artis recalls: “We're in the convoy getting ready to go over and I get this call on my sat phone from Idema. We filmed that call. I got pictures of him telling me about Nat Geo. ‘Gary Scurka of Nat Geo wants to come in and do a doco on you.' ‘What's the pitch?' I asked. ‘I've been in the biz. Let me see the outline.' Idema says, ‘We will get the outline to you before we come over.' Idema told me, ‘Gary Scurka doesn't want to give it to you by e-mail. We will bring it with us,' he says. I say fine. The idea was they'd do a documentary on Knightsbridge International's efforts to help the people of Afghanistan. You know, ex-military guys doing humanitarian work while bombs fall around them kinda stuff. Coverage is good, but with me it's mission first. It's not about me.”

Artis didn't want to delay his mission into Afghanistan and quickly became impatient with how long it was taking his new documentarian tagalongs to get moving. “I told Idema to come via Tajikistan and to get a visa. I told him, ‘Look I am not waiting for you. We're going to a fucking war zone, buckwheat.'” Although NGOs were being blocked from entry at that time, Artis and Belic went in on October 14 under the guise of journalists and actually did some radio reports to justify their visas.

At the end of October 2001, Idema and Scurka finally made the trip, joined by retired Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Greg Long, a humanitarian from Partners International Foundation, the other NGO whose work was supposed to be featured in the Nat Geo documentary. As Artis recalls, the group encountered problems before their trip really began. “They fly into Russia and then Uzbekistan without a visa. I TOLD them to get a visa. I figure they are with NGOs, they know how to get a visa. The Uzbeks arrested all three of them for three days in the VIP lounge.” On November 2, 2001, Idema managed to convince a young desk officer at the embassy that he was a DoD contractor. It may have been an understandable error, since Idema had the embassy verify his citizenship through the head of Partners International Foundation, who also happens to be an active-duty colonel at SOCOM, or Special Operations Command, from where many covert operations are managed.