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 lets 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 didnt 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 its amazing that when you say we didnt employ angels we employed veterans but right now you want to do it all again thats the problem is it not. Well heres 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 its 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 its 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 thats barbaric which is true i think if youve read charity called whatever you want but you said these were the chanting barbarians american troops have been sent to liberate you werent 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 dont you dont believe iraq is above areas of the snow but i believe that terrorists that car bombs in the city square certainly are ok youre 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 couldnt 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 thats 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 its not i believe in battle plan 6000 people can do what 140000 couldnt sure im not an expert on mouth but that seems we did well heres the thing you have 15000 u. S. Troops there now theres about 7000. 00 nato and another 30000. 00 contractors so im 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 theyre very productive in the last month theyre 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 weve 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 dont like your plan they say its 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 theyre dead against it. But ive talked to other people ive 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 youre waiting for a change of president to get your plan. Heres the thing if they dont 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 were 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 heres the thing the United States has no one person thats in charge of afghan policy theres nobody that the president can turn to and say why is afghanistan after this. Yeah sure that doesnt help he doesnt control the military his intro the intelligence funding he doesnt 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 im 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 theyre 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 captains last words this blackwater employee flying the plane his last words were i swear to god they wouldnt 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 thats right its 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 companys 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 thats got nothing to do with the culpability that your company had for the deaths of those u. S. Soldiers they didnt 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 emailing each other at the time the email came out said by necessity the initial group hired to support the afghanistan operation did not meet the criteria identified in email 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 youre saying internally your own companys admitting to each other hes 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 emailing 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 heres 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 lets 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 youve said u. S. Generals have loft erics plan for afghanistan youve 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 youve never raised or deployed a military like youre advertising now i have in places and it takes hold its a lot more sophisticated than just mentors in the field it doesnt quite up to Political Leadership in kabul and theyve already had message that they dont support this this is a dead deal in my opinion well and that youre 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 im the only guy that can say ive had 56 of my own aircraft in country doing that kind of work for the u. S. Military ok Ghaith Abdulahad is an Award Winning guardian journalist. From iraq youve covered conflicts in iraq afghanistan yemen and beyond gave how do the iraqi people remember blackwater and erik prince in your view i mean its 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 im 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 im not talking only about the kind of massacre but im 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 shouldnt be the one doing it given the legacy youve left behind with certainly here is the thing your your math is a little skewed because the us didnt invade iraq till 2003 i sold the company in 2010 so thats 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 didnt 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 dont use the word contract or something that was blackwater in yemen in whatever in somalia they dont use mercenaries ok so youve been in afghanistan reaches well over if youre able to do the afghans will welcome this plan eric is putting on the table. Ive 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 its 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 were not beating government officials are not talking to the minister youre 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 were 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 whats the hold it a different thing i think what we have to remember and indeed ive 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 youve 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 its a question of who supervising them because the people when we look at them who were in court and convicted were not of the quality were not of the hue how did they get there how did they get there while were hearing poor quality circle towards the end of your beard in iraq well because theres 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 its 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 youre the 1st ok but its 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 theres also you know millions drum as its 9 year old children taken away for work whether its hamas in palestine in pakistan afghanistan or iraq bad guys get ambulances with explosives and kill innocent people not in the cases i cited were going to take a break in part 2 were going to talk to erik prince about some of his work in china and his relationship with the trumpet ministration and were 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 speaki