Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's a stunning story from the New York Times: back in 2005, Blackwater dropped CS gas (similar to tear gas) at a Baghdad checkpoint:
Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint."This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous," Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. "It's not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness."
First of all, how the hell did Blackwater get their hands on CS gas? It's illegal to export the stuff out of the country. Did they violate the law, as they did when they exported silencers? Worse yet, no one seems to know if anyone even bothered to investigate the incident:
She said that the episode was reported to the United States Embassy in Baghdad, and that the embassy's chief security officer and the Department of Defense conducted a full investigation. The troops exposed to the gas also said they reported it to their superiors. But military officials in Washington and Baghdad said they could not confirm that an investigation had been conducted. Officials at the State Department, which contracted with Blackwater to provide diplomatic security, also could not confirm that an investigation had taken place.
Well as long as they were diligent. All of this is almost certainly against the law:
Blackwater says it was permitted to carry CS gas under its contract at the time with the State Department. According to a State Department official, the contract did not specifically authorize Blackwater personnel to carry or use CS, but it did not prohibit it.The military, however, tightly controls use of riot control agents in war zones. They are banned by an international convention on chemical weapons endorsed by the United States, although a 1975 presidential order allows their use by the United States military in war zones under limited defensive circumstances and only with the approval of the president or a senior officer designated by the president.
"It is not allowed as a method or means of warfare," said Michael Schmitt, professor of international law at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. "There are very, very strict restrictions on the use of CS gas in a war zone."
Blackwater says it was released by mistake, but even if that's true it is irrelevant. If even the US military can't use it without approval from the highest levels of government, Blackwater sure as hell can't be carrying it around to use whenever they feel like it. Oh, and here is your moment of irony: Saddam Hussein used CS gas against the Kurds.
Comments
Do the Rules of Engagement not allow our troops to return fire when they are under attack?
Posted by: kehrsam | January 11, 2008 9:28 AM
I have to say that I'm disturbed by 2 things here. The first is what Ed is actually getting at; that Blackwater actually had CS gas to use (and used it). The other thing, however, is a dramatic development in the military forces. Through basic training and when I was deployed to a war zone (during the first gulf war)it was drilled into us that you went nowhere without your gas-mask (among other items). It should be attached to your hip even while sleeping. Why were these soldiers manning a checkpoint without their gas-masks? If they had their gas-masks, why would they be incapacitated? NBC training was real and hard-core during my service has it slacked off that much since? These things greatly disturb me.
Posted by: Scott Reese | January 11, 2008 9:48 AM
So no one seems to have investigated the incidence? I'm smelling a cover up. Someone, somewhere in the U.S. army, either gave them this stuff to use or they found it abandoned on U.S. equipment. If this CS gas was used by Saddam to gas the Kurds and our own government used that incident as one excuse to go after him then they should be doing the same with Blackwater. Anyone involved should made to stand trial through a national court on war crimes.
Posted by: llDayo | January 11, 2008 9:51 AM
Well, there should be very little risk of being gassed now. During the first war and the beginning phase of this the risk was being gassed by the Iraqis. Once the government fell that risk went down a ton. I think they figure the reduced mobility from lugging MOPP gear around is a bigger risk than being gassed.
Posted by: SeanH | January 11, 2008 9:58 AM
As a point of interest, I was actually hit with CS gas on purpose while doing my military training. The experience was not pleasant. There was retching and gasping for air, but the worst for me was the temporary blindness. That was most unsettling. Luckily it cleared after a few seconds. Others in my unit tossed their cookies and one guy peed his pants. It was an exercise to underline the importance of using our gas masks, which none of us thought to put on when we saw the preliminary smokers. Needless to say, we failed that one.
It should be noted that the gas attacks on the Kurds consisted of several gases, CS being amoung the least dangerous. Others were mustard, sarin and VX gas. Some have suggested maybe HCN.
Posted by: Dave S. | January 11, 2008 10:33 AM
I don't know about America but it's perfectly legal for anybody to buy CS gas here in Germany.
Posted by: Thony C. | January 11, 2008 12:00 PM
CS is just tear gas, something that you become VERY used to if you've been in the Army for a few years. It's not dangerous, but it'll disperse a crowd quickly. It's NOT like the lethal stuff used in the Anfal campaign in Kurdish Iraq.
Blackwater seems to have top-tier access to equipment in Iraq, able to bring in their own equipment under State Dept rules whereas many of the other PMCs trying to get a piece of the pie are limited to only equipment (primarily weapons) acquired in country. Hence, you'll see Blackwater PMCs with western carbines and other PMCs with local AKs. So it doesn't surprise me that Blackwater has access to CS, flash bangs, smoke, etc. It's pretty common across the board, but again, they're uber-connected at the .gov level, so it doesn't surprise me.
Now the issue of what happened at the checkpoint, I'm not sure. It sounds fishy, but the point I want to make is to diffuse the bad information people are getting or the conclusions they're jumping to. It's fucking tear gas, not VX or Mustard Gas.
Posted by: Brando | January 11, 2008 12:21 PM
Oh, one more thing, on the issue of why the troops didn't have their pro-masks at the check point. They are a pain in the ass to lug around, especially when you're already stuck out there with 50lbs of IBA, SAPI plates, basic load of ammo, frag, smoke, radio, water, etc. Regional commands sometimes throw out an order for all troops to have their masks within reach (we just kept them in the vehicle), but this is usually in response to a threat or an incident. For example, in Mosul mid-2004 there was an IED that released traces of mustard gas. For a few weeks, everywhere we went we had to have our pro-masks with us. But normally we didn't bother, just like these guys at the checkpoint. There are bigger, more common threats when you're doing checkpoint security.
Posted by: brando | January 11, 2008 12:24 PM
That's technical Army speak there.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | January 11, 2008 12:46 PM
Rev. BigDumbChimp,
That caught my eye, too; military conflicts as assessed by Jeffery "The Dude" Lebowski... He makes it sound like Blackwater isn't getting an invite to the Army's next kegger.
Posted by: Mister DNA | January 11, 2008 2:24 PM
Hm. Actually, I feel better with Army officers who under-react....
Makes me think they're very good cooks with very cold dishes....
Posted by: gwangung | January 11, 2008 3:16 PM
I'm still just bummed by the fact that these clowns can threaten and endanger our troops with such impunity that they could so nonchalantly gas US soldiers at a US checkpoint and not, you know, find themselves charged, tried, and imprisoned like us normal folks.
Posted by: Dan | January 11, 2008 4:37 PM
For the first couple years over there, it was the Wild West in a sense. It felt like there were no rules and this was especially true of PMCs. Things have changed quite a bit in the last year or so, but it's not at all like you would expect if this incident had happened here. War Zones are weird things. When they start out they're sort of an "anything goes" zone, which is great for troops who're used to a wall of red tape. This doesn't mean "free fire zone," but really just a chance for troops to work smartly and instictively, not under a wall of lowest-common denominator regulation. Now, once the military has been somewhere for a while, the stupid garrison mentality takes over and you find MPs giving you a ticket for driving too fast on the FOB during a rocket attack.
Posted by: Brando | January 11, 2008 6:03 PM
It's fucking tear gas, not VX or Mustard Gas.
It was also a direct violation of the rules of engagement, not to mention dropped on friendlies and non-combatants. What reason does a private mercenary force have for CS gas when the same material is under strict use guidelines for military personnel?
The key point is, yet again, that mercs have the ability to do effectively whatever they want, endangering the lives of our service personnel, apparently with no oversight or penalties for their obvious incompetence.
When I was in bootcamp they had us enter a room with our gas masks on, then released CS gas and had us remove our masks prior to exiting the room. Wasn't a fun experience.
Posted by: dogmeatib | January 11, 2008 7:15 PM
Because the PMCs aren't under the military chain of command. They are performing security operations, not direct action missions. I agree, it was lame, but like I said it's being trumped around like some kind of NBC attack on the US by Blackwater. People don't seem to get it.
CS is a non-lethal weapon and as such it makes sense that PMCs, like most military units operating in an urban AO with lots of civies, have less-than-lethal options, be it flashbangs, CS, bean bags, etc. PMCs have been busted for poor respect for ROE, especially with regards to escalation of force, and as you said they've often operated with impunity. I won't argue that. But CS, like smoke, is affected by the wind. Could it be they dumped it near the checkpoint to disperse a crowd and lots of it blew over to the US personnel? Or perhaps rotor wash aided the dispersion? I don't know, wasn't there.
I can't stand PMCs, but looking at this objectively I have a hard time believing there's anything particularly "evil" about what happened. I suspect it was just a mistake, the kinds that seem to happen 24/7 there.
Posted by: Brando | January 11, 2008 7:25 PM
First of all, the report alludes to the gas being released from TWO different sources, the helo, and a nearby armored vehicle. That sort of seems to negate human error and the possibility of wind or rotor wash blowing it in the wrong direction. Regardless of how non-lethal CS is, if the military can only use it in very restricted cases, the mercs should not have access to it at all. Sure it is non-lethal, but it without a doubt temporarily incapacitates, and incapacitated soldiers turn into dead ones at an alarming rate. The PMC's should be either held to the exact same ROE as the military(and subject to the same justice system for violating them), or be removed completely from the zone.
Posted by: Jeff | January 11, 2008 8:25 PM
one, possibly both, of us seems to have been misinformed. my understanding was that Blackwater didn't break the law in the silencer business until they tried to reimport the things back into the USA, although i confess i didn't much care to pay very close attention at the time.
(the USA's laws against firearms "silencers" --- which typically don't come close to making any high-power gun actually silent, merely not quite so deafeningly loud --- are somewhat anomalous. most other countries care far less, if at all, about them; some countries consider them important safety equipment. if Blackwater had bought their silencers overseas and left them there, they might well have avoided all the legal entanglements and saved money on the equipment, too.)
that the mercs had access to CS gas, i'm not too worried about --- i'd rather see them use non-lethal tear gas than rifles. the worrying part is that they clearly were too incompetent to be trusted with water pistols, if they couldn't tell a U.S. checkpoint from a threat that needed tear gassing. why are we paying a premium for incompetent mercenaries, again?
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | January 11, 2008 8:53 PM
Won't argue with you there, they should be held accountable if they screw-up, just like joe soldier. That's an easy one. But the idea that this was some kind of evil chemical attack, at least that's the way it's being characterized...that's highly misleading.
Posted by: Brando | January 11, 2008 8:56 PM
I mentioned this one to my wife (she's done tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq), and her reaction was basically, "typical Blackwater BS". That's trimmed from her verbatim comments a bit, acutally, but it conveys the sense. She's got absolutely no love for blackwater, and as far as I can tell neither does anyone else from her unit.
That's probably a byproduct of her brigade losing more people as a result of blackwater incompetence during their Afghanistan tour than they did to enemy action.
Posted by: Mike Dunford | January 11, 2008 9:10 PM
So now we know what happened to the Iraqi WMDs: Blackwater took them.
Posted by: Lassi Hippeläinen | January 12, 2008 3:57 AM
You know in 1513 Machiavelli warned against using mercenaries.
Its kind of sad to see that they are behaving in exactlly the same manner as he described, and yet the powers that be are surprised by it. Mercenaries have always behaved this way.
They don't care about our troops, because the worse our troops perform the more the state has to rely on mercs. They don't care about the rules of engagement, because if we complain they can always quit. And depending on how much our forces rely on mercs, makes them a threat and liability not an asset. They don't care about ending the war or securing victory, they ensure their payment by sustaining a conflict. They are unwilling to endure hardship in combat, so they fight only at their leisure, not at our command.
All of this has been known by military leaders for hundreds of years even well before The Prince, and yet here we are.
Posted by: random guy | January 12, 2008 1:03 PM
Until they conduct direct action or offensive actions, they aren't mercenaries (like the mercs in 1970s Africa). They're just overzealous security guards in a war zone operating with general impunity.
Posted by: Brando | January 12, 2008 5:09 PM
> Saddam Hussein used CS gas against the Kurds.
Sorry. Hussein used mustard and nerve gas against the Kurds. There is absolutely no comparison. CS is unpleasant, but is totally non-lethal; I've breathed plenty of it myself.
The questions of whether Blackwater was/wasn't should/shouldn't have been allowed to use it are still good questions. But let's keep it in perspective here.
Posted by: WScott | January 12, 2008 10:24 PM
WScott-
He used those substances too. But he also did use CS gas.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 13, 2008 12:32 AM
random guy | January 12, 2008 1:03
And that's why people hate and distrust mercenaries.
Good points.
Posted by: raj | January 13, 2008 8:25 AM
That's what you get from a War President who doesn't think government should do anything at all except enriching his dad's friends.
Posted by: David Marjanović | January 13, 2008 1:02 PM
> He used those substances too. But he also did use CS gas.
You may well be right. But even so, Saddam wasn't infamous because he made the Kurds cough and their eyes water; he was infamous because he killed them.
To equate the two is pretty disingenuous. It's kinda like saying: "Steve spit on Bob before he shot him. Fred also spit on someone. Therefore Fred is a murderer."
Posted by: WScott | January 13, 2008 2:15 PM