Interview with a Blackwater consultant working in Fallujah, published 3/30/04:
....In carrying out their convoy-protection duties, Randolph said, Blackwater employees frequently engage in gunfire with insurgents, who attempt to use roadside bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices (IED), and other arms to destroy vehicles and kill as many Americans as possible.
“You have to be vigilant all the time on the road,” he said, noting that anything that looks out of place, such as a pile of dirt by the roadside, can hide an IED. But IEDs aren’t the only worry for those moving about in convoys, according to Randolph.
“I think I’ve been fired on by every kind of weapon there is except an aircraft,” Randolph said.
He added that the insurgents doing many of the attacks in and around Fallujah often have turned out to be natives of Jordan, Iran, Syria, and of the embattled Russian-controlled area of Chechnya.
Blackwater USA personnel have been able to fend off most attacks by using tactics that make it difficult, if not impossible, for attackers to damage more than one vehicle at a time.
“They haven’t been very successful against us,” he said, “But they’re determined and keep trying.”
He also said that insurgents constantly try to draw Blackwater USA personnel and U.S. military forces into ambushes.
“They try to disable a vehicle and then attack you with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades when you dismount,” he said.
He said Blackwater USA personnel and their U.S. military counterparts counter the ambush threat by positioning their vehicles to cover each other and by avoiding attempts to draw them into traps...
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Prayers going out for our troops and civilian allies,
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