Biden: Come Back to Where Blackwater Rescued Me

In dramatizing his February 2008 trip to Afghanistan "where my helicopter was forced down," Senator Joe Biden omits an important fact: His rescuers were the private security men of Blackwater Worldwide.

"If you want to know where Al Qaeda lives, you want to know where Bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," said Biden in a taunt against Senator John McCain and supporters of winning the war in Iraq. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."

But, Senator, can you tell us who rescued you? We can.

Biden huffed that he would ask his Republican counterpart, Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, about "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan where my helicopter was forced down." He made it seem like terrorists forced down his aircraft.

Actually, it was a snowstorm that prompted the forced landing. That's what Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), who accompanied Biden and Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) on the aborted helicopter flight, told the Associated Press at the time.

ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper clarifies the issue. But his Googling of the incident didn't reveal that Blackwater contractors serving their country in a hostile location were the ones who rescued the senators and a three-star general.

If Biden asks Palin about "where my helicopter was forced down," Palin should ask Biden in return to praise Blackwater for saving him and taking him to Bagram Air Base.

Last February, Senator Kerry didn't try to make it look like enemy fire forced down the helicopter. "The weather closed in on us," he told the AP from safe refuge in Turkey. "It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges. So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed. . . We sat up there and traded stories."

Tapper adds that Kerry joked, "We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to do it … Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."

Readying for Hurricane Gustav

Blackwater has sent out a notice seeking qualified personnel to work on potential rescue, recovery and stability efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav.

AP reports that the notice went out on Friday. The company volunteered to help out during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, donating use of a helicopter to the Coast Guard and assisting with rescue and recovery efforts on the ground. Blackwater is credited with saving 128 people in the New Orleans area.

Finding a demand for its services, the company expanded its business in the rescue, recovery and stability sectors.

Poland Decorates Blackwater Men for Valor - First Awards to Foreigners Since World War II

The government of Poland has bestowed its Silver Star and Bronze Star combat medals on foreigners for the first time since World War II - and Blackwater security men were the recipients.

Polish Ambassador to Iraq Edward Pietrzyk (fourth from right) presented the awards on behalf of his government in a January, 2008 ceremony to recognize the Blackwater guards for evacuating him by helicopter after an October 2007 assassination attempt. Poland is one of the most important NATO allies in Iraq.

The State Department's internal State Magazine has the story in its April, 2008 issue. The award ceremony was considered so important that US Ambassador Ryan Crocker (third from right) and General David Petraeus (left) attended and posed for pictures with the contractors. The above photo, picturing some of the Blackwater men, appears in the magazine.

Here's how the State Department describes the event:

"On January 25, Poland's ambassador to Iraq, Edward Pietrzyk, honored the heroism of 18 members of the US Embassy in Baghdad's regional security office who helped rescue his motorcade when it came under attack in Baghdad in October.

"The motorcade was struck by four roadside bombs and a barrage of small-arms fire from more than two dozen assailants. One member of the Polish Special Forces security detail was killed, several were wounded and Pietrzyk was severely burned.

"During the midday attack, the Polish security detail contacted the RSO's tactical operation center, which dispatched two helicopters. The arriving personnel found the motorcade group sheltering in a residential compound and provided first aid while evacuating the wounded. Ambassador Pietrzyk was flown to a combat surgical hospital and later to Poland. After several months of treatment, he returned to Iraq.

"In the award ceremony, with gloves still protecting his badly burned hands, the ambassador pinned on the shirts of his rescuers Poland's Silver and Bronze Star medals, the first time these awards had been given to foreigners since World War II.

"Attending were US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Forces - Iraq. Ambassador Crocker noted the long history of Polish-US mutual assistance.

"The award recipients are employees of the contractor Blackwater and work with the RSO to protect Mission Iraq staff."

Click here for a PDF of the April 2008 State Magazine. Scroll down to page 3 for the Blackwater rescue story.

Petraeus Presence with Blackwater Lays Criticisms to Rest

The presence of General David Petraeus at the Polish Embassy event to bestow combat medals on Blackwater security contractors in Iraq puts an end to the validity of criticisms that the military is at odds with the diplomatic security provider.

Petraeus is one of the busiest men in Iraq, and his time is at a premium. US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, as the supervisor of the Blackwater guards, was already at the event, ensuring a proper level of official recognition from a protocol standpoint. The Blackwater men were not under Petraeus' command. There was no need for Petraeus to attend, but he did it anyway. That's an important indication of his support for Blackwater and its mission.

Though under contract with the State Department, Blackwater has assisted the US military on many occasions in Iraq, and performed a number of unheralded evacuations and rescues of American troops.

(Photo: Petraeus, left, with Blackwater security contractors at Polish Embassy ceremony. Cropped from larger State Department photo from State Magazine, April 2008, p. 3.)

Poland decorates Blackwater men for saving ambassador's life

Poland's ambassador to Iraq has decorated Blackwater security professionals for their role in rescuing him and his aides after an October 3 assassination attempt in Baghdad.

Ambassador Edward Pietrzyk was badly burned in the ambush, and one of his guards was killed. He is pictured, bandaged, being rescued by troops. A Blackwater guard is shown at center-left in the blue-gray tee shirt, to place the ambassador on one of the company's "Little Bird" helicopters.

Speaking with reporters on February 4, US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker revealed that the Ambassador Pietrzyk bestowed medals on the Blackwater men: "Last week, the Polish Ambassador decorated about a dozen of them for saving his life back in October."

Another rescue: Blackwater and Marines save sick little Iraqi girl

A little Iraqi girl with a fatal heart defect has better prospects of survival after a cooperative effort between the US Marines and Blackwater to evacuate her from al Anbar province to a hospital in Nashville.

The Marines discovered three year-old Amina Al'a Thabit during a "routine meet and greet" patrol in Haditha, and recognized from bluish features on her face that she suffered a serious heart disorder.

Amina has a number of heart-related birth defects, including an inability to oxygenate her own blood. No facility in Iraq could help her.

“The first day we saw her we thought she was the cutest girl,” said Sgt. Bryan C. Velasquez, 23, a Company L squad leader from Houston. “We just fell in love with her.”

The Marines raised $30,000 in private funds, mainly from Blackwater Worldwide, which also covered the costs of transporting her to Nashville. Neither the Marines story nor the Los Angeles Times blog that covered the story mentioned the company, though a report in the Orange County Register of California did.

"The Marines, in conjunction with numerous government agencies, initiated an effort dubbed 'Operation Amina,' to transport the girl and her mother stateside. The travel and related costs were financed by private donors, the release said," according to the Orange County Register, whose report was picked up by MSNBC. "The battalion raised $30,000 to fly them to the US via Jordan with the assistance of a US medical team and extensive cooperation from Blackwater Worldwide, the hospital said."

'Blackwater's coming to rescue us' - Video from Kenya

A Michingan TV station aired exclusive video of the three Christian missionaries being evacuated from mob violence in Kenya. Here's the clip from the January 2008 operation. A Blackwater operative based in Kabul, Afghanistan, flew to the African country to lead the evacuation. Click here for more coverage.

Blackwater credited with saving 180 American lives

Readers of this blog know about how Blackwater Worldwide recently rescued three young American women from deadly mob violence in Kenya. The three are only a fraction of Americans whose lives Blackwater is credited with saving.

Over the past six years, Blackwater personnel have saved the lives of more than 180 Americans around the world.

In Iraq from 2004-2007, Blackwater rescued or medically treated and evacuated more than 40 U.S. soldiers, Marines and U.S. Government officials. Virtually all instances were humanitarian responses to calls for volunteers. The incidents involved fires, post-missile and mortar attack response, suicide bombing involving mass casualties, and day and night rescues of stranded or trapped Americans.

On the U.S. Gulf Coast in the immediate aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Blackwater volunteers rescued over 50 Americans trapped on rooftops. Blackwater also conducted emergency medical evacuations for 175 Americans in the first week of the 2005 disaster.

In Africa in 2006, Blackwater medical personnel saved an American in Chad by administering emergency life saving surgery and medical evacuation Burkina Faso. They also conducted a rescue of three American missionaries and seven aid workers in Kenya in January 2008.

In Afghanistan 2007 Blackwater personnel rescued three Americans from a bombed and burning hotel. In January 2008 Blackwater again rescued one American from a hotel bombed by the Taliban.

In over 90 percent of these cases, Blackwater was not paid a dime to act. The company and its people did so out of a professional drive to help Americans in danger whenever possible.

Video of rescued girls arriving home

They're teenage girls, all right, judging by their happy squeals as they run toward family and friends at a Michigan airport. Blackwater Worldwide rescued the three - sisters Brittanie and Aubrey Vander Mey and friend Jamie Cook - from mob violence in Kenya, where the girls were doing Christian missionary work.

For more news about the rescue - which Blackwater staged from Afghanistan - see the posts below.

Blondes for Blackwater

Blackwater heroes saved Brittanie and Aubrey Vander Mey and Jamie Cook (above) from mob terror in Kenya last week as the US government stood by fecklessly.

CEO Erik Prince ordered the rescue operation at the request of Brittanie and Aubrey's dad. The girls were doing Christian missionary work with AIDS orphans.

A Blackwater operative flew from Afghanistan to Kenya to run the operation.

Another of many unheralded Blackwater rescues. A couple, such as the evacuation of the Polish ambassador to Iraq after an assassination attempt, have received some coverage, but most have not.

The blog commentary is pretty funny, ranging from very informative to tasteless. Click here for reader remarks on Sharon Weinberger's Wired.com blog.

Blackwater praised for Africa rescue

Congressional weenies might want to beat up on Blackwater, but the company is winning praise from Real America for its daring operation to rescue three young Michigan women from near-certain horrors in strife-torn Kenya.

"Unable to locate a helicopter or airplane to pick them up," the father of two of the girls, Dean VanderMey, "called his mother, who reached Blackwater founder Erik Prince [pictured] through a mutual friend, U.S. Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids," Bill Sizemore reports in the Virginian-Pilot.

"Soon, VanderMey said, he got a phone call from Prince, who told him, 'We're going to do everything we can do to get your girls out.'

"A Blackwater employee flew from Afghanistan to Kenya to run the operation, VanderMey said. The company located a 10-passenger single-engine plane, which picked up the women at an airstrip near the orphanage in the village of Kimilili and flew them 185 miles to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, where they got a commercial flight home.

"paid the charter fee for the plane, but Blackwater charged him nothing for its services.
'Erik wouldn't hear of it,' VanderMey said. 'He said, "This has nothing to do with money. This is about getting Americans out of harm's way."'

"'They got it done. I was pretty impressed.'"

Blackwater rescues Michigan orphanage workers from Kenya terror

How did three American charity workers escape spiraling violence in Africa when their government couldn't help them?

Blackwater Worldwide.

Michigan orphanage volunteers Brittanie and Aubrey Vander Mey and their friend Jamie Cook were in Kenya readying to care for HIV and AIDS orphans in Kimilili, a town 180 miles from Nairobi.

But post-election violence was spreading, with militants 45 miles away torching a church filled with women and children.

Yesterday the women were scheduled to return to their Michigan hometown where their local paper, the Grand Rapids Press, has the story.

"Dean Vander Mey, of Byron Township, Brittanie and Aubrey's father, said he credits their return to God's intervention and the private security firm," the paper reports.

"'My daughter (Brittanie) told me today, "Every town around us has been ripped apart,"' he said. 'Their little town was the only safe town. ... I have to attribute (their safety) to the Lord.'"

When his frightened daughters alerted him by phone of the spreading violence, he realized the women could not escape by car and renting a helicopter was impossible. He asked U.S. officials, congressmen and others for help.

"Vander Mey said he recalled relatives were friends with the family of Blackwater founder and Holland [Michigan] native Erik Prince and decided to give the company a call.

"'They had internal contacts and everything,' Vander Mey said. 'They had people who could help.'"

And help they did. Blackwater, according to Vander Mey, sent in a plane and rescued the three women and other international workers, bringing them safely to Nairobi.

"It's been a nightmare and a miracle," Vander Mey said.

Wounded Polish ambassador makes slight recovery

Poland's Ambassador to Iraq, whom a Blackwater helicopter team rescued last week after an assassination attempt in Baghdad, is starting to recover from his injuries.

Ambassador Edward Pietrzy is suffering burns on 25 percent of his body and in his respiratory tract after terrorists bombed and shot up his diplomatic convoy October 3.

Polish external radio says Pietrzy is being awakened from an induced coma and is in "serious but stable" condition.

Since the attack, Poland has moved its Baghdad embassy into the Green Zone, AHN reports.

The US Embassy in Baghdad called Blackwater to send in one of its "Little Bird" helicopters to rescue Ambassador Pietrzy and his aides immediately after learning of the attack (see picture). The US military had no available aircraft or crew in the area who could land a helicopter in the street to recover the diplomat.

Photos show pilot skill in rescuing Polish envoy

Photos of the dramatic October 3 rescue of Polish Ambassador Edward Pietrzy show just how risky the maneuver was for the skilled Blackwater helicopter pilot.

It's no small thing to land a helicopter with its spinning rotor blades into a city street. Apart from possible terrorists and insurgents, the real dangers to the crew were the many lightposts and telephone and electrical lines that bordered the landing area.

In the top photo, the Blackwater "Little Bird" is shown landing, with high lamp posts on the right and what appear to be telephone or electrical poles on the left. The lower photo shows phone or electrical wires strung across the street. The slightest pilot error, shift in weight or unexpected wind could have caused havoc with the helicopter and with the people on the ground. The mission, however, was a complete success.

Video: Blackwater 'saved the day' for US ally

Blackwater helicopter crews "saved the day" for a key American ally in Iraq - the Polish ambassador to Baghdad, who was the target of an assassination attempt on October 3.

In a Fox News segment on October 5, the wounded ambassador is shown being escorted aboard a Blackwater "Little Bird" helicopter that landed on a street. The landing, amid high lamp posts on either side of the street that posed a danger to the helicopter's spinning blades, took a combination of guts and skill that have made Blackwater pilots famous worldwide.

The video shows both sides of the story, quoting top Iraqi officials and US lawmakers who harshly criticize the company, as well as statements from Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), who has visited Iraq 18 times and attests personally to the many times Blackwater protected his life.

Click here for the video. A sudden and annoying advertisement precedes the news segment.

(Pictured: Ambassador Pietrzyk being rushed to helicopter)

Positive press amid the feeding frenzy

While the press piles on Blackwater, usually ignoring or minimizing the company's unmatched accomplishments in Iraq, we find some bright spots in the media reporting and commentary. They include:

Bob Orr, "Blackwater: Who are these guys?" CBS News, October 5. Weighing what Blackwater's detractors and supporters say, Bob Orr of CBS News (pictured) writes, "Blackwater is effective. No Blackwater client has ever been killed. And the fact is there aren’t enough soldiers to do the jobs taken on by Blackwater and other security contractors. Add to that Blackwater’s intense training program and the fact that its employees are not amateurs – most come from elite military commando units, like Delta Force and Navy SEALS."

Even a Blackwater arch-critic, bestselling author of a book on the company, concedes a positive word. As Orr reports on CBS Evening News, "Some on Capitol Hill want Blackwater to be reined in. But, Jeremy Scahill, who wrote a book on the rise of Blackwater, says it's doing the jobs an already-stretched military can't handle. 'It's become one of the most powerful private actors in the so-called war on terror,' Scahill said."

Oliver North, "Henry Waxman should suspend vendetta against Blackwater," Fox News, October 4.

"Blackwater credited with diplomatic rescue," AeroNews.com, October 4. "Accused of cowboy tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan, the subject of Congressional hearings and the most despised private US security firm operating in American theaters of operations, Blackwater USA demonstrated Wednesday that even under fire, it can still get it right," the aviation industry news service reports.

"Witness the extraction of the critically wounded Polish ambassador to Iraq, blasted along with a member of his staff by a roadside bomb in downtown Baghdad.

"Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, Poland's ambassador to Baghdad, was suffered burns to his head, arms and hands as well as wounds to his leg in a blast that killed one of his employees and an Iraqi civilian. He and the other wounded members of his party were airlifted from the bomb site by helicopters operated by Blackwater USA."

"CBS News reports Blackwater's helos landed in the narrow street and picked up all the wounded, even though the contractor wasn't involved in protecting the Polish convoy. In spite of the effort, Blackwater is still under heavy fire from Iraqi government officials."

Greg Pollowitz, "Blackwater in the news, rescuing Polish ambassador from a horrific car bombing," National Review Online, October 3. Caption on article: "Underreported news."

Blackwater rescues Polish ambassador after assassination attempt

Elite Blackwater security men rescued Poland's ambassador to Iraq after a deadly terrorist attack trapped the NATO diplomat near the Polish embassy in Baghdad.

Click on the image to view a EuroNews video of the extraction.

Initial reports conflict or contain different details, but the Associated Press reports that three bombs exploded near or under the convoy of Polish Ambassador Edward Pietrzyk, destroying three armored vehicles and setting the ambassador's car afire. The terrorists then shot at the vehicles in what appeared to be a well-planned attack in one of Baghdad's safest neighborhoods.

At least 10 people were wounded, in the October 3 incident, including four members of Pietrzyk's Polish security detail, according to early reports. One of the ambassador's security guards died of his wounds. Polish guards reportedly wounded an Iraqi taxi driver when they returned fire.

The American Embassy dispatched a Blackwater helicopter team to save Ambassador Pietrzyk and his people. Reuters also shows the Blackwater rescue in a video report, but does not credit the company. The above photo is of a Blackwater "Little Bird" similar to the craft used in the rescue.

Readers of the Washington Post would have no idea the incident even occurred. Today's paper has a headline splashed across the top of the front page with a heartbreaking story about people who died in the September 16 incident in Baghdad. Buried back on page 16 is a three-paragraph item about the ambassador being attacked, but not a word about the rescuers. Kind of telling for a newspaper that has invested so many resources into reporting negatively about Blackwater.