by EAMONN MCCANN
Blackwater’s Erik Prince
You can buy a war for half a billion dollars. But get in quick. That’s at current market prices.
Costs may rise following last Saturday’s New York Times story revealing that the United Arab Emirates has paid $529 million to a company set up by Blackwater boss Eric Prince to recruit and train a mercenary army to undertake “special missions” against the oil state’s enemies, defend oil pipelines, crush internal opposition and so forth.
Emirate dictator Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan has also agreed to pay more than $100 million a year to meet running costs and supply weapons and equipment–including rifles, mortars and armored vehicles.
A training camp, complete with living accommodation, mess halls, firing ranges and a motor pool, has been built behind thick concrete walls topped with tangles of barbed wire in the desert. More than 500 of a projected 800 troops are in position, many recruited from Central and South America and paid $150 a day.
Their trainers, mostly veterans of U.S., British and German Special Forces and the French Foreign Legion, earn up to $200,000 a year.
If the initial project proves a success, the deal promises that the Emirates will provide billions to Blackwater to build an entire brigade, thousands strong. However, this depends on the current battalion carrying out a “real world mission” to the satisfaction of Emirate officials.
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