"I'm very grateful for the American who comes to church with us. Also for his guns."

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naamah and jgracie and I, along with a Harvard crowd, had breakfast this Wednesday with Canon Andrew White, Anglican Vicar of Baghdad. Fascinating fellow: Loud, blunt, and a great lover of goats

Comments

INteresting

[anonymous]

Highly interesting story. Indeed.

I would like to offer some info for consideration though.... Foreigners haven't lived in tents in the IZ (green zone) since mid-2005. The only tents are for people just transiting thru and staying less than a few weeks. I would know this, it was part of my job to make sure of that. On his own site, he mentions 'prefabricated' living accommodations. That means a trailer. Perhaps the prefabrication part put a minor idea about fabric=tents.

I did find it interesting that this mentions he has a Blackwater escort as a ton of Iraqi SF guys. Whoo-hoo! Lets please hope thats not the case. BW only escorts State Department missions - no exceptions. If there was, then it would be brought up in front of the Senate hearings...talk about a massive breach of federal contract. But anyhoo, assuming he does somehow have DoS sanction to use BW, then he's fairly high on the ladder and would never be allowed to stay in a tent, even for a single night.

Blackwater will not ever trust the Iraqis and it is clear in their contract that they will not ever work alongside them, will never allow them to know their convoy info, will never even share the same map with them. State Department is the same way and has agreed on this since early 2005.

Aegis and a few others, however (perhaps DynCorp) do, sometimes. BW does not.

That part about BW giving weapons, I'm sure that was nothing more than a slight misunderstanding since BW does not own a single weapon they have in country. They are all State Department property and fully accounted for. BW had a local humanitarian outreach program but had to strictly limit it to educational reasons. Even that is all but extinct now. Religious groups? Not a chance.

MNSTC-I and CPATT perhaps. They do the training of the locals and issue a lot of weapons to Iraqis new forces. CPATT are usually civilians and might be mistaken for PSD (security contractors) and have much more scaled down rules regarding travel.

I was thinking this BW guy might be getting referenced as a loner that chose to accompany the canon to church, but if so, it would not be outside the green zone. That would end his job instantly and a loss of security clearance. Obviously its not an assigned person since they have not (and will not ever) go on a movement without a full compliment of a whole team. Even those guys strung up in falluja back in the day were a whole team.

I'm not saying none of this is happening, I'm just suggesting that perhaps the groups involved are different from whats stated. I do know of events like this going on all the time, just not with BW or any DoS resources or Canons living in tents.

I dont mean to sounds like a meanie on this, just some correction material on something I know a great deal about personally.

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Corrections appreciated. This was written from memory, and I could easily have gotten any number of details wrong.

If I may ask, what prompts your visit? I'm always curious how folks find their way here.