PhillyDeals: Out of the war, but still returning fire

Erik Prince, who ran Blackwater, the war contractor that became a target for outrage over the death and wreckage of the Iraq war, says he wants "to make sure I'm not sounding whiny. The nonsense I've dealt with pales to the tens of thousands of Americans, soldiers and contractors, who have lost lives, limbs, spouses through serving their country."

Still, it's unfair, Prince says: "Because our men carried weapons to defend themselves, we've been a target." Lawyers who sued him over Blackwater men killed in action are "vipers." Democrats tried to cripple him with a "blizzard of subpoenas." An IRS agent confessed feeling pressure "to get me." In all, "it doesn't feel like [my] country anymore."

The biggest enemy of a rational American response to foreign threats, Prince concludes, is our military and CIA: "It's very important to cut the defense and intelligence budgets. They have become so large and so bloated, they've become much less effective at the missions they are hired to do. They're the greatest threat to liberty."

But isn't military contracting, with its profits and pros earning more than government grunts, part of the problem?

"The private sector, operating around the periphery, can help the government measure cost-effectiveness and figure out where they can shave costs and be more efficient," Prince said before heading to the Philadelphia Free Library on Friday to talk about his book, Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror (Portfolio Penguin).

Son of a self-made industrial mogul, Prince dropped out of the Naval Academy, disgusted by rowdy frat-boy culture and cautious political correctness, to be a Navy SEAL, where fast decisions and slamming execution matter most. Then he started a sprawling, swampy training range that, after the 9/11 attacks, supplied trained ex-soldiers with innovative equipment to protect State Department missions and contractors.

Blackwater employees got killed; they killed Iraqis who opposed them. Prince tells their stories, justifies the orders, admits deadly error, as in an Afghan helicopter crash that killed servicemen and contractors. But among the Americans Blackwater was paid to protect, "no one under our care was killed or injured," Prince maintains. "If we'd been on the job in Benghazi, I believe the U.S. ambassador would be alive."

Private fighters aren't accountable, Blackwater's critics object. But Prince's book shows private contractors as more vulnerable to public outrage than government agents, who kill with little fear of censure. He was obliged to rename and sell his company, and has moved to the Persian Gulf, from which he invests in African firms.

Nobody's going to read this book and rush into military contracting. Like Michael Lewis' book The Big Short, the moral here is that small, focused units can outmaneuver powerful but complex organizations in a crisis. But Americans are queasy about letting life-and-death decisions get made that way.

215-854-5194 @PhillyJoeD