‘I was a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq’
In Season 2, Episode 4 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by former Blackwater—rebranded as Academi— contractor Morgan Lerette in a wide-ranging conversation. They discuss everything from Blackwater’s lax vetting procedures, the opacity surrounding the laws and regulations governing Private Military Companies (PMCs), the absence of a support system for former employees, and why Morgan considers his twenty-four-year-old-self as a “mercenary” in Iraq, despite the controversy this has ignited among his former colleagues. Morgan also explains the difference, from his perspective, between the efficiency and the efficacy of using private sector contractors, as well as how depending on PMCs means outsourcing the morality of law enforcement.
“I still don’t know what legal rules and regulations govern private military contractors. And I think there’s a reason for that.”
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About the podcast
Guns for Hire podcast is a production of the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Initiative. Taking Libya as its starting point, it explores the causes and implications of the growing use of mercenaries in armed conflict.
The podcast features guests from many walks of life, from ethicists and historians to former mercenary fighters. It seeks to understand what the normalization of contract warfare tells us about the world we currently live in, the future of the international system, and what war could look like in the coming decades.
Further reading
Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.
Image: U.S. Marine Michael Card, 19, from Oyal Kentucky, keeps security a top his humvee as a Huey helicopter keeps watch from the air near Falluja, Iraq, on May 17, 2004. The Marines were preparing for a visit from Gordon England, the Secretary of the United States Navy. REUTERS/Adrees Latif AL/CRB