Daily News Roundup, 10/11/07: Blackwater Out, Another Unaccountable Group In

Complaints about Blackwater don't seem to have fallen on deaf ears — but they do seem to have fallen on ears that miss the point.

The Associated Press is reporting that the State Department is considering getting rid of Blackwater, the private security contractors in Iraq accused of indiscriminately using aggressive and deadly force without provocation, including a recent incident where 17 Iraqi civilians were killed. The State Department's review is still under way, and covers rules of engagement for contractors, as well as whether private security contractors in general and Blackwater specifically should be allowed to continue working for the U.S. in Iraq.

However, the AP article states that it seems unlikely that all private contractors, who are generally used for protection of visiting diplomats, would be removed from the government's employ in Iraq, as the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security doesn't have the resources to do the job on their own. Joint patrols with the State and Defense departments have been suggested, as have hiring private guards as "temporary U.S. government employees," ostensibly to give greater oversight over their actions. (How they are not such already is beyond me.)

But the most popular and probable suggestion currently seems to be that just Blackwater be given the boot, and as the other two private security companies in Iraq are much smaller and probably couldn't manage the extra work on their own, certify and hire other security firms in their stead, perhaps even security firms from outside the U.S.

How this is supposed to help the situation in Iraq, I don't know. Sure, Blackwater is the easy scapegoat to pin with a military culture of aggression, but saying that the problem is that Blackwater's employees are bad, bad people seems a bit shortsighted. The problem is not that Blackwater did something wrong; it's that there is no established way to control *any* security contractors who do something wrong. They operate in the name of the U.S. government, but with nearly complete independence and lack of accountability. That doesn't change by swapping one security company out with another. Worse, getting security companies from other countries would mean that we lose the ability to even try to enforce some sort of standard on them, like the House has approved in their bill to hold contractors to U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice.

It is a given that in a large group of people, some will tend to do bad things. Blackwater can be kicked out of Iraq (and they probably should be, as their lack of credibility now just drags down ours even more), but without significant reforms to how private contractors are held accountable for their actions, booting Blackwater won't do any good. (And boy, wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to outsource our military in the first place?)

It looks like the Bush Administration won't be sending out its "no-match" letters after all. As part of a push against illegal immigration after the Senate immigration bill was railroaded by Senate Republicans, Bush planned to mail Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers stating that employers must either resolve issues with certain employees' identities and Social Security information or fire them within 90 days or be faced with civil and criminal prosecution. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer granted a preliminary injunction against the plan. That's probably a good thing, because currently available methods for Social Security verification are remarkably poor. The AFL-CIO cites that 70% of those named in such notices are U.S. citizens. And a voluntary government program to verify Social Security numbers rejected 11% of foreign-born U.S. citizens between June 2004 and May 2006. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was quoted as pointing out that due to the number of U.S. citizens threatened with being fired, the letters were less about immigration and more about stifling unions. Considering that many of the industries where illegal immigration is most targeted have large national union organizations as well, I think he may have a point.

In state news, lawyers across Texas have filed a formal complaint against Sharon Keller, presiding judge in Texas' Court of Criminal Appeals. Michael Richard was executed on the night of September 25. Earlier that afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case of the constitutionality of particular kinds of lethal injection. The Supreme Court ended up staying a later execution in Texas because of that case.

But for Michael Richard, the possibility that his death would be a violation of the Constitution ended up having no importance. Keller refused to accept an appeal from Richard's lawyers, ordering the courthouse door locked at 5 p.m. despite the fact that there were appellate judges prepared to stay late in expectation of an appeal due to the Supreme Court decision.

Greg Abbott is also getting some heat for this issue. Former governor Mark White and former attorney general Jim Mattox criticized the current state attorney general for not acting on his power to halt the execution, and having the responsibility to do so when the execution would violate Richard's right to due process. Mattox points out that this is important not only because it protects the rights of the accused, but because of the power inherent in the state's ability to perform executions:

"When the state is all powerful, the state has got to be cautious in how it uses its power," he said. "Sometimes you do things not to protect the individual but to protect the system itself."

Finally today, a study to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine today found that children in America receive appropriate care only 46% of the time. This is even worse than adults, who themselves fared pretty badly in a study last year that found adults get appropriate care 55% of the time. More stats from the article:

The study found only 19 percent of seriously ill infants with fevers had the right lab tests done, only 44 percent of youngsters with asthma were on the right medications and only 38 percent of youngsters were screened for anemia in their first two years of life.

In addition, only 31 percent of children ages 3-6 have their weight measured at annual checkups.

Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director at RAND Health and co-author of the research, notes that the proposal in Congress to boost SCHIP funding also requires the Department of Health and Human Services to develop quality standards and monitoring for services provided by SCHIP and Medicaid. Hopefully that helps the push to override President Bush's veto of the bill. We can hope, right?

But this sort of problem points out a bigger problem in our health care system: we pay more for our health care than any nation in the world, and yet we regularly get sub-par treatment for our money. And, in what comes as no surprise to our readers, I'm sure, the reasons for this are systemic:

"It is unconscionable that we spend $2 trillion on health care, more than any nation in the world, and get these results," said co-author Elizabeth McGlynn... "We can do better, but this will not happen without serious sustained effort. This study tells us that it is time to begin."

Part of the problem stems from insurance company pressure on physicians to see more patients in less time, typically allowing only 10 minutes for a child's check-up. The problem is worse for doctors practicing alone or in small practices with no support staff, McGlynn said.

Pediatric residency training is also a problem because it focuses on caring for very sick children rather than on the basics of preventative care.

Solutions to the bigger problems of how the health care system as a whole operates are for folks much smarter than me to decide, but it is clear that the current system simply does not do a good job of caring for the health of Americans.