The Obama administration’s decisions about new ambassadors in two U.S. war zones may have had Tar Heel influences.

Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, a Goldsboro native, is widely reported as the pick for ambassador to Afghanistan. The 1969 graduate of Goldsboro High School served in Afghanistan for three years, including a tour while in charge of rebuilding Afghanistan’s Army and an 18-month stint in command of U.S. forces, reports Jay Price.

Eikenberry’s resume is almost ludicrously broad. He graduated from West Point, earned master’s degrees in East Asian studies from Harvard and in political science from Stanford and an advanced degree in Chinese history from Nanjing University, and he was a National Security Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

He speaks Mandarin Chinese so well that he is qualified as a translator. He graduated from the Army’s Ranger School, holds a commercial pilot’s license and master parachutist’s wings. In his spare time, according to an Army biography, he sails and scuba dives.

Eikenberry may have played an unwitting role in the selection of Christopher Hill, a career diplomat, as ambassador to Iraq.

In the latest drama over an Obama appointment, retired Gen. Anthony C. Zinni has said he was essentially given the job last month and then had it yanked back. A New York Times article Friday said the administration may have decided that naming two generals to such high profile diplomatic posts at the same time wasn’t a good idea.

Another North Carolina-related problem for Zinni may have been his recent job as a vice-president of the military contractor DynCorp. Last week, the State department told N.C.-based Blackwater Worldwide that it did not plan to renew Blackwater’s contract for guarding diplomats and the embassy in Iraq.

One of the two most likely replacement companies? DynCorp.

As the federal government moves ahead with its prosecution of Blackwater employees involved in civilian deaths in Iraq, U.S. Rep. David Price says the courts — not the Department of Defense — will decide whether the guards can be prosecuted under the law.

Blackwater guards killed 17 civilians on Sept. 16, 2007, in Baghdad during a convoy detailed to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Barb Barrett reports.

The U.S. Department of Defense told Price in December 2007 that because Blackwater was working for the Department of State during the incident, the guards could not be subject to prosecution in the United States. The letter came from Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England.

The U.S. Department of Justice now disputes that. It filed a legal brief last week arguing that Defense and State were working together, and therefore the guards could be prosecuted.

A Memorandum of Understanding signed Dec. 5, 2007, — after the incident — says the State and Defense departments will "jointly develop, implement and follow core standards" of private security contractors such as Blackwater.

The memo says the standards would include a "clear legal basis for holding (U.S. Government) private security contractors accountable under U.S. law."

Price spokesman Paul Cox said this morning that, "regardless of the views expressed in the Deputy Secretary's letter, it's up to the courts alone to determine whether these security contractors fall under federal criminal jurisdiction."

Chatter on Capitol Hill today is all about the totally-inside-the-Beltway battle between U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman and John Dingell for control of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

There was a secret vote in the House Democratic caucus today on whether to oust Dingell — the body’s longest-serving member — from the post he has held for 27 years, Barb Barrett reports.

The vote pitted Dingell, the Michigan congressman who has used his post to champion the auto industry, against Waxman, the California congressman with strong environmental leanings.

N&O readers may know Waxman as the current chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where he hauled Blackwater USA chief Erik Prince in front of cameras for a packed hearing on private security contractors.

With Barack Obama coming in as president, the oversight chairmanship didn't look as juicy.

The Energy and Commerce committee, though, has jurisdiction over energy issues and global climate-change legislation, so the chairman would help shape whatever bill emerges from committee.

Democrats' tradition holds that seniority trumps all when it comes to chairmanships, so for Waxman to launch a coup against Dingell was big gossip around Washington.

Turns out, Waxman won. 137-122.

So how did North Carolina’s Democrats cast their ballots? More to come…

Who is consulting for the N.C. Military Foundation?

The nonprofit started by Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue in 2006 to promote defense spending in North Carolina runs on a tight budget, relying on outside consultants.

Here's a quick sketch of their major consultants:

Retired Major Gen. Mike Davidson: Former assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Gen. Hugh Shelton.

Hon. Mike Walker: Former acting Secretary of the Army in 1998 and Undersecretary of Defense.

Meg Ryan O'Donnell: President of Winning Strategies, a Raleigh communications firm.

Jimmy Broughton: Former chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and federal lobbyist with Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice.

Mark Harkins: Former chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Brad Miller and lobbyist with Womble Carlyle.

As lobbyists on military issues, Broughton and Harkins also work for Blackwater Worldwide, a controversial security contractor based in Moyock.

Executive Director Will Austin says he met with Blackwater in the past, but the foundation does not typically promote specific military contractors, instead focusing on the state's overall military friendliness.

"We don't have a relationship with them," he said.

U.S. Rep. David Price is working behind the scenes this week to keep provisions he wrote in the war supplemental bill being debated by Congress.

Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, has long ticked away at regulations on private security contractors working in President Bush’s war on terror, Barb Barrett reports.

Among those is a provision that would bring contractors working for non-military agencies inside war zones under the U.S. judicial code.

That would, for example, have meant a judicial investigation into the Blackwater guards accused of killing civilians last fall while working for the U.S. Department of State.

Price’s language, along with money to pay for FBI investigators in Iraq, was in the House version of the war spending bill. But it was stripped out of the final Senate version along with several other policy provisions.

Contractors working for the military already are under the military judicial code for crimes committed in war zones.

The House could take up the war spending bill as soon as this week. The bill is meant to provide emergency funding for the war in Iraq. Bush has threatened to veto any bill that goes beyond dollars for the troops, but Congress has tried to include in it several new policy provisions.

James Protzman says he has toned down the rhetoric of BlueNC.

The former marketing consultant told Dome that the site intentionally adopted a harsh tone in its early days — alternating criticism with praise — as a way to gain attention in a crowded media market.

"Our early strategy was attack, attack, pat on the back," he said.

A few of Protzman's targets: George W. Bush, Blackwater, Art Pope, N&O columnist Rick Martinez, U.S. Rep. Walter Jones and Robin Hayes, right-wing commenters on Dome, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole and the UNC-Chapel Hill school of journalism.

Aside from markeitng, Protzman said he also blogs on issues that made him angry, spurring him to use strong language. He said that he is now trying to "dial back" on the curse words and offer more measured criticism of reporters and politicians.

"I regret every rant, "he said.  "It's easy to be angry about a lot of things. Sometimes out here in the blogosphere, blowing off steam is the only way to stay sane, but it often creates problems and I'm aware of that."

A leading congressman today asked three federal agencies to investigate the conduct of Blackwater, the private military contractor based in North Carolina.

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman said Blackwater may be violating tax, small businesss and labor laws, and he requested investigations from the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Labor, reports Joseph Neff.

Blackwater's director of public affairs, Anne E. Tyrrell, called Waxman's claims "completely without merit."

Waxman repeated the complaint he first aired in October, that Blackwater has evaded tens of millions of dollars in federal taxes by treating its security guards, pilots and support staff as independent contractors instead of employees.

Since then, Waxman said, his investigators have reviewed 20,000 documents and interviewed former Blackwater personnel and officials at the State Department, which hired Blackwater to protect its diplomats in Iraq and worldwide.

Companies must withhold Medicare and Social Security taxes for employees, but not independent contractors. Blackwater may have failed to pay or withhold up to $50 million dollars in taxes.

Read more after the jump.

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U.S. Rep. David Price has opposed Blackwater since 2004.

In an e-mail to Dome, Paul Cox, a staffer for the Chapel Hill Democrat, said that a recent Virginian-Pilot story (linked here) incorrectly described Price's role:

Price's legislation was not a response to the Sept. 16th incident, and Price's efforts are not focused on one company – he criticizes the lack of oversight and accountability for all security contractors, Blackwater being one of many. 

He said that Price has been trying to close the "legal loopholes" that allow contractor misconduct since 2004, though the Nisour Square incident focused public attention on the issue and get the bill through the U.S. House.

Cox added that the bill is currently "stalled" in the Senate. 

Several Democratic candidates are targeting Blackwater.

Congressional candidate Marshall Adame, U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal and U.S. Rep. David Price have attacked the Moyock-based security contractor, the Virginian-Pilot reports.

Adame, a diplomat who spent in Iraq, called them "guns for hire."

Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, introduced legislation requiring more oversight of contractors after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in September.

And Neal, who is running against state Sen. Kay Hagan for the Democratic nomination, responded "Hell, no," when asked whether the U.S. military should "outsource warfare."

Company founder Erik Prince has donated at least $113,000 to Republican candidates since 1995, including $1,750 to Adame's opponent, incumbent Rep. Walter Jones.

He has not donated to any Democrats.

Update: Blackwater Current blogger Joe Neff says including Prince's family members, the total number of donations is over a quarter million, all to Republicans. One exception: A stealth donation to the Green Party.

Marshall Adame should be the sort of Congressional candidate Blackwater would get behind.

He's a retired Marine. He's worked in Iraq for the State Department and for The Sandi Group Intl., a military contractor. Both his sons have served with the Army in Iraq. But he spoke his mind online:

I have interacted with many mercenary groups, including Blackwater. There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries. They are guns for hire; No more, no less. The primary motivation is money. In most cases it does not matter who's money. Private Security Organizations as extensive as Blackwater, for example, should not be allowed to operate in war zones as augments of the United States of America. Private Armies represent the very things we depise as a people. Servants to the highest bidder with true allegiance to no-one.

This generated nastygrams from Blackwater supporters, including an e-mail from Blackwater VP Bill Matthews, who asked for people to help "run this goof out of Dodge."

After the jump, the text of the e-mail. Warning: Strong language.

Crossposted from Joe Neff's Blackwater Current blog.

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