View Full Version : Contractors in Iraq accused of opening fire on civilians, troops
BMT (RIP)
08-11-2007, 11:11
http://www.fayobserver.com/article_ap?id=109151
BMT
This is an extremely inflamatory, biased article. Yes there have been "bad apples" in the contractor world. To be blunt I'm not a big fan of Blackwater, though there are some great people that work there.
For starters most of the contractors in Iraq are NOT armed. This includes the truck drivers, cooks, constuction workers, engineers, KBR, Lockeed Martin, IAP support folks. Granted there are many who wish they were armed.
Of the contractors that are armed, many are under direct US Govt supervision. The WPPS program (Worldwide Personal Protection Service) which provide PSD to DoS personnal, are supervised and often lead by TLs from State's own Diplomatic Security Service. Believe me many studs who thought they were "hairy chested gunslingers" have been fired and thrown out of country by their DoS DSS CoC.
Other armed contractors operate under ROEs and after a weapon is fired an AAR has to be done. I was in country in the "wild,wild west" days and they are certainly over. Granted there are still a few knuckleheads out there, doing stupid s$%t, but they likely did stupid S)*t when they were joes too.
To use the Ageis flim as an example, (which I admit, I have not seen) sometimes flim does NOT always show the true picture. What the article does not say, is the usally there is an escalation of force when a vehicle is approaching too close from the rear. Ours was first was to stick hand out, motioning stay back, 2nd throw a half filled water bottle if that did not get there attenion, 3rd was point your weapon, 4th fire in front of the vehicle, the 5th was to fire into the hood/front cap of the car and final was to fire on the driver. Keeping in mind a muji tactic was to overtake the convoy in a fast vehicle and rake it down with PKM fire or drive into with a sucide bomber at the wheel.
On the Zapata incident outside of Fallugha, the articles author leaves a whole bunch of details. As I was very close to 2 men involved in that, (1 retired USAF PJ, the other a a retired WO from 1st SFG) the article fails to mention that the Zapata convoy was at BIAP when the alleged shooting took place. This was confirmed by a NICS investigation. Second if a young Marine O' had not flown off the handle and over-reacted there would have been no incident. If what had happened those men would still be in the brig today. Bottom line was the MC made a big deal out of it, they were wrong and had to cover their butt. For the record the two gentelmen I mention were back in-country in 90 days working for the US Govt.
Frankly I have seen very little animosity between contractors and Coalition Forces. What little I have seen is generally from "Leg, Fobbit," Sr Officers & NCOs. I have always had excellant relationships with both Big Army combat troops & Special Operations Forces. If we saw something we reported it to local mil, if they had something we needed , we got them something they needed and traded. Hell there many contractors who are members of the Guard who bounce back between Mil deployments and contractor deployments.
As far as someone offering Marine LTC Mike Zacchea a $1000 a day I can pretty much call BS on that. For one thing I'm sure he was not qualified for a contract that would pay that. While I'm not at the top of the contacting pay scale, I'm pretty close. While there was some that did pay that in the early days, those were extremely special short-term deals. They also required very special skill-sets/quals that most folks don't have.
Sorry for going so long but this is typical MSM BS designed to piss mil personal off at contractors, as well as give a another black eye to the war effort. Sure there are negatives to the contracting business, but they serve a place.
Back to lurking.
I'm pretty sure that there was a "less-than-lethal" means proposed for Iraqi vehicles approaching IC convoys.:eek:
Don't get me started on some of these guys claiming "OPERATOR" status because the are doing PSD work.
Stay safe.
Frankly I have seen very little animosity between contractors and Coalition Forces. What little I have seen is generally from "Leg, Fobbit," Sr Officers & NCOs. I have always had excellant relationships with both Big Army combat troops & Special Operations Forces. If we saw something we reported it to local mil, if they had something we needed , we got them something they needed and traded. Hell there many contractors who are members of the Guard who bounce back between Mil deployments and contractor deployments.
As far as someone offering Marine LTC Mike Zacchea a $1000 a day I can pretty much call BS on that. For one thing I'm sure he was not qualified for a contract that would pay that. While I'm not at the top of the contacting pay scale, I'm pretty close. While there was some that did pay that in the early days, those were extremely special short-term deals. They also required very special skill-sets/quals that most folks don't have.
I agree with the statement about the animosity mostly being at the upper level of the CoC and the "Fobbits". That animosity would also branch over towards the SOF as well. It would get real bad towards the last part of my deployment in 2005. When the relieving unit took over operations on the FOB they would make rules such as "US Army personnel receive priority when entering chow hall". I understand you want to try to look out for your own, but when the only other people sharing the FOB are SEALs, I find it retarded. Besides, it's not like it was a battalion (or whatever the Navy calls it), there were only a few teams of SEALs.
As far as the comment about making $1000 a day, I've heard that echoed by other 'contractors'. I had the opertunity to cross train a bit with contractors hired by "Tactical Intelligence International." Most of these guys were Blackwater/Triple Canopy and the least "special" of the group was a former Recon platoon Ranger. The rest were all SEALs, SF, and Delta. Some of them echoed the '$1000 a day' thing, but they were the few that were contractors in the very beginning and were contracted to protect then SECSTATE Powell in Afghanistan. The rest would talk about $300 or $400 a day depending on the job.
I find it hard to believe that nowadays they're offering the same amount. Especially with all the 'wannabes' out there that will sign up for anything they can get.
I know a bunch of contractors that made over a thousand a day, none of them carried a weapon for a living. Those of us that did carry, made the normal $300-400 a day protecting those guys, yet all we ever heard about was the cost of security. The cost of "security" and delivery related "security issues" were the great excuse for every missed deadline and cost overrun. A big smoke screen drawing attention away from the real scammers, who happen to be the ones pocketing the real money.
Associated Press BAGHDAD — The Interior Ministry said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad.
The ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday incident.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight people were killed and 13 were wounded when security contractors working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.
"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities," Khalaf said.
Blackwater, based in North Carolina, provides security for many U.S. civilian operations in the country. Phone messages left early Monday at Blackwater's office in North Carolina and with a company spokeswoman were not immediately returned.
More here. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/headlines/D8RN61R86.html)
BMT (RIP)
09-20-2007, 08:03
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20884905/
BMT
Ret10Echo
09-20-2007, 08:49
B.W. is currently confined to the Green Zone. State has suspended all surface travel/convoy operations pending...:munchin
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=paIraq_wed7_Iraq_travel_ban&show_article=1&cat=0
Searched, didn't find this anywhere. Apologies if this is in the wrong place.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1575/story/712139.html
Feds target Blackwater in weapons probe
WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, declined to comment, as did Pentagon and State Department spokesmen.
Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.
The officials could not say whether the investigation would result in indictments, how many Blackwater employees are involved or if the company itself, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in government security contracts since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is under scrutiny.
In Saturday's editions, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that two former Blackwater employees - Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth "Max" Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C. - are cooperating with federal investigators.
Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty in early 2007 to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, and aided and abetted another in doing so, according to court papers viewed by The Associated Press. In their plea agreements, which call for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the men agreed to testify in any future proceedings.
Calls to defense attorneys were not immediately returned Friday evening, and calls to the telephone listings for both men also were not returned.
The News & Observer, citing unidentified sources, reported that the probe was looking at whether Blackwater had shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq without a license.
The paper's report that the company itself was under investigation could not be confirmed by the AP.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a review of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq following a deadly incident involving Blackwater USA guards protecting an embassy convoy.
Rice's announcement came as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad resumed limited diplomatic convoys under the protection of Blackwater outside the heavily fortified Green Zone after a suspension because of the weekend incident in that city.
In the United States, officials in Washington said the smuggling investigation grew from internal Pentagon and State Department inquiries into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq. It gained steam after Turkish authorities protested to the U.S. in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels.
The Turks provided serial numbers of the weapons to U.S. investigators, said a Turkish official.
The Pentagon said in late July it was looking into the Turkish complaints and a U.S. official said FBI agents had traveled to Turkey in recent months to look into cases of missing U.S. weapons in Iraq.
Investigators are determining whether the alleged Blackwater weapons match those taken from the PKK.
was not clear if Blackwater employees suspected of selling to the black market knew the weapons they allegedly sold to middlemen might wind up with the PKK. If they did, possible charges against them could be more serious than theft or illegal weapons sales, officials said.
The PKK, which is fighting for an independent Kurdistan, is banned in Turkey, which has a restive Kurdish population and is considered a "foreign terrorist organization" by the State Department. That designation bars U.S. citizens or those in U.S. jurisdictions from supporting the group in any way.
The North Carolina investigation was first brought to light by State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, who mentioned it, perhaps inadvertently, this week while denying he had improperly blocked fraud and corruption probes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Krongard was accused in a letter by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of politically motivated malfeasance, including refusing to cooperate with an investigation into alleged weapons smuggling by a large, unidentified State Department contractor.
In response, Krongard said in a written statement that he "made one of my best investigators available to help Assistant U.S. Attorneys in North Carolina in their investigation into alleged smuggling of weapons into Iraq by a contractor."
His statement went further than Waxman's letter because it identified the state in which the investigation was taking place. Blackwater is the biggest of the State Department's three private security contractors.
The other two, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, are based in Washington's northern Virginias suburbs, outside the jurisdiction of the North Carolina's attorneys.
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
cnn (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/21/blackwater.probe.ap/index.html)
fox (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297677,00.html)
Team Sergeant
09-22-2007, 10:02
Having been the personal bodyguard for the American Ambassador, in a war zone, I can understand the possible requirement to fire into a crowd.
I also understand those that are trained properly one or two rounds will equal a dead bad-guy next to his AK-47.
My only question is how many of those 11 killed by blackwater contractors were found next to their AK's?
Shooting randomly into a crowd of unarmed people is cowardly at best.
Team Sergeant
I think this recent development stems from an earlier discussion about how when these companies have large contracts they just start throwing bodies into positions, regardless of the person's experience. I have seen a lot of Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and a few others out in Iraq and you can immediately tell the ones that know the business and those who dress/pretend like they know the business. I spoke to one guy who had a fancy little toy on his weapon, and when I asked about it he basically admitted to just having it there for looks, it didn't even have a power supply... :rolleyes:
These guys used to tick us off, especially on the road, so I will admit part of me is happy that Blackwater is being investigated... not to mention the general lack of regard towards their employee's lives...
Should be interesting to see who the company tries to throw 'under the bus' when the hammer comes down....
Team Sergeant
09-22-2007, 15:58
I can't wait to find out if all of the blackwater shooters were "graduates" of the blackwater training course. What a joke.
I'll bet eric crapped his pants with this news.......
You going to sue those families also eric?
Iraqi Investigators say Videotape Shows Blackwater Guards Fired Without Aggravation
Saturday, September 22, 2007
E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
BAGHDAD — Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in an incident last week in which 11 people died, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case had been referred to the Iraqi judiciary.
Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 20 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.
He told The Associated Press that the conclusion was based on witness statements as well as videotape shot by cameras at the nearby headquarters of the national police command. He said eight people were killed at the scene and three of the 15 wounded died in hospitals.
Blackwater, which provides most of the security for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq, has insisted that its guards came under fire from armed insurgents and shot back only to defend themselves.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Saturday that she knew nothing about the videotape and was contractually prohibited from discussing any details of the shooting.
Khalaf also said the ministry was looking into six other fatal shootings involving the Moyock, N.C.-based company, including a Feb. 7 incident outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad in which three building guards were fatally shot.
"These six cases will support the case against Blackwater, because they show that it has a criminal record," Khalaf said.
Khalaf said the report had been "sent to the judiciary" although he would not specify whether that amounted to filing of criminal charges. Under Iraqi law, an investigating judge reviews criminal complaints and decides whether there is enough evidence for a trial.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Saturday that no decision had been taken whether to seek punishment for any Blackwater employees.
"The necessary measures will be taken that will preserve the honor of the Iraqi people," he said in New York, where al-Maliki arrived Friday for the U.N. General Assembly session. "We have ongoing high-level meetings with the U.S. side about this issue."
Al-Maliki is expected to raise the issue with Bush during a meeting Monday in New York.
It is doubtful that foreign security contractors could be prosecuted under Iraqi law. A directive issued by U.S. occupation authorities in 2004 granted contractors, U.S. troops and many other foreign officials immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.
Security contractors are also not subject to U.S. military law under which U.S. troopers face prosecution for killing or abusing Iraqis.
Iraqi officials have said in the wake of the Nisoor Square shooting that they will press for amendments to the 2004 directive.
A senior aide to al-Maliki said Friday that three of the Blackwater guards were Iraqis and could be subject to prosecution. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Shortly after the Sept. 20 shooting, U.S. officials said they "understood" that a videotape had recorded the incident in Nisoor Square but refused to give more details. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release information to the media.
Following the Nisoor Square shooting, the Interior Ministry banned Blackwater from operating in Iraq but rolled back after the U.S. agreed to a joint investigation. The company resumed guarding a reduced number of U.S. convoys on Friday.
The al-Maliki aide said Friday that the Iraqis were pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable."
Hadi al-Amri, a prominent Shiite lawmaker and al-Maliki ally, also said an admission of wrongdoing, an apology and compensation offered a way out of the dilemma.
"They are always frightened and that's why they shoot at civilians," al-Amri said. "If Blackwater gets to stay in Iraq, it will have to give guarantees about its conduct."
Allegations against Blackwater have clouded relations between Iraq and the Americans at a time when the U.S. administration is seeking to contain calls in Congress for sharp reductions in the 160,000-strong U.S. military force.
Adding to those strains, President Jalal Talabani demanded the immediate release of an Iranian official detained Thursday by U.S. forces in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
The U.S. military said the unidentified Iranian was a member of the Quds force — an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused of arming and training Shiite militias in Iraq.
A statement issued Saturday by Talabani's office said the arrest was carried out without the prior knowledge or the cooperation of the Kurdish regional government.
"This amounts to an insult and a violation of its rights and authority," said the statement, quoting a letter Talabani sent to Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Talabani, a Kurd, is one of Washington's most reliable partners in Iraq.
Talabani said Iran had threatened to close the border with the Kurdish region if the official were not freed — a serious blow to the economy in the president's political stronghold.
"I want to express to you our dismay over the arrest by American forces of this official civilian Iranian guest," Talabani wrote to Petraeus and Crocker.
Five Iranians said to be linked to the Quds force were arrested in the Kurdish city of Irbil and remain in U.S. custody.
Also Saturday, the U.S. military announced the death of two more U.S. soldiers — one of an unspecified non-combat related injury and another in a vehicle accident in Diyala province. The deaths raised to at least 3,795 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The U.S. said seven insurgents were killed and 12 were captured in a raid in Musayyib, 40 miles south of Baghdad. A U.S. statement said one of those captured is believed to know the whereabouts of senior al-Qaida in Iraq leaders.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297719,00.html
LOL, is the "spokeswoman" contractually prohibited from providing useful information of any kind or merely in cases where BW has shown its hindquarters? :rolleyes:
I have advised a number of large private equity investors on potential investments in this industry, and in every case I have recommended that they run for cover like their hair was on fire. The number of credible individuals in management and executive ranks at the major firms is dwarfed by the volume of shady blowhards.
One thing that should be noted is that the BW team which operates as part of the DoS WPPS program is that those teams....often have a Dept of State Diplomatic State Security agent as the team leader. IE a Federal Agent is the man in charge on the ground during the move. Also the BW/TC or Dyncorp contractors are acting as reperesntatives of the US DoS not reps of their respective companies.
Again I'm not a fan of BW... as they hire way too many "meat puppets/knuckleheads" Some of these contractors have done some incredibily stupid things, however their are many who have their act together as well. But as the press tends to attack and accuse our troops of horrible atrocities without proof, there is the possibility that this is a smear job as well.
As I worked in the Iraqi MoI office in Baghdad in 04-05, there are many MoI police/officals who have more loyalty to their religon than their country. I remember an afternoon I spent at the MoI bunker/CP where my Kurd "terp" told me he overheard that the IP guards were talking about the heros of Falluajha (ie the muji / Madhia Army) fighting Coalition Forces. It would not surprise me if the convoy was attacked and the PSD team actted correctly. As I was not there or have seen the AAR I can't comment on the actual incident.
I found this searching the net. He dispels many of the press reports and it is not run by BW:
http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/
Team Sergeant
09-25-2007, 12:08
I found this searching the net. He dispels many of the press reports and it is not run by BW:
http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/
I have little doubt this is the actual truth concerning the weapons issue.
It's the deliberate killing of unarmed civilians by "trained" blackwater employees that pisses me off.
Like I've asked before, were there a pile of weapons next to the pile of dead bodies?
This was a "direct fire" engagement, not collateral damage from a 2000lb bomb.
Team Sergeant
Like I've asked before, were there a pile of weapons next to the pile of dead bodies?
While I understand the gist of your post, the finding would depend on who secured the area after the fight. I have no dog in this fight but it's the same I'd say if the people in question were U.S. military.
Team Sergeant
09-28-2007, 09:10
For never serving as a bodyguard or ever been a SOF soldier or sailor Anne Tyrrell sure knows a lot about fighting.
erik prince you cannot speak for yourself, are you that spineless that you need a girl to speak for you?
Still suing the families of the contractors that were killed?
You are a piece of work.
Sleep well erik...
TS
House Democrats Fault Blackwater in Deaths of Four Guards
Friday, September 28, 2007
WASHINGTON — Blackwater USA triggered a major battle in the Iraq war in 2004 by sending an unprepared team of guards into an insurgent stronghold, a move that led to their horrific deaths and a violent response by U.S. forces, says a congressional investigation released Thursday.
The private security company, one of the largest working in Iraq and under scrutiny for how it operates, also is faulted for initially insisting its guards were properly prepared and equipped. It is also accused of impeding the inquiry by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The results of the staff inquiry come less than a week before Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and Blackwater's founder, is scheduled to testify before the committee, which is chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a longtime critic of Blackwater.
The March 2004 incident involving Blackwater was widely viewed as a turning point in the Iraq war after images of the mutilated bodies of the four guards were seen around the world. Four days after the Blackwater guards were killed, a major military offensive, known as the Battle of Fallujah, began.
The combat lasted almost a month in Fallujah, which is 40 miles west of Baghdad. At least 36 U.S. military personnel were killed along with 200 insurgents and an estimated 600 civilians, the congressional investigation found.
In a statement, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell called the report a "one-sided version" of a tragic incident. She said the committee has documents that show the Blackwater team was "betrayed" and steered into "a well-planned ambush."
The report does not acknowledge "that the terrorists determined what happened that fateful day in 2004," Tyrrell said. "The terrorists were intent on killing Americans and desecrating their bodies."
David Marin, the committee's Republican staff director, criticized the Democratic staff for reaching conclusions before the committee could dig deeper for answers.
"We certainly don't get there in this plaintiff's road map masquerading as an investigative report," Marin said.
Donna Zovko, whose son, Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, died in the Fallujah incident, said she hopes the staff report will lead to more oversight and more discussions about the use of contractors.
"Congress can't change anything for my son. He is gone and nothing can bring him back," Zovko said. "But let's see what they can do for the others out there because someone needs to care for these contractors. Blackwater cares about nothing but the mighty dollar."
The families of the four slain contractors filed suit against the company in January 2005, saying Blackwater's cost-cutting measures led to the deaths. That lawsuit is still pending as a federal judge tries to determine whether it should be heard in arbitration or in open court.
Blackwater has argued in court that it is immune to such a lawsuit because the company operates as an extension of the military and cannot be responsible for deaths in a war zone.
The results of the Democratic staff's probe cast Blackwater in a more negative light.
On Sept. 16, 2007, 11 Iraqis were killed in a shoot-out involving Blackwater guards protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.
The State Department, one of Blackwater's largest customers, has opened an investigation into the incident. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told Congress on Wednesday that the Baghdad incident was tragic but that private security companies like Blackwater were essential to operations in Iraq.
At the same time, a panel ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to review U.S. diplomatic security practices in Iraq will leave next week to begin assessing how the State Department protects its employees and other civilian government officials.
Rice on Thursday instructed the team, led by Patrick Kennedy, one of the most senior management experts in the Foreign Service, to present an interim report by Oct. 5, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
"Pat Kennedy will lead a small team to Iraq early next week to begin establishing some baseline set of facts about these contractor operations and provide Secretary Rice with an interim report no later than next Friday," McCormack said.
He quoted Rice as saying she wanted Kennedy's assessment to "be 360 (degrees), to be serious, and to be really probing."
The congressional report called Blackwater an "unprepared and disorderly" organization on the morning of March 31, 2004, when Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Michael Teague, and Scott Helvenston were riding in Mitsubishi Pajeros and guarding a supply convoy.
Although warned by other contractors that it was dangerous to drive through Fallujah, the Blackwater guards "seemed unaware of the potential risk," the report says.
Prior to the team's departure, two members were cut from the mission, leaving the vehicles without rear gunners. The report says they were needed to perform administrative duties elsewhere.
Blackwater "consistently delayed and erected impediments" to the investigation by claiming information was classified and "asserting questionable legal privileges," the report says.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298403,00.html
The Reaper
09-28-2007, 11:00
This report on the Fallujah incident is well worth the read:
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070927104643.pdf
TR
Ret10Echo
09-28-2007, 12:37
This hearing was before the Senate Appropriations Committee I believe. I have searched for transcripts without success (My Google-Fu must be lacking). Anyone seen it?
Facing questions about private security contractors during a Senate hearing Wednesday, Gates said his primary concern centered on whether Defense Department officials had been keeping a close enough eye on operations. "I think that we have the proper procedures, the proper rules and the proper legal authorities in order to prosecute contractors who violate the law," Gates said. "My concern is whether there has been sufficient accountability and oversight in the region over the activities of these security companies."
Also had this come out today....(yeah, I know the NY Slimes is about as left as San Francisco)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28contractors.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
State Dept. Tallies 56 Shootings Involving Blackwater on Diplomatic Guard Duty
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 — The State Department said Thursday that Blackwater USA security personnel had been involved in 56 shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq so far this year. It was the first time the Bush administration had made such data public.
Blackwater, a large, privately held security contractor based in North Carolina, provided security to diplomats on 1,873 convoy runs in Iraq so far this year, and its personnel fired weapons 56 times, according to a written statement by Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte.
The State Department did not release comparable 2007 numbers for other security companies, but the new Blackwater numbers show a far higher rate of shootings per convoy mission than were experienced in 2006 by one of the company’s primary competitors, DynCorp International. DynCorp reported 10 cases in about 1,500 convoy runs last year.
The New York Times reported Thursday that Blackwater’s rate of shootings was at least twice as high as the rates for other companies providing similar services to the State Department in Iraq.
NYT had this article with an account of the incident but the following paragraph doesn't seem a good indicator of reliability.
provided by an American official who was briefed on the American investigation by someone who helped conduct it, and by Americans who had spoken directly with two guards involved in the episode. Their accounts were broadly consistent.
nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28blackwater.html?ref=us
82ndtrooper
10-01-2007, 16:02
More on Blackwaters ROE or lack their of.
By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 1, 2007 | Last updated 4:11 PM Oct. 1
On the eve of hearing testimony Tuesday by Blackwater USA Chairman Erik Prince, a congressional committee has released data showing that the company's armed contractors have been involved in nearly 200 shooting incidents in Iraq since Jan. 1, 2005.
In 84 percent of those incidents, the data show, Blackwater personnel were the first to fire.
Under the terms of its security contract with the State Department, Blackwater operators are restricted to defensive use of force to prevent “imminent and grave danger” to themselves or others.
“In practice, however,” a committee staff analysis found, “the vast majority of Blackwater weapons discharges are preemptive.”
Blackwater, the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company, is one of three companies providing security services to the State Department in Iraq. The newly released data show that Blackwater has been involved in more shooting incidents than the other two combined and has the highest incidence of shooting first.
The data, taken from internal incident reports filed by the three companies and the State Department, were released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which will take testimony from Prince and three State Department officials Tuesday morning.
It will be a rare public appearance for Prince, who has close ties to the Republican administration. He is sure to face aggressive questioning from the Democrat-led panel in the wake of a Sept. 16 shooting incident involving Blackwater contractors in Baghdad in which at least 11 Iraqis died.
“We look forward to setting the record straight on this issue and others,” Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said today in an e-mail statement.
Blackwater’s internal reports document 16 confirmed Iraqi casualties in 195 shooting incidents since the beginning of 2005, not including the Sept. 16 incident.
The total could be higher, the committee staff noted, since in the vast majority of cases the contractors were firing from moving vehicles and did not stop to determine whether there were casualties.
The reports describe several shooting incidents that have not been previously reported. In one, Blackwater personnel shot a civilian bystander in the head. In another, State Department officials found that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed an apparently innocent bystander. In a third, Blackwater offered no assistance after one of its convoys caused a traffic accident that left an Iraqi vehicle in a ball of flames.
Ret10Echo
10-02-2007, 04:57
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1509
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Defense and Security
Hearing on Private Security Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan
On October 2, 2007, the Oversight Committee will hold a hearing to examine the use of private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The following witnesses are scheduled to testify:
Erik Prince, Chairman, the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA
Ambassador David M. Satterfield, Special Adviser, Coordinator for Iraq, Department of State
Ambassador Richard J. Griffin, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Director of the Office of Foreign Missions, Department of State
William H. Moser, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Logistics Management, Department of State
**********************
An additional read-ahead document is available. Sorry guys, too large to post the whole document here, but this is the link: http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf
MEMORANDUM
October 1,2007
To: Members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Fr: Majority Staff
Re: Additional Information about Blackwater USA
On October 2,2007, the Committee will hold a hearing entitled, "Blackwater USA:
Private Military Contractor Activity in Iraq and Afghanistan." The hearing will examine the
mission and performance of Blackwater USA and its affiliated companies in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater will testifu at the hearing, as will three State
Department officials: Ambassador David M. Satterf,reld, Special Adviser, Coordinator for Iraq;
Ambassador Richard J. Griffin, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Director
of the Offlrce of Foreign Missions; and William H. Moser, Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Logistics Management.
The hearing will provide members the opportunity to address three key questions: (l) Is
Blackwater's presence advancing or undermining U.S. efforts in Iraq? (2) Has the State
Department responded appropriately to shooting incidents involving Blackwater forces? And (3)
what are the costs for U.S. taxpayers of the reliance on Blackwater and other private military
contractors?
The Committee has received new information, which is summarized below, bearing on
all three of these questions.
Bløckwater Shootíng Incídents. Incident reports compiled by Blackwater reveal that
Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 "escalation of force" incidents in Iraq since 2005
that involved the firing of shots by Blackwater forces. This is an average of 1.4 shooting
incidents per week. Blackwater's contract to provide protective services to the State Department
BMT (RIP)
10-02-2007, 05:18
Read somewhere that BW has fired 122 people.
BMT
Ret10Echo
10-02-2007, 06:38
Read somewhere that BW has fired 122 people.
BMT
During the lifetime of the State Department contract apparently (Oversight committee document page 13)
A review of documents Blackwater submitted to the Committee reveals that Blackwater has terminated I22 employees under the State Department contract for protective services. This amounts to more than one seventh of Blackwater's current workforce under contract with the State Department in lraq.
Table C summarizes the principal causes for termination.
Table C: Termination of Blaclrwater Personnel"
W'eapons Related Incidents 28
Drugs and Alcohol Violations 25
Inappropriate/Lewd Conduct 16
Insubordination 11
PoorPerfonnance 10
AssressiveA/iolent Behavior 10
Rules Violations 8
Failure to Report an Incidenllying 6
Publiclv Embarassing Black¡vater 4
Security ClearancelClassification Issues 3
PTSD 1
Total 122
The most common cause for termination was weapons-related incidents, which included two terminations for inappropriately firing at Iraqis, one termination for threatening Iraqis with a firearm, 12 terminations for negligent or ccidental weapons discharges, and one termination for proposing to sell weapons to the Iraqi govemment. The terminations for drug and alcohol violations include four terminations for drunk driving accidents. The terminations for "publicly
embarassing Blackwater" include terminations for speaking to the media without Blackwater's authorization.
Testimony will be live on C-Span radio...10:00 Eastern Daylight Savings time(Zulu -4)
And surprisingly they will probably be the same people "responsible" for all of the incidents...
"That individual is no longer in our employ Senator..."
Ret10Echo
10-02-2007, 08:16
Live online
C-Span 3
http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan3_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3
Team Sergeant
10-02-2007, 09:31
Live online
C-Span 3
http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan3_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3
I'm watching it now......
Hey erik prince, Navy SEAL for almost 5 years, what is "defensive fire?" :rolleyes:
You missed a bullet there buddy...... I sure wish the congressmen and women would have asked you to expound on what you mean by "defensive fire".
Ret10Echo
10-02-2007, 09:33
I'm watching it now......
Hey erik prince, Navy SEAL for almost 5 years, what is "defensive fire?" :rolleyes:
You missed a bullet there buddy...... I sure wish the congressmen and women would have asked you to expound on what you mean by "defensive fire".
The partisan politics is nauseating.
Team Sergeant
10-02-2007, 09:50
"defensive force"
LOL
erik, what is "defensive force"?
Ret10Echo
10-02-2007, 10:11
"defensive force"
LOL
erik, what is "defensive force"?
Maybe going there.....
Nope...guess not.
The Reaper
10-02-2007, 12:18
Just so you guys know what is up.;)
"Blackwater bills the U.S. government $1,222 per day for a single "protective security specialist," it said. That works out to $445,891 on an annual basis, far higher than it would cost the military to provide the same service."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298888,00.html
Pretty lucrative for BW, especially when you can charge the employees for training, them pay them $500 or so per day. Hefty mark-up.
TR
Team Sergeant
10-02-2007, 12:33
Just so you guys know what is up.;)
"Blackwater bills the U.S. government $1,222 per day for a single "protective security specialist," it said. That works out to $445,891 on an annual basis, far higher than it would cost the military to provide the same service."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298888,00.html
Pretty lucrative for BW, especially when you can charge the employees for training, them pay them $500 or so per day. Hefty mark-up.
TR
Especially when you hire 3rd world nationals and pay them 25% of what American contractors make........;)
Who what the lady that last questioned erik? She was a sharp lady and well prepared, a democrat I believe.
Watched the whole testimony...can anyone say repetitive??? My favorite line was, "I'm not going to appologize", leading off several answers of his.
Pissed though that there was not a direct Q & A about the familes that he is suing! At least they could have done that.:rolleyes:
My summation is that our TS is correct. This guy is a !@$%#@@!$%^^!
Holly
Michelle
10-02-2007, 13:13
Especially when you hire 3rd world nationals and pay them 25% of what American contractors make........;)
Who what the lady that last questioned erik? She was a sharp lady and well prepared, a democrat I believe.
I forget her name but she was a Democrate from California I believe.
m1
Ret10Echo
10-02-2007, 13:55
Overall I was disappointed in the hearing but the members of congress lived up to my expectations. Instead of getting to the point and discussing the oversight and conduct (the point of this I thought) it turned into a political mud-slinging event with Prinze as a spectator at times. There were several opportunities to open the discussion to relevant topics but they were tossed aside in order to either attack or support the administration and the current policy. Sorry, but I thought McHenry from NC was going to get Prinze some ice-water at one point.
Did anyone else come away with the attitude that the members of the committee were referring to the employees as reverently as if they were active service members? The guys on the ground understand their chosen profession; they were not pressed into service.
Side observations include:
1. I was surprised to hear that a 5-year vet was invited to speak at the War College.
2. The Non-compete clause discussion
Astraeus
10-02-2007, 19:41
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/02/blackwater_bush/index1.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct. 2, 2007 | When Blackwater contractors guarding a U.S. State Department convoy allegedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16, it was only the latest in a series of controversial shooting incidents associated with the private security firm. Blackwater has a reputation for being quick on the draw. Since 2005, the North Carolina-based company, which has about 1,000 contractors in Iraq, has reported 195 "escalation of force incidents"; in 163 of those cases Blackwater guns fired first. According to the New York Times, Blackwater guards were twice as likely as employees of two other firms protecting State Department personnel in Iraq to be involved in shooting incidents.
On Tuesday morning, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will hold a hearing on the U.S. military's use of private contractors. When Waxman announced plans for the hearing last week, the State Department directed Blackwater not to give any information or testimony without its signoff. After a public spat between Rep. Waxman and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department relented. Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince is now scheduled to testify at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
But the attempt to shield Prince was apparently not the first time State had protected Blackwater. A report issued by Waxman on Monday alleges that State helped Blackwater cover up Iraqi fatalities. In December 2006, State arranged for the company to pay $15,000 to the family of an Iraqi guard who was shot and killed by a drunken Blackwater employee. In another shooting death, the payment was $5,000. As CNN reported Monday, the State Department also allowed a Blackwater employee to write State's initial "spot report" on the Sept. 16 shooting incident -- a report that did not mention civilian casualties and claimed contractors were responding to an insurgent attack on a convoy.
The ties between State and Blackwater are only part of a web of relationships that Blackwater has maintained with the Bush administration and with prominent Republicans. From 2001 to 2007, the firm has increased its annual federal contracts from less than $1 million to more than $500 million, all while employees passed through a turnstile between Blackwater and the administration, several leaving important posts in the Pentagon and the CIA to take jobs at the security company. Below is a list of some of Blackwater's luminaries with their professional -- and political -- résumés.
Erik Prince, founder and CEO: How did Blackwater go from a small corporation training local SWAT teams to a seemingly inseparable part of U.S. operations in Iraq? Good timing, and the connections of its CEO, may be the answer.
Prince, who founded Blackwater in 1996 but reportedly took a behind-the-scenes role in the company until after 9/11, has connections to the Republican Party in his blood. His late father, auto-parts magnate Edgar Prince, was instrumental in the creation of the Family Research Council, one of the right-wing Christian groups most influential with the George W. Bush administration. At his funeral in 1995, he was eulogized by two stalwarts of the Christian conservative movement, James Dobson and Gary Bauer. Edgar Prince's widow, Elsa, who remarried after her husband's death, has served on the boards of the FRC and another influential Christian-right organization, Dobson's Focus on the Family. She currently runs the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, where, according to IRS filings, her son Erik is a vice president. The foundation has given lavishly to some of the marquee names of the Christian right. Between July 2003 and July 2006, the foundation gave at least $670,000 to the FRC and $531,000 to Focus on the Family.
Both Edgar and Elsa have been affiliated with the Council for National Policy, the secretive Christian conservative organization whose meetings have been attended by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer, and whose membership is rumored to include Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Dobson. The Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation gave the CNP $80,000 between July 2003 and July 2006.
The former Betsy Prince -- Edgar and Elsa's daughter, Erik's sister -- married into the DeVos family, one of the country's biggest donors to Republican and conservative causes. ("I know a little something about soft money, as my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party," Betsy DeVos wrote in a 1997 Op-Ed in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.) She chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and again from 2003 to 2005, and her husband, Dick, ran as the Republican candidate for Michigan governor in 2006.
Erik Prince himself is no slouch when it comes to giving to Republicans and cultivating relationships with important conservatives. He and his first and second wives have donated roughly $300,000 to Republican candidates and political action committees. Through his Freiheit Foundation, he also gave $500,000 to Prison Fellowship Ministries, run by former Nixon official Charles Colson, in 2000. In the same year, he contributed $30,000 to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. During college, he interned in George H.W. Bush's White House, and also interned for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. Rohrabacher and fellow California Republican Rep. John Doolittle have visited Blackwater's Moyock, N.C., compound, on a trip arranged by the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm founded by former aides of then House Majority Leader Tom Delay. ASG partner Paul Behrends is a longtime associate of Prince's.
Prince's connections seem to have paid off for Blackwater. Robert Young Pelton, author of "Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror," has reported that one of Blackwater's earliest contracts in the national arena was a no-bid $5.4 million deal to provide security guards in Afghanistan, which came after Prince made a call to then CIA executive director Buzzy Krongard. What's more, Harper's Ken Silverstein has reported that Prince has a security pass for CIA headquarters and "meets with senior people" inside the CIA. But Prince's most important benefactor was fellow conservative Roman Catholic convert L. Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American occupation government in Iraq. In August 2003, Blackwater won a $27.7 million contract to provide personal security for Bremer. In charge of the Blackwater team guarding Bremer was Frank Gallagher, who had provided personal security for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when Bremer was managing director of Kissinger's consulting firm, Kissinger and Associates, in the 1990s.
By 2005, Blackwater was earning $353 million annually from federal contracts. Blackwater's benefits from government largess haven't ended with Iraq. The company was recently one of five awarded a Department of Defense counter-narcoterrorism contract that could reportedly be worth as much as $15 billion. Blackwater also became involved in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and profited handsomely. According to Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," Blackwater had made roughly $73 million for Katrina-related government work by June 2006, less than a year after the hurricane hit.
Joseph Schmitz, chief operating officer and general counsel: In 2002, President Bush nominated Schmitz to oversee and police the Pentagon's military contracts as the Defense Department's inspector general. Schmitz presided over the largest increase of military-contracting spending in history: As of 2005, 77 companies were awarded 149 "prime contracts" worth $42.1 billion, with hundreds of millions going to Blackwater. Unlike previous I.G.s, Schmitz reported directly to the secretary of defense -- a setup that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers objected to, given Schmitz's oversight responsibility. Schmitz even carried Rumsfeld's "12 principles" for the Pentagon in his lapel pocket. The first principle read, "Do nothing that could raise questions about the credibility of DoD."
Astraeus
10-02-2007, 19:43
Continued:
Schmitz has many ties to the Republican Party establishment. His father, John G. Schmitz, was a two-term Republican congressman, and his brother, Patrick Schmitz, served as George H.W. Bush's deputy counsel from 1985 to 1993. Joseph himself worked as a special assistant to Reagan-era Attorney General Edwin Meese.
Schmitz resigned in 2005 under mounting pressure from both Democratic and Republican senators, who accused him of interfering with criminal investigations into inappropriately awarded contracts, turning a blind eye to conflicts of interest and other failures of oversight. According to an October 2005 article in Time magazine, Schmitz showed the White House the results of his staff's multiyear investigation into a contract in which the Air Force leased air-refueling tankers from Boeing for more than it would have cost to buy them, then agreed to redact the names of senior White House staffers involved in the decision before sending the final report to Congress. Schmitz informed his staff on Aug. 26, 2005, that he was leaving the Pentagon; in September of that year, he went to work for Blackwater.
J. Cofer Black, vice chairman: Black spent most of his 28-year CIA career running covert operations in the Directorate of Operations, where he worked with Rob Richer (below). At the time of the 9/11 attacks, he was director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. There he was former CIA Director George Tenet's ace in the hole when it came to convincing Bush that the CIA should lead initial U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan after 9/11. Black is, according to published accounts, a man with a flair for the dramatic, the kind of briefer President Bush likes. In one briefing, according to several reports, Black told the president, "When we're through with [terrorists in Afghanistan], they will have flies walking across their eyeballs." (Black also ordered CIA field officer Gary Schroen to bring back Osama bin Laden's head packed in dry ice so Black could show it to Bush.) Black's Afghanistan presentation earned him "special access" to the White House, the Washington Post's Dana Priest reported in December 2005.
Black is also one of the more prominent faces associated with the Bush administration's interrogation and extraordinary rendition policies. In a famous moment, Black told Congress in 2002, "After 9/11, the gloves came off." And the group within the CIA responsible for extraordinary renditions -- operations in which covert agents grab terror suspects and take them to secret prison facilities for interrogations that would normally be prohibited as torture -- fell under Black at the CTC, Priest has reported.
Black later went to the State Department, where one of his roles was to begin coordinating security for the 2004 Olympics in Greece. In 2003, the State Department gave Blackwater a contract to train the Olympic security teams.
In 2004, Black left the State Department to join Blackwater, part of what Harper's Silverstein termed a "revolving door to Blackwater" from the CIA. In addition to his work with Blackwater and his own company, Total Intelligence Solutions, Black also recently joined the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, where he serves the Republican hopeful as senior advisor for counterterrorism and national security.
Rob Richer, vice president for intelligence: Richer was head of the CIA's Near East division -- and the agency's liaison with King Abdullah of Jordan -- from 1999 to 2004. In 2003, he briefed President Bush on the nascent Iraqi insurgency. In late 2004, he became the associate deputy director in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, making him the second-ranking official for clandestine operations. He left the agency for Blackwater in the fall of 2005, effectively taking the agency's relationship with Abdullah with him. The CIA had invested millions of dollars in training Jordan's intelligence services. There was an obvious quid pro quo: In exchange for the training, Jordan would share information. Jordan has now hired Blackwater's intelligence division -- headed by Richer -- to do its spy training instead. The CIA isn't happy, writes Silverstein: "People [at the agency] are pissed off," said Silverstein's source. "Abdullah still speaks with Richer regularly and he thinks that's the same thing as talking to us. He thinks Richer is still the man."
Fred Fielding, former outside counsel: After four Blackwater employees were tortured and killed in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, their families brought a wrongful-death lawsuit against Blackwater, charging that the company had not provided adequate arms, armor and backup. Blackwater feared that if it was found liable for its employees' deaths, a floodgate of future litigation could be opened. To fight the suit, Blackwater hired Fielding, the consummate Republican insider. Dan Callahan, a lawyer representing the families, told Salon he was shocked when he learned Fielding would be representing the company. "How the hell," Callahan says he wondered at the time, "did I draw Fred Fielding on this case?"
Fielding has had a long career as a lawyer to prominent Republicans. From 1970 to 1972, he was an associate White House counsel in the Nixon administration; from 1972 to 1974, he was present for the denouement of that administration as deputy White House counsel. Under President Reagan, he served as White House counsel from 1981 to 1986, where he was the boss of a young assistant counsel named John Roberts, now the chief justice of the United States. After the 2000 election, he served the current administration as transition counsel, and he also held a spot on the 9/11 Commission. In January 2007, Bush chose him as White House counsel.
Ken Starr, outside counsel: According to Callahan, Fielding represented Blackwater as outside counsel for about six months beginning in February 2005. After Fielding left the case, the law firm Greenberg Traurig, which was once home to Jack Abramoff and worked for George W. Bush in the Florida recount, represented Blackwater till October 2006. Blackwater then hired another high-profile lawyer with impeccable Republican credentials -- Ken Starr, now the dean of Pepperdine Law School in California. Starr was appointed to the federal bench by Reagan, was U.S. solicitor general under George H.W. Bush and was on Bush's shortlist to replace William Brennan on the Supreme Court. He is best known, however, as the independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton. He revealed the intimate details of Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky in the infamous Starr Report and set in motion Clinton's impeachment by Congress.
Blackwater continues to assert that the state of North Carolina lacks jurisdiction in the wrongful-death lawsuit against the security firm. On Oct. 18, 2006, Starr petitioned Chief Justice Roberts on behalf of Blackwater, asserting that the company was "constitutionally immune" to the lawsuit. "If companies such as Blackwater must factor the defense costs of state tort lawsuits into [their] overall costs," argued Starr, "Blackwater will suffer irreparable harm." Roberts denied the petition on Oct. 24. In December, Starr filed a motion to bring the matter before the entire Supreme Court. The motion was denied in February.
Additional reporting by Tracee Herbaugh.
Astraeus
10-02-2007, 19:57
FOX Cuts Mic on Mother & Brother of Slain Blackwater Guard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BWb4ZMQs9s
Again I'm not a fan of BW... as they hire way too many "meat puppets/knuckleheads" Some of these contractors have done some incredibily stupid things, however their are many who have their act together as well. But as the press tends to attack and accuse our troops of horrible atrocities without proof, there is the possibility that this is a smear job as well.
IMO, this sucks. Nothing good happening here at all. It's going to hurt good people if anything. Don't think just BW either. The boom in Civilian contracting has provided opportunities, second careers and opened doors that never existed for Team guys. If you think I am talking about running and gunning in OIF or OEF you couldn't be more wrong.
I have been doing contracting since 2003. 30% Conus 70% Oconus, in several different countries. None of those countries were called Iraq or Afghanistan. Doesn't jive with what the MSM says, do's it.
There are actually squared away, Honorable Men doing this. Is it not serving your country because you make more Money? If they raise E-3 pay to $8000 per month. Are all Privates then Mercenaries, Guns for hire. Wheres the money cut off?
Back in the eighties there wasn't much for SF to do when he retired out of Group. Especially if he spent the majority of his SF time on a Team. Instead of the other way around. To me SF is being on a Team. For the SF Guys who wouldn't dare consider working anywhere but on a Team. The opportunities to make yourself marketable on the outside didn't exist. Not that most cared.
Staying on a Team is marketable now. Personally I am pissed this is happening. Yes this guy is a scum Bag. But so are a lot of other people. I kind of like being rewarded for hiding behind a Ruck Sack the whole time;) People said I was stupid to serve on a Team my last year in "Go work in the Basement and attend Fayetteville Tech" Those guys are probably working for BW today. Standing beside some Honduran for $350 per day:eek:
With the requirement for tactically proficient instructors and advisor's State side as well as overseas. Contracting is a just reward for putting in as much effort your last year in SF as you did the first. It's just what we needed, deserved. If you truly put in, did your job and took advantage of every opportunity. Contracting is just a temporary Gig to build a nice nest egg.
I don't want to see that go away for the guys getting out down the road. If you don't think Active Duty SF benefits from Civilians contractors. Talk to someone who went thru or better yet worked at SOTIC or SOT. Nope, nothing good is going to come out of this. Thats what these hearings are for right? To do whats best.
A true veteran of Contracting told me once " if you get into Contracting and your biggest enemy is time" "Your doing good"
Ill add, if your pulling Guard Duty with two Guys who are arguing about who's hotter, Shakira or Rubia. Well it's better then selling Cars.
Ret10Echo
10-03-2007, 04:47
The things this hearing in particular and the hearings that have occured over the last couple of weeks were supposed to be looking toward is how to manage the utilization of security services at the scale they are being deployed currently in the Iraqi and Afghan theaters of operation. Currently there is no policy, because it has not happened before. So, let's lay down some ground rules on how the Federal D/As are going to handle this. It would provide a very clear left and right limit for the company management and the guys that are doing the real work on the ground.
This (IMO) was not supposed to be a witch-hunt (despite personal opinion about erik p.) it was suppposed to show that there really is a gap in how the Fed manages this. BW is in the hot seat because of the recent incident and the fact that they have the largest presence. Should the end state be the removal of the contract security? I think not. They fulfill a requirement. It is not a matter of the capabilities of the military. Obviously DoD could do the mission, the guys that are working for the contractors got their training there! (the true professionals). State does not want to use the military and I don't think the military wants to get bogged down doing what the contractors do. However, the execution of the task should not be counterproductive to the overall effort on the ground.
Honestly, if you were the ground forces commander would you be concerned about having what amounts to as a private army operating in your AOR? Is the RSO qualified to manage them?
The paper that Wacksman distributed prior to the hearings was a staffer hack job attempting to discredit the President and the Republican party. Done in the typical poor taste and back-biting manner of the scum that inhabit the left and right side of the capitol building....it served no purpose other than to further muddy the issues. Spin, nothing more.
infsoldier0441
10-03-2007, 07:26
New York Times
October 3, 2007
Chief Of Blackwater Defends His Employees
By John M. Broder
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — Erik D. Prince, chief executive of Blackwater USA, told a Congressional committee on Tuesday that his company’s nearly 1,000 armed guards in Iraq were not trigger-happy mercenaries, but rather loyal Americans doing a necessary job in hostile territory.
Mr. Prince disputed a Congressional staff report that detailed several instances of Blackwater employees killing Iraqis, fleeing the scene and then the company trying to cover up the violent episodes by whisking the Blackwater employees out of the country and quietly paying off the families of the victims.
He accused Congress and the news media of a “rush to judgment” about Blackwater episodes that left civilians dead, including a chaotic confrontation in a Baghdad square on Sept. 16 that killed at least 17 Iraqis. He said it was too soon to pass judgment on that episode, which is under investigation by the State Department, the F.B.I. and the Iraqi government.
“We have 1,000 guys out in the field,” he said. “People make mistakes; they do stupid things sometimes.” But he added that the company dismissed or disciplined those who broke its rules and that many of the episodes that led to Iraqi deaths came to light only because Blackwater personnel reported them to the State Department.
Mr. Prince’s appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was his first extended turn in public. The company he founded 10 years ago has come under fire from critics in Congress and the military who portray its employees, many of them former military special forces operators, as unaccountable soldiers of fortune who are undermining the American mission in Iraq by alienating the Iraqi public.
The hearing also included testimony from two senior State Department officials who offered extensive praise for Blackwater’s professionalism in Iraq and insisted that the department had acted properly in investigating cases in which the company’s employees were accused of illegal acts.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is the committee’s chairman, citing evidence of State Department efforts to protect Blackwater employees from investigations by Iraqi officials and to help the company compensate victims of shootings, said it appeared that the department was acting as Blackwater’s “enabler.”
Mr. Prince, 38, a former Navy Seal, appeared before the committee and its openly skeptical chairman in a trim dark blue suit with his blond hair in a fresh cut. He was accompanied by a handful of Blackwater executives and lawyers.
In the audience were family members of the four Blackwater guards who were killed and whose bodies were burned in an ambush in Falluja in 2004 that marked a turning point in the war.
Mr. Prince said he welcomed additional oversight and new regulations from Congress to clarify the company’s roles and legal responsibilities overseas. He said the company was providing a needed service at a reasonable cost. Many Democrats on the committee disputed that, citing the $1,222 that the company charged the government for each day of work by one of its security guards.
Near the end of his more than three hours at the witness table, Mr. Prince said, “If the government doesn’t want us to do this, we’ll go do something else.”
Mr. Prince answered most questions directly, although he demurred on specific questions on Blackwater’s government contracts and on the number of Iraqi civilians it had compensated for killing family members or destroying private property.
By agreement with Mr. Waxman and Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the committee, Mr. Prince was not asked questions about the Sept. 16 shootings in Baghdad to avoid prejudicing the current criminal inquiry.
But in prepared testimony, Mr. Prince defended his employees’ actions in Baghdad that day. “I stress to the committee and to the American public,” he said, “that based on everything we currently know, the Blackwater team acted appropriately while operating in a very complex war zone on Sept. 16.”
Mr. Prince, who comes from a wealthy and prominent Republican family in Michigan, said his company’s phenomenal rise came from competence, not connections. He said he had not personally lobbied the White House or Congress to get federal contracts.
Asked if his sister-in-law, Betsy DeVos, a major Bush fund-raiser, former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman and wife of the party’s 2006 nominee for governor, had interceded on Blackwater’s behalf, he smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said.
The company had less than $1 million of federal government contracts in 2001. Last year, the company took in nearly $600 million in federal money, most of it under contract with the State Department to provide bodyguards for diplomats and visiting dignitaries, including the dozens of members of Congress who travel to Iraq each year.
Mr. Prince said he was proud of his employees, who have conducted thousands of escort missions in the most dangerous parts of central Iraq without death or serious injury to any of the people they are assigned to protect. Thirty Blackwater workers have been killed in Iraq, he said.
He said Blackwater guards strictly followed rules of engagement set by the State Department, which call for gradual escalation of force before any shots are fired.
The House committee staff found that Blackwater employees had fired their weapons 195 times since early 2005 and in a vast majority of incidents used their weapons before taking any hostile fire. The report also said that in most cases Blackwater guards fired from fast-moving vehicles and immediately fled the scene of any confrontation.
“Our job is to get them off the X — the preplanned ambush site where the bad guys have planned to kill you,” Mr. Prince said. “We can’t stay and secure the terrorist crime scene investigation.”
He forcefully rejected the characterization of Blackwater from some members of the committee as a mercenary army. He said that contractors had served with the United States military since Revolutionary times and that mercenaries were soldiers who fought with foreign armies for money.
“They call us mercenaries,” he said. “But we’re Americans working for America protecting Americans.”
State Department officials who testified after Mr. Prince did largely defended the government’s use of security employees from Blackwater and other firms that handle diplomatic security in Iraq, saying the armed guards performed a critical service.
“Without private security details, we would not be able to interface with Iraqi government officials, institutions and other Iraqi civilians critical to our mission there,” said David M. Satterfield, the State Department’s coordinator for Iraq and a senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Ret10Echo
10-03-2007, 10:02
Iraq PM Maliki questions future role of Blackwater
By Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki questioned on Wednesday whether U.S. private security firm Blackwater had any future role in Iraq because of the high number of shooting incidents in which it had been involved.
Maliki appeared to toughen his stand again against Blackwater over a September 16 shooting in Baghdad in which 11 Iraqis died, an incident that sparked outrage among Iraqis who see the firm as a private army which acts with impunity.
In Washington, a House of Representatives committee heard in testy hearings on Tuesday that Blackwater guards had been involved in 195 shooting incidents in Iraq from the start of 2005 until September 12 this year, an average of 1.4 a week.
In those shootings there were 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 cases of property damage. Blackwater fired first in 84 percent of the incidents, said a report given to the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"I believe the big numbers of accusations directed against (Blackwater) do not make it valid to stay in Iraq," Maliki told a news conference in Baghdad.
Blackwater, which has received U.S. government contracts worth more than a billion dollars, is one of the biggest security contractors in Iraq. It employs about 1,000 people in Iraq, where it guards the U.S. embassy and its staff.
The North Carolina-based company has said its guards reacted lawfully to an attack on a convoy they were protecting during the September 16 incident in western Baghdad.
Maliki's government was harshly critical of Blackwater immediately after the incident, which it called a crime, and vowed to freeze its work and prosecute those involved.
But Maliki's government later appeared to soften its stand, saying no action would be taken against it until after a joint investigation of the incident with U.S. officials.
Its comments came after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised a full review of how U.S. security details are conducted in Iraq. At least four separate investigations into the incident are under way.
Estimates of the number of private security contractors working in Iraq vary between 25,000 and 48,000. They are immune from prosecution under an order drafted after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
Ret10Echo
10-05-2007, 13:04
:munchin
Rice puts cameras on Blackwater convoys
By Sue Pleming
2 hours, 57 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday ordered measures to boost oversight of U.S. security firm Blackwater, including putting video cameras on its convoys, after last month's deadly shootings in Iraq.
The firm has come under intense scrutiny in the U.S. Congress and is under investigation over the September 16 shootings in Baghdad that killed 11 Iraqis.
Rice took the actions after receiving a report by a special panel she sent to Baghdad to look into the incident.
"We are putting in place more robust assets to make sure that the management reporting accountability function works as best it possibly can," said McCormack. "These were initial steps."
Senior State Department official Patrick Kennedy heads the panel Rice sent to Iraq last weekend and McCormack said he expected more recommendations would follow.
Special agents would begin immediately accompanying Blackwater when the firm transports U.S. diplomatic personnel outside the fortified international zone, McCormack said.
"Agents are en route to Baghdad and we will continue to deploy them," he said, declining to provide exact numbers for security reasons.
RECORD OF INCIDENTS
Video cameras and other recording devices would be loaded onto convoy vehicles and electronic data tracking material would be stored, he added.
"The idea here is if you have an incident, you have a record."
There would also be increased communication between privately secured convoys and the U.S. military operating in the area, McCormack said.
There are four different investigations into the September 16 killings involving Blackwater, including one led by the FBI as well as a joint U.S.-Iraqi inquiry.
The incident has put the role of private security contractors into the spotlight, both in Iraq and in the United States, where the Bush administration has been criticized for insufficient oversight and a lack of accountability.
Blackwater, which has earned more than a billion dollars from U.S. government contracts since 2001, says it acted "appropriately" during the shootings, but Iraq's government has insisted that what happened was a crime.
There are differing versions of what happened on September 16. U.S. military reports from the scene of the shooting indicated Blackwater guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
"It was obviously excessive. It was obviously wrong," an unnamed U.S. military official told the newspaper.
"The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them," the official was quoted as saying.
Blackwater's founder Erik Prince said in remarks prepared for a congressional hearing this week that his firm's guards came under small-arms fire and "returned fire at threatening targets."
"Some of those firing on this Blackwater team appeared to be wearing Iraqi National Police uniforms, or portions of such uniforms. As the withdrawal occurred, the Blackwater vehicles remained under fire from such personnel," said Prince in the remarks obtained by Reuters but which were deleted from the testimony he ultimately delivered
Team Sergeant
10-05-2007, 20:12
:munchin
Rice puts cameras on Blackwater convoys
By Sue Pleming
2 hours, 57 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday ordered measures to boost oversight of U.S. security firm Blackwater, including putting video cameras on its convoys, after last month's deadly shootings in Iraq.
Is it just me or does anyone else think it's strange that the United States Diplomatic Service aka the State Department finds it necessary to arm themselves inorder to conduct their daily business?
The fact that shutting down blackwater shut down the State Department in iraq tells me volumes on the current situation, its still out of control.
TS
This whole Blackwater situation is outrageous. I can barely get my head around it.
I full sympathise with this too...
It's the deliberate killing of unarmed civilians by "trained" Blackwater employees that pisses me off.
However, in slight defence, they(militants) are hardly whiter than white.
Team Sergeant
10-06-2007, 09:30
This whole Blackwater situation is outrageous. I can barely get my head around it.
I full sympathise with this too...
However, in slight defence, they(militants) are hardly whiter than white.
The reason blackwater has the state department contract is, supposedly, because their employees are better trained, faster, more accurate, more mature, experienced, etc etc etc. (After the Sept 16th slaughter I've little doubt concerning their training and abilities.)
Again, I was the personal bodyguard for the American Ambassador in a war zone.
(I was a Special Forces SFC (E-7) making about $32,000 dollars a year.) I was detailed to the State Dept DSS and worked directly for the RSO. I know what it takes to do the job. And the use of "defensive force" is not an option when defending a diplomat.
There's no such tactic as "defensive force".
You don't fire into a crowd of unarmed civilians and call it "defensive force".
Let me say that again, you don't fire into a crowd of unarmed civilians and call it defensive force.
If you fire into a crowd you shoot with precision, surgically removing the threat.
There's no such thing as defensive force.......... well, unless a 4 year veteran of the Navy SEALs made it up of course.
TS
Ret10Echo
10-06-2007, 14:18
Is it just me or does anyone else think it's strange that the United States Diplomatic Service aka the State Department finds it necessary to arm themselves inorder to conduct their daily business?
The fact that shutting down blackwater shut down the State Department in iraq tells me volumes on the current situation, its still out of control.
TS
Cause and effect....
1. There is in-fact a war going on...that has no defined front line (Dare I say, Unconventional...or Assymmetrical) so the dips that are used to scurrying around behind the lines are now wandering around in the kill-box full time.
2. At some level there is a lack of understanding or a resistance to see the truth that regardless of whether or not you arm yourself you are in the fight. If you choose to bring a quill to the battle I hope it is sharp and you are in close.
3. Aparently if innocents must die in order for diplomacy to take place that is OK.
:confused:
Guys,
Very sorry to jump in like this, but I was wondering if I could solicit your opinion on the following:
To what degree is this a case of poor personnel selection by BW and other contractors involved in similar incidents, and can this problem be rectified by more rigorous hiring practices? Is there a way, through assessments at hiring, to realistically sort the "bad from the good" and thus minimize these kinds of incidents?
On the other side of things, can this also be construed as resulting largely from poor/general lack of training in Personal Security methods?
Thank you very much,
Solid
The Reaper
10-06-2007, 16:20
Guys,
Very sorry to jump in like this, but I was wondering if I could solicit your opinion on the following:
To what degree is this a case of poor personnel selection by BW and other contractors involved in similar incidents, and can this problem be rectified by more rigorous hiring practices? Is there a way, through assessments at hiring, to realistically sort the "bad from the good" and thus minimize these kinds of incidents?
On the other side of things, can this also be construed as resulting largely from poor/general lack of training in Personal Security methods?
Thank you very much,
Solid
IMHO, they are getting what they are paying for.
TR
BMT (RIP)
10-06-2007, 16:30
The man identified as a Blackwater USA contractor who shot and killed an Iraqi guard while drunk had previously been a soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division.
The man, Andrew J. Moonen, is identified in “numerous government and company documents and is known to scores of Blackwater and government officials,” according to the New York Times.
Moonen served with the 82nd Airborne from April 2002 until April 2005. Fort Bragg spokesman Tom Earnhardt said Moonen received an honorable discharge.
“He served in the 82nd during a time of war and he did so in an honorable fashion and he completed his term of service and moved on to civilian life,” Earnhardt said.
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing Tuesday into allegations that Blackwater — one of three private U.S. security forces in Iraq — has repeatedly overstepped its bounds and killed Iraqis.
The hearing was prompted by a Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards escorting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad are alleged to have killed at least 11 Iraqis. That incident rekindled complaints from Iraqi officials about the earlier killing.
Blackwater and government officials have declined to reveal the contractor involved in that death. A memo by the House committee’s staff dated Monday outlines the Dec. 24 shooting and the involvement of the Blackwater contractor, identified by the New York Times as Moonen:
“On December 24, 2006, a 26-year-old Blackwater security contractor shot and killed a 32-year-old security guard to Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi during a confrontation in the ‘Little Venice’ area of the International Zone in Baghdad. This incident sparked an angry reaction from the Iraqi government.
“According to documents obtained by the Committee, the Blackwater contractor, who worked as an armorer, had attended a party on the evening of December 24, had consumed several alcoholic beverages and was described as drunk by witnesses who encountered him that evening.
“The Blackwater contractor, carrying a Glock 9 mm pistol, passed through a gate near the Iraqi Prime Minister’s compound and was confronted by the Iraqi guard, who was on duty. The Blackwater contractor fired multiple shots, three of which struck the guard, then fled the scene.
“The Blackwater contractor fled to a guard post operated by Triple Canopy, another private military contractor. He told personnel there that he had gotten into a gunfight with Iraqis and that they were chasing him and shooting at him.
“The guards had not heard any gunshots. He fumbled with his firearm, which was loaded, until one of the guards took it from him. Although he appeared visibly intoxicated and smelled of alcohol, he denied that he had any alcoholic beverages that evening...”
“On December 25, the day after the shooting of the guard, Blackwater terminated the contractor from the State Department contract based on its policy against possessing a firearm while intoxicated. That same day, only hours after the shooting, Blackwater arranged to have the contractor flown out of lraq...”
“Immediately following the incident, the State Department determined that Blackwater should send a letter of condolence to the victim’s family along with a cash payment,” later determined to be $20,000.
Moonen, who got divorced in Cumberland County in December 2004, has not been charged with a crime. Federal officials continue to investigate.
Moonen lives in Seattle. He could not be reached for comment.
His lawyer, Riley P. Stewart of Seattle, declined to comment on specifics of the case and urged Congress and the media not to rush to judgment.
“I am just trying to get them to understand that we have a great system of criminal justice in the United States,” he said.
Stewart called Moonen “a fine young man with a sterling record in the U.S. Army. No criminal record, just a fine young man.”
Court records in Washington state show that Moonen has had six traffic offenses since 2002, including driving while his license was suspended.
Stewart said Moonen was upset that his name became public.
“His name hit the New York Times,” Stewart said. “It’s something I would not wish on my worst enemy. He’s going through a very stressful time, and that is just kind of the way it is.”
He said people must remember that the alleged incident happened in the secure Green Zone in Iraq, “not a place where one goes for a picnic.”
Stewart pointed to the Congressional memo. “There is a huge factual dispute here as to what actually happened,” he said. “This is an abnormally incredibly complex case from a jurisdictional, factual and evidentiary standpoint.”
Iraqi authorities have given soldiers and government contractors immunity from prosecution.
“My client cooperated fully with the American authorities in Iraq, unlike some of the other Blackwater employees in earlier instances,” Stewart said. “My client went to the nearest guard shack and reported the incident.”
Ret10Echo
10-06-2007, 18:30
served with the 82nd Airborne from April 2002 until April 2005.
To Echo TR....you get what you pay for
x-factor
10-06-2007, 22:20
Who what the lady that last questioned erik? She was a sharp lady and well prepared, a democrat I believe.
If I'm reading the transcript right it was Representative Diane Watson (D-CA) from South Central Los Angeles.
Gentlemen,
Thank you for the responses. In that case, would you both agree that should government contractor requirement standards tangibly increase, it would lead to an increase in both the quality and operating costs for PMCs?
I ask because I am looking at writing on the effects PMCs have on government policy, and am arguing in one section that government standards increases will increase the cost of operation, force some firms out of business as a result, and thus lead to fewer firms with more consolidated, higher-quality personnel. Not to get too far off topic, but does that seem in any way likely to any of you?
Thanks again,
Solid
You don't fire into a crowd of unarmed civilians and call it "defensive force".
Yeah, I hear you man, there's no justification for it at all.
But it must be difficult in some situations determining what is/could a potential threat. Surely what starts as a crowd of civilians can soon turn into an armed mob. So I can foresee 'some' personnel getting nervy, especially following the 2004 Fallujah incident. Whether this is indicative of 'less professional' contractors, I wouldn't like to say.
But I guess my post above blurs the line by referring to militia, as compared to civilians. Which perhaps begs the question, is any more acceptable to fire on the unarmed 'opposition'. Blatantly, the militia believe so.
The Reaper
10-07-2007, 07:07
A young kid whose military experience consists of a tour in the 82nd, while a great American, is not trained or capable of discriminating fire, operating as a member of a PSD, or in many cases, even ready to make a shoot-no shoot decision involving interpretation of the ROE. For that matter, neither is a pig farmer with no military experience.
I do not believe that BW is providing selection, assessment, and training to equip conventional military personnel (or some SOF), patrol LEOs, or inexperienced hires with no significant military experience the ability to correctly make these use of force decisions. Experienced SF soldiers come with this training, but at a higher employment cost, and with a very low tolerance before raising the BS flag.
I think that BW has developed a rep for hiring inappropriate personnel, usually on the cheap side, failing to provide weapons and resources, like armored vehicles, as the contract requires, fielding inadequate numbers of personnel to fulfill contract requirements, ignoring a moral responsibility to coordinate and integrate with military forces in their AOs, and not providing adequate adult supervision for the forces they field. This has led to a number of incidents causing unnecessary casualties on both sides.
IMHO, most of this was due to a desire to maximize profits and transfer costs, most probably driven from the highest levels of BW.
Just my .02, YMMV.
TR
Ret10Echo
10-07-2007, 14:56
I'm starting to see some reports that the firing into the crowd was a reaction to mortar fire? I am not sure what the IAD is for BW reacting to mortar fire, but I am also not sure if I would delay long enough to figure out if it was an IED or Mortar fire...
+1 to T.R.'s comments.........
Basis of the reaction is the baseline skill and experience of those working the detail. I don't want to take anything away from the true professional security workers out there, but the shake-n-bake-to-meet-the-contractual
-obligations is degrading the status and reputation of those who really do know what they are doing.
Team Sergeant
10-08-2007, 17:14
[Note to self, do not seek employment with blackwater.]
Iraq Blackwater Report Seeks Calls for Ouster, Millions for Victims' Families
Monday, October 08, 2007
BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater USA within six months and pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed when the firm's guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine gun fire last month.
The demands — part of an Iraqi government report examined by The Associated Press — also called on U.S. authorities to hand over the Blackwater security agents involved in the Sept. 16 shootings to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.
The tone of the Iraqi report appears to signal further strains between the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the White House over the deaths in Nisoor Square — which have prompted a series of U.S. and Iraqi probes and raised questions over the use of private security contractors to guard U.S. diplomats and other officials.
Al-Maliki ordered the investigation by his defense minister and other top security and police officials on Sept. 22. The findings — which were translated from Arabic by AP — mark the most definitive Iraqi positions and contentions about the shootings last month.
The report also highlights the differences in death tolls and accounts that have complicated efforts to piece together the chain of events as one Blackwater-protected convoy raced back toward Baghdad's Green Zone after a nearby bombing, while a second back-up team in four gun trucks sped into the square as a back-up team.
RelatedStories
Obama: Private Security Making Iraq More Dangerous for Troops The Iraqi investigation — first outlined Thursday by The Associated Press — charges the four Blackwater vehicles called to the square began shooting without provocation. Blackwater contends its employees came under fire first.
The government, at the conclusion of its investigation, said 17 Iraqis died. Initial reports put the toll at 11.
It said the compensation — totaling $136 million — was so high "because Blackwater uses employees who disrespect the rights of Iraqi citizens even though they are guests in this country."
The U.S. military pays compensation money to the families of civilians killed in battles or to cover property damage, but at far lower amounts.
The United States has not made conclusive findings about the shooting, though there are multiple investigations under way and Congress has opened inquiries into the role of private security contractors. Last week, the FBI took over a State Department investigation, raising the prospect that it could be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution.
The Iraqi government report said its courts were to proper venue in which to bring charges.
It said Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq expired on June 2, 2006, meaning it had no immunity from prosecution under Iraqi laws set down after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The government report also challenged the claim that a decree in June 2004 by then-Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer granted Blackwater immunity from legal action in incidents such as the one in Nisoor Square. The report said the Blackwater guards could be charged under a criminal code from 1969.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said the diplomatic mission would have no comment on the report. Iraq's Interior Ministry spokesman, Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the document was in American hands.
The report found that Blackwater guards also had killed 21 Iraqi civilians and wounded 27 in previous shootings since it took over security for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad after the U.S. invasion. The Iraqi government did not say whether it would try to prosecute in those cases.
The State Department has counted 56 shooting incidents involving Blackwater guards in Iraq this year. All were being reviewed as part of the comprehensive inquiry ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300045,00.html
The Reaper
10-08-2007, 18:24
Hmm, $8,000,000 US dollars?
What did the families of the BW contractors get when they were killed?
I suspect that the numbers will be a lot less than $8,000,000, unless BW can get the US Government to pay for it.
TR
82ndtrooper
10-08-2007, 19:04
Seems Al Maliki wants some heads on the chopping block. This incident not only strains relations with the Iraqi Government, but could result in chopping the knees out from under the long and hard "Hearts and Minds" effort of the U.S. Military. What's next ? Retribution from local Iraqis ? bodies of servicemen and women drug through the street on CNN and FOX ?
I haven't seen any pictures of Black Water contractors handing out candy and school supplies to the indigenous children of Iraq. Seems their handy work is more and more a compelling reason to question their existence in Iraq and Afghan.
Something to think about.
Ret10Echo
10-09-2007, 04:33
Seems Al Maliki wants some heads on the chopping block. This incident not only strains relations with the Iraqi Government, but could result in chopping the knees out from under the long and hard "Hearts and Minds" effort of the U.S. Military. What's next ? Retribution from local Iraqis ? bodies of servicemen and women drug through the street on CNN and FOX ?
I haven't seen any pictures of Black Water contractors handing out candy and school supplies to the indigenous children of Iraq. Seems their handy work is more and more a compelling reason to question their existence in Iraq and Afghan.
Something to think about.
Again...if there is an armed force operating in theater outside of the control of the ground forces commander then chances are you are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Trying to mend fences that others keep plowing through is no easy task.
How many new recruits for the insurgency have these corporations generated?
Gotta work smarter.
Ret10Echo
10-09-2007, 08:45
Foreign guards kill two women in Baghdad by Ammar Karim and Herve Bar
8 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Foreign security guards killed two women when they opened fire on a car in the centre of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, witnesses and Iraqi security officials said.
The shooting in Karrada came two days after Iraq vowed to punish US security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards were not provoked when they opened "deliberate" fire in Baghdad three weeks ago, killing 17 Iraqis.
It was not clear which security company was involved in Tuesday's shooting, which occurred at the Masbar intersection in Karrada, a commercial and residential district which is regarded as one of the most secure in Baghdad.
"There was no US embassy connection," US embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo told AFP. The embassy uses only Blackwater for its private security details.
Shopkeeper Ammar Fallah, a witness to the shooting, told AFP the guards, who were escorting a civilian convoy through the streets, signalled for a woman driving a white Oldsmobile car to pull over as they passed.
"When she failed to do so they opened fire, killing her and the woman next to her," he said. "There were two children in the back seat but they were not harmed. The women were both shot in the head."
Iraqi officials confirmed the incident.
"A security convoy of four-wheel drive vehicles opened fire on a white car at 2.30 pm (1130 GMT) killing two women," an interior ministry official said.
Another witness, Sattar Jabar, told AFP that private car had moved too close to the convoy.
"It tried to avoid the convoy of four white SUVs of the foreigners but it came close to the last vehicle, which then opened fire immediately."
Jabar confirmed that two women were killed but said a third woman in the back seat had been wounded in the shoulder. One of the children had been struck by flying glass.
An AFP reporter counted 40 bullet holes in the bloodspattered car, which was later towed to the nearby Masbar police station.
A policemen who heard the shots and came running to the scene said that after the shooting the security guards "rode away like gangsters."
The Iraqi government said on Monday it was determined to rein in private security contractors following the Blackwater shooting.
"We have set strict mechanisms to control the behaviour of the security companies and their conduct in the streets," interior ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf said.
The role of private security companies operating in Iraq has been under the scanner since September 16, when Blackwater USA guards escorting a convoy of US diplomats opened fire in Baghdad's Nisoor square.
An Iraqi government probe of the incident, which it said killed 17 civilians, found that the guards were not provoked and accused them of a "deliberate" crime.
"Employees of the company violated the rules governing use of force by security companies. They have committed a deliberate crime and should be punished under the law."
The Iraqi government would now take "judicial measures to punish the company," the statement said.
Blackwater, one of the biggest security firms working in Iraq with around 1,000 staff, is employed to protect US government personnel in the country. It maintains its men were legitimately responding to an ambush while escorting a US State Department convoy.
Iraqi and US officials have set up a joint commission to investigate the activities of private security companies.
Outrageous
Reprisals seem inevitable...
Seems Al Maliki wants some heads on the chopping block. This incident not only strains relations with the Iraqi Government, but could result in chopping the knees out from under the long and hard "Hearts and Minds" effort of the U.S. Military. What's next ? Retribution from local Iraqis ? bodies of servicemen and women drug through the street on CNN and FOX ?
I haven't seen any pictures of Black Water contractors handing out candy and school supplies to the indigenous children of Iraq. Seems their handy work is more and more a compelling reason to question their existence in Iraq and Afghan.
Something to think about.In the beginning...
1. Schools were being opened not by BW however; we escorted the "old-man" to the grand openings.
2. I personnally responded too Iraqi kids/adults and military personnel that needed "medical" attention.
The problem: The increase in fully trained/qualified personnel that have operated in a HRE w/o "adult" supervision!
Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.....
Stay safe.
Turns out it was the Australian Army.
So get out your tin foil hats.
Australia is also owned by Blackwater right?
It's a big plot.
:rolleyes:
Foreign guards kill two women in Baghdad by Ammar Karim and Herve Bar
8 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Foreign security guards killed two women when they opened fire on a car in the centre of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, witnesses and Iraqi security officials said.
The shooting in Karrada came two days after Iraq vowed to punish US security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards were not provoked when they opened "deliberate" fire in Baghdad three weeks ago, killing 17 Iraqis.
It was not clear which security company was involved in Tuesday's shooting, which occurred at the Masbar intersection in Karrada, a commercial and residential district which is regarded as one of the most secure in Baghdad.
"There was no US embassy connection," US embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo told AFP. The embassy uses only Blackwater for its private security details.
Shopkeeper Ammar Fallah, a witness to the shooting, told AFP the guards, who were escorting a civilian convoy through the streets, signalled for a woman driving a white Oldsmobile car to pull over as they passed.
"When she failed to do so they opened fire, killing her and the woman next to her," he said. "There were two children in the back seat but they were not harmed. The women were both shot in the head."
Iraqi officials confirmed the incident.
"A security convoy of four-wheel drive vehicles opened fire on a white car at 2.30 pm (1130 GMT) killing two women," an interior ministry official said.
Another witness, Sattar Jabar, told AFP that private car had moved too close to the convoy.
"It tried to avoid the convoy of four white SUVs of the foreigners but it came close to the last vehicle, which then opened fire immediately."
Jabar confirmed that two women were killed but said a third woman in the back seat had been wounded in the shoulder. One of the children had been struck by flying glass.
An AFP reporter counted 40 bullet holes in the bloodspattered car, which was later towed to the nearby Masbar police station.
A policemen who heard the shots and came running to the scene said that after the shooting the security guards "rode away like gangsters."
The Iraqi government said on Monday it was determined to rein in private security contractors following the Blackwater shooting.
"We have set strict mechanisms to control the behaviour of the security companies and their conduct in the streets," interior ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf said.
The role of private security companies operating in Iraq has been under the scanner since September 16, when Blackwater USA guards escorting a convoy of US diplomats opened fire in Baghdad's Nisoor square.
An Iraqi government probe of the incident, which it said killed 17 civilians, found that the guards were not provoked and accused them of a "deliberate" crime.
"Employees of the company violated the rules governing use of force by security companies. They have committed a deliberate crime and should be punished under the law."
The Iraqi government would now take "judicial measures to punish the company," the statement said.
Blackwater, one of the biggest security firms working in Iraq with around 1,000 staff, is employed to protect US government personnel in the country. It maintains its men were legitimately responding to an ambush while escorting a US State Department convoy.
Iraqi and US officials have set up a joint commission to investigate the activities of private security companies.
Team Sergeant
10-09-2007, 19:36
Turns out it was the Australian Army.
So get out your tin foil hats.
Australia is also owned by Blackwater right?
It's a big plot.
:rolleyes:
Frog, I fail to see anyone here accusing blackwater of these shootings? Do you?
After some of what you've posted I don't think its us in need of the tinfoil hats. If you're wondering as to what i'm referring to see your post here:
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15926&page=2
Make note of my response.
Save your sarcasm for the unwashed masses.
Team Sergeant
Ret10Echo
10-10-2007, 05:04
Turns out it was the Australian Army.
So get out your tin foil hats.
Australia is also owned by Blackwater right?
It's a big plot.
:rolleyes:
Take off a layer of foil...it wasn't the Aussie Army
"involving guards working for Australian-owned, Dubai-based Unity Resources Group......."
The news is posted and will have a spin either left or right depending upon the intent. A thinking man would read this article and note that it specified that the convoy was not U.S. Embassy related. That being said, and knowing that BW is currently limiting their operations (at one point they were restricted to the Green Zone) you would have to make an assumption that it was NOT BW but someone else. Since there are several different contractor operations in-country as well as a pretty sizeable military presence I understand there are quite a few different potential culprits.
Information is just that. How you choose to process that is up to you. If you desire a specific outcome then surprisingly enough you will arrive at your foregone conclusion....baaa
Roger that. This info came out today after yesterday it was reported to be the AUS Army vice a AUS contractor (today's news). This portion of the thread should then be moved from the BW bashing thread to the Early Bird since it has nothing to do with BW, which was the reason for my post in the first place.
Sorry for the sarcasim.
Tired of wrestling with the pig here. In the end . . . you know the deal.
You're opinions are set in stone, and that's fine.
Your site, you win.
Frog out.
Take off a layer of foil...it wasn't the Aussie Army
"involving guards working for Australian-owned, Dubai-based Unity Resources Group......."
The news is posted and will have a spin either left or right depending upon the intent. A thinking man would read this article and note that it specified that the convoy was not U.S. Embassy related. That being said, and knowing that BW is currently limiting their operations (at one point they were restricted to the Green Zone) you would have to make an assumption that it was NOT BW but someone else. Since there are several different contractor operations in-country as well as a pretty sizeable military presence I understand there are quite a few different potential culprits.
Information is just that. How you choose to process that is up to you. If you desire a specific outcome then surprisingly enough you will arrive at your foregone conclusion....baaa
The Reaper
10-11-2007, 04:58
Frog:
I'm still looking for someone here who said that the Tuesday shooting was done by Blackwater.
You jumped on the article that mentioned the issues with BW, but no one said that they were the shooters on Tuesday.
BTW, if you review the title of this thread, "Contractors in Iraq accused of opening fire on civilians, troops", the shooting this week would seem to be relevant and appropriate.
I read your posts and went to the site you referenced. It looks like a BW apologist site to me, but that is just my take on it. I can put a site up explaining the government cover-up of the UFO sightings as well, but it doesn't make it true. Otherwise, your opinions have been heard Lima Charlie, no one is getting personal, well except for the tinfoil hat comment. I would have liked to have seen you respond to TS's comments directly, rather than leaving, but I cannot stop you if that is your wish.
Agree to disagree.
TR
Ret10Echo
10-11-2007, 05:12
Roger that. This info came out today after yesterday it was reported to be the AUS Army vice a AUS contractor (today's news). This portion of the thread should then be moved from the BW bashing thread to the Early Bird since it has nothing to do with BW, which was the reason for my post in the first place.
Sorry for the sarcasim.
Tired of wrestling with the pig here. In the end . . . you know the deal.
You're opinions are set in stone, and that's fine.
Your site, you win.
Frog out.
It's not about winning. It's about having a discussion on the topic. With no differing points of view that gets pretty boring (unless of course you are Pelosi or Reed)
Disagree with being set in stone. That is not productive. Opinion is developed over an analysis of the facts and arriving at a conclusion. I am not involved with the security industry, so I have no dog in the fight. I do have certain prejudices on some topics because of my background. I believe that the issue and the point is not about a specific corporation but about a gap in policy and oversight that needs to be addressed. Those gaps tend to go unnoticed until the first guy walks into it. We have all seen that through our careers. Unfortunately for BW they were the first ones in the crack. Also, the media tends to demonize the 800 pound gorilla in all things. Standard Oil as the evil oil company, AT&T as the evil telecom, WalMart as the evil retailer...add to the list as you see fit.
Wrong is still wrong, right is still right. That does not change. If you screw up, then sack up and take the hit. Don't play the shell game, smoke and mirrors. BW is not going to go down over this. The guys that work for them will most likely get thrown under the bus, but the machine will keep rolling. That's how it works.
Ret10Echo
10-11-2007, 10:11
NOT BW....just a related story....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301149,00.html
Afghanistan Cracks Down on Private Security Companies
Thursday , October 11, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan —
Afghan authorities this week shut down two private security companies and said more than 10 others — some suspected of murder and robbery — would soon be closed, Afghan and Western officials said Thursday.
Authorities on Tuesday shut down the Afghan-run security companies Watan and Caps, where 82 illegal weapons were found during the two raids in Kabul, police Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal said.
A Western security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said some major Western companies were on the list of at least 10 others tapped for closure. He would not identify them.
The crackdown echoes efforts by authorities in Iraq to rein in private security contractors often accused of acting with impunity. Blackwater USA guards protecting a U.S. Embassy convoy in Baghdad are accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in a Sept. 16 shooting, an incident that enraged the Iraqi government, which is demanding millions in compensation for the victims and the removal of Blackwater in six months.
The incident in Iraq has focused attention on the nebulous rules governing private guards and added to the Bush administration's problems in managing the war in Iraq.
Dozens of security companies also operate in Afghanistan, some of them well-known U.S. firms such as Blackwater and Dyncorps, but also many others who may not be known even to the Afghan government.
The Afghan government's main complaints against the companies are lack of accountability, intimidation of citizens, disrespect of local security forces, and companies that do not cooperate with authorities, according to a set of draft rules being debated by the Afghan government and obtained by The Associated Press.
Up to 10,000 private security guards are estimated to operate in the capital of Kabul alone, but the Interior Ministry — which is responsible for the Afghan police and domestic security — has little idea who some of the guards are, said the Western official.
Paktiawal said more than 10 companies would be targeted for closure in raids police planned to carry out next week.
"There are some companies whose work permits have expired, and there are some companies who have illegal weapons with them," Paktiawal said. "We do not want such private security companies to be active in Afghanistan. It doesn't matter if they are national or international."
The Interior Ministry said 59 Afghan and international security companies have registered with them, although the Western official said as many as 25 other security companies could be operating in the country.
Some of the 59 companies are suspected of involvement in criminal activity such as killing and robbery, and the police were investigating these cases as well, Paktiawal said. He could not provide the breakdown of how many of these companies are Afghan and how many foreign.
The rules seen by the AP say the main problem faced by the government is the absence of "checks and balances" over the work of private security companies, known as PSCs.
"In a compromise with the large international community, and its legitimate and high demand for security protection, the (government of Afghanistan) has allowed for limited PSC operations and activities," the draft said.
"However, increasingly, the absence of targeted regulation ... in parallel with unstable security environment has generated an unfortunate and nearly anarchical PSC market with a long series of security problems and criminal activities."
Faced with growing Taliban insurgency, "it is a matter of urgency to regulate and monitor the activities of PSCs in a coordinated and precise manner and through a set of clear mechanisms," the draft said.
Interesting article Ret10echo.
Snaquebite
10-11-2007, 16:29
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21233007/
Such steps would be difficult given U.S. reliance on Blackwater and other contractors, but they are among options being studied during a comprehensive review of security in Iraq, two senior officials said.
I wonder how many would hang around if this happened....
Yet another would be hiring Blackwater and other private guards as temporary U.S. government employees, the officials said.
Team Sergeant
10-11-2007, 17:51
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21233007/
I wonder how many would hang around if this happened....
I cannot believe you read msnbc.....:D
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301059,00.html
A good side story to the blackwater story, "DRUDGEREPORT.COM" never reported anything concerning blackwater, not once.
I've been reading drudgereport for a few years, not any more.
I don't mind people being right of center, hell I don't mind them being left of center. But if they are reporting the news you need to be near the center.
matt drudge, you are a spineless news reporter. I hope you and erik prince live happily ever after in your far right worlds.
Team Sergeant
Snaquebite
10-11-2007, 17:57
Not normally, just happened to see this and it's AP anyway. Same report as Fox.
The Reaper
10-11-2007, 17:57
What about these Drudge headlines from this year?
Edwards Raps Clinton Over Blackwater Tie... ^
From the October 05, 2007 21:35:16 GMT edition of the Drudge Report.
REPORT: CIA 'Shut Down in Iraq' Due to Blackwater Ban... ^
From the September 19, 2007 21:12:44 GMT edition of the Drudge Report.
Families Sue Blackwater for Iraq Mob Deaths... ^
From the February 07, 2007 17:58:25 GMT edition of the Drudge Report.
TR
Snaquebite
10-12-2007, 08:55
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2007/10/11/84183.htm
A three-judge panel in Florida says a lawsuit can proceed against the operator of a plane that crashed in Afghanistan in 2004, killing three Army soldiers.
The contractor operating the plane, Presidential Airways Inc., is the aviation subsidiary of Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater USA. It was based in Melbourne before moving to North Carolina. Three Blackwater USA employees were also killed in the crash.
Presidential had argued in an appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that the lawsuit should be thrown out because it was immune from prosecution because it was operating under a government contract. The company also claimed that the lawsuit should not go forward because it would involve one branch of government reviewing another branch's decision making.
Ret10Echo
10-15-2007, 08:52
October 12, 2007 - 6:36pm
By RICHARD LARDNER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Blackwater USA has ended an inquiry into the private security contractor's performance by withdrawing from an industry group that initiated the review after the company's guards were accused of killing 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last month.
The International Peace Operations Association said in a statement Friday that Blackwater withdrew its membership two days after the group decided to examine whether the contractor's "processes and procedures" complied with the group's code of conduct.
Blackwater joined the association in August 2004 and had been "a member in good standing," according to the statement, which said the group decided Monday to conduct the review.
The Washington-based peace operations association represents security contractors and companies that provide logistics support services.
All member companies are required to follow the group's conduct code, which the group described as a "set of ethical and professional guidelines for companies in the peace and stability operations industry."
J.J. Messner, the association's director of programs and operations, would not cite a specific episode that prompted the group's decision. Messner said Blackwater representatives initially agreed such a review was appropriate. He would not say why the company decided to sever the relationship.
"It would be inappropriate for us to mind read," Messner said.
Blackwater did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
**********
There is more to the article than this, but it spirals down into the allegation cesspool.....If you want to go there:
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=78&sid=1266670
Did anyone else see the Erik Prince interview on 60 Minutes last night?
The interview was done by a young woman who seemed like a creampuff intern. She was clearly intimidated by him and didn't press very hard. In all, it seemed like a great softball opportunity for BW to rehab its image.
BW offered photos of bullet scars on the side of one of its armored vehicles that was involved in the recent incident, which they say is evidence that they were taking small arms fire from the crowd.
Of course, she didn't ask any hard questions about why his men ended up being dragged through the streets of Fallujah, olr about why he is bludgeoning the deads' families in court.
82ndtrooper
10-15-2007, 10:18
Did anyone else see the Erik Prince interview on 60 Minutes last night?
The interview was done by a young woman who seemed like a creampuff intern. She was clearly intimidated by him and didn't press very hard. In all, it seemed like a great softball opportunity for BW to rehab its image.
BW offered photos of bullet scars on the side of one of its armored vehicles that was involved in the recent incident, which they say is evidence that they were taking small arms fire from the crowd.
Of course, she didn't ask any hard questions about why his men ended up being dragged through the streets of Fallujah, olr about why he is bludgeoning the deads' families in court.
I saw it too. Frankly I was surprised that a show like 60 Minutes, known for dragging it's story's through the preverbial MSM mud slinging contest, where so kind to him. I havn't ever seen the lady that interviewed him, but it was clearly a waste of time. Mike Wallace should have sat in front of Erik, not her.
On another note, the subject of Black Water came up on the Bill Maher show on HBO. All agreed, they'd rather have Blackwater for their own personal security. At one point Bill Maher states "Our Marines are perfectly suited for the job of diplomatic security" I didn't expect Bill Maher to know much about the military, but I'm quite certain the average Marine does not know or has not been trained on WPPS TT&P.
Team Sergeant
10-15-2007, 10:44
On another note, the subject of Black Water came up on the Bill Maher show on HBO. All agreed, they'd rather have Blackwater for their own personal security. At one point Bill Maher states "Our Marines are perfectly suited for the job of diplomatic security" I didn't expect Bill Maher to know much about the military, but I'm quite certain the average Marine does not know or has not been trained on WPPS TT&P.
82ndtrooper;
I don't get my news or political opinion from morons like bill maher, britney spears, george ("you're a little Pig") clooney. Do us a favor and don't associate their names with "real" subject matter discussed on these forums.
TS
82ndtrooper
10-15-2007, 10:51
82ndtrooper;
I don't get my news or political opinion from morons like bill maher, britney spears, george ("you're a little Pig") clooney. Do us a favor and don't associate their names with "real" subject matter discussed on these forums.
TS
GSL loud and clear. Out.
Team Sergeant
10-17-2007, 11:31
blackwater engaged 44 people on Sept 16th, 17 dead and 27 wounded.
Now I'm hearing that not one enemy shell casing was found.
You might be able to snatch up a hand full of weapons in the chaos of a fire fight and run, but, no one is going to pick up the spent brass from "44" weapons and get away from the "ambush" site.
I wonder how many civilians were shot in the back......
Seems BW are certainly unrepentant...
Quote:
A defiant Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince said yesterday he will not allow Iraqi authorities to arrest his contractors and try them in Iraq's faulty justice system.
"We will not let our people be taken by the Iraqis," Mr. Prince told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. At least 17 of 20 Blackwater guards being investigated for their roles in a Sept. 16 shooting incident are still in a secure compound in Baghdad's Green Zone and carrying out limited duties.
Two or three others have been allowed by the State Department to leave the country as part of their scheduled rotation out of Iraq and are expected to return.
"In an ideal sense, if there was wrongdoing, there could be a trial brought in the Iraqi court system. But that would imply that there is a valid Iraqi court system where Westerners could get a fair trial. That is not the case right now," said Mr. Prince.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/...110170057/1001
Ret10Echo
10-25-2007, 05:37
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071025/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_blackwater&printer=1;_ylt=Au5pgwEhvuYPM9S4wNCW7JSMwfIE
:munchin
Military may get control of contractors
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
56 minutes ago
Congress is moving to put all armed contractors operating in combat zones under military control, acting on a Pentagon recommendation that could run into resistance at the State Department.
The Senate this month included such a requirement in its 2008 defense authorization bill. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Wednesday he is confident the House will go along with the idea and include it in a final bill sent to President Bush.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to testify Thursday about the subject before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
She has ordered new rules for the private guards who are hired to protect U.S. diplomats. They include increased monitoring and explicit rules on when and how they can use deadly force. The steps were recommended by a review panel that Rice created after a deadly Sept. 16 shooting involving Blackwater USA guards.
Rice also called for better coordination with the military, but did not explicitly act on a suggestion by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that combatant commanders have control over the contractors.
Levin, D-Mich., said he was not sure if Rice expressly opposed the idea. "Whether she likes it or not, we expect to get this language" to emerge in the compromise with the House.
"It's not slapdash" and "is something we've been working on a long time," Levin said.
The Blackwater shooting provoked an outcry from the Democratic-led Congress and the Iraqi government, which is demanding that it have the right to prosecute the contractors.
In more fallout, the State Department's security chief resigned Wednesday.
Richard Griffin, the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, made no mention of the furor in his resignation letter to Bush and Rice. But it came just one day after a study commissioned by Rice found serious lapses in the department's oversight of private guards, who are employed by Griffin's bureau and report to it.
Rice accepted the resignation, which is effective Nov. 1, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Griffin will be replaced on an acting basis by one of his deputies, Gregory Starr.
Griffin, who previously was deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service and inspector general for the Veterans Affairs Department, had been in his current job since June 2005.
Congress is moving to put all armed contractors operating in combat zones under military control, acting on a Pentagon recommendation that could run into resistance at the State Department.
Ret10Echo,
As a QP and member of the military, what do You all think of this idea?
Since I am not there/ nor will be, am curious?
Thank You Sir.
Holly
Ret10Echo
10-26-2007, 04:47
From earlier,
Again...if there is an armed force operating in theater outside of the control of the ground forces commander then chances are you are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Trying to mend fences that others keep plowing through is no easy task.
How many new recruits for the insurgency have these corporations generated?
Gotta work smarter.
I still believe that if anyone is in an active combat theater and armed the ground forces commander should have oversight on what they are doing....period.... I think this is especially true in a COIN environment.
That provides parental supervision and synchronizes operations. I am unsure of what the current process is to deconflict movements in the area by convoys with contracted security, or if there is one.
Ret10Echo
10-30-2007, 05:24
Blackwater guards offered immunity deals: report
Mon Oct 29, 10:33 PM ET
U.S. State Department investigators looking into the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last month offered immunity deals to Blackwater security guards, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The investigators from the agency's investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, did not, however, have the authority to offer such immunity grants, the newspaper said, citing U.S. government officials.
The offers represent a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute Blackwater employees involved in the incident, the newspaper said.
The officials, who were not identified, said Justice Department prosecutors, who do have the authority to offer such deals, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, the newspaper said.
Most of the Blackwater guards who took part in the September 16 incident were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, the report said.
Limited-use immunity means the private security guards were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true, the Times said.
North Carolina-based Blackwater has about 1,000 employees in Iraq who protect U.S. diplomats and other officials.
The FBI took control of the investigation from the State Department early this month.
A Justice Department spokesman had no comment. A State Department official said the department does not comment on ongoing investigations and referred questions to the FBI.
Foreign contractors in Iraq are immune from prosecution under Iraqi law under a decree issued by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004.
Team Sergeant
10-30-2007, 08:11
WASHINGTON — State Department officials have reportedly granted several Blackwater employees immunity from prosecution in its case of last month's deadly shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians, but officials close to the investigation told FOX News the guards are not off the hook.
Blackwater employees were told that they could speak freely and that what they said would not be used against them individually, but a source with firsthand knowledge of the investigation said that does not mean what they said about each other could not be used against the individuals who fired their weapons.
An FBI official told FOX News that the case "is an ongoing matter, and we will have no comment." A Department of Justice source agreed that "the investigation is continuing."
But one source indicated the Department of Justice and the FBI feel hamstrung by the immunity grant, which blocked the FBI investigative team in Baghdad from collecting essential information from those allegedly involved in the shootings.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306057,00.html
Ret10Echo
11-08-2007, 08:27
How Blackwater Sniper Fire Felled 3 Iraqi Guards
Witnesses Call Shooting From Justice Ministry Unprovoked, But State Dept. Cleared Its Security Team After a Brief Probe
By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 8, 2007; A01
BAGHDAD -- Last Feb. 7, a sniper employed by Blackwater USA, the private security company, opened fire from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old guard for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network, who was standing on a balcony across an open traffic circle. Another guard rushed to his colleague's side and was fatally shot in the neck. A third guard was found dead more than an hour later on the same balcony.
Eight people who responded to the shootings -- including media network and Justice Ministry guards and an Iraqi army commander -- and five network officials in the compound said none of the slain guards had fired on the Justice Ministry, where a U.S. diplomat was in a meeting. An Iraqi police report described the shootings as "an act of terrorism" and said Blackwater "caused the incident." The media network concluded that the guards were killed "without any provocation."
The U.S. government reached a different conclusion. Based on information from the Blackwater guards, who said they were fired upon, the State Department determined that the security team's actions "fell within approved rules governing the use of force," according to an official from the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Neither U.S. Embassy officials nor Blackwater representatives interviewed witnesses or returned to the network, less than a quarter-mile from Baghdad's Green Zone, to investigate.
The incident shows how American officials responsible for overseeing the security company conducted only a cursory investigation when Blackwater guards opened fire. The shooting occurred more than seven months before the Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 civilians at another Baghdad traffic circle.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/07/AR2007110702751_pf.html
Ret10Echo
11-14-2007, 05:45
I love these "unnamed officials" that are so knowledgeable.....
FBI finds Blackwater Iraq shootings unjustified: report Tue Nov 13, 11:40 PM ET
FBI agents investigating the September 16 episode in which Blackwater security guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The FBI investigation into the shootings in Baghdad is still under way, but the findings, which indicate that the company's employees violated deadly force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, are already under review by the Justice Department, the newspaper said.
It cited unnamed civilian and military officials briefed on the case.
Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek indictments, and some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing, the Times reported.
North Carolina-based Blackwater protects U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials in Iraq.
Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to discuss the matter, the paper said.
The case could be one of the first thorny issues to be decided by Michael Mukasey, who was sworn in as attorney general last week.
He may be faced with a decision to turn down a prosecution on legal grounds at a time when a furor has erupted in Congress about the administration's failure to hold security contractors accountable for their misdeeds, the Times said.
Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company's guards opened fire during the shootings.
They found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians. That finding sharply contradicts initial assertions by Blackwater officials, who said that company employees fired in self-defense.
Government officials said the shooting occurred when security guards fired in response to gunfire by other members of their unit in the mistaken belief that they were under attack. One official told the Times: "I wouldn't call it a massacre, but to say it was unwarranted is an understatement."
Among the 17 killings, three may have been justified under rules that allow lethal force to be used in response to an imminent threat, the FBI agents have concluded, the Times said.
A separate military review of the shootings concluded that all of the killings were unjustified and potentially criminal.
Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, told the Times she would have no comment until the FBI released its findings.
Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071114/ts_nm/usa_blackwater_probe_dc_1&printer=1;_ylt=Ams0YtM8yY0DwI3c2lDxqvdg.3QA
Team Sergeant
11-14-2007, 09:06
Funny how erik requires a female, non-combatant, spokesperson to do his talking. I can only surmise, even with all his money he cannot purchase the integrity of a senior NCO or officer to spout the crap that comes out of anne tyrrell's mouth.
Now it's time to throw someone under the bus (see below).
Someone's going to jail for their "blackwater defensive force" shooting style.
Good job erik!
Team Sergeant
Responding to the Times report, Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company "supports the stringent accountability of the industry. If it is determined that one person was complicit in the wrongdoing, we would support accountability in that. The key people in this have not spoken with investigators."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311562,00.html
lath_hoy
11-14-2007, 09:45
Well let’s see, since mid August there has been at least one story in every daily issue of the New York Times concentrated on security personnel, specifically Blackwater. This just goes to show that success comes with a price. Its apparent that NYT’s have Blackwater to thank, for if they weren’t providing a service, NYT’s would not have anything to print.
Team Sergeant
11-14-2007, 10:14
Well let’s see, since mid August there has been at least one story in every daily issue of the New York Times concentrated on security personnel, specifically Blackwater. This just goes to show that success comes with a price. Its apparent that NYT’s have Blackwater to thank, for if they weren’t providing a service, NYT’s would have anything to print.
I'm glad you posted this..... even I despise the NYtimes and soon enough they will be out of business......
Now this is amusing; the other end of the spectrum;
Google search today; 442 news articles on FBI findings of blackwater;
drudge report; no mention of blackwater…….
matt drudge you are a tool.
Team Sergeant
www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/13/AR2007111302526.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Report: FBI finds fault with Blackwater in Iraq
Feds determine 14 of 17 killings in Iraq unjustified, N.Y. Times reports
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21786209/
Report: Blackwater Killings Unjustified
Report Says That FBI Finds 14 of the 17 Blackwater Shootings Were Unjustified
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3862287
Report: FBI finds 14 Blackwater killings unjustified
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/14/iraq.blackwater.ap/
Blackwater killed 14 Iraqis without cause: FBI report
5 hours ago
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jfc1n5DxJvQ7B_nnm1DKzpORvHXQ
Report: FBI Finds Blackwater Shootings Unjustified
• Listen: NPR's Alison Stewart and Luke Burbank on 'The Bryant Park Project'
[1 min 27 sec] add
NPR.org, November 14, 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16281051
Report: Blackwater Killings Unjustified
By LARA JAKES JORDAN – 2 hours ago
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g8j2u56IMqRcZhCnXxakvpIEJ3-QD8STFC3G0
Report: Blackwater Killings Unjustified
By LARA JAKES JORDAN | Associated Press Writer
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-blackwater-prosecutions,0,2711737.story
Report: Blackwater killings unjustified
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071114/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/blackwater_prosecutions_11
infsoldier0441
11-15-2007, 08:22
This was off military.com this morning.
Blackwater Guard: Shootings Justified
Agence France-Presse | November 15, 2007
A guard from the US security firm Blackwater says his motorcade came under fire and that he feared for his life in a deadly shootout in Iraq, ABC television reported on Wednesday.
Contradicting reports that the Blackwater motorcade in Baghdad did not come under attack in the September 16 incident which left 17 Iraqi civilians dead, the guard alleged he opened fire on a car that drove towards his team and failed to heed warnings to stop.
He said that then, after coming under fire, he shot at a shack behind the approaching car, at a man with an AK-47 rifle pointed at the motorcade, at a bus which was the source of gunfire, and at two other cars deemed as threats.
"As our motorcade pulled into the intersection, I noticed a white four-door sedan driving directly at our motorcade from the west bound lane," he said in his statement.
"I and others were yelling and using hand signals for the car to stop and the driver looked directly at me and kept moving toward our motorcade. Fearing for my life and the lives of my teammates, I engaged the driver and stopped the threat," he said.
Identified only by the first name "Paul," the Blackwater guard recounted the shooting in a sworn statement to State Department investigators three days after the incident, which ABC posted on its website.
His account differs dramatically from that of the FBI, which the New York Times reported found in its investigation that 14 of the 17 deaths were unjustified, the New York Times said.
The Iraqi government in October said that an investigation into the incident concluded the US motorcade had not come under any attack and that the Blackwater guards had opened fire without cause.
"Paul" insisted the group was shot at after he first fired at the oncoming car.
"At the same moment, I started receiving small arms fire from the shack approximately fifty meters behind the car. I then engaged the individuals where the muzzle flashes came from."
When a person in uniform started pushing the car toward the motorcade, the guard said he shouted and shot at the vehicle until it stopped.
He then heard on his radio that the motorcade's command vehicle was down, "and that we were still taking fire," he said.
As the command vehicle was towed, he said he saw a man with his AK-47 "oriented" at the rear gunner in a nearby vehicle in the motorcade.
"Fearing for the gunner's life, I engaged the individual and stopped the threat."
With gunfire allegedly coming from a red bus stopped at the intersection, he said he opened fire on the shooters. Then when he was told on his radio that gunfire was coming from another car, he fired at the "suspect vehicle" as he again was "fearing for my life."
Later, a red car was backing up towards the motorcade, and the guard -- fearing it was a possible car bombing attack -- again opened fire, he said.
"As we were going over the curb, I noticed several civilians and I was motioning, and screaming that they get down and find cover," he said.
"We returned to the International Zone without further incident," the statement said.
The guard said during his time in Iraq he had made "numerous split-second shoot-don't shoot decisions." He said he had passed qualification courses required by the State Department to carry automatic weapons.
According to the statement, the man served in the US army in Bosnia between 1992 and 2002 and was deployed to Iraq in 2004. He later left the military and began working for Blackwater in 2006.
Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.
Copyright 2007 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Team Sergeant
11-24-2007, 09:10
Read the paragraph in green five times........
For all the civilians reading, remember, blackwater hires anyone that can carry a weapon, not former Special Operations personnel.
Special Operations personnel are not trained to fire into crowds of unarmed civilians.
It does appear that blackwater "trained" personnel are trained to do so using "defensive force" a technique that erik prince made up himself. (See erik prince's congressional testimony, "They used defensive force")
TS
U.S. Prosecutors Subpoena Blackwater Employees
By DAVID JOHNSTON and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: November 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to some of the Blackwater employees present at a Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad in which the company’s security personnel killed 17 Iraqi civilians, lawyers in the case and government officials briefed on the matter said Monday.
The opening of the grand jury inquiry is a significant step in the case because it indicates that prosecutors believe that there is enough evidence of wrongdoing to warrant a formal criminal investigation.
Officials cautioned that the decision to begin a grand jury inquiry did not mean that prosecutors had decided to charge anyone with a crime in what they said was a legally complex case. Some government lawyers have expressed misgivings about whether a federal law exists that would apply to the actions Blackwater employees are accused of committing.
Criminal investigators found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians, contradicting initial assertions by Blackwater officials who said that company employees fired in self-defense and that several vehicles were badly damaged by hostile gunfire.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/washington/20blackwater.html?ex=1353214800&en=c4f0861a7b795a43&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Ret10Echo
11-28-2007, 06:01
Lawsuit Claims Blackwater Guards Abandoned Post on Day of Shootings, Used Steroids
Tuesday , November 27, 2007
WASHINGTON —
A lawsuit against government contractor Blackwater Worldwide accuses its bodyguards of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part in a shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
Filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, the complaint also accuses North Carolina-based Blackwater of failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad — even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other "judgment altering substances."
A Blackwater spokeswoman said Tuesday its employees are banned from using steroids or other enhancement drugs but declined to comment on the other charges detailed in the 18-page lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of five Iraqis who were killed and two who were injured during the Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. The shootings enraged the Iraqi government, and the Justice Department is investigating whether it can bring criminal charges in the case, even though the State Department promised limited immunity to the Blackwater guards.
The three teams of an estimated dozen Blackwater bodyguards had already dropped off the State Department official they were tasked with protecting when they headed to Nisoor Square, according to the lawsuit filed by lawyers working with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Blackwater and State Department personnel staffing a tactical operations center "expressly directed the Blackwater shooters to stay with the official and refrain from leaving the secure area," the complaint says. "Reasonable discovery will establish that the Blackwater shooters ignored those directives."
Additionally, the lawsuit notes: "One of Blackwater's own shooters tried to stop his colleagues from indiscriminately firing upon the crowd of innocent civilians but he was unsuccessful in his efforts."
The civil complaint offers new details of the incident that has strained relations between the United States and Iraq, which is demanding the right to launch its own prosecution of the Blackwater bodyguards.
The Justice Department says it likely will be months before it decides whether it can prosecute the guards, and it is trying now to pinpoint how many shooters in the Blackwater convoy could face charges. A senior U.S. law enforcement official confirmed Tuesday that government investigators are looking at whether the Blackwater guards were authorized to be in the square at the time of the shooting. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
In an interview, lead plaintiff attorney Susan L. Burke said private investigators turned up the new evidence through interviews with people in Iraq and the United States "who would have reason to know." Those people do not include government officials, Burke said, and she declined to comment when asked if they include Blackwater employees.
The civil lawsuit does not specify how much money the victims and their families are seeking from Blackwater, its 11 subsidiaries and founder, Erik Prince, all of whom are named as defendants.
"We're looking for compensatory (damages) because the people who were killed were the breadwinners in their families," Burke said. "And we're looking for punitive in a manner that suffices to change the corporation's conduct. We have a real interest in holding them accountable for what were completely avoidable deaths."
The lawsuit also accuses Blackwater of routinely sending its guards into Baghdad despite knowing that at least 25 percent of them were using steroids or other "judgment-altering substances." Attorneys estimated that Blackwater employs about 600 guards in Iraq. The company "did not conduct drug-testing of any of its shooters before sending them equipped with heavy weapons into the streets of Baghdad," the lawsuit states.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Blackwater employees are tested for drug use before they are hired and later given random quarterly tests. She said use of steroids and other performance enhancement drugs "are absolutely in violation of our policy."
"Blackwater has very strict policies concerning drug use, and if anyone were known to be in violation of them they would be immediately fired," Tyrrell said.
She declined comment on whether the bodyguards ignored their orders and abandoned their posts, or on other details outlined in the lawsuit.
Blackwater's contract with the State Department to protect diplomats in Iraq expires in May, and there are questions whether it will remain as the primary contractor for diplomatic bodyguards. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his Cabinet is drafting legislation that would force the State Department to replace Blackwater with another security company.
The State Department declined to comment on the case Tuesday, citing standard policy on pending legal matters. Deputy spokesman Tom Casey referred questions on the matter "to those involved in the lawsuit."
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,313325,00.html
Team Sergeant
12-07-2007, 16:02
Ahh, government corruption and blackwater, I’d never have guessed.
Top State Department Investigator Resigns Post, Accused of Blackwater Probe Impropriety
Friday, December 07, 2007
WASHINGTON — The embattled State Department Inspector General, who has been accused of impeding a Justice Department investigation of Blackwater Worldwide, announced his resignation Friday to colleagues.
Howard Krongard revealed his departure to coworkers at the department on Friday, said Gonzalo Gallegos, a department spokesman.
Gallegos offered no other details, including when Krongard's departure takes effect.
"We thank him for his service," Gallegos said.
Blackwater Worldwide — a private contractor that protects U.S. diplomats in Iraq — is alleged to have smuggled weapons into the country. In November, Krongard was forced to recuse himself from any inquiries into Blackwater after it was disclosed that his brother had joined the company's advisory board.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316043,00.html
Team Sergeant
04-04-2008, 18:23
This is not how to win hearts and minds, slaughter 17 unarmed civilians, send 40 plus to the hospital, have nothing to show that you were actually in a two way fight gun fight and then get to keep the contract?
erik, you sure have some politicians in your back pocket don't you.
Have all you people at the state department lost your friggin minds?
Disgusting absolutely disgusting.
Team Sergeant
State Department Agrees to Renew Blackwater Contract in Baghdad
Friday, April 04, 2008
WASHINGTON — Amid investigations into fatal shootings of civilians and allegations of tax violations, Blackwater USA's multimillion-dollar contract to protect diplomats in Baghdad has been renewed, the State Department said Friday.
A final decision about whether the private security company will keep the job is pending, the department said. Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater is one of the largest private military contractors, receiving nearly $1.25 billion in federal business since 2000, according to a House committee estimate.
Blackwater provides security for diplomats in Baghdad, where the sprawling U.S. Embassy is headquartered. Its private guards act as bodyguards and armed drivers, escorting government officials when they go outside the fortified Green Zone.
Iraqis were outraged over a Sept. 16 shooting in which 17 Iraq civilians were killed in a Baghdad square. Blackwater said its guards were protecting diplomats under attack before they opened fire, but Iraqi investigators concluded the shooting was unprovoked.
An FBI probe began in November. Prosecutors want to know whether Blackwater contractors used excessive force or violated any laws.
The State Department's top security officer, Greg Starr, told reporters Friday that because the FBI is still investigating the shootings, there is no justification now to pull the contract when it comes due in May.
Blackwater has a five-year deal to provide personal protection for diplomats, and its contract is reauthorized each year. The decision announced Friday extends Blackwater's deal for the third year.
Prosecutors investigating the shootings have questioned more than 30 witnesses in the U.S. and in Iraq, but they have announced no conclusions. One possibility is that individual contractors could be indicted, another is that the company could be indicted, or the FBI could conclude that there was no crime.
The company is also the target of an unrelated investigation into whether its contractors smuggled weapons into Iraq. Lawmakers have called for an investigation into whether Blackwater violated tax laws by classifying employees as independent contractors. The company says the claim is groundless.
Starr said that Blackwater's contract could be pulled at some future point, depending on what the FBI and an internal State Department inquiry conclude. He would not predict whether that is likely, and he said he has no information about when the FBI might act.
Starr's predecessor, Richard Griffin, resigned just one day after a State Department study found serious lapses in the department's oversight of private guards.
After the September deaths, U.S. commanders in Iraq complained that they often do not know security firms are moving through their areas of responsibility until after a hostile incident has taken place.
At the end of October, Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and reached a general understanding that more military control was needed over security firms operating in the war zone.
The Pentagon and the State Department agreed in December to give the military in Iraq more control over Blackwater Worldwide and other private security contractors.
The agreement spells out rules, standards and guidelines for the use of private security contractors and says contractors will be accountable for criminal acts under U.S. law. That partly clarifies what happens if a contractor breaks the law, but it leaves the details to be worked out with Congress.
The State Department also installed new safeguards after the September shooting, including a requirement for additional monitoring of Blackwater convoys.
Rep. David Price, D-N.C., author of a House-passed bill that would subject all contractors to criminal liability, called the agreement "an important step toward improving transparency, management and accountability in security contracting."
"There is no question that it comes in response to significant congressional pressure ... but the agencies deserve credit for reading the writing on the wall and taking substantive steps to deal with a clear and critical problem," Price said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346749,00.html
I love these "unnamed officials" that are so knowledgeable.....
FBI finds Blackwater Iraq shootings unjustified: report Tue Nov 13, 11:40 PM ET
FBI agents investigating the September 16 episode in which Blackwater security guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The FBI investigation into the shootings in Baghdad is still under way, but the findings, which indicate that the company's employees violated deadly force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, are already under review by the Justice Department, the newspaper said.
It cited unnamed civilian and military officials briefed on the case.
Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek indictments, and some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing, the Times reported.
North Carolina-based Blackwater protects U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials in Iraq.
Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to discuss the matter, the paper said.
The case could be one of the first thorny issues to be decided by Michael Mukasey, who was sworn in as attorney general last week.
He may be faced with a decision to turn down a prosecution on legal grounds at a time when a furor has erupted in Congress about the administration's failure to hold security contractors accountable for their misdeeds, the Times said.
Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company's guards opened fire during the shootings.
They found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians. That finding sharply contradicts initial assertions by Blackwater officials, who said that company employees fired in self-defense.
Government officials said the shooting occurred when security guards fired in response to gunfire by other members of their unit in the mistaken belief that they were under attack. One official told the Times: "I wouldn't call it a massacre, but to say it was unwarranted is an understatement."
Among the 17 killings, three may have been justified under rules that allow lethal force to be used in response to an imminent threat, the FBI agents have concluded, the Times said.
A separate military review of the shootings concluded that all of the killings were unjustified and potentially criminal.
Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, told the Times she would have no comment until the FBI released its findings.
Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071114/ts_nm/usa_blackwater_probe_dc_1&printer=1;_ylt=Ams0YtM8yY0DwI3c2lDxqvdg.3QA
Maybe the FBI Should investigate their own Snipers. Or reevaluate driving Tanks thru a Building and burning Kids to death. It's so easy to criticize a Trigger Puller on Monday Morning.
Ret10Echo
04-05-2008, 20:15
Maybe the FBI Should investigate their own Snipers. Or reevaluate driving Tanks thru a Building and burning Kids to death. It's so easy to criticize a Trigger Puller on Monday Morning.
Agreed...
Based on how many mistakes the FBI "shooters" have made in the past...and in an environment that they supposedly have control over.....not exactly the fog of war.
82ndtrooper
04-06-2008, 07:22
Maybe the FBI Should investigate their own Snipers. Or reevaluate driving Tanks thru a Building and burning Kids to death. It's so easy to criticize a Trigger Puller on Monday Morning.
Lon Horiuchi was clearly a murderer. After Ruby Ridge, where he shot Vicky Weaver right between the eyes while holding their newborn child was again present at the "building burning" incident. He was also investigated for his actions as a sniper during that massacre. Coveniently, his barrel had been changed out of the rifle and the existing barrel fired during that incident was no where to be found. :rolleyes: IIRC, he had fire multiple shots and brass was collected, but not much use since his barrel had been convienently changed out.
The FBI is NOT going to investigate their own, expecially when it's fairy clear to anyone with a frontal lobe that their agents may have drifted off path from their own moral compass. Lon Horiuchis moral compass is so fugged up that I'm surprised he can find his own front door.
Blackwater stinks.
Team Sergeant
04-06-2008, 09:39
Maybe the FBI Should investigate their own Snipers. Or reevaluate driving Tanks thru a Building and burning Kids to death. It's so easy to criticize a Trigger Puller on Monday Morning.
Now now, let's not forget the US Marshal William Degan that shot 14 year old Samuel Harris in the back. It was only until the bullet was found, three years later, that killed the boy and traced to one US Marshal, William Degan.
Shooting kids in the back is not an act of a hero.
Ret10Echo
04-07-2008, 05:04
:munchin
Blackwater Iraq contract renewed
Security firm Blackwater has had its contract to protect US diplomats in Iraq extended.
The move comes despite the continuing FBI investigation into the killing of 17 Iraqis by Blackwater staff guarding US officials in Baghdad last September.
Blackwater says its guards acted in self-defence. An Iraqi inquiry concluded the shooting was unprovoked.
The security company's contract was due to expire in May, but the government of Iraq said it had now set new criteria.
State department head of security Gregory Starr said on Friday the contract had been extended for another year.
Judicial violation?
Iraq's government said requests for tighter controls on Blackwater's activities had been met.
The Americans want to show that Iraq is under their control
Iraqi opposition spokesman
"The demands of the Iraqi government have been taken into consideration and Blackwater will follow the Iraqi government's laws," said Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.
However, the Iraqi government's political opponents called the move a "violation of the Iraqi judicial system".
"The government should have shown its influence and authority by taking the initiative," a spokesman for the mainly Sunni Arab Accordance Front bloc told Reuters.
"But the Americans want to show that Iraq is under their control."
'Unjustified' deaths
Blackwater employees have been used as guards and armed drivers in the US embassy complex in the Iraqi capital.
Essentially I think they do a very good job
Gregory Starr
State Department
The FBI started its investigation into the killing of 17 Iraqis in November. That month, the New York Times reported the bureau had found that 14 of the deaths were unjustified.
When asked if the company's contract could be cancelled if Blackwater was found at fault, Mr Starr was quoted by Reuters as saying: "We can terminate contracts at the convenience of the government if we have to."
"I am not going to prejudge what the FBI is going to find in their investigation. I think really, it is complex. I think that the US government needs protective services," he said.
"Essentially I think they do a very good job. The 16 September incident was a tragedy. It has to be investigated carefully," he added.
In October the Iraqi government approved a draft law revoking the immunity from prosecution that private security contractors enjoyed under Iraqi law.
The US has since put in place new guidelines for private security contractors.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7331972.stm
Team Sergeant
05-05-2008, 09:03
Unlike the US State Department, at least the investors take a dim view of shooting dozens of unarmed civilians in the back.
Cerberus/Blackwater
02 May 2008
Cerberus abandons talks over Blackwater stake
The New York Times
Cerberus Capital Management was in talks to invest $200m (€129m) for a stake in Blackwater USA, the controversial private security group, but those talks have now ceased, reports said.
Cerberus had been reportedly examining Blackwater’s books since January. But a Cerberus representative told ABC News that had not decided to pursue a transaction.
While the firm did not cite its reasons for dropping the talks, ABC noted that the firm, which has millions of dollars in US government contracts in Iraq, may have attracted further unwanted attention for the private equity firm. Blackwater has been accused of tax fraud, improper use of force, arms trafficking, and over-billing the US government for its services in Iraq, ABC said.
http://www.financialnews-us.com/index.cfm?page=ushome&contentid=2350546182
Kraut783
05-09-2008, 05:26
Unfortunately the BW controversy has changed some things over here in the sand box, about three months ago we were notified that contractors are now subject to UCMJ, mainly for serious offenses, but that is also being hashed out. Forcing Army CID to fill the void in the lack of civilian law enforcement.
Sorry to have been out of the loop, just now have been able to reach this website, used to be blocked here at CTI.
Allen
Ret10Echo
05-28-2008, 06:45
Blackwater grand jury hears from Iraqi witnesses
May 27, 2008 - 9:54pm
Mohammed Abdul-Razzaq, left, the father of Ali, the 9-year-old boy killed in the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting in Baghdad involving Blackwater Worldwide contractors, leaves the federal courthouse in Washington with prosecutor Stephen Ponticiello, right, Tuesday, May 27, 2008. At back center is another unidentified Iraqi who also appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the deadly Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Three Iraqis, including the father of a slain 9-year-old boy, appeared Tuesday before a federal grand jury investigating a deadly Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad involving Blackwater Worldwide contractors.
The Iraqis were escorted to the closed-door session by federal prosecutors who are overseeing the U.S. investigation into whether Blackwater security guards illegally fired into a crowded Baghdad intersection, resulting in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians.
An Iraqi police major told The Associated Press in Baghdad that two of his officers were flown to the United States several days ago to testify. The major, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said they were expected to remain in the United States for two weeks.
It was not known whether the officers, one of whom was identified as Serhan Dhiab, were among the three men meeting Tuesday with grand jurors at the federal courthouse in Washington.
One of the three Iraqis was Mohammed Abdul-Razzaq, whose son Ali, 9, was killed in the shooting. He left court holding what appeared to be a child's plush toy and a family portrait.
After about three hours behind closed doors, the men did not talk to reporters. But before leaving Iraq, Abdul-Razzaq told ABC News he agreed to testify because he wanted justice for "a crime that needs to be punished."
"It was a true massacre, a slaughter," Abdul-Razzaq said.
ABC identified Hussan Abdurrahman as one of the officers brought to testify. He told the network in a separate interview that the Blackwater convoy never was in danger.
"There were zero armed men in that area," Abdurrahman said.
Grand jury testimony is secret but Iraqi witnesses to the shooting have described it publicly as an unprovoked attack in which the U.S. contractors killed motorists, bystanders and children.
Blackwater, hired by the State Department to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq, says its contractors were responding to a Baghdad car bombing when they were ambushed by insurgents, touching off a firefight.
The company is not a target of the investigation. The case has focused on as few as three or four guards and whether they acted illegally.
Over the past seven months, the grand jury has heard from Blackwater security guards, company managers and U.S. military officials.
The shooting enraged the Iraqi government, which originally sought to expel Blackwater and its 1,000 employees from the country, and strained diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad.
The shooting also raised questions at home and abroad about the U.S. reliance on heavily armed private contractors in war zones.
___
Associated Press writer Sameer Yacoub in Baghdad contributed to this report.
Ret10Echo
12-05-2008, 06:42
US mulls unusual tactic as Blackwater charges loom
By MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writers Matt Apuzzo And Lara Jakes Jordan, Associated Press Writers
2 hrs 57 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is readying indictments that could send Blackwater Worldwide guards to prison for at least 30 years for their involvement in the deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting of Iraqi civilians, people close to the case said.
Charges could be announced as early as Monday in the shooting, which left 17 civilians dead and strained U.S. relations with the fledgling Iraqi government. People familiar with the charges said they may include an aggressive Reagan-era anti-drug law cracking down on assault weapons.
Prosecutors have been reviewing a draft indictment and considering manslaughter and assault charges for weeks. A team of prosecutors returned to the grand jury room Thursday and called no witnesses.
Though drugs were not involved in the Blackwater shooting, the Justice Department is pondering the use of a law, passed at the height of the nation's crack epidemic, to prosecute the guards. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 law calls for 30-year prison terms for using machine guns to commit violent crimes of any kind, whether drug-related or not.
The people who discussed the case did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose matters that are not yet public.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment Thursday.
Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, was thrust into the national spotlight after the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting. Its guards, all decorated military veterans hired to protect U.S. diplomats overseas, were responding to a car bombing when a shooting erupted in a crowded intersection.
The guards carried government-issued machine guns and drove heavily armored trucks equipped with turret guns.
Blackwater insists its convoy was ambushed by insurgents. Witnesses said the guards were unprovoked.
The company is not a target in the case and Blackwater has cooperated with investigators.
"The company has consistently said that we do not believe the individuals acted unlawfully," company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Thursday. "If it is determined that an individual acted improperly, Blackwater would support holding that person accountable."
Prosecutors questioned dozens of witnesses in the case, including the father of a young boy killed in the shooting. The investigation has focused on between three and six guards who could face charges.
Regardless of the charges they bring, prosecutors will have a tough fight. The law is unclear on whether contractors can be charged in the U.S., or anywhere, for crimes committed overseas.
To prosecute, authorities must argue that the guards can be charged under a law meant to cover soldiers and military contractors. Since Blackwater works for the State Department, not the military, it's unclear whether that law applies to its guards.
Prosecutors lost a similar case against former Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr., who was charged in Riverside, Calif., with killing four unarmed Iraqi detainees.
Further complicating the case, the State Department promised several Blackwater guards limited immunity in exchange for their sworn statements shortly after the shooting. Prosecutors will need to show that they did not rely on those statements in building their case if those guards are charged.
Scimitar
12-06-2008, 12:26
WASHINGTON - Five Blackwater Worldwide security guards have been indicted and a sixth was negotiating a plea with prosecutors for a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead and became an anti-American rallying cry for insurgents, people close to the case said Friday.
Prosecutors obtained the indictment late Thursday and had it put under seal until it is made public, perhaps as early as Monday. All who discussed the case did so on condition of anonymity because the matters remain sealed.
Six guards have been under investigation since a convoy of heavily armed Blackwater contractors opened fire in a crowded Baghdad intersection on Sept. 16, 2007. Witnesses say the shooting was unprovoked but Blackwater, hired by the State Department to guard U.S. diplomats, says its guards were ambushed by insurgents while responding to a car bombing.
Young children were among the victims, and the shooting strained relations between the U.S. and Iraq. After the shooting, Blackwater became the subject of congressional hearings in Washington and insurgent propaganda videos in Iraq.
The exact charges in the indictment were unclear, but the Justice Department has been considering manslaughter and assault charges against the guards for weeks. Prosecutors have also been considering bringing charges under a law, passed as part of a 1988 drug bill, that carries a mandatory 30-year prison sentence for using a machine gun in a crime of violence.
One of the six guards has been negotiating to reduce the charges against him in return for cooperation. If completed, such a deal could provide prosecutors with a key witness against the other five guards. Others in the convoy have already testified before a federal grand jury about the shooting.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined comment.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said, "We've consistently said that we do not believe the guards acted unlawfully. If it is determined they did, we would support holding them accountable."
Regardless of the charges they bring, prosecutors will have a tough fight. The law is unclear on whether contractors can be charged in the U.S., or anywhere, for crimes committed overseas. The indictment sends the message that the Justice Department believes contractors do not operate with legal impunity in war zones.
Based at a sprawling compound in Moyock, N.C., Blackwater itself is not a target of the FBI investigation. Company officials have cooperated with the investigation and say their guards did nothing wrong.
To prosecute, authorities must argue that the guards can be charged under a law meant to cover soldiers and military contractors. Since Blackwater works for the State Department, not the military, it's unclear whether that law applies to its guards.
Further complicating the case, the State Department granted all the Blackwater guards limited immunity in exchange for their sworn statements shortly after the shooting. Prosecutors will need to show that they did not rely on those statements in building their case.
RT AXE 10
12-06-2008, 12:39
They have been Identified,
WASHINGTON – The five Blackwater Worldwide guards indicted for a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting are all decorated military veterans who have served in some of the world's most dangerous hotspots.
According to lawyers for the guards, the men are: Donald Ball, a former Marine from Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn.; and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.
The men are charged following the shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians in a busy Baghdad intersection. Documents in the case remain sealed but are expected to become public Monday, when the men have been ordered to surrender.
"These are indictments that never should have been brought," Mark Hulkower, a lawyer for Slough, said Saturday. "Paul Slough has served his country honorably for many years and has done nothing wrong. I look forward to clearing his name."
The character of the five men will be a critical part of the case. Prosecutors are expected to describe the men as trigger-happy security guards who opened fire unprovoked. Defense lawyers will describe the men as honorable veterans who, after completing their military service, joined Blackwater to protect U.S. diplomats overseas.
Young children were among the victims of the shooting, which strained relations between the U.S. and Iraq. Following the shooting, Blackwater became the subject of congressional hearings in Washington and insurgent propaganda videos in Iraq.
An Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said Baghdad welcomed any attempt to "hold the criminals accountable for their crime."
The Iraqi government, he said, has retained a law firm to pursue compensation for the families of the victims.
The Justice Department obtained the indictment late Thursday and got it sealed.
___
On the Net:
Blackwater: http://www.blackwaterusa.com/
Here is the problem I have with this. This is not the only documented incident of Innocent Civilians being killed in Iraq by a long shot. Why are these guys going to Jail. Is it because they are contractors or is it because they are BW Contractors.
Ret10Echo
12-07-2008, 06:23
Here is the problem I have with this. This is not the only documented incident of Innocent Civilians being killed in Iraq by a long shot. Why are these guys going to Jail. Is it because they are contractors or is it because they are BW Contractors.
Partially because they are BW.....mostly because the MSM got ahold of it and they love to demonize Americans. There is a stigma attached to anyone who does military-style work out of uniform. (too much Hollyweird)
Partially because they are BW.....mostly because the MSM got ahold of it and they love to demonize Americans. There is a stigma attached to anyone who does military-style work out of uniform. (too much Hollyweird)
That sounds about right. The only ones who know the truth of their actions that day are the ones that were there. They will have to live with it.
Ret10Echo
02-03-2009, 05:49
Pentagon letter undercuts DOJ in Blackwater case
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon wrote in 2007 that Blackwater Worldwide contractors in Iraq are not subject to U.S. civilian criminal laws. That position undercuts the Justice Department's effort to prosecute five Blackwater security guards for manslaughter.
The letter highlights the uncertainty prosecutors face in bringing charges against contractors involved in a September 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead in a Baghdad intersection. Iraqis are closely watching how the U.S. responds to the shooting, which inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad.
Defense contractors can be prosecuted in U.S. courts for crimes committed overseas, but because of a legal loophole, contractors for other agencies can only face charges if their work assignments supported the Defense Department.
Blackwater works for the State Department. The largest security contractor in Iraq, the company guards U.S. diplomats. Five of its guards face manslaughter and weapons charges for a shooting that prosecutors say was an unprovoked attack on civilians.
Federal prosecutors in Washington are trying to persuade a judge to hear the case. They say the Defense Department mission and the State Department mission are essentially the same: creating a stable, self-governing Iraq.
When Blackwater guards protected State Department diplomats, prosecutors told a federal judge last week, they were supporting the Defense Department's mission. By protecting diplomats, prosecutors said, Blackwater freed up Pentagon resources.
But in December 2007, the Defense Department disagreed. In a letter to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England explained how the military handles allegations against contractors.
"I am informed that the Blackwater USA private security contractors working under a Department of State contract were not engaged in employment in support of the DOD mission," England wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided by Price's office.
Thus, England wrote, federal prosecutors don't have jurisdiction to charge the Blackwater guards. He was writing in response to a letter from Price, who has long maintained that the loophole in the law should be closed.
Defense Department spokesman Chris Isleib said Monday that the views in the letter remain the view of the Defense Department.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd disagreed.
"The position taken by the Justice Department in the Blackwater prosecution is the position of the U.S. government," Boyd said.
Whether Blackwater is covered by what's known as the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act remains a matter of some debate. Blackwater founder and chief executive Erik Prince said in an interview with The Associated Press that he believed his security guards were covered and could be prosecuted in criminal courts.
Paul Cox, a spokesman for Price, said the congressman believes the courts should settle the question, regardless of England's letter.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina will decide whether the case should go forward. The five guards have asked that the case be thrown out.
The State Department said Friday it would not renew Blackwater's contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq when it expires in May. The announcement followed the Iraqi government's decision to deny Blackwater a license to operate.
Dozer523
02-03-2009, 08:01
I'm starting to see some reports that the firing into the crowd was a reaction to mortar fire? I am not sure what the IAD is for BW reacting to mortar fire, but I am also not sure if I would delay long enough to figure out if it was an IED or Mortar fire...
+1 to T.R.'s comments.........
Basis of the reaction is the baseline skill and experience of those working the detail. I don't want to take anything away from the true professional security workers out there, but the shake-n-bake-to-meet-the-contractual
-obligations is degrading the status and reputation of those who really do know what they are doing.
Anyone who thinks the IAD for "Respond to Mortar Attack" is "Shoot anyone you see, because it might be an IED" probably suffers from stupidity-induced migraines. (You're gonna get in trouble if you start with that +1 stuff :eek: neen ner nee ner:D)
Ret10Echo
02-03-2009, 12:07
(You're gonna get in trouble if you start with that +1 stuff :eek: neen ner nee ner:D)
That one is grandfathered as pre-declaration....:D
The Department of Defense is standing by a 2007 letter that guts federal prosecutors' case against five former Blackwater diplomatic security guards.
Prosecutors have built their case against the Raven 23 team members on the thinnest of legal principles, with forensic evidence so weak that they can't even say who allegedly killed whom in the September 2007 shootout at Nisoor Square in Baghdad.
One of those legal tenets is the idea that the Blackwater guards, who are hired by the State Department and not by the Defense Department, are actually operating in support of a DoD mission and therefore are liable under federal laws governing DoD.
Now, the Associated Press is reporting that the Obama administration is standing by a 2007 letter by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who wrote that the Blackwater contractors "were not engaged in employment in support of the DoD mission" and that consequently the Justice Department lacked jurisdiction to try the men.
Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib tells AP that DoD's view is unchanged.
Congress had written the law to apply only to contractors in support of DoD missions, not State Department missions. When Blackwater became a politically partisan issue, lawmakers critical of the Bush Administration tried to bend the meaning of the law to make it apply to the State Department security contractors. Prosecutors, under pressure to appease the Iraqi government to try the men, used that same flawed logic.
According to AP, "Defense contractors can be prosecuted in US courts for crimes committed overseas, but because of a legal loophole, contractors for other agencies can face charges only if their work assignments supported the Defense Department. Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, works for the State Department. Five of its guards face manslaughter charges for a 2007 shooting that killed 17 Iraqis."
The defense team has provided evidence showing that their convoy was fired upon, and not even the prosecutors are attempting to prove who killed whom. Other reports say that a number of the Iraqi dead did not undergo autopsies prior to burial.
Dozer523
02-06-2009, 22:13
The defense team has provided evidence showing that their convoy was fired upon, and not even the prosecutors are attempting to prove who killed whom. Other reports say that a number of the Iraqi dead did not undergo autopsies prior to burial. Oh Please.
Evidence? The defense is producing Blackwater transcripts of what the BW personnel were radioing in. Who killed whom? Is obvious. Autopsies? I'm pretty sure that the casual observer would have little trouble deterining the cause of death. Blackwater is weak, sloppy and now they are caught.
i hope this is the right place.
stu
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123454232273983709.html?mod=testMod
Blackwater Changes Name
Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning its tarnished brand name.
Blackwater officials said Friday its family of two dozen businesses will now operate under the name Xe, pronounced like the letter "z."
The decision comes as part of a rebranding effort that grew more urgent following a September 2007 shooting in Iraq that left at least a dozen civilians dead.
Blackwater President Gary Jackson said in a memo to employees the new name reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security.
Spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the company felt the Blackwater name was too closely tied to its security work in Iraq.
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press
Team Sergeant
02-13-2009, 15:54
i hope this is the right place.
stu
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123454232273983709.html?mod=testMod
Blackwater Changes Name
Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning its tarnished brand name.
Blackwater officials said Friday its family of two dozen businesses will now operate under the name Xe, pronounced like the letter "z."
The decision comes as part of a rebranding effort that grew more urgent following a September 2007 shooting in Iraq that left at least a dozen civilians dead.
Blackwater President Gary Jackson said in a memo to employees the new name reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security.
Spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the company felt the Blackwater name was too closely tied to its security work in Iraq.
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press
Crap by any other name is still crap.;)
Want to bet that the media will forever use the head line:
Xe, formerly known as "Blackwater" etc etc etc
Don't worry though, erik prince is a "100 millionaire" do you think that low life scum bag really cares?
Team Sergeant
Dozer523
02-13-2009, 16:00
Should be DX.
Ret10Echo
03-03-2010, 06:12
Lawyers..... :munchin
Before Blackwater case failed, legal debate at DOJ
March 2, 2010 - 7:03pm
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - As the U.S. investigated Blackwater Worldwide contractors for a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad, a legal debate was playing out behind the scenes at the Justice Department between two veteran prosecutors. One urged caution. The other aggressively pushed the case forward.
The disagreement foreshadowed problems that in December led a judge to dismiss manslaughter charges against five contractors who fired machine guns and grenades into a busy intersection. The dismissal outraged Iraqis and sent the Obama administration scrambling to repair a case that is all but in ruins.
In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said prosecutors ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials and built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Documents unsealed Tuesday in response to a request by The Associated Press and The Washington Post paint the clearest picture yet of how the case prosecution went awry.
Immediately after the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting, Blackwater contractors told State Department investigators what happened. Two days later, the security gave written statements under a promise that nothing they said could be used against them in a criminal case.
Because of that deal, prosecutors had to make sure they didn't use the written statements to build their case. It was unclear, however whether prosecutors could use the Sept. 16 interviews.
Ken Kohl, the lead prosecutor, believed he could. And he thought Raymond Hulser agreed.
Hulser is among the Justice Department's experts on Garrity V. New Jersey, the Supreme Court case that spells out how to deal with these kinds of immunity deals. Hulser did not agree with Kohl.
"I think that we agreed that there was an issue regarding the Sept. 16, the earlier statements," Hulser testified in one of several closed-door hearing last year that ultimately persuaded Urbina to dismiss the case. "My view was that the risk was such that they shouldn't take it. His view was that they had a good chance of arguing the other way."
Hulser repeatedly tried to warn Kohl that building the investigation on those interviews could jeopardize the case.
Complete article found here (http://www.federalnewsradio.com//?nid=37&sid=1855093)
Ret10Echo
12-13-2011, 08:06
Crap by any other name is still crap.;)
Want to bet that the media will forever use the head line:
Xe, formerly known as "Blackwater" etc etc etc
Don't worry though, erik prince is a "100 millionaire" do you think that low life scum bag really cares?
Team Sergeant
Ariticle in the WSJ here (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204319004577089021757803802.html)
:munchin
On Monday, Virginia-based Xe plans to unveil a new name—Academi—and new logo. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ted Wright, president and chief executive, said the name change aims to signal a strategy shift by one of the U.S. government's biggest providers of training and security services.
Mr. Wright said Academi will try to be more "boring."
New name, but still the same ol sh*t . Only the name has changed. We pull our uniformed forces out, State Dept keeps PMCs in.
Ret10Echo
02-20-2021, 11:46
This cat still lurks about...
Erik Prince and Libya (https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/mercenary-boss-erik-prince-violated-libya-weapons-embargo-un)