Congressional Report Says Blackwater Sought to Cover Up Iraq Shootings

Source: New York Times

By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: October 2, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress.

In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims’ family members who complained, and sought to cover up other episodes, the Congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet. In one case last year, the department helped Blackwater spirit an employee out of Iraq less than 36 hours after the employee, while drunk, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq’s two vice presidents on Christmas Eve.

The report by the Democratic majority staff of a House committee adds weight to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have taken an aggressive, trigger-happy approach to their work and have repeatedly acted with reckless disregard for Iraqi life.

But the report is also harshly critical of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company’s 861 employees in Iraq. “There is no evidence in the documents that the committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting episodes involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the report states.

On Sept. 16, Blackwater employees were involved in a shooting in a Baghdad square that left at least eight Iraqis dead, an episode that remains clouded. The shooting set off outrage among Iraqi officials, who branded them “cold-blooded murder” and demanded that the company be removed from the country....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/washington/02blackwater.html?hp

Like the Army hasn't been killing people left and right in identical manners! But because it's Blackwater, somehow it's evil then, whereas with the uniformed soldiers, working directly for Uncle Sam, it's no big deal.

Blackwater is not a sin-eater for the armed forces.

Blackwater, the mercs are virtually a law unto themselves, and it's still not clear how they can be brought to account under any law for killing Iraqi civilians either recklessly or with malice.

For that matter, the main reason that (edit) US soldiers themselves aren't prosecuted for this sort of thing is that the country's crawling with suicide bombers and letting cars get close to convoys is inherently dangerous. It doesn't have to be recklessly or with malice from the US point of view to be reckless and with malice to the Iraqis.

I realize a lot of people don't keep track of the fine details of the insurgency and counter-insurgency in Iraq but, yes, there are real car suicide bombers in Iraq, and yes, they try to kill people in US convoys, be they military or state department. So, just like aircraft carriers have exclusion zones around them where no non-US ship is permitted to sail without attack, the same principle has been applied to convoys driving down the streets of Bagdhad. Cars that get too close to these convoys are shot at. A lot. And it's not just Blackwater, it's just apparently convenient for people on this board to believe that.

Feel free to call it wrong and say US troops shouldn't be in that position to begin with. I'd like to see the troops pulled out, because as long as they're there, asking them to be less trigger happy while in convoys is guaranteed to get more of them blown up by suicide bombers sooner or later. That's an ugly fact, but a fact none the less.

makes me think...something is fishy.

I mean, perhaps the best spin on it possible is that the killer did it just to show that he can and that it doesn't matter who you're a guard for, if it's an Iraqi, you're all the same. Like the old "mere gook rule" ('it's just a gook').

My whole point is purely that mercs are not the only people who do bad things in a war zone. They're the outrage du jour here, and for good reason, but they're not the only problem. Not by a long shot.

" . . . suggested paying the slain bodyguard’s family $250,000, but a lower-ranking official said that such a high payment “could cause incidents with people trying to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.”

I didn't realize anyone could rank that low.

I think I have become permanently fed up with this whole insane planet forever.

of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company’s 861 employees in Iraq".

:wtf: 861 employees? There definitely some "fuzzy math" going on there.