Blackwater Attempted to Take Iraqi Military Aircraft Out of Iraq; Congress Wants AnswersRICHARD LARDNER
AP News
Oct 19, 2007 16:10 EDT
Blackwater USA tried to take at least two Iraqi military aircraft out of Iraq two years ago and refused to give the planes back when Iraqi officials sought to reclaim them, according to a congressional committee investigating the private security contractor.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wants the company to provide all documents related to the attempted shipment and to explain where the aircraft are now.
In a letter sent Friday to Erik Prince, Blackwater's top executive, Waxman said he learned of the 2005 attempt from a military official who contacted the committee. That official is not identified in the letter, nor is the type of aircraft.
Waxman also is seeking a sweeping amount of information about Blackwater's business, including its contracts with the federal government, profits made since the company was founded a decade ago, Prince's personal earnings since 2001, and details about the payments to the families of Iraqis killed by Blackwater personnel.
Blackwater did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Waxman's letter.
more Waxman's Letter to Blackwater CEO Erik Prince October 21, 2007, 8:21 am
Why State hired Blackwater: Rumsfeld
wouldn’t provide troops:
A new executive order, signed in January 2004, gave State authority over all but military operations. Rumsfeld’s revenge, at least in the view of many State officials, was to withdraw all but minimal assistance for diplomatic security.
But they sat down to work it out, right?
Meetings to negotiate an official memorandum of understanding between State and Defense during the spring of 2004 broke up in shouting matches over issues such as their respective levels of patriotism and whether the military would provide mortuary services for slain diplomats.
Remember, however, the important point: if you noticed back then that these were crazy, dangerous people, you were shrill. To be respectable, you have to have waited until 2006 or so to turn on the Bushies.
moreHas there ever been an administration so clueless to potential
consequences of their actions:
The dangers of using a private army are clear. Employees of various companies, including Blackwater, USA, have been charged to senseless killings, reckless killings, and just plain cold blooded killings. I hesitate to say they have participated in murders, because “murder” implies a legal regime where murder is a crime. These mercenaries seem to above the law.
The new mercenaries are not merely civilian employees of western contractors. They have also been hired by Department of State to be bodyguards for U.S. officials in Iraq, including the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Thus we have the odd, utterly peculiar situation. The United States government is hiring mercenaries who are not even under our legal authority, to do the job that our own military or federal law enforcement agencies should do. We have outsourced the protection of our more important diplomatic and civilian officials to hired guns.
This policy raises significant questions about the nature of our mission in Iraq. It also seems to be an implicit insult to our own military. Are the U.S. Marines – the traditional embassy guards – no longer able to protect our ambassador? Are the Marines and other forces spread so thin that they cannot spare troops to defend the U.S. embassy and its staff? Or is the nature of the Iraq adventure such that we do not want marines and soldiers in this kind of “harm’s way.” Rather, we want mercenaries who do not have to answer to U.S. law or military law, to protect the ambassador, so that the mercenaries can always shoot first and ask questions later, and not be subject to any legal sanctions.
Jefferson was right on the mercenary issue. Nation’s that fight their wars with mercenaries run the great risk of having their hired guns carry out “Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny” under “circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.” Sadly, the more he sanctions the use of mercenaries, hired guns, and armed cowboys on helicopters, the more our Third President George begins to look like our nation’s first enemy, George the Third.
The State Department Turned to Contractors Such as Blackwater Amid a Fight With the Pentagon Over Personal Security in Iraq
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 21, 2007; Page A01
Last Christmas Day in Baghdad, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad received a furious phone call from Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. An American -- drunk, armed, wandering through the Green Zone after a party -- had shot and killed one of his personal bodyguards the night before, Mahdi said. He wanted to see Khalilzad right away.
<...>
After consulting with the embassy's legal officer, Khalilzad identified the shooter as Andrew J. Moonen, an employee of Blackwater USA, the company that provides security for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad. But he would not deliver Moonen himself. Within 36 hours of the shooting, Blackwater and the embassy had shipped him out of the country.
<...>
But as with previous killings by contractors, the case was handled with apologies and a payoff. Blackwater fired Moonen and fined him $14,697 -- the total of his back pay, a scheduled bonus and the cost of his plane ticket home, according to Blackwater documents. The amount nearly equaled the $15,000 the company agreed to give the Iraqi guard's family.
Ten months later, however -- after Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad traffic circle on Sept. 16 -- the State Department can no longer quietly manage the consequences of having its own private army in Iraq. The FBI is investigating the incident, Baghdad has vowed to overturn a law shielding contractors from prosecution, and congressional critics have charged State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security with failing to supervise Blackwater and other security companies under its authority.
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