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Feds Probing Drunken Blackwater Shooting
Nearly a year and a half after the incident, the Justice Department has sent a team to investigate a former Blackwater contractor for drunkenly gunning down a bodyguard to Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi on Christmas Eve, 2006.
To refresh your memory on this singularly ugly case: after the shooting, Blackwater and the State Department got together to hustle the contractor, Andrew Moonen, out of Iraq (when Blackwater CEO Erik Prince was asked about this, he replied, "It could easily be.").
Part of the effort to keep the thing under wraps was a payment to the victim's family. Emails showed that when U.S. Embassy officials suggested either $100,000 or $250,000, a State diplomatic-security official countered with $15,000. The figure needed to be lower, the diplomatic-security official contended, so Iraqis wouldn't "try to get killed to set up their family financially."
And they managed to keep the thing so quiet that Moonen soon went back to Iraq working for another contractor.
But now prosecutors have evidently determined that the law will allow them to charge Moonen. They say they'll reach a decision at the end of the summer. Don't confuse this case with the Nisour Square shooting -- the Justice Department is also investigating that incident, and a handful of contractors are reportedly still on the hook.
Comments (6)
Given all of the DOJ talk by Mukasey et.al. that the government has no jurisdiction to investigate wrong doings in Iraq, I have to wonder if this investigation is not as much, or more, for re-establishing better relations and creating a better face with the American people (even more, the Iraqis) as much as pursuing justice.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
May 16, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 16, 2008 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is serious question as to what legal authority the U.S. civilian legal system, the military justice system, or Iraqi law has over civilian contractors. And there's a case to be made that there is no law that applies to civilian contractors. Yet, there is an interest (well, sometimes, at least) in investigating and punishing criminal acts by contractors.
This is all so easily solved. All we need to do is to hire some "judicial contractors" to investigate, prosecute and punish all other contractors (or at least those whose actions become politically troublesome). Whenever there's an allegation of contractor crime, the "judicial contractors" could abduct -- er, I mean, arrest -- the suspects, try them, and then punish them as they saw fit. They could machine gun them on the streets, or rape them, or whatever. Problem gone!
May 16, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you haven't yet read this, please do. Bush Administration officials have been charged with war crimes.
I will add that hope that these Blackwater mercenaries will also have to pay for their crimes. While we may not see Bush et al at The Hague now...I am confident it will happen. But I think the criminals at Blackwater will be in worse shape for they do not have the power of the Bush name behind it.
And once someone, anyone!, starts talking, the whole tower of cards will come crashing down.
I am gleefully awaiting that day!
May 16, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
"There is serious question as to what legal authority the U.S. civilian legal system, the military justice system, or Iraqi law has over civilian contractors. And there's a case to be made that there is no law that applies to civilian contractors."
Mercenaries are one of the few well-defined cases of
"unlawful combatant" and are by definition against
the Geneva Convention. Send Blackwater to the Hague.
May 17, 2008 6:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I feel as if my patience and qualified faith have been vindicated.
I was ridiculous to think that everyone in Justice went along with the Gonzales way of doing things, but it was disappointing that so many things that needed deep investigation—especially these Blackwater abuses—weren't being touched, or were just touched very gingerly.
I have always thought that there must be a lot of very unhappy people at Justice who have wanted to do their jobs but were afraid of the retribution they'd have suffered. (Hey, it probably wouldn't be that easy for a fired FBI agent to get another job, and they've got to eat, too.) It's probably the combination of the short time left for Bushies to retaliate against investigators and the comparatively moderate tone of Mukasey's Justice Dept. (although I have no illusions that Mukasey isn't someone who's very, very dangerous to Constitutional adherents) that has allowed investigators the feeling that they could pursue these Blackwater cases.
Here's hoping that more and more personnel in Justice feel freer to do their jobs. We might have some really nice prosecutions getting started even before Bush and his gang of thugs leave office.
May 18, 2008 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink