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Today's Must Read
The Blackwater security detail at Nisour Square on September 16 didn't just commit a "crime," as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki initially said. It committed murder, according to the Iraqi government's official account of the incident.
Ali al-Dabbagh, Maliki's spokesman, told reporters yesterday that Blackwater was guilty of "deliberate murder" when its guards fired upon the square, leaving 17 civilians killed. Dabbagh said the judgment was the verdict of the Iraqi government's investigation into the shootings, which are also under review by a joint American-Iraqi panel. Those investigators met for the first time over the weekend.
Both the Iraqi investigation and initial U.S. military reviews have found that Blackwater did not come under small-arms fire at the square, contradicting the company's account of Iraqi insurgents provoking the attack. Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim told The New York Times that "Not even a brick was thrown at them." Blackwater continues to deny wrongdoing -- let alone illegality -- and urges judgment be suspended until all inquiries are complete.
Dabbagh, however, was disinclined to accept the company's admonishments: the shootings were "a deliberate crime against civilians" that should be "tried in court." The Iraqi investigation would seem to support that conclusion.
In previously undisclosed details in the government’s final report, the Iraqi police documented that Blackwater guards shot in almost every direction, killing or wounding people in a near 360-degree circle around Nisour Square.The thick file amassed for the investigation asserts that bullets reached bystanders who were as far as 200 feet away and nearly on the opposite side of the square.
The police investigation also shows that a second shooting, in which one person was killed and two wounded, occurred about 600 feet from the initial one on the opposite side of the square, along the departure route that the Blackwater team took from the first shooting.
Yet even as the Iraqis grow more and more outraged over Blackwater, the company shows signs of lengthening its stay in Iraq. An American official tells the Times that Blackwater figures it needs to extend some gesture of apology to the Iraqi government as a way of dampening the furor. But the Iraqi government, in the final analysis, is powerless to kick Blackwater out of Iraq as long as the State Department wants the company to protect its diplomats.
It's easy to understand Blackwater's calculation. No law exists to stop Blackwater from killing Iraqi civilians. A Blackwater guard who drunkenly shot and killed an Iraqi bodyguard for Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi was fired by the company but hired and sent back to Iraq by a different firm within three months. Right now, chances are that as long as the State Department is in Iraq, Blackwater will be, too.
Comments (16)
Jolly Ranchero wrote on October 8, 2007 9:33 AM:You can bet these guys are safe and secure in the States. It would be amazing to see Iraq demand extradition and then see what excuse the US uses to deny their request. They have to know that any trial is an automatic guilty verdict and an automatic death sentence.
bluestatedon wrote on October 8, 2007 10:00 AM:Bush and the idiot sycophants who surround him are too stupid to realize this, but they've put Maliki and all other Iraqi government officials who've been openly cooperating with the Coalition of One in a very tenuous situation.
The level of outrage over Blackwater's actions among ordinary Iraqis is by all acounts higher than that over Abu Ghraib, and Maliki is no doubt aware of this. If he is seen as indifferent to the atrocities committed by Blackwater as Bush is, he knows that his legacy over the long term and his personal safety in the short term will be severely jeopardized.
The danger for the US is if Maliki and other elements in the Iraqi government figure that their own best interests lie in actively opposing the US, not cooperating with the US. Given the attitudes evinced by the US, the question is not if that happens, but when.
jimijazz wrote on October 8, 2007 10:36 AM:Erik Prince needs to be put out of business. End of story.
jhm wrote on October 8, 2007 10:51 AM:This must be the 'unreasonable' prosecution which lies at the heart of this administration's objection to the International Criminal Court.
ARG in Chicago wrote on October 8, 2007 10:53 AM:For some time now I've thought that the Bush regime would rather have another change of government in Iraq. Or maybe Bushco are just looking for a way out.
Perhaps this whole episode, or at least the way it is being handled, is going to help precipitate a change. We are essentially forcing the Iraqi government to oppose the US occupation. Maybe George is just waiting for Maliki to say "we don't want you here anymore", so he can say, "okay, see ya!"
But it seems more likely (to me) that they (they Cheney cabal) are playing this as a way to change the Iraqi leadership, yet again, to someone who'll play ball with them. We recently switched sides in this civil war, from Shi'ite to Sunni, so maybe we are looking for an excuse to put a Sunni strongman in place again.
-- ARG
Ellen wrote on October 8, 2007 10:54 AM:I agree that Erik Prince should have not be contracting with our government.
Did you see his smug smirky smirk from the hearings? There is a guy who feels he is outside US jurisdiction (and I bet Blackwater is based in the Cayman Islands, paying no taxes).
I am surprised the Democrats are so weak here. The Republican minority is very good at being bellicose, but they are very good at being wrong. Why the Democrats don't step up the heat here is a mystery.
I guess as long as Russ Feingold is in office there is hope--but I hope he isn't taking any trips in small planes.
moondancer wrote on October 8, 2007 12:25 PM:As big as this story is, Prince and BW have grand ambitions in the US. I am disturbed that the domestic aspect is getting so little press.
moondancer wrote on October 8, 2007 12:28 PM:The Pinkerton Act of 1893 applies to this gooper militia. The law is there to make them go away, why are they still here?
Sorry, it is the Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893
Anonymous wrote on October 8, 2007 1:10 PM:the democracy we are teacing Iraq is everything a true democracy is NOT...
Has anyone noticed that ALL of the (few) prosecutions which have resulted from murders and tortures resulting from OUR actions have pretty much consisted of reprimands or little consequences at the same time we are promoting "DE
anonymouse wrote on October 8, 2007 1:16 PM:the democracy we are teacing Iraq is everything a true democracy is NOT...
Has anyone noticed that ALL of the (few) prosecutions which have resulted from murders and tortures resulting from OUR actions have pretty much consisted of reprimands or little consequences at the same time we are promoting "DEAD OR ALIVE" adjucations upon our enemies for the same crimes?
Even if Iraq becomes a "democracy" as a result of our intervention, it will be a showcase of what a democracy should not be... and cannot but result in an oligarchy or dictatorship from which it sprung.
We are only teaching this country what we have become, not what a healthy, stable democracy should be....
Such a travesty.... as we continue to slide down the slope..
JEP wrote on October 8, 2007 2:27 PM:"judgment be suspended until all inquiries are complete..."
GOP(good old poikas)response,,,
"Lets get someone like Chao on this one."
No wonder they want to stay in Iraq for ten more years (or more) it could take that long just to investigate the first four years...
Jane wrote on October 8, 2007 2:47 PM:and just why is it that State wants to be 'protected' by guys painting targets on their own backs? People trying to get Blackwater will have a hard time missing State.
A mminimal survival instinct might be useful here.
dhs wrote on October 8, 2007 4:29 PM:Go see: "In the Valley of Elah", directed by Paul Haggis, written by Haggis and Mark Boal; starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon. About a Vietnam veteran investigating a report that his son has gone A.W.O.L. after returning from Iraq. Based on actual events. 4 stars by Ebert; I would give it 5.
It is a movie ostensibly about Iraq, but more importantly about moral courage, facing the truth, and the terrible human costs to America of the war in Iraq. The parable of David and Goliath is at the center of the story. Who is David? and who is Goliath in this allegory?
alex wrote on October 8, 2007 4:55 PM:Everything this administration has done since 9/11 has further backed us into a corner.
I'm sick. 17 people sounds like a small number from across an ocean, but it really is not a small number.
tina wrote on October 8, 2007 7:17 PM:America has become more pathetic now than anytime in its history.
Oh, how we long for the days of hotel break-ins and blow-jobs.
We're at such a low now, that we believe the Iraqi government(!) more than we do our own government.
Shame on all of those who voted for Bush once, and blame to all of those who voted for him twice.
JEP wrote on January 7, 2008 12:06 PM:Curious, how ironic fate can be.
Here, one of the most diplomatic acts our diplomatic wing could perform would be to expel Blackwater from Iraq to stifle the growing outrage of the Iraqis... (wasn't it also a Blackwater event that spawned the infamy of Fallujah, and that profane pebble in the pond rippled out into an insurgency....)
Yet it is that very state department pulling those diplomatic strings that hires and employees and ultimately insulates Blackwater.
Or is this just more behind-the-scenes versions of Cheney diplomacy, he's managing our Pakistani "relationship", maybe this is his way of keeping a monkey-wrench always clattering through the Iraqi reconstruction works, that would sure guarantee ongoing no-bid profit for his "former" corporation and it's countless inter-related clones.
This will eventually prove to be one of the most tangled, twisted and costly heists in history.
Bush's trillion dollar war.