For years, the families of the four Blackwater guards killed in the infamous Fallujah incident have carried on a wrongful death lawsuit against the company. A House oversight committee investigation faulted the company's cost-cutting for leaving the guards vulnerable to the ambush.

But Blackwater, always in need of very good lawyering, says that if it weren't for some lousy (though very expensive) lawyers, they would have easily disposed of the lawsuit already. From Legal Times:

Blackwater Security filed a $30 million malpractice suit against Wiley Rein on Wednesday, alleging that the firm made costly missteps in a wrongful death case brought on behalf of four former Blackwater employees who were killed in Iraq in 2004.

Somewhat awkwardly, one of the lawyers who was on that Wiley, Rein team being sued for incompetence is current White House counsel Fred Fielding. It's nothing personal, I guess.

Blackwater dropped Wiley, Rein back in 2005, opting for another heavy-hitting firm, Greenberg, Traurig. The suit is ongoing.

No surprise here:

Justice Department officials have told Congress that they face serious legal difficulties in pursuing criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards involved in a September shooting that left at least 17 Iraqis dead.

In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent any prosecution....

The officials from the Justice and State Departments “didn’t say they weren’t going to prosecute,” said one Congressional aide who attended the briefing. “They said there would be a lot of difficulties.”

To review: it's debatable whether Blackwater can even be prosecuted because they don't seem to be covered by any law. Beyond that, the State Department provided the Blackwater guards involved in the incident with limited immunity in order to get their version of events, thus further compromising the investigation. And don't forget that Blackwater quickly mended the trucks involved in the incident, destroying key evidence as to whether the guards were actually under attack when they opened fire (Blackwater says that State gave them the green light to do that).

So those are the difficulties. The DoJ did launch a grand jury investigation after the FBI determined that the guards had indeed opened fire without provocation. But don't hold your breath.

Boy, this thing was rigged from the get-go. From the AP:

Blackwater Worldwide repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack, according to people familiar with the government's investigation of the incident.

Damage to the vehicles in the convoy has been held up by Blackwater as proof that its security guards were defending themselves against an insurgent ambush when they fired into a busy intersection, leaving 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

U.S. military investigators initially found "no enemy activity involved" and the Iraqi government concluded the shootings were unprovoked.

The repairs essentially destroyed evidence that Justice Department investigators hoped to examine in a criminal case that has drawn worldwide attention.

Blackwater's explanation for the repairs is that they were done at the "government's direction" -- meaning the State Department. That's a sadly credible claim, given that the State Department offered limited immunity to the Blackwater guards involved in the September 16th shootings that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead. If State really did direct Blackwater to repair those trucks, it would mean that they made two different crucial moves immediately following the shootings that dramatically undercut the possibility of a criminal prosecution.

As far as Blackwater's many sins go, this one's pretty minor. But it's got that special Blackwater touch.

Back in 2005, The New York Times reports, a Blackwater helicopter dropped tear gas (CS gas) on a checkpoint in Baghdad's Green Zone. "An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.... A number of Iraqi civilians, both on foot and in cars waiting to go through the checkpoint, were also exposed. " The gas, which the American military itself "can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders," causes burning eyes, skin irritation, coughing, difficulty breathing and sometimes even vomiting.

Blackwater's explanation, by way of spokeswoman Anne Tyrell, was that "a CS gas canister was mistaken for a smoke canister and released near an intersection and checkpoint." If there was some mistake, both the helicopter and the vehicle on the ground seem to have been mistaken. Oops.

Oddly enough, Army officers told the Times that "the Blackwater convoy appeared to be stuck in traffic and may have been trying to use the riot-control agent as a way to clear a path." Now, how blinding everyone in the area would help traffic to clear isn't immediately clear to me. Nor is it clear to Capt. Kincy Clark who was hit by the gas and wrote, "Why someone would think a substance that makes your eyes water, nose burn and face hurt would make a driver do anything other than stop is beyond me.”

Note: Blackwater hired its third lobbyist recently.

Back to our Afghanistan-contractors document for a minute. How could it be that the State Department could effectively lose $28 million worth of cars, guns, radios, computers, generators, and other not-easy-to-lose items? Probably because State doesn't devote people to making sure the stuff is where the contractors say it is, in violation of federal regulations. From the State Department Inspector General:

[Federal Acquisition Regulation] assigns certain responsibilities, such as reviewing contractors' property control systems and approving the type and frequency of physical inventories, to the [contracting officer] or "the representative assigned the responsibility as a property administrator." However, the Department had not appointed a property administrator for these contracts, and Department officials indicated that it was not the Department's practice to do so. ...

As of September 30, 2006, according to the Department, contractors held capitalized government property with a total cost of about $144 million and a net book value of almost $49 million. Although the Department has not appointed property administrators in the past, [the Office of the Inspector General] concluded that contractor-held property has reached such a level that the amount of oversight necessary cannot be met effectively by the Department's existing property administration structure and recommends the following.

The federal government uses many acronyms. Unfortunately, WTF isn't one of them.

More outrageous tales from the State Department car dealership: it turns out that contractor DynCorp didn't have to even prove that it in fact purchased dozens of SUVs for which it charged the government. Try to follow the money on this one.

[O]ne Civilian Police task order [on which DynCorp is the contractor] included a requirement for 68 armored Ford Excursions at a fixed price of $113,064. The [State] Department was billed for 68 "armored vehicles" at a unit cost of $123,327. The property list contained 61 Ford Excursions, of which some were described as armored, others uparmored, and others had no notation of armoring. The costs shown on the property list for these 61 Ford Excursions ranged from $43,990 to $150,000 with nine at $122,190, seven with higher costs, and the remaining 45 with costs of $77,000 and below. Thus, OIG could not conclude that the 68 "armored vehicles" in the vouchers were the 68 armored Ford Excursions specified in the task order.

Let's just assume for a minute that they are. To do the math: 68 Excursions at the State Department contract's fixed unit price works out to $7,688,352. But 68 Excursions at the price DynCorp billed the department is $8,386,236. So that's an overcharge of almost $698,000. Nice.

But what the report's saying is that it has no way of knowing if DynCorp really spent the $8,386,236. It's not easy to work out the numbers given the vague way the report describes the expenses cited on the 61 Excursions DynCorp documented. But nine Excursions at $122,190 is $1,099,710. Add another 45 at $77,000 (the maximum cited here), and that's $3,465,000. Take a conservative estimate of the remaining seven with "higher costs" than the $122,190 -- let's say $122,200, a mere $10 more. That's $855,400. Add it all up and you get in the ballpark of $5,420,110.

And that means the State Department's lax bookkeeping requirements allowed DynCorp to, potentially, pocket around (by my calculation) $2,996,126. Whether that in fact happened is unclear by definition. But what's crystal clear is that State's shoddy accounting is practically an invitation to abuse. Why not just have the State Department open its petty cash drawers and save the inspector-general's office the trouble?

For a moment, leave aside the question of missing property. The September 2007 State Department inspector general report provides a blueprint for how lax department rules let contractors in Afghanistan shoehorn all manner of purchases into their conctract costs -- regardless of whether the contract required those specific purchases. As they say on the streets, DynCorp, essentially, got to charge it to the game.

Take one example. On one of DynCorp's task orders for the Civilian Police training contract, the company bought $1.1 million worth of trucks, unspecified in its contract, and charged it to the government. And that was just the start.

Under one of the Civilian Police task orders, the vouchers included charges for 20 Ford F-250s, with a cost of $1.1 million, that were acquired before the modification authorizing their purchase was issued; 18 vehicles consisting of Ford Excursions, John Deere Gators, and Yamaha motorcycles, with a cost of $384,590, that were not specified in the task order; and an additional unknown quantity of John Deere Gators and Ford Excursions, with a cost of $1.4 million, that were not specified in the ask order.

That worked for DynCorp so well on the police contract, the company ran the same game on its ordnance-removal contract:

Although weapons and weapon accessories were not among the property specified for purchase under the WRAP contract, the vouchers included charges of $30,000.

The inspector general concedes that contractors might legitimately need to buy new property during the course of the contract. But the department's requirements -- apparently still in place -- don't allow outside observers enough visibility to determine what's a legitimate expense and what isn't. (Or, in the IG's words, "the Department should assess whether additional property items are needed to meet program requirements, approve new acquisitions before they are made, and modify the contract accordingly.") The absence of such protections is practically an invitation for a contractor to walk into a Ford dealership and hand over Condoleezza Rice's credit card -- which, incidentally, you pay for.

A September 2007 State Department report, obtained by TPMmuckraker, found that contractors DynCorp and Blackwater can't account for $28.4 million in U.S. government-issued property in Afghanistan, including armored cars, guns and radios.

The report, prepared by the State Department inspector-general's office, hits the department for its lack of "adequate internal control over the government property held by contractors." It calls the property lists provided by State officials managing the contract in Afghanistan "incomplete and, therefore, unreliable." The $28.4 million worth of missing or poorly-documented property represents 21 percent of the government property held by DynCorp and Blackwater.

In some cases, the property has disappeared into a bureaucratic morass, thanks to State's improper bookkeeping. But in other cases, the property appears to be simply gone. For instance, the report finds:

OIG [the Office of the Inspector General] found all of the selected WPPS [Worldwide Personnel Protective Service] items on the property list but was unable to locate some of the items (see Table 3), including vehicles, a weapon, generators, computers, radios, and phones, on the Civilian Police and WRAP [Weapons Removal and Abatement Program] lists.

DynCorp holds the Civilian Police and WRAP contracts. The WPPS contract is held by Blackwater, and the report doesn't accuse Blackwater of mishandling government property. But it does say that Blackwater didn't include the cost of 91 percent of items on its property list reviewed by the inspector general. As a result, inspectors were unable to verify that the money cited by Blackwater for the purchase of "any of its vehicles and much of its communications equipment" was properly spent.

It wouldn't be the first time inspectors hit the department for inadequate bookkeeping. In October, Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, chided State for its inability to account for $1.2 billion it had awarded to DynCorp in Iraq.

TPMmuckraker obtained the September 2007 report thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request. We'll have it for you in our Documents Collection shortly. And we'll be presenting you with more from the report throughout the week.

More goodies from our Blackwater FOIA: the security company employed such creative accounting methods that it charged the State Department from the profit it made off its 2004-edition Iraq contract.

A January 2005 audit performed for State's inspector general discovered several of Blackwater's accounting irregularities. But how the company accounted for its profit is perhaps the most impressive. Blackwater hid its profits within its "dedicated overhead" -- that is, the expenses it incurred in the cost of fulfilling its contractual obligations. Here's what happened:

This results not only in a duplication of profit, but also a pyramiding of profit because, in effect, Blackwater is applying profit to profit. As a result, we have questioned the proposed amount in total.

That might not be a traditional pyramid scheme per se, but conceivably, it could have yielded an infinite regression -- Blackwater makes money, charges State for it, makes more money, and so forth. So did it work like that?

I don't know! And why don't I know? Because, in its release of the 2005 report, State blacked out every section that detailed exactly how Blackwater's bookkeeping ripped off the taxpayer. For instance, here's what it says about the profit-pyramiding effort.

Note 6 -- Profit [redacted] Profit is a matter under the purview of the contracting officer.

It's worth remembering that classification procedures exist to protect national security. They don't exist to protect giant corporations that fleece the public. Someone should tell the State Department.

Every Monday, Blackwater emails a newsletter to its supporters and potential clients called the Blackwater Tactical Weekly. Often it's a compendium of conservative-media pieces about how everything's awesome in Iraq, accompanied by a few quick company notes. But today's Christmas Eve. And during this season of reflection, the company would be remiss if Blackwater didn't place itself in its proper spiritual context.

Some excerpts:

GIVING... is something with which all Peace Keepers are very familiar... Giving time in ways that most do not understand... Giving up pleasures and presence of family to patrol streets, conflicts and battlefields... Giving up comforts that most take for granted... Giving companionship to a fellow Peace Keeper because you are together in the same endeavor at home and on foreign fields... Giving support to those in need of assistance... Giving life and limb, risking injury or death, so that the people they love and care for may continue to live in peace and safety in their world.

Of course, T.X. Hammes and other actual defense experts don't believe Blackwater and the U.S. military "are together in the same endeavor." Rather, Blackwater's wilding out makes things worse for the U.S. military in Iraq. But in Moyock, NC, nothing says Christmas like cynical exploitation of the troops!

These are the Peace Keepers... These are my Parish...

We are in a season of good wishes and good cheer for most of us. Peace Keepers have to be just as vigilant this season as in any other season. Evil and tragedy do not take the day or the season off... but indeed they are ever present... and must be resisted at all times.

[snip]

Peace Keepers you have loved me without even knowing that I existed... You have loved to the highest degree of which the human being is capable... You have laid your life and being on the line of defense between good and evil and you do all that you can to stop evil where you are... and rush to the scene when you are not already there...

What Iraqi schoolchild doesn't recite the yuletide hymn, "Blackwater loves me/ This I know/ For the Blackwater Tactical Weekly tells me so"?

I am part of you by the call to service and by my response... and I know of no other more honorable place to be this day than here among you in spirit, even if I cannot be with each of you in presence.

It's true: there's no more honorable place to be than Moyock. Everyone at, say, COB Speicher surely agrees.

According to an audit performed for the State Department inspector general of Blackwater's 2004 Iraq contract, it paid to be a guard for the private security firm. Page seven of the report -- excuse my handwritten notes in the margins -- shows that Blackwater charged the government for seven days' pay per week, even though the guards only had to work six. That method of accounting "is considered acceptable," the report says, if Blackwater properly accounted for its employees' actual work. And, wouldn't you know it: the company didn't.

The proposed "daily" labor rates are computed to recover the seven days pay over six "billing" days. This method is considered acceptable as long as these individuals only actually work six days and Blackwater bills for the six out of seven days actually worked. Our review of timekeeping procedures (Appendix 1), however, disclosed that, at present, Blackwater only accounts for the number of days these individuals are physically present while deployed at their duty station and not the days actually worked.

Let's look at that Appendix, shall we? It found that the company doesn't believe in such encumbrances as time sheets:

The contractor does not employ the use of individual employee "time sheets" for labor performed in Iraq. Rather, the contractor uses a system whereby a "muster" sheet is prepared by the agent in charge (AIC), (detail leader) simply indicating whether the individuals are physically present at their duty station or in travel or in other status on a daily basis. At the end of every pay period, the muster sheet is transmitted to the assistant program manager at Blackwater in Moyock, NC. ... The assistant program manager indicated that there have been instances where an individual was reported as being in-country at the duty station but was in fact in a travel status or otherwise not physically present at the duty station.

As a result, there is no individual employee certification of actual days worked or the hours actually worked. There is no approval of employees' time other than, as the contractor explained, the muster sheet is e-mailed to Blackwater by the AIC.

Hey Josh, can we switch TPM to that style of bookkeeping?

A report prepared for the State Department's inspector general in January 2005, and obtained by TPMmuckraker, shows Blackwater's accounting system for its no-bid, multimillion dollar Iraq contract was "not considered adequate for accumulating costs on government contracts."

The report is an audit of Blackwater's contract prepared by the accounting firm of Leonard H. Birnbaum. It has been referred to by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (pdf) and in a 2006 story in The Nation, but has not been made publicly available until now. It was obtained by TPMmuckraker after we filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October with the State Department for Blackwater-related documents. You can read the 2005 State Department report in our Documents Collection here.

Much of the document is redacted -- including any description of how Blackwater's accounting system in Iraq operated, as well as any numerical figure for the size of the contract. (In 2004, the year that the report covers, Blackwater held contracts from the federal government totaling $48 million, of which the State Department contract was a portion.) But the unredacted portion of the report finds problems with how Blackwater tallied its labor costs, its overhead-expense costs, and its indirect costs. It also found that Blackwater cited its profit from the contract as a cost it incurred, and billed the government for it -- resulting in what the report called "a pyramiding of profit."

The State Department was under a massive time-crunch in mid-2004 to stand up its new Baghdad embassy as the Coalition Provisional Authority went out of business that June. As a result, State Department logistics official William Moser explained to Congress, State opted to sign a no-bid contract for diplomatic security services with the company already on the ground: Blackwater. "We did not like doing a sole source award for Blackwater," Moser told the House oversight committee in October. No wonder: Blackwater, apparently, took advantage of the opportunity.

Yet despite its own internal watchdog's finding of fraudulence in Blackwater's Iraq contract, months later, the State Department re-signed a deal with the company to provide security for U.S. diplomats.

We'll bring you more from this report throughout the day. And in the coming days, we'll be bringing you more documents on Blackwater that we've acquired through the Freedom of Information Act. I know that's what I wanted for Christmas!

As is now world-famous, last week, guards for Blackwater shot down Hentish, a dog living at The New York Times's Baghdad compound. With the single pull of a trigger, the already P.R.-troubled security company forced the American people to choose whether they love dogs more than they hate reporters.

But don't send Blackwater to the pound just yet. According to Eason Jordan, former CNN exec and current potentate of IraqSlogger, the Times bureau is home to many a snarling canine. One even took a bite out of Jordan himself:

It was a stunning, painful sneak attack that landed me in the emergency room of the U.S. Army's hospital in Baghdad's Green Zone.

The attacker: Scratch, one of The New York Times' Baghdad bureau dogs, whose vicious bite opened three deep gashes in my right hand, sending blood spewing in all directions.

I'm a proud dog owner, and if Blackwater or anyone else messes with Kingsley, I'm violating D.C.'s handgun ban. But it's hard not to sympathize with what Jordan writes:

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Yesterday the State and Defense Departments announced the contours of a new "understanding" for oversight of State's security contractors in Iraq. The gist: State will have to inform military commanders of the doings of contractor-guarded convoys, and if there's obvious wrongdoing, the U.S. embassy and the military command will seek prosecution. (Of course, it's not clear what law would apply, but anyway.)

All this arose because of Blackwater's September shootings of Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square. Not surprisingly, the company -- which is being sued by the victims' families, and might even (but probably won't) face criminal charges stemming from an ongoing FBI probe -- is embracing the State-Defense pact:

Blackwater fully supports the memorandum of agreement signed today by the Department of State and the Department of Defense regarding private security companies operating in Iraq on behalf of the US Government. Blackwater has always supported the identification of contractor standards and clear rules of accountability. Increased coordination and constant review of procedures will provide even better value to the Government. Blackwater looks forward to complying with new rules as we continue to serve the United States Government.

Nearly three months after the Nisour Square shootings, the long hard slog to establish effective oversight and control of security contractors continues. From The New York Times:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top United States commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, have agreed on the details governing the operations of Blackwater and other private security contractors there, American officials said Tuesday.

The agreement requires all State Department convoys in Iraq to coordinate their movements with the military’s main operations center in Baghdad, sets minimum standards for training the contractors and outlines when armed guards may use force in self-defense.

But they're not quite there yet: "One important issue the agreement does not address is the legal framework to prosecute any State Department contractors who violate the law."

Update: ABC has more details.

According to internal State Department cables obtained by TPMmuckraker, the State Department has slated two Diplomatic Security officials who oversee private-security contractors guarding U.S. diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan for salary bonuses. The optional bonuses, called Senior Foreign Service Performance Pay Awards, come months after administrative investigations have raised questions about the propriety of State's relationship with security contractors like Blackwater.

In late October, Richard Griffin, head of the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, resigned after an internal State Department review of contractor relationships implicitly rebuked the office for insufficient oversight. That lack of oversight contributed to the September shooting deaths of over a dozen Iraqi civilians by Blackwater security guards at Nisour Square, and has inflamed Iraqis, who view State Department guards Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp as having a license to kill without legal consequence. Yet shortly after Griffin's resignation, ABC News reported that two key deputies who worked closely with the security contractors, Kevin Barry and Justine Sincavage, received quiet promotions. One outraged State official told ABC, "What does it say when State promotes the two people into DS' most senior positions, when if they had properly managed the programs under the responsibility, we wouldn't be in this mess?"

That question could also be asked of their recent pay bonuses.

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It may not be the most compelling argument to an Iraqi civilian, but it surely resonates within the private-security industry. One of Blackwater's competitors, the London-based ArmorGroup, anticipates a lackluster quarterly profit report -- something the company blames, in part, on the Iraqi government's hostility to private security contractors after the Nisour Square shootings.

ArmorGroup International PLC, a British private security company, warned Tuesday that profits will fall this year because of the fallout from competitor Blackwater Worldwide's involvement in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians.

The news sent the company's share price plunging 40 percent on the London Stock Exchange.

ArmorGroup also announced that David Seaton was stepping down as chief executive, effective immediately, as the company reorganizes.

"The award and mobilization of a number of major contracts in Iraq has been severely affected by the Blackwater incident in Baghdad on 16 September," the company said in a trading update to the London Stock Exchange.

Imagine that: shooting civilians is bad for business.

Speaking of Iraq contracting fiascos, TPM friend Laura Peterson of Taxpayers for Common Sense dug through the $471 billion defense bill President Bush signed last week and found some new oversight provisions included for future Iraq contracts.

The bill asks Defense Secretary Bob Gates to come up with regulations for incorporating private security contractors like Blackwater or DynCorp within the U.S. military chain of command in combat zones, a measure Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed on last month. Perhaps more significantly, the bill prohibits any government agency from issuing new contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan after New Year's deal "until a memorandum of understanding is signed between the heads of Defense, State and USAID clarifying their roles in overseeing and managing contracts.

There's a catch, though, right? Sure there is. "This can be waived by the president," Peterson adds.

There you have it: the contracting equivalent of a signing statement. FYI: TCS's big earmark database is here.

Ah, Iraq. The land of milk and honey for a defense contractor. Not that all those contractors have such high profiles. In fact, due to a clever bit of disclosure chicanery, some of them are completely unknown, even to budget watchdogs.

The Center for Public Integrity's brand-new report on Iraq contracting, Windfalls of War II, identifies at least $20 billion in contract money that has gone to non-U.S. companies that it cannot identify:

When the 2003 study was published, federal agencies did not comprehensively distinguish war contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan from other government contracts; therefore, Center researchers had to flush out these contracts one by one. Since then, however, most such contracts list Iraq or Afghanistan as their "place of performance," making the contracting process more transparent and the search for data—available from the General Service Administration's Federal Procurement Data System—more methodical.

But not all contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan are reported in this federal data system, including awards originating at one contracting agency in Baghdad, which reports only some aggregate totals for inclusion in the central database. Because the agency has so far refused to furnish these missing contracts, the Center is now seeking copies via Freedom of Information Act requests.

What would happen to you, do you think, if you couldn't account for, oh, $2,000 of your boss's money? And then pleaded that there was a glitch in the database you maintain to keep track of the cash?

Remember that recently-impaneled grand jury looking at Blackwater's Nisour Square shootings? Turns out it's not just about Blackwater.
Four years into the occupation, prosecutors are attempting to build the first criminal case against private security companies -- who up until now worked in a system rigged to ensure unaccountability.

The Washington Post:

The Washington grand jury has issued subpoenas to several private security firms, including Blackwater, a legal source briefed on the probe said yesterday. Authorities are seeking company "after-action" reports and other documents that may shed light on specific incidents, he said.

The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, declined to say which incidents have been targeted, but he said the investigation ranges well beyond Blackwater. Private security companies in Iraq "have been shooting a lot of people," he said.

That's an understatement.

There's no word from the piece about which non-Blackwater firms are in the grand jury's crosshairs, nor which incidents are potentially criminal. As the paper reports, the Iraqi government claims it knows more than 20 potential criminal incidents involving private security companies -- most of which it lays at the feet of Blackwater -- but whether that list has anything to do with the grand jury's focus is unknown.

Also unknown is the specific law which the security firms could be accused of breaking:

But the U.S. government's ability to prosecute remains hampered by the lack of clarity over what laws may apply. For instance, contractors were immunized from Iraqi laws under a June 2004 order signed by the U.S. occupation authority. That ruling remains in effect.

In addition, investigations are complicated by questions about evidence, jurisdiction and the availability of witnesses. "If they're going to try to indict, they've got a lot to overcome," said Patricia A. Smith, an Alexandria lawyer who represents two former employees of Triple Canopy, a private security firm based in Herndon, in a civil lawsuit. The former employees say they were wrongfully terminated after reporting that their Triple Canopy team leader fired shots into the windshield of a taxi for amusement last year on Baghdad's airport road.

Apparently The New York Times correctly reported that an as-yet-unfinished FBI investigation into the Nisour Square shootings considers Blackwater to have fired without provocation. ABC News reports that a grand jury in Washington D.C. is considering some kind of indictment for the guard who fired on an Iraqi traffic circle, resulting in 17 dead Iraqis.

A number of Blackwater security guards assigned to the ill-fated convoy have been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury next week.

A Department of Justice spokesperson, Dean Boyd, said, "We do not comment on grand jury investigations."

But sources familiar with the Blackwater case say the guards called to testify were, while present, not those who allegedly fired on any civilians.

According to statements given to State Department diplomatic security agents, obtained by ABCNews.com, only five guards admitted to firing their weapons.

Will there be indictments? Stay tuned.

How to get Baghdad cars out of the way of diplomatic motorcades? The old answer -- an escalation of force beginning with thrown water bottles and ending with rifle fire -- clearly isn't in the cards after Nisour Square. So what's left to try?

The State Department is experimenting with an idea to make the Baghdad streets both safe and stylish. Convoy drivers will be fitted with -- yes -- laser helmets able to emit a beam of bright light to blind errant and potentially dangerous motorists.

Seriously, from ABC's The Blotter:

Security experts say the lasers, emitting a green beam and already in use at some U.S. military checkpoints in Baghdad, overload the optic nerve but, if used from at least 10 feet away, will not cause any permanent eye damage. ...

"I've had them tested on me, and while it is certainly uncomfortable, like a flashbulb going off in front of your face, there is no permanent damage whatsoever," said Tony Diebler, a former State Department security official who now works at Cohort, International, the company providing the lasers and helmet cameras to the State Department.

Huh. A former State Department security official who now sells security equipment to the State Department. I'd say that might be something the inspector general should look at, but, you know....

It's looking grim for Blackwater. Although the FBI hasn't finished its investigation into the September 16 shootings at Nisour Square -- in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed -- The New York Times reports that the company's guards at the square, by and large, opened fire without provocation:

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case....

Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company’s guards opened fire during the shootings, at least some with automatic weapons. Investigators have focused on one guard, identified as “turret gunner No. 3,” who fired a large number of rounds and was responsible for several fatalities.

Investigators 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 and that three company vehicles were damaged by gunfire.

About the only bright spot for Blackwater: bureau officials appear inclined to give the guards the benefit of the doubt about the first round of shootings, in which Blackwater guards fired upon a white Kia sedan that didn't heed a traffic officer's order to stop at the square.

But so far, the FBI's account of the shooting is mostly in line with that of the Iraqi government and the U.S. military. In front of Congress and in a recent PR blitz, Blackwater owner and CEO Erik Prince has insisted that Blackwater guards were under attack. "There was definitely incoming small arms fire from insurgents," Prince told Wolf Blitzer last month. Blackwater has also consistently urged Congress, the press and the public to await the outcome of the FBI's investigation before passing judgment on the company.

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