New Details Emerge on Blackwater Role in Shooting

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

Participants in a contentious Baghdad security operation this month have told American investigators that during the operation at least one guard continued firing on civilians while colleagues urgently called for a cease-fire. At least one guard apparently also drew a weapon on a fellow guard who did not stop shooting, an American official said.

The operation, by the private firm Blackwater USA, began as a mission to evacuate senior American officials after an explosion near where they were meeting, several officials said. Some officials have questioned the wisdom of evacuating the Americans from a secure compound, saying the area should instead have been locked down.

These new details of the episode on Sept. 16, in which at least eight civilians were killed, including a woman and an infant, were provided by an American official who was briefed on the American investigation by someone who helped conduct it, and by Americans who had spoken directly with two guards involved in the episode. Their accounts were broadly consistent.

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A bomb exploded on the median of a road a few hundred yards away from the meeting, causing no injuries to the Americans, but prompting a fateful decision to evacuate. One American official who knew about the meeting cast doubt on the decision to move the diplomats out of a secure compound.

“It raises the first question of why didn’t they just stay in place, since they are safe in the compound,” the official said. “Usually the concept would be, if an I.E.D. detonates in the street, you would wait 15 to 30 minutes, until things calmed down,” he said, using the abbreviation for improvised explosive device.





Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28blackwater.html?hp

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Murder charges should be filed! And it's time to get Blackwater and all the other mercenaries out of Iraq. Whatever happened to the Diplomatic Security Service (employees of U.S. Government) - they should be guarding U.S. government officials or U.S. Troops should. Otherwise why not abolish the Secret Service and let Chimpy and Vader be guarded by Blackwater?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Sounds like a lot of things...

You would do if you wanted to put on one hell of a dog and pony show for the DoS swells at the conference.

[RamboLiberal]

2. Washington Post Version

The initial U.S. Embassy report on a Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater USA, a private security firm, depicts an afternoon of mayhem that included a car bomb, a shootout in a crowded traffic circle and an armed standoff between Blackwater guards and Iraqi security forces before the U.S. military intervened.

The two-page report, described by a State Department official as a "first blush" account from the scene, raises new questions about what transpired in the intersection. According to the report, the events that led to the shooting involved three Blackwater units. One of them was ambushed near the traffic circle and returned fire before fleeing the scene, the report said. Another unit that went to the intersection was then surrounded by Iraqis and had to be extricated by the U.S. military, it added.

The report, by the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, details the events as described by Blackwater guards -- details that are now at the center of an intense debate in Iraq and in Congress over the larger role of private security firms in Iraq. Tens of thousands of armed, private guards operate in Iraq, protecting everything from U.S. and Iraqi officials to supply convoys. The shooting incident is being scrutinized in at least three separate investigations.

Witnesses and the Iraqi government have insisted that the shooting by the private guards was unprovoked. Blackwater has claimed that its guards returned fire only after they were shot at. The document makes no reference to civilian casualties. Eleven Iraqi civilians were killed and 12 wounded in the incident. The report said Blackwater sustained no casualties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092702498.html?hpid=topnews

[DLnyc]

4. Not sure why, but the WP article seems pretty fishy

At least the NYT article is coherent.

But I suspect the truth is closer to the original Iraqi report and numerous witness statements, which all seem pretty consistent in saying that BW fired without provocation.

Also, what the hell is a 'financial compound'? Place where bribes are paid? Site of payoffs to 'unofficial' operators?

When you poke a hole in this stuff, nothing but maggots comes crawling out.

(edit to change 'financial location' to 'financial compound')

[Vyan]

3. Charges are going to be filed

by the Iraqi government since the entire incident was caught on video.

Vyan

[OneBlueSky]

5. here's what I'd like to know . . . under international law, how can the United States . . .

authorized corporate contractors (i.e. mercenary armies) to shoot -- or even shoot at -- Iraqi citizens? . . . isn't this illegal, under both international and U.S. law? . . . any experts here? . . .

yeah yeah . . . I know . . . since when does BushCo give two shits about international OR U.S. law? . . .