Iraqi official: Blackwater staying on 'is bad news'

[Ichingcarpenter]

Source: cNN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department's renewal of Blackwater's contract to provide security in Iraq "is bad news," an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said.


Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 people, including women and children, last September, prompting an outcry and protest from Iraqi officials.

"This is bad news," al-Maliki adviser Sami al-Askari said. "I personally am not happy with this, especially because they have committed acts of aggression, killed Iraqis, and this has not been resolved yet positively for families of victims."

About 25,000 private contractors from three companies protect diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials in Iraq. Under a provision put into place in the early days of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, security contractors have immunity from Iraqi prosecution.

Al-Askari said he would push for the Iraqi government to contest the contract renewal.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/05/iraq.blackwater/index.html?eref=rss_latest

[C_U_L8R]

1. Blackwater? Represented by Hillary's top advisor Blackwater?

Funded by the Hillary approved war in Iraq Blackwater?
Killers of innocent Iraqi women and children Blackwater?

[Crooked Moon]

4. gonna stay in iraq if obama's elected blackwater?

A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not "rule out" using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in. Obama's campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/scahill

[C_U_L8R]

6. unnamed anonymous "advisor" or Mark Freekin' Penn

There seems to be a bit more evidence of Hillary's complicity in the Iraq fiasco.

[Crooked Moon]

7. do you also pick up

conspiratorial clinton transmissions in your fillings?

[C_U_L8R]

9. Do you always insult people?

One... I did not call you names... so grow up.
and two... what's conspiratorial about these facts?
Mark Penn IS Hillary's top advisor (and he's paid an obscene amount of money)
Mark Penn DOES represent Blackwater (who I hope you don't support.. they killed children)
Hillary DID vote for the war authorization. She did.
Oh and Mark Penn also represented a foreign government (until they fired his ass today)

If you have another version of these facts, I'd love to hear it.

[Crooked Moon]

10. do you believe that scahill

talked to penn and yet deliberately referred to him as an obama senior foreign policy adviser? if so, the conspiracy goes beyond the clinton campaign to the editorial staff of the nation.

[C_U_L8R]

11. Huh?

I don't know what you're referring to.

[Crooked Moon]

12. unfortunate

but i'm afraid you've been replying to a series of posts referring to a link from the nation in which an obama adviser said that blackwater would be pretty much sticking around if obama were elected.

perhaps track back your sequence of replies?

[C_U_L8R]

13. I'm sorry. You're making no sense. Goodbye.

[Crooked Moon]

14. lol

don't apologize. this was a great bit of comedy.

[wordpix]

17. facts, interjected:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6219.html

“Bush has been a perfect example of cronyism, because Blackwater has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans and to President Bush. I also saw this morning that Sen. Clinton’s primary adviser, Mark Penn, who is like her Karl Rove — his firm is representing Blackwater,” former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said in Iowa Friday.

“I think it is important for Iowa caucus-goers to understand the choices they have in this election. And it is the reason I continue to say we don’t want to replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats.” snip

Clinton, meanwhile, has — like most other leading Democrats — been a sharp critic of Blackwater, and of the Bush administration’s use of private military contractors in general.

“Let's end outsourcing our government to companies like Blackwater and hold the contractor accountable,” she said on Sept. 30 in Oakland, Calif., according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Wolfson yesterday reiterated that stance.

“Sen. Clinton believes Blackwater must be held accountable for its actions and has laid out a detailed proposal to sharply reduce the number of contractors employed by the federal government by 500,000,” he said. “She has repeatedly stated her concern that such contractors are not as accountable as federal employees.”

[leftchick]

2. silly puppets!

What in the world makes him think they have a say in our occupation?

[skepticscott]

3. Didn't you know?

Iraq is a SOVEREIGN nation. I know that because it was in all the papers...

[mike3121]

5. Iraqi official: Blackwater staying on 'is bad news'

What does Obama say about using hired guns like Blackwater? I know contractors are great for running mess halls, driving cargo trucks and such but as highly paid, responsible to no one merc's is another.
Hey, how come Obama isn't an approved word in the spell check?

[existentialist]

8. Yes, and

This is the sort of thing where my first response is:

"Well, I could have told you that much."


And I could have. How many posters here did not wince when they heard they Blackwater had been rehired?

Almost everybody here, I'll bet, inwardly feels these things, and I'd bet again that at least on this point we are absolutely correct.

But I guess it's not news when we say it.

For that matter it's only a minor footnote in the news when an official in the Iraqi government says it.

Why is it that such insanity passes for the only sound or acceptable strategy?

[BrklynLiberal]

15. How telling that Iraqis appear to have no say in the matter....

[wordpix]

16. only with the BushCo admin would this war profiteering co still be in Iraq---grr

:grr: :mad: :grr: :nuke:

[samsingh]

18. blackwater is a secret police state in itself bent on getting

profits.

this would mean keeping wars going no matter what it takes

[Supersedeas]

19. but...but...but...but Condi's cronies promised that Blackwater would stay