When the Times prints "gunmen" now, my first thought is BLACKWATER -- Ameriker's fine, young (or not so young) private KILLING FORCE in Iraq!
Or have you so quickly forgotten the Asymmetrical Warfare Group the U.S. has operating in country, readers?
Or such programs such as Operation Gladio, Operation Northwoods, the Salvador Option, and the Pentagon's "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group?"
And what about the British agents who are the stars of the Prop 201 tutorial?
Did I also mention the FRU?
"Blackwater Shootings ‘Murder,’ Iraq Says" by JAMES GLANZ and ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD, Oct. 7 — The Iraqi prime minister’s office said Sunday that the government’s investigation had determined that Blackwater USA private security guards who shot Iraqi civilians three weeks ago in a Baghdad square sprayed gunfire in nearly every direction, committed “deliberate murder” and should be punished accordingly.
Iraqi investigators, supported by Iraqi witness accounts, have said unofficially that they could not find evidence of any attack on the Blackwater guards that might have provoked the shooting on Nisour Square, which the Iraqis say killed 17 and wounded 27. But the statement by Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the prime minister, is the first indication that the government considers its investigation completed and the shootings unprovoked.
“This is a deliberate crime against civilians,” Mr. Dabbagh said. “It should be tried in court and the victims should be compensated.”
Those conclusions contradict Blackwater’s original statement on the shooting, which said that a convoy operated by the company’s guards “acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack.” The Iraqi findings are also at odds with initial assertions by the State Department that the convoy had received small-arms fire.
Blackwater provides security for American diplomats in Iraq. A convoy carrying diplomats was approaching the square when a second Blackwater convoy, positioned on the square in advance to control traffic, opened fire.
“Not even a brick was thrown at them,” said Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim, the Iraqi defense minister. “And until now we have been examining this matter.”
American officials have cautioned against drawing conclusions until evidence from all witnesses in the case, including the Blackwater guards, has been compiled.
Mr. Jassim said that little information had come from the Americans and that Iraqi investigators had not been granted access to the guards.
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.
Although American diplomats have worked with personal security companies for most of the time since the American invasion in March 2003, it appears that State Department officials only now have started to thoroughly look at every aspect of the relationship.
[And the Iraqis have had to PUT UP WITH THIS MURDERING SHIT for FIVE FUCKING YEARS!!!
Fuck Amurka and Bush's "LIBERATION!"]
Despite calls from some Iraqi politicians to ban Blackwater... the company is making long-term plans to stay, the official said.
[So Iraqi lives really don't mean a damn thing to the American occupation, do they?]
Police investigators, some of whom arrived at the scene of the shooting when it was still under way because the National Police headquarters is just a couple of hundred feet from the square, said they were stunned at the bloodshed. “They were shooting in every direction,” one investigator said. “All four Blackwater vehicles were shooting.”
A traffic policeman, Sarhan Thiab, who was directing traffic in the square at the time, said that when he ran to help a man and his mother, who were among those first shot, the Blackwater guards began shooting toward him and another policeman, who was similarly trying to aid the victims. The policemen took shelter behind a traffic kiosk.
Mr. Thiab said that as they looked to their right, at the road entering the square from the west, they saw the first of the Blackwater vehicles shooting at a red bus stopped on the edge of the square. Also shot were two cars on the parallel road that heads west. Two people were wounded in a silver Toyota and one was killed in another car, a silver Hundai, Mr. Thiab said.
In the center of the square about 100 laborers were repairing a tunnel and beautifying the central roundabout with shrubs and marigolds and other border flowers. Two laborers were wounded by bullets that appeared to have been fired toward the square’s center.
At the edge of the roundabout the bullets hit an old man riding a motor scooter, Mr. Thiab said.
“The fourth vehicle killed the old man,” he said. “There was a lot of traffic and he was trying to go around it and they shot him.”
[Great. KILLED an OLD MAN! MURDERED HIM!!!
Was he a father? A grandfather?
Does anybody care in the fucking murderous, colonial west?]
And what, no daily violence report from yesterday, Times?
Aaaaaarrrgghhh!
"Blackwater guards killed 17, probe finds; Iraqi investigation recommends trial" by Sameer N. Yacoub/Associated Press October 8, 2007
BAGHDAD - An official Iraqi investigation into a deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA security guards concluded that 17 Iraqis were killed and found that the gunfire was unwarranted, the government said yesterday. It also said the shootings amounted to a deliberate crime and recommended that those involved face trial.
The Iraqi investigative committee, ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, found that convoys from the Moyock, N.C.-based security company did not come under direct or indirect fire before the men shot up the intersection.
"It was not hit even by a stone," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
The shooting has outraged Iraqis.
[Well, fuck them Blackwater's staying!]
The three-member Iraqi panel led by Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi put the casualty toll at 17 killed and 23 wounded, a higher number than other estimates. It determined that Blackwater guards sprayed western Baghdad's Nisoor Square with gunfire without provocation.
The Sept. 16 episode was one of at least six involving deaths allegedly caused by Blackwater that authorities have brought to the attention of the Americans.
The joint commission exchanged opinions about the shootings and agreed on a need to establish a direct mechanism for sharing information and to review several issues related to US security operations, embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said.
The joint commission is expected to issue recommendations to both Baghdad and Washington on improving Iraqi and US security procedures, with the "goal of ensuring that personal security detail operations do not endanger public safety" and prevent similar events in the future.
[Here is the violence the Times NEGLECTED to cover:]
Across the Iraqi capital, bombings killed at least nine Iraqis in three attacks, including one near Iran's embassy, police said.
[Near Iran's embassy?
Gee, who would want to get at Iran?
A huge shitstinking CUI BONO, readers!!!!
Smell it?]
The attacks started with an early morning explosion near a minibus carrying workers into central Baghdad. Three people were killed in the roadside bombing, which apparently targeted a police patrol, according to a police official who requested anonymity.
A half-hour later, in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora in southern Baghdad, a second roadside bomb targeting a US patrol missed its target, killing three Iraqi civilians, police said.
And in the downtown commercial area of Salihiyah, a bomb planted in a car parked near the Iranian Embassy exploded about 8:30 a.m., killing three Iraqi passersby, according to police.
Separately, the US military said a predawn raid Saturday in Baghdad's Sadr City netted three men."
[Really tired of the shit War Dailies HIDING the HUMAN COSTS of this ABOMINABLE WAR!
To the tune of about 35 people killed every day -- on the rise over the summer -- and the number of Iraqis killed by the surge is around 300 per day, 10,000 per month by U.S. operations in that country, with over 1.2 million Iraqis dead since the invasion.
Gee, that is getting into HITLER TERRITORY, Georgie old boy!
Better STOP while you are BEHIND, you crazy, delusional, messianic mass-murdering fuck!
STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!!
