"Blackwater Has Fired 122 Personnel" by Richard Lardner/Associated Press October 2, 2007
WASHINGTON- Private security contractor Blackwater USA has had to fire 122 people over the past three years for problems ranging from misusing weapons, alcohol and drug violations, inappropriate conduct, and violent behavior, according to a report released Monday by a congressional committee.
That total is roughly one-seventh of the work force that Blackwater has in Iraq, a ratio that raises questions about the quality of the people working for the company.
The report, prepared by the majority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also says Blackwater has been involved in 195 shooting incidents since 2005, or roughly 1.4 per week.
In more than 80 percent of the incidents, called "escalation of force,'' Blackwater's guards fired the first shots even though the company's contract with the State Department calls for it to use defensive force only, it said.
"In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fired shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties,'' according to the report.
The staff report paints Blackwater as a company that's made huge sums of money despite its questionable performance in Iraq, where Blackwater guards provide protective services for U.S. diplomatic personnel.
Blackwater has earned more than $1 billion from federal contracts since 2001, when it had less than $1 million in government work. Overall, the State Department paid Blackwater more than $832 million between 2004 and 2006 for security work, according to the report.
The report was distributed to committee members on the eve of a hearing on private security contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blackwater's founder and chairman, Erik Prince, will be one of the witnesses.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell had no comment on the specifics in the report.
"We look forward to setting the record straight on this issue and others tomorrow when Erik Prince testifies before the committee,'' she said.
On Friday seven of the oversight committee's 18 Republican members called on Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the panel's chairman, to postpone the hearing.
In addition to Prince, the witnesses include: David Satterfield, the department's Iraq coordinator, Richard Griffin, assistant secretary for diplomatic security, and William H. Moser, deputy assistant secretary for logistics management."
[So an AIPAC spy will be testifying, 'eh?]
"Report Says Firm Sought to Cover Up Iraq Shootings" by JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress.
In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims’ family members who complained, and sought to cover up other episodes, the Congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet. In one case last year, the department helped Blackwater spirit an employee out of Iraq less than 36 hours after the employee, while drunk, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq’s two vice presidents on Christmas Eve.
[Do I need to say anything, readers? Do I?]
The report by the Democratic majority staff of a House committee adds weight to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have taken an aggressive, trigger-happy approach to their work and have repeatedly acted with reckless disregard for Iraqi life.
[Ummm, it is called BUSH'S LIBERATION!!!]
But the report is also harshly critical of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company’s 861 employees in Iraq. “There is no evidence in the documents that the committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting episodes involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the report states.
On Sept. 16, Blackwater employees were involved in a shooting in a Baghdad square that left at least eight Iraqis dead, an episode that remains clouded. The shooting set off outrage among Iraqi officials, who branded them “cold-blooded murder” and demanded that the company be removed from the country.
The State Department is conducting three separate investigations of the shooting, and on Monday the F.B.I. said it was sending a team to Baghdad to compile evidence for possible criminal prosecution.
Neither the State Department nor Blackwater would comment on Monday about the 15-page report, but both said their representatives would address it on Tuesday in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose Democratic staff produced the document. Based on 437 internal Blackwater incident reports as well as internal State Department correspondence, the report said Blackwater’s use of force was “frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property damage.”
Among those scheduled to testify Tuesday are Erik Prince, a press-shy former Navy Seal who founded Blackwater a decade ago, and several top State Department officials.
The committee report places a significant share of the blame for Blackwater’s record in Iraq on the State Department, which has paid Blackwater more than $832 million for security services in Iraq and elsewhere, under a diplomatic security contract it shares with two other companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy.
Blackwater has reported more shootings than the other two companies combined, but it also currently has twice as many employees in Iraq as the other two companies combined.
[Killers all!]
In the case of the Christmas Eve killing, the report says that an official of the United States Embassy in Iraq suggested paying the slain bodyguard’s family $250,000, but a lower-ranking official said that such a high payment “could cause incidents with people trying to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.” Blackwater ultimately paid the dead man’s family $15,000.
[So that's how much an important Iraqis life worth, huh?
And can you believe the sub-human category they are putting the Iraqis in?
Yeah, the Iraqis are going to TRY to get KILLED so they can get a big, phat, U.S. payout!!!!
Are YOU SHITTIN' ME?
This is RACIST and OUTRAGEOUS to say about people who LOVE THEIR FAMILIES!!!!
Oh, excuse me, I want to go get killed so my family can claim some dough.
No, ummm, my family will do much better with me ALIVE, thank you very much!
JUST LIKE an IRAQI'S FAMILY WOULD, lying shitter assholes!!!!!!!]
In another fatal shooting cited by the committee, an unidentified State Department official in Baghdad urged Blackwater to pay the victim’s family $5,000. The official wrote, “I hope we can put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly.”
[That must be the worth of an average Iraqi's life. Pfffftttt!
How far that gonna go? Not very far!!!
What bullshit lies we are told about Arabs and Muslims in these Zionist shit rags I call newspapers!]
The committee report also cited three other shootings in which Blackwater officials filed misleading reports or otherwise tried to cover up the shootings.
Since mid-2006, Blackwater has been responsible for guarding American diplomats in and around Baghdad, while DynCorp has been responsible for the northern part of the country and Triple Canopy for the south.
State Department officials said last week that Blackwater had run more than 1,800 escort convoys for American diplomats and other senior civilians this year and its employees had discharged their weapons 57 times. Blackwater was involved in 195 instances of gunfire from 2005 until early September, a rate of 1.4 shootings a week, the report says. In 163 of those cases, Blackwater gunmen fired first.
[At least, that are recorded!]
The report also says Blackwater gunmen engaged in offensive operations alongside uniformed American military personnel in violation of their State Department contract, which states that Blackwater guards are to use their weapons only for defensive purposes.
[A PRIVATE, MERCENARY ARMY!!!!
Part of a HIDDEN SURGE if you can field 'em!!!!]
It notes that Blackwater’s contract authorizes its employees to use lethal force only to prevent “imminent and grave danger” to themselves or to the people they are paid to protect. “In practice, however,” the report says, “the vast majority of Blackwater weapons discharges are pre-emptive, with Blackwater forces firing first at a vehicle or suspicious individual prior to receiving any fire.”
The report cites two instances in which Blackwater gunmen engaged in tactical military operations. One was a firefight in Najaf in 2004 during which Blackwater employees set up a machine gun alongside American and Spanish forces. Later that year, a Blackwater helicopter helped an American military squad secure a mosque from which sniper fire had been detected."
"Report Details Shooting by Drunken Blackwater Worker" by ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — A Blackwater USA employee under investigation in the killing last December of an Iraqi bodyguard in an off-duty confrontation was so drunk after fleeing the shooting that another group of guards took away the loaded pistol he was fumbling with, a report to a House committee said Monday.
The guards, employees of Triple Canopy, another private military contractor, returned the weapon to the Blackwater employee, who smelled of alcohol, and escorted him away from their guard post in the fortified Green Zone, the report said. Shortly afterward, the police detained the man, a 26-year-old firearms technician whom the report did not name, at the Blackwater camp inside the Green Zone, but determined he was too intoxicated to be interviewed.
Within 36 hours, the report said, Blackwater fired the man for possessing a firearm while drunk and arranged with the State Department to fly him back to the United States, angering Iraqi officials who said the Christmas Eve shooting was murder.
The acting ambassador at the United States Embassy in Baghdad suggested that Blackwater apologize for the shooting and pay the dead Iraqi man’s family $250,000, lest the Iraqi government bar Blackwater from working there, the report said. Blackwater eventually paid the family $15,000, according to the report, after an embassy diplomatic security official complained that the “crazy sums” proposed by the ambassador could encourage Iraqis to try to “get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.”
[Can you be any more of a racist, inhuman liar? And that's a diplomat!!!!]
The report did not identify the acting ambassador, but a State Department spokesman, Karl Duckworth, said it was Margaret Scobey.
[She was just worried about whether Blackwater could still operate; fuck the Iraqis they are gunning down.
So why did we invade Iraq? Freedom and liberation, right?
Sick of choking on steaming, soft-serve, side-winding piles of MSM and government shit, readers?]
The shooting is under investigation by the Justice Department, but it remains unclear what laws might be applied in the case, because it occurred overseas.
According to the report, which was based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents and compiled by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the episode began between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 24 when the off-duty Blackwater employee, who witnesses said had been drinking heavily, passed through a gate near Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s compound in the Green Zone.
When confronted by bodyguards to Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi of Iraq, the Blackwater employee fired his Glock 9-millimeter pistol, hitting one of the guards, Raheem Khalif, three times. Mr. Khalif, 32, later died at an American military hospital.
The Blackwater employee fled to the Triple Canopy guard post, where he told the guards that he had been in a gunfight with Iraqis who were chasing him and shooting at him. But the guards had not heard any shots.
The next day, the Blackwater employee told Army investigators that he had fired in self-defense after the Iraqi bodyguard shot at him. On Dec. 26, Blackwater flew the man out of Iraq to Jordan, and then to the United States.
Senior American Embassy officials immediately determined that Blackwater should send the dead Iraqi man’s family a letter of condolence and a cash payment.
[Yeah, that should make it all better!!!
Of course, if you killed one of my family members, I'm looking forward to that CASH PAY OUT!
I wouldn't HATE YOU FOREVER or anything like that, no.
If you just gave me money, you could murder as many family members as you want, Americans!
Right, readers?
You don't mind your sons and daughters getting chewed up in Iraq by shithole lies, do you, Amurka?
How much of a death benefit the Army give you?
At least you can FEAST on your WAR DEAD if you want to, Amurka!
So quit crying and bellyaching and EAT UP!!!!
Hey, CHEER UP! The Army check is coming!]
In an e-mail message, Ms. Scobey asked if the embassy’s regional security officer would be following up “to do all possible to assure that a sizable compensation is forthcoming.”
“If we are to avoid this whole thing becoming even worse, I think a prompt pledge and apology — even if they want to claim it was accidental — would be the best way to assure the Iraqis don’t take steps, such as telling Blackwater that they are no longer able to work in Iraq,” Ms. Scobey continued.
[Just worried about Blackwater, 'ey, Marge?]
The embassy officials disagreed over the size of the payment until the Diplomatic Security Service official prevailed.
“As you can imagine, this has serious implications,” the embassy security official said in an internal e-mail message. “This was an unfortunate event but we feel that it doesn’t reflect on the overall Blackwater performance. They do an exceptional job under very challenging circumstances. We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission.”
[Well, actually not, according to this House report.
And who the fuck they protecting?
Certainly not the Iraqis -- the people we went there to LIBERATE!
This war is a FUCKING ABOMINATION!!!!!!!!!
But it is still ALL BUSINESS!
" Pentagon Issues Blackwater New $92 Million Contract
Think Progress
Monday October 01, 2007
Earlier this month, Blackwater USA was involved in the fatal shooting of 11 Iraqi civilians. While the Iraqi government swiftly condemned the contractor, the Bush administration has continued to back Blackwater’s story that it was “defensive fire.”
Last Thursday, Gen. Peter Pace told reporters, “Blackwater has been a contractor in the past with the department and could certainly be in the future.” The next day, that future was already here. The Pentagon had issued a new list of contracts, including one worth $92 million to Presidential Airways, the “aviation unit of parent company Blackwater.” From the release:
Presidential Airways, Inc., an aviation Worldwide Services company (d/b/a Blackwater Aviation), Moyock, N.C., is being awarded an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) type contract for $92,000,000.00. The contractor is to provide all fixed-wing aircraft, personnel, equipment, tools, material, maintenance and supervision necessary to perform passenger, cargo and combi Short Take-Off and Landing air transportation services between locations in the Area of Responsibility of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. This contract was competitively procured and two timely offers were received. The performance period is from 1 Oct. 2007 to 30 September 2011.
Government officials have repeatedly ignored Blackwater’s transgressions. Senior Iraqi officials “repeatedly complained to U.S. officials” about Blackwater’s “alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm.”
Next week. Rep. David Price (D-NC) plans to introduce legislation “to extend the reach of U.S. civil courts to include security contractors in Iraq.”
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