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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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August 11th,
2007 - Contractors in Iraq Accused of Opening Fire on Civilians and Soldiers |
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Contractors in
Iraq Accused of Opening Fire on Civilians and Soldiers By Deborah Hastings Associated Press August 11, 2007 There are now nearly as many
private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers – and a large
percentage of them are private security guards equipped with automatic
weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks. They operate with little or
no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the
country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has
been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of
shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to
their heavily armed convoys. Not one has faced charges or
prosecution. There is great confusion
among legal experts and military officials about what laws – if any – apply
to Americans in this force of at least 48,000. They operate in a decidedly
gray legal area. Unlike soldiers, they are not bound by the Uniform Code of
Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying
forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed
there. The security firms insist
their employees are governed by internal conduct rules and by use-of-force
protocols established by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.
occupation government that ruled Iraq for 14 months following the invasion. But many soldiers on the
ground – who earn in a year what private guards can earn in just one month –
say their private counterparts should answer to a higher authority, just as
they do. More than 60 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been court-martialed on
murder-related charges involving Iraqi citizens. Some military analysts and
government officials say the contractors could be tried under the Military
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers crimes committed abroad. But
so far, that law has not been applied to them. Security firms earn more
than $4 billion in government contracts, but the government doesn't know how
many private soldiers it has hired, or where all of them are, according to
the Government Accountability Office. And the companies are not required to
report violent incidents involving their employees. Security guards now
constitute nearly 50 percent of all private contractors in Iraq – a number
that has skyrocketed since the 2003 invasion, when then-Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld said rebuilding Iraq was the top priority. But an unforeseen
insurgency, and hundreds of terrorist attacks have pushed the country into
chaos. Security is now Iraq's greatest need. The wartime numbers of private
guards are unprecedented – as are their duties, many of which have
traditionally been done by soldiers. They protect U.S. military operations
and have guarded high-ranking officials including Gen. David Petraeus, the
U.S. commander in Baghdad. They also protect visiting foreign officials and
thousands of construction projects. At times, they are better
equipped than military units. Their presence has also
pushed the war's direction. The 2004 battle of Fallujah – an unsuccessful
military assault in which an estimated 27 U.S. Marines were killed, along
with an unknown number of civilians – was retaliation for the killing,
maiming and burning of four Blackwater guards in that city by a mob of
insurgents. “I understand this is war,”
said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., whose efforts for greater contractor
accountability led to an amendment in next year's Pentagon spending bill.
“But that's absolutely no excuse for letting this very large force of armed
private employees, dare I say mercenaries, run around without any
accountability to anyone.” Blackwater has an estimated
1,000 employees in Iraq, and at least $800 million in government contracts.
It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of
“Little Bird” helicopters and armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond. The secretive company, run
by a former Navy SEAL, is based at a massive, swampland complex in North
Carolina. Until 9-11, it had few security contracts. Since then, Blackwater
profits have soared. And it has become the focus of numerous contractor
controversies in Iraq, including the May 30 shooting death of an Iraqi deemed
to be driving too close to a Blackwater security detail. “The shooting of that Iraqi
driver has intensified tensions,” Schakowsky said. “The Iraqis are very
angry.” Company spokeswoman Anne
Tyrrell, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, said the shooting was
justified. “Based on incident reports and witness accounts, the Blackwater
professional acted lawfully and appropriately,” she wrote. There was no
response to AP inquiries seeking further details. Other alleged shootings
involving private contractors include: An incident in which a
supervisor for a Virginia-based security company said he was “going to kill
somebody today” and then shot at Iraqi civilians for amusement, possibly
killing one, according to two employees. The two, former Army Ranger
Charles L. Sheppard III and former Marine Corps sniper Shane B. Schmidt, were
fired by the company, Triple Canopy, and responded with a wrongful
termination lawsuit. Their suit did not identify the shift leader they said
deliberately opened fire on civilians in at least two incidents while their
team was driving in Baghdad. He was described only as a former serviceman
from Oklahoma. On its Internet site, the
company said all three were fired for failing to immediately report incidents
involving gunfire. Triple Canopy, after an initial investigation, reported no
one had been hurt and handed its information to the U.S. government. Patricia Smith, a lawyer
representing Sheppard and Schmidt, said the U.S. Justice Department declined
to investigate. The Justice Department declined comment on the case. On Aug. 1, a Fairfax County,
Va., jury ruled that Triple Canopy did not wrongly fire the two men. But jury
forewoman Lea Overby also issued a scathing note on behalf of the panel,
saying the company displayed “poor conduct, lack of standard reporting
procedures, bad investigation methods and unfair double standards.” The judge's jury
instructions, Overby said, left no choice but ruling against the former
employees. “But we do not agree with the Triple Canopy's treatment of
(them),” she wrote. Disgruntled employees of
London-based Aegis Defence Services, holder of one of the biggest U.S.
security contracts in Iraq – valued at more than $430 million – posted videos
on the Internet in 2005 showing company guards firing automatic weapons at
civilians from the back of a moving security vehicle. In one sequence, a civilian
car is fired on, causing the driver to lose control and slam into a taxi.
Another clip shows a white car being hit by automatic weapons fire and then
coming slowly to a stop. In the videos, the security
vehicle doesn't stop. It speeds on, leaving the civilians and their shot-up
vehicles behind. After initially denying
involvement, Aegis, run by former Scots Guard Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, issued a
statement saying the shootings were legal and within rules-of-force protocols
established by the now-defunct CPA. Those guidelines allow security guards to
fire on vehicles that approach too close or too quickly. U.S. Army auditors,
in their own investigation, agreed with Aegis. In the chaos of Iraq, where
car bombings and suicide attacks occur over and over on any given day, such
contractor shootings are commonplace, military officials say. The numbers of
Iraqis wounded or killed by private guards is not known. Sixteen American security
guards were arrested and jailed by U.S. Marines in battle-scarred Fallujah in
2005 following a day of shooting incidents in which they allegedly fired on a
Marine observation post, a combat patrol and civilians walking and driving in
the city, about 40 miles west of Baghdad. The guards, employed by Zapata
Engineering of North Carolina, were imprisoned for three days. “They were
detained because their actions posed a threat to coalition forces. I would
say that constitutes a serious event,” Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan
said at the time. The contractors were
released and returned to the U.S., where they claimed the Marines humiliated
and taunted them in prison, calling them “mercenaries” and intimidating them
with dogs. The private guards denied taking part in the shootings. Last year, the Naval
Criminal Investigative Service closed its criminal investigation of the case
“for lack of prosecutive merit,” a spokesman said. None of the 16 men where
charged. But days after the
shootings, Marine Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, commander of western Iraq,
banned the 16 contractors from every military installation in the area. In letters to each man, the
general wrote: “Your convoy was speeding through the city and firing shots
indiscriminately, some of which impacted positions manned by U.S. Marines. “Your actions endangered the
lives of innocent Iraqis and U.S. service members in the area.” Since American contractors
first swarmed into Iraq, animosity has run high between soldiers and private
security guards. Many of the latter are highly trained ex-members of elite
military groups including Navy SEALS, Green Berets and Army Rangers. “Most military guys resent
them,” said former Marine Lt. Col. Mike Zacchea, who spent two years in Iraq
training and building the Iraqi army. “There's an attitude that if these guys
really wanted to do the right thing, they would have stayed in the military.” Zacchea, now retired in Long
Island, N.Y., said that as a senior battalion adviser, he was offered jobs by
several security companies, with average salaries of $1,000 a day. He wasn't
interested. “I didn't want to go to Iraq as a mercenary. I don't believe in
it. I don't think what they're doing is right. “Really, these guys are free
agents on the battlefield. They're not bound by any law. They're
non-uniformed combatants. No one keeps track of them.” In late 2004, the
Reconstruction Operations Center (ROC) opened in Baghdad. Its purpose was to
track movement of contractors and military troops around the country and to
keep records of violent incidents. Participation, however, is
voluntary. Military leaders say the
government should demand that contractors report their movements and use of
weapons. Last year, officials of the 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad told
visiting GAO auditors that lack of coordination continued to endanger the
lives soldiers and contractors. Private security details continued to enter
battle zones without warning, the military leaders said. In some cases,
military officers complained they had no way of communicating with private
security details. Many large contractors say
their guards coordinate with the ROC, and file “after-incident reports” of
shooting episodes. But government auditors in Iraq reported last year that
some contractors said they stopped detailing such shootings because they
occurred so often it wasn't possible to file reports for each one. External link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070811-0956-contractorshootings.html |