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September 28th,
2007 - US Focuses on Five Blackwater Shootings News article by the Associated
Press News article by the Washington Post 1st news article by the
New York Times |
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US Focuses on Five
Blackwater Shootings By Anne Gearan & Matthew Lee Associated Press September 28, 2007 The United States and Iraq
are focusing on five incidents where Blackwater USA guards killed civilians
in Iraq this year as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a high-level
review board to Baghdad, U.S. officials said. The United States has not
made conclusive findings about the five incidents, including the Sept. 16
deaths of at least 11 Iraqis, and a State Department official said Friday
that investigators are not aware of any others. The five, plus another
incident that apparently did not kill anyone, were previously identified by
Iraqi authorities. For now, those incidents are at the core of the review
ordered by Rice last week, a State Department official said. Separately, Defense
Secretary Robert Gates has sent a fact-finding team of his own to Baghdad to
investigate conditions involving private contractors working for the Pentagon
and to consult with military officers there. The State Department
official said: "The Iraqis have pointed to five they have concerns
about. Obviously those are five instances where they'll be looked at by the
(Rice) commission, they'll be looked at by the various groups reviewing
it." The United States is
conducting several inquiries spawned by the deadly Baghdad shooting this
month involving the private security contractor that protects U.S. diplomats
and others in Iraq. The Sept. 16 killings
outraged many Iraqis, who have long resented the presence of armed Western
security contractors, considering them an arrogant mercenary force that
abuses Iraqis in their own country. The broad review ordered by
Rice will begin in earnest next week, when investigators including outside
diplomatic, military and security experts arrive in Baghdad. The State Department
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the inquiries are in
progress, also said that a retired veteran diplomat, Stapleton Roy, will help
lead the diplomatic review, along with a former State Department and
intelligence official, Eric Boswell. Led by Patrick Kennedy, one
of the most senior management experts in the U.S. foreign service, the panel
will present an interim report by Oct. 5, State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack said Thursday. Blackwater is the largest of
three private companies contracted by the State Department to provide
security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq. Iraq's Interior Ministry has
said Blackwater has been implicated in six other incidents over the past
seven months, including a Feb. 7 shooting outside Iraqi state television in
Baghdad, when three TV building guards were fatally shot. Other incidents include a
Sept. 9 shooting in front of Baghdad's municipality, when five people were
killed and 10 wounded, and a Sept. 12 shooting that wounded five on the
capital's Palestine Street. The others were a Feb. 4
shooting near the Foreign Ministry when Iraqi journalist Hana al-Ameedi died,
a May shooting by a gas station near the Interior Ministry that claimed the
life of a passer-by, and a Feb. 14 incident when the company's contractors
allegedly smashed windshields by throwing bottles of ice water at cars. U.S. officials have said the
water bottle incident was not fatal. Kennedy's team will
"begin establishing some baseline set of facts about these contractor
operations" and report back to Rice, McCormack said. He quoted Rice as saying she
wanted Kennedy's assessment to "be 360 (degrees), to be serious, and to
be really probing." His announcement was posted
to the State Department's new Internet blog, "Dipnote,"
(http://www.blogs.state.gov). He then confirmed the comments to The
Associated Press. Witness accounts of the
Sept. 16 incident vary widely. American witnesses,
including the Blackwater guards, insist the convoy was attacked before the
protective detail opened fire while Iraqi witnesses say the gunshots were
unprovoked. To straighten out the
details, the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, to which
Blackwater reports, is conducting one probe. Iraqi authorities are conducting
another. A joint U.S.-Iraqi
commission has been created to try to come up with a common set of facts
about the incident and look at ways to clarify the regulations under which
private security guards operate in Iraq. Kennedy's review is broader
and will look beyond the Sept. 16 incident to assess what general changes
need to be made to the State Department's security program, including the
rules of engagement that govern private contractors. Copyright © 2007 The
Associated Press. External link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_blackwater_rice Blackwater Faced Bedlam,
Embassy Finds ‘First Blush’ Report Raises New Questions on Shooting By Steve Fainaru & Sudarsan Raghavan Washington Post September 28, 2007 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. Separately, a U.S. official
familiar with the investigation said that participants in the shooting have
reported that at least one of the Blackwater guards drew a weapon on his
colleagues and screamed for them to "stop shooting." This account
suggested that there was some effort to curb the shooting, with at least one
Blackwater guard believing it had spiraled out of control. "Stop
shooting - those are the words that we're hearing were used," the
official said. 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. According to the report,
which was obtained by The Washington Post, the incident occurred shortly
after noon as three Blackwater teams moved to escort one
"principal" back to Baghdad's Green Zone. The official had been
visiting a "financial compound" when a car bomb detonated about 25
yards outside the entrance, the report said. Two of the Blackwater teams
returned to the Green Zone with the official, who was apparently unharmed.
But the third team came under fire from "8-10 persons" who
"fired from multiple nearby locations, with some aggressors dressed in
civilian apparel and others in Iraqi police uniforms," the report said. A State Department official
cautioned that the "spot report" is only an initial account.
"They're not intended to be authoritative reports of what occurred in
any given incident." The report was drafted by the watch officer for the
embassy's regional security office and approved by the deputy regional
security officer in Baghdad. The official, who declined
to be identified because of the ongoing investigations into the shooting,
said the report, which was dated the same day as the attack, reflected only
what embassy officers were told by the Blackwater guards immediately after
the incident. He said details could change as the investigations move
forward. According to the document,
Blackwater's guards were completing written statements and the embassy's
regional security officer had launched an investigation. Previous press
accounts have alluded to the spot report's existence, but the full report had
not been made public. The report, which is
designated sensitive but unclassified, differs significantly from the account
of the Iraqi Interior Ministry and several witnesses interviewed at the
scene. According to those accounts, the Blackwater guards moved into the
traffic circle in a convoy of armored vehicles, halting traffic and then
firing on a white sedan that had failed to slow down as it entered the area.
The car burst into flames, killing the occupants, according to these
accounts. The Blackwater team then unleashed a barrage of fire into the
surrounding area as people tried to flee in the pandemonium. Sarhan Thiab, a traffic
policeman who was in the circle at the time, said Iraqi police did not fire
on Blackwater. "Not a single bullet. They were the only ones
shooting," said Thiab, who said he and other traffic officers fled to
nearby bushes once the shooting began. "All the vehicles were
shooting. They were shooting in every direction," said a senior Iraqi
police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing
investigations. "They used a rocket launcher or grenade launcher to hit
the car. They were supported by two helicopters who were shooting from the
air." After about 15 minutes, the
guards sped away under cover of the smoke, eyewitnesses said. A joint U.S.-Iraqi
government investigation is expected to examine the incident, along with at
least a half-dozen other shooting incidents involving Blackwater. According to the report, the
sequence of events leading up to the shooting began at 11:53 a.m., when a car
bomb exploded 25 yards outside of the Izdihar financial compound, just over a
mile northwest of the Green Zone. One principal was inside, accompanied by a
Blackwater personal security detail identified as Team 4. A Blackwater team
normally consists of three or four armored vehicles manned by multiple
security contractors armed with assault rifles and pistols. A Blackwater tactical
support team, identified as TST 22, drove to the location to help Team 4
extract the principal. The two teams escorted the official back to the Green
Zone "without incident," according to the report. "It is
unknown who was the target of the" car bomb. According to the report, a
third Blackwater team, identified as TST 23, was dispatched from the Green
Zone to assist after the car bomb detonated. Upon arriving at Nisoor Square,
in Baghdad's affluent Mansour neighborhood, the report said, TST 23 was
"engaged with small arms fire" from "multiple nearby
locations." The report said TST 23
returned fire and tried to drive out of the ambush site. However, one of the
company's tactical armored vehicles, a BearCat, became disabled during the
shooting. In the middle of the firefight, according to the report, the other
tactical support team, TST 22, was ordered back out of the Green Zone to
assist TST 23 in Nisoor Square, identified in the document as Gray 87. Before TST 22 could arrive,
according to the report, TST 23 had towed the BearCat and returned to the
Green Zone. TST 22 found itself alone in the congested traffic circle and
confronted by an Iraqi quick-reaction force. "Over the next several
minutes, additional Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police units arrived and began to
encircle TST 22 with vehicles," according to the report. "The
Iraqis had large caliber machine guns pointed at TST 22." The Blackwater team contacted
the tactical operations center for the U.S. Embassy's regional security
office, which oversees private security movements, according to the report.
The report said the embassy's regional security office deployed the embassy's
air assets, believed to be Blackwater's armed "Little Bird"
helicopters, for "route reconnaissance and additional coverage." "The U.S. Army
QRF" - quick-reaction force - "arrived on scene at 12:39 hours and
mediated the situation," the report said. "They escorted TST 22 out
of the area and successfully back to the [Green Zone] without further
incident." Some U.S. officials have
questioned why the Blackwater team decided to evacuate the principal and
return to the Green Zone, rather than remaining inside the compound. "It
doesn't make sense," said one U.S. official. "Why would they go
back out there when they were already safe?" The report said Blackwater's
armored vehicles incurred superficial damage from small-arms fire. Although
the report made no mention of civilian casualties, the document added,
"The nature of the Bearcat malfunction is under investigation." Fainaru reported from El
Cerrito, Calif., and Raghavan from Baghdad. Staff researcher Julie Tate
contributed to this report. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092702498.html Blackwater Shooting Scene
Was Chaotic By James Glanz & Sabrina Tavernise New York Times September 28, 2007 Baghdad, Sept. 27 -
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 Iraqis 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. A spokeswoman for
Blackwater, Anne E. Tyrrell, said she could not confirm any of the details
provided by the Americans. The accounts provided the
first glimpse into the official American investigation of the shooting, which
has angered Iraqi officials and prompted calls by the Iraqi government to ban
Blackwater from working in Iraq, and brought new scrutiny of the widespread
use of private security contractors here. The American official said
that by Wednesday morning, American investigators still had not responded to
multiple requests for information by Iraqi officials investigating the
episode. The official also said that Blackwater had been conducting its own
investigation but had been ordered by the United States to stop that work.
Ms. Tyrrell confirmed that the company had done an investigation of its own,
but said, “No government entity has discouraged us from doing so.” An Iraqi investigation had
concluded that the guards shot without provocation. But the official said
that the guards told American investigators that they believed that they
fired in response to enemy gunfire. The Blackwater compound,
rimmed by concrete blast walls and concertina wire in the Green Zone in
central Baghdad, has been under tight control. Participants in the Sept. 16
security operation have been ordered not to speak about the episode. But word
of the disagreement on the street has slowly made its way through the
community of private security contractors. The episode began around
11:50 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 16. Diplomats with the United States Agency for
International Development were meeting in a guarded compound about a mile
northwest of Nisour Square, where the shooting would later take place. 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. But instead of waiting, a
Blackwater convoy began carrying the diplomats south, toward the Green Zone.
Because their route would pass through Nisour Square, another convoy drove
there to block traffic and ensure that the diplomats would be able to pass. At least four sport utility
vehicles stopped in lanes of traffic that were entering the square from the
south and west. Some of the guards got out of their vehicles and took
positions on the street, according to the official familiar with the report
on the American investigation. At 12:08 p.m., at least one
guard began to fire in the direction of a car, killing its driver. A traffic
policeman said he walked toward the car, but more shots were fired, killing a
woman holding an infant sitting in the passenger seat. There are three versions of
why the shooting started. The Blackwater guards have told investigators that
they believed that they were being fired on, the official familiar with the
report said. A preliminary Iraqi investigation has concluded that there was
no enemy fire, but some Iraqi witnesses have said that Iraqi commandos in
nearby guard towers may have been shooting as well, possibly leading
Blackwater guards to believe that militants were firing at them. After the family was shot, a
type of grenade or flare was fired into the car, setting it ablaze, according
to some accounts. Other Iraqis were also killed as the shooting continued.
Iraqi officials have given several death counts, ranging from 8 to 20, with
perhaps several dozen wounded. American officials have said that no Americans
were hurt. At some point during the
shooting, one or more Blackwater guards called for a cease-fire, according to
the American official. The word cease-fire “was
supposedly called out several times,” the official said. “They had an on-site
difference of opinion,” he said. In the end, a Blackwater
guard “got on another one about the situation and supposedly pointed a
weapon,” the official said. “That’s what prompted this
internal altercation,” the official said. The official added that in
the urgent moment of a shooting events could often become confused, and
cautioned against leaping to hasty conclusions about who was to blame. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28blackwater.html State Dept. Tallies 56
Shootings Involving Blackwater on Diplomatic Guard Duty By James Risen New York Times September 28, 2007 Washington, Sept. 27 - The
State Department said Thursday that Blackwater USA security personnel had
been involved in 56 shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq so
far this year. It was the first time the Bush administration had made such
data public. Blackwater, a large,
privately held security contractor based in North Carolina, provided security
to diplomats on 1,873 convoy runs in Iraq so far this year, and its personnel
fired weapons 56 times, according to a written statement by Deputy Secretary
of State John D. Negroponte. The State Department did not
release comparable 2007 numbers for other security companies, but the new Blackwater
numbers show a far higher rate of shootings per convoy mission than were
experienced in 2006 by one of the company’s primary competitors, DynCorp
International. DynCorp reported 10 cases in about 1,500 convoy runs last
year. The New York Times reported
Thursday that Blackwater’s rate of shootings was at least twice as high as
the rates for other companies providing similar services to the State
Department in Iraq. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice has asked Mr. Negroponte to oversee the department’s
response to problems with security contractors. A government official who
was briefed on an hourlong meeting involving State Department officials on
Thursday morning said that Ms. Rice had appeared surprised at the report that
Blackwater had been involved in a higher rate of shootings than its
competitors. “She needs to be convinced
that Blackwater’s hands are clean,” the government official said. Ms. Rice
was also said to be taken aback by pressure from Representative Henry A.
Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform, who issued an angry letter to her this week
complaining about what he saw as the State Department’s efforts to block his
panel’s investigation into Blackwater. The meeting on Thursday with
Ms. Rice seems to signal that the State Department’s leaders now recognize
that the Blackwater issue is more serious than they had first thought, and
that it may become harder for the Bush administration to defend Blackwater
and allow the company to retain its prominent role in providing diplomatic
security in Iraq. Since the Sept. 16 shooting
in the streets of Baghdad involving an American convoy guarded by Blackwater
that left at least eight Iraqis dead, the Bush administration has fended off
public demands by the Iraqi government for Blackwater to be evicted from the
country. Instead, the administration
has said that it will conduct an investigation jointly with the Iraqis into
the shooting, while American government officials have repeatedly indicated
that they do not believe that the White House or the State Department would
force Blackwater out of the contract. The Pentagon said on
Wednesday that it had sent a team to Iraq to investigate the role of security
contractors there, in what appeared to be an effort to put private
contractors under greater control by the United States military. The State
Department quickly joined the Pentagon, and said that it would also send a
team to review the role of contractors in Iraq. Separately, a new study
issued Thursday by Mr. Waxman’s oversight committee was highly critical of
the company’s performance in a 2004 case in which four Blackwater contractors
were killed in the restive Anbar Province city of Falluja. The committee
concluded that witness accounts and investigative reports conflicted with
Blackwater’s assertion that its contractors had been sent to Falluja “with
sufficient preparation and equipment.” In a statement, Blackwater
said that the committee’s report was “a one-sided version of this tragic
incident.” “What the report fails to
acknowledge is that the terrorists determined what happened that fateful day
in 2004,” Blackwater said. ”The terrorists were intent on killing Americans
and desecrating their bodies.” Eric Schmitt contributed
reporting. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28contractors.html |