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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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October 1st,
2007 - Blackwater Has Fired 122 Personnel News article by the Associated
Press |
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Blackwater Has Fired 122 Personnel By Richard Lardner Associated Press October 1, 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. Blackwater, founded in 1997
and headquartered in Moyock, N.C., is the biggest of the State Department's
three private security contractors. The others are Dyncorp and Triple Canopy,
both based in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs. According to the 15-page
report, Blackwater has had more shooting incidents than the other two
companies combined. 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 until more is known
about a recent incident in Iraq involving Blackwater guards. On Sept. 16, 2007, 11 Iraqis
were killed in a shoot-out involving Blackwater guards protecting a U.S.
diplomatic convoy in Baghdad. Blackwater says its guards acted in
self-defense after the convoy came under attack. Iraqi witnesses have said
the shooting was unprovoked. Several investigations are
under way, including one by the State Department and another by a U.S.-Iraqi
commission that is also examining the broader issue of how private security
contractors in Iraq operate. In a Sept. 28 letter, Rep.
Dan Burton, R-Ind., and six other Republicans said the committee should wait
until these investigations are complete. "We feel it would be
irresponsible for the committee to rush to judgment until all the facts are
considered," the letter states. Rep. Tom Davis or Virginia,
the committee's top Republican, did not sign the letter. Spokesman Brian McNicoll
said Davis has no objection to the hearing taking place because several State
Department representatives are scheduled to testify. 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. External link: http://tinyurl.com/3atlbn Report Depicts
Recklessness at Blackwater By David Stout & John M. Broder New York Times October 1, 2007 Washington, Oct. 1 - Guards
working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and
have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State
Department, a report to a Congressional committee said today. The report, based largely on
internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, depicts
the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards
who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit
by their bullets. In one incident, the State
Department and Blackwater agreed to pay $15,000 to the family of a man killed
by “a drunken Blackwater contractor,” the report said. As a State Department
official wrote, “We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue
with our protective mission.” The report was compiled by
the Democratic majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform, which is scheduled to hold a hearing on Blackwater
activities on Tuesday. That hearing is sure to be contentious now that the
chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, and other
members have the staff’s findings to study. A Blackwater spokeswoman,
Anne Tyrrell, had no immediate comment. “We look forward to setting the
record straight,” she told The Associated Press. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s
founder and chairman, is to testify before Mr. Waxman’s panel. The State
Department said several of its senior officials would address the issues in
the report at the hearing on Tuesday. The report is likely to
raise questions not only about the wisdom of employing private security
forces in Iraq, but also about the basic American mission in the country. Blackwater guards have
engaged in nearly 200 incidents of gunfire in Iraq since 2005, and in the
vast majority of cases Blackwater people fired their weapons from moving
vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the injured, the report
found. The shootings logged by
Blackwater were more than those by the other two private military contractors
combined, the committee found. Blackwater has more than twice the number of
contractors than the other two combined. The other contractors are DynCorp
International and Triple Canopy. “Blackwater also has the
highest incidence of shooting first, although all three companies shoot first
in more than half of all escalation-of-forces incidents,” the staff report
said. And the State Department’s
own documents “raise serious questions” about how department officials
responded to reports of Blackwater killings of Iraqis, the report said. “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
incidents involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first,
or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the committee staff
wrote. Moreover, contrary to the
terms of its contract, Blackwater sometimes engaged in offensive operations
with the American military, instead of confining itself to its protective
mission, the staff found. The report also raised
questions about the cost-effectiveness of using Blackwater forces instead of
United States troops. Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day per
guard, “equivalent to $445,000 per year, or six times more than the cost of
an equivalent U.S. soldier,” the report said. The incident involving “a
drunken Blackwater contractor” arose when the employee killed a bodyguard for
the Iraqi vice president, Adil Abd-al-Mahdi, in December 2006. State
Department officials allowed Blackwater to take the shooter out of Iraq less
than 36 hours later. Then the State Department
charge d’affaires recommended that Blackwater make “a sizable payment” and an
“apology” in an effort to “avoid this whole thing becoming even worse,” the
report went on. The State Department official suggested a $250,000 payment to
the guard’s family, but the department’s Diplomatic Security Service said
that was too much and could cause Iraqis to “try to get killed.” In the end,
$15,000 was agreed upon. The report adds credence to complaints from Iraqi
officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that
company guards have adopted an aggressive, trigger-happy approach and
displayed disregard for Iraqi life. In late March 2004, four
Americans working for Blackwater were ambushed and killed, and an enraged mob
then jubilantly dragged the burned bodies through the streets of downtown
Falluja, hanging at least two corpses from a bridge over the Euphrates River. The Congressional report,
based on 437 internal Blackwater incident reports as well as internal State
Department correspondence, says that that Blackwater’s use of force “is
frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property
damage.” It notes that Blackwater’s contract authorizes it to use lethal
force only to prevent “imminent and grave danger” to themselves or 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.” Among the incidents cited in the
report: On Oct. 24, 2005, Blackwater
guards fired on a car that failed to heed a warning to stop. In the gunfire,
a civilian bystander was hit in the head with a bullet, but Blackwater
personnel did not stop. Blackwater officials reported the incident as a
“probable killing” but there is no evidence the company offered compensation
to the victim’s family. On June 25, 2005, a
Blackwater team in Hillah fatally shot an Iraqi man, a father of six, in the
chest. The victim’s family complained to the State Department, which said in
an internal report that the Blackwater gunmen initially failed to report the
killing and tried to cover it up. On Sept. 24, 2006, a
Blackwater convoy with four vehicles was driving the wrong way on a road in
Hillah when a red Opel failed to get out of the way. The Opel skidded into
one of the Blackwater vehicles, disabling it. The Opel then hit a telephone
pole and burst into flames. The Blackwater team scooped up its people and
equipment from the disabled vehicle and fled the scene without attempting to
help the occupants of the burning car. On Nov. 28, 2005, a
Blackwater motorcade traveling to and from the Iraqi oil ministry collided
with 18 different vehicles. According to an internal Blackwater report of the
incident, the statements from employees were “invalid, inaccurate, and at
best, dishonest.” Two Blackwater employees were dismissed, but there was no
other apparent action taken as a result. Copyright 2007 The New York Times
Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/washington/01cnd-blackwater.html |