|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
October 4th,
2007 - House OKs Bill to Prosecute Contractors News article by the Associated
Press |
|
House OKs Bill to Prosecute Contractors By Anne Flaherty Associated Press October 4, 2007 Washington - The House
passed a bill Thursday that would make all private contractors working in
Iraq and other combat zones subject to prosecution by U.S. courts. It was the
first major legislation of its kind to pass since a deadly shootout last
month involving Blackwater employees. Democrats called the 389-30
vote an indictment of the shooting incident there that left at least 13
Iraqis dead. Senate Democratic leaders said they planned to follow suit with
similar legislation and send a bill to President Bush as soon as possible. "There is simply no
excuse for the de facto legal immunity for tens of thousands of individuals
working in countries" on behalf of the United States, said Rep. Sheila
Jackson-Lee, D-Texas. The FBI arrived in Baghdad
Thursday to investigate the Sept. 16 shooting, although administration
officials acknowledge they are unsure whether U.S. courts would have
jurisdiction in the case or others like it. In a separate incident, a
drunk Blackwater employee left a Christmas eve party in Baghdad and fatally
shot the guard of one of Iraq's vice presidents. That contractor was fired,
fined and returned home to the United States, but no charges have been filed. The current law, called the
Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, covers personnel supporting the
mission of Defense Department operations overseas. But because Blackwater's
primary mission is to protect State Department officials, defense lawyers
would likely argue that the law doesn't apply. At the same time, all U.S.
contractors are immune from prosecution by Iraqi courts. The bill's passage came on
the same day that a government minister told The Associated Press that the
official Iraqi investigation said Blackwater security guards involved in the
September incident face trial in Iraqi courts and the company should pay
compensation to the victims. The White House and
congressional Republicans said they support the intent of the bill, but
thought it was drafted poorly. In a statement issued
Wednesday, the White House said the bill would have "unintended and
intolerable consequences for crucial and necessary national security
activities and operations." The statement did not explain further or
give examples on how the bill would affect national security. The White House referred
questions to the Justice Department, which declined to comment. Prior to passage, the House
voted 342-75 to ensure the legislation would not affect intelligence
operations. Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn.,
accused Democrats of rushing the bill through Congress in a partisan bid to
criticize the Bush administration's handling of the war. "It is amazing to me
the number of men in Blackwater that have lost their lives and we never hear
it on the other side of the aisle," Shays said. "Blackwater is
evil. That's the way it appears in all the dialogue." Rep. David Price, who
sponsored the bill, said the White House's objections were unfounded and
"should infuriate anyone who believes in the rule of law." Blackwater founder Erik
Prince told a House panel Tuesday that he supports expanding the law. "Beyond firing him for
breaking the rules, withholding any funds we can, we can't flog him,"
Prince said of the intoxicated Blackwater guard. "We can't incarcerate
him. We can't do anything beyond that." State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack announced Thursday the FBI was assuming control of the Sept.
16 probe from the State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The step was taken,
in part, on the possibility that the investigation might lead to the case
being referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. But, McCormack stressed that
the move does not necessarily mean criminal charges will be filed or that the
investigation will show any laws or regulations had been violated. Under the State Department's
contract with Blackwater, the company's guard's would have provided security
for the FBI team while in Iraq. But FBI spokesman John Miller said the team
will rely on U.S. government personnel "to avoid even the appearance of
any conflict." Associated Press reporters
Matthew Lee and Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report. © 2007 The Associated Press External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/5188810.html Ex-Paratrooper Is Suspect in
a Blackwater Killing By John M. Broder New York Times October 4, 2007 Washington, Oct. 3 - The
former Blackwater USA employee who is the sole suspect in the killing last
Christmas Eve of a bodyguard for an Iraqi vice president is a 27-year-old
former Army paratrooper from Montana who now lives in Seattle, where he
spends much of his time renovating his small home. The former employee, Andrew
J. Moonen, is identified in numerous government and company documents and is
known to scores of Blackwater and government officials, but Congress, the
State Department and the company have been keeping his identity confidential. In an interview on Tuesday
evening, Mr. Moonen declined to discuss the episode, in which, American and
Iraqi officials say, a Blackwater worker who had been drinking heavily got
into a confrontation with a bodyguard to Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi and
shot him three times. The guard, Raheem Khalif, died early the next day at an
American military hospital. Mr. Moonen, who appeared
composed during the interview, said that he had been following closely the
flurry of recent news about Blackwater in Iraq, including the Sept. 16
shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead. On Tuesday, the company’s founder, Erik D.
Prince, testified before a Congressional committee about the Christmas Eve
shooting and other lethal episodes involving Blackwater guards. Mr. Moonen said the
situation made him uneasy. “There’s a lot of dust being kicked up, and I’ll
be glad when it settles,” he said. Mr. Moonen’s father, Alvin
Moonen of Kalispell, Mont., where Andrew and his seven brothers and two
sisters grew up, said that his son did not speak about his duties in the
military or at Blackwater. “He said he was in the 82nd Airborne and that’s
all he told me,” the father said in an interview on Tuesday. “He wouldn’t
tell me anything.” Asked about the accusations
that his son was involved in the fatal shooting last December, Mr. Moonen’s
voice fell. “They train these guys like they do and then they’re surprised?”
he said. More than nine months after
the shooting, no charges have been brought. But there is an active
investigation of the case in Seattle, an F.B.I. official said, although there
is some question about what statutes apply to events occurring overseas and
in a war zone. The case has had wide
reverberations from Baghdad to Washington. Iraqi officials have labeled the
killing “murder” and say it is a textbook example of the way foreign
contractors operate with impunity in their country. The State Department, which
employs Blackwater under a multibillion-dollar contract spread among three
companies to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq, hoped to keep the
case quiet by helping Blackwater to take Mr. Moonen out of Iraq and by paying
the slain guard’s family $20,000 in cash. But the episode has become one of
the central exhibits in numerous investigations by Congress, the Justice
Department and Iraqi authorities into the operations of Blackwater and 170
other private security contractors working in Iraq. Within hours of the
Christmas Eve shooting, Blackwater officials ended Mr. Moonen’s employment,
citing a “blatant and egregious” violation of company policy against
possessing a firearm while drunk. Without naming the suspect in the shooting,
Mr. Prince said on Tuesday that the company had dismissed him, fined him
thousands of dollars and immediately shipped him out of the country. “We
can’t flog him; we can’t incarcerate him,” Mr. Prince said. “That’s up to the
Justice Department.” They made him pay his own
airfare home and forfeit his $3,000 Christmas bonus. Mr. Prince said that
Blackwater paid $20,000 in compensation to the victim’s family, correcting
earlier accounts that had put the sum at $15,000. Mr. Moonen acknowledged that
he had served in Baghdad, which he described as “scary,” particularly for a
Westerner who found himself alone and isolated in the city. He did not
explain why he felt isolated while serving as one of nearly 1,000 Blackwater
security agents in Iraq and living in a secure compound in the Green Zone. Stewart P. Riley, a Seattle
lawyer, confirmed that he was representing Mr. Moonen in the investigation
into the Baghdad shooting. He said that he had been in contact with federal
prosecutors, but cautioned that no charges had been brought and that none may
ever be brought. “Everyone’s rushing to
judgment in this case, and they’ve forgotten about the presumption of
innocence and it’s a shame,” Mr. Riley said. Mr. Moonen served in the
82nd Airborne Division from April 2002 to April 2005, according to Army
personnel records. He served a seven-month deployment in Iraq, from September
2003 until early April 2004. Army records indicate that he was honorably
discharged, but do not show any special medals or commendations. Mr. Moonen’s family members
revealed little about him, referring most questions to his lawyer in Seattle.
But according to public records, he was granted a divorce in North Carolina
in December 2004 from a woman who appears to live in the Seattle area. She
could not be reached. Washington State court
records indicate that Mr. Moonen received six traffic citations between April
2001 and September 2007. An employee of the sheriff’s department in Kalispell
said that Mr. Moonen was picked up on a juvenile misdemeanor charge when he
was 16, but that records of the case were sealed. A Blackwater spokeswoman,
Anne Tyrrell, would not confirm or deny that Mr. Moonen had ever worked for
the company. “I will not give you any information about any current or former
employees, period,” she said. A padlocked chain-link fence
surrounds Mr. Moonen’s modest Seattle home, in a working-class neighborhood
near the sprawling Boeing Company complex. Mr. Moonen is installing green
siding and performing other renovations with the help of some of his brothers,
he said. “It helps to have a big family,” he said. He said that he installed
the fence to prevent the theft of building materials, and he keeps it tightly
locked even when he is at home. After chatting for a few minutes, he handed a
reporter a sheet of paper with his lawyer’s name and telephone number and
went back in the house. J. Michael Kennedy
contributed reporting from Seattle, Jim Robbins from Kalispell, Mont., and
Barclay Walsh from Washington. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/world/middleeast/04contractor.html |