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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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October 14th,
2007 - Blackwater might be kicked out of Iraq |
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Blackwater might be kicked
out of Iraq By Steven R. Hurst & Qassim Abdul-Zahra Associated Press October 14, 2007 Baghdad U.S. and Iraqi
officials are negotiating Baghdad's demand that security company Blackwater
USA be expelled from the country within six months, and American diplomats
appear to be working on how to fill the security gap if the company is phased
out. The talks about Blackwater's
future in Iraq flow from recommendations in an Iraqi government report on the
incident Sept. 16 when, Iraqi officials determined, Blackwater guards opened
fire without provocation in Baghdad's Nisoor Square and killed 17 Iraqi
citizens. The Iraqi investigators
issued five recommendations to the government of Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki, which has since sent them to the U.S. Embassy as demands for
action. Point No. 2 in the report
says: "The Iraqi government
should demand that the United States stops using the services of Blackwater
in Iraq within six months and replace it with a new, more disciplined
organization that would be answerable to Iraqi laws." Sami al-Askari, a top aide
to al-Maliki, said that point in the Iraqi list of demands was nonnegotiable. "I believe the
government has been clear. There have been attacks on the lives of Iraqi
citizens on the part of that company (Blackwater). It must be expelled. The
government has given six months for its expulsion and it's left to the U.S.
Embassy to determine with Blackwater when to terminate the contract. The
American administration must find another company," he told AP. In talks between American
diplomats and the al-Maliki government, al-Askari said, the U.S. side was not
"insisting on Blackwater staying." He was the only Iraqi or
American official who would allow use of his name, others said information
they gave was too sensitive. Al-Askari said the Americans
have been told that another demand, Blackwater payment of $8 million in
compensation for each victim, was negotiable. "With the
investigations and reviews ongoing, it would be clearly premature to say that
any definitive determinations have been made about the future of the
Blackwater contract," a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said. Another diplomat, speaking
privately, said he did not see how the State Department could insist on
keeping Blackwater in place given how "tainted" it had become after
the Sept. 16 incident and several others. In an interview to be
broadcast Monday on PBS, Charlie Rose asked Blackwater chief Erik Prince
about the issue. "We'll do what we're
told and, you know, make the transition as smooth as possible," Prince
said. A Shiite lawmaker who sits
on parliament's security and defense committee said al-Maliki has complained
that the United States embassy had not briefed the Iraqis on what was learned
when Blackwater guards were questioned. He said two Iraqi security
officials were briefly allowed to sit in as observers on two questioning
sessions of the Blackwater guards. The Iraqi government
investigative report said Blackwater guards had killed 21 other Iraqi
citizens and wounded 27 in a total of seven previous incidents, including a
shooting by a drunk Blackwater employee after a 2006 Christmas party.
Congress is investigating whether the government relies too heavily on
private contractors who fall outside the military courts martial system. While the Blackwater name
may be removed from security operations surrounding U.S. diplomats in Iraq,
American officials and members of the security community in Baghdad said the
company's men and other assets in Iraq would likely be taken over by one of
the many security companies currently working in Iraq. They said DynCorp, which
already has security contracts with the State Department to guard officials
working outside Baghdad, appeared poised to take over the Blackwater role. Under the terms of the
department's Worldwide Personal Protective Security contract, which covers
privately contracted guards for diplomats in Iraq, Blackwater, Dyncorp and
Triple Canopy are the only three companies eligible to bid on specific task
orders there. Dyncorp and Triple Canopy are both based in Washington's
northern Virginia suburbs. Blackwater works from a huge complex in Moyock,
N.C. While DynCorp and Triple
Canopy already work in Iraq, neither company is believed to have the
infrastructure in place to take over Blackwater's responsibilities in the
six-month period demanded by the al-Maliki government. The FBI has taken over an
investigation of the Sept. 16 shooting and questioned Iraqi witnesses to the
shooting Saturday at the Iraqi National Police headquarters about 500 yards
from Nisoor Square. Prince says reports he has
indicated one of the four Blackwater gun trucks involved in the shooting came
under fire. He said the company reports say the truck had bullet pockmarks
and was damaged badly enough that it had to be towed. No other witness, those
interviewed by AP or Iraqi government investigators, told of gunfire on the
Blackwater vehicles or of one being towed. Other witnesses said
Blackwater helicopters arrived over the square during the shooting and opened
fire. One of them was 20-year-old
Ahmed Abdul-Timan, who works as a guard at the tunnel that runs under the
square. He told AP that the initial U.S. investigative team tried to
intimidate him into changing his story about the helicopters firing. He said
the interrogation lasted three hours. "Four or five days
after the incident," Abdul-Timan said, "there was a second
investigation but the questioning was done by a U.S. Army major. It was much
easier. They videotaped what I said, took my phone number and address. The
major tried to comfort us, saying he and his men love the Iraqi people and
want to help them." Abdul-Timan's account squares
with others that indicated the first investigation by State Department
personnel appeared to be an attempt to vindicate the Blackwater guards. The
U.S. military conducted the second investigation and was more sympathetic. Estimates of the number of private
security workers in Iraq have fluctuated greatly. In June 2006 the U.S.
Government Accountability Office said there were 181 security companies with
48,000 employees in Iraq. The more recent Congressional Research Service
report said there were as many as 30,000 security workers. © 2007 The Associated Press External link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/5213195.html |