|
The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
|
January 11th,
2007 - Iraq Killing Tracked to Contractor Could Test Laws |
|
Iraq Killing Tracked
to Contractor Could Test Laws By Bill Sizemore The Virginian-Pilot January 11, 2007 As pressure grows in
Congress to hold private military companies such as Blackwater USA more
accountable for their conduct, reports have surfaced of a Dec. 24 shooting in
Baghdad that could serve as a textbook case. According to the State
Department, a civilian U.S. contractor shot and killed an Iraqi security
officer. Lou Fintor, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, would not
say which company the shooter worked for. Two independent sources have told
The Virginian-Pilot that he worked for Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C. When asked about the
reports, Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said Wednesday: "No
comment." Blackwater provides security
for U.S. diplomatic staff in Iraq under a multimillion-dollar State
Department contract. Details of the shooting are
sketchy. Fintor said there are conflicting reports. "We continue looking
into the incident in an effort to try to determine the facts," he said. He declined to provide any
further details about the American contractor, citing the U.S. Privacy Act.
However, a former Blackwater contractor and an executive of another private
military company, citing sources inside Iraq, independently said that the
shooter was a Blackwater contractor. So far, there is no word of
any criminal charges being brought in the case. Nearly four years after the
U.S. invasion, tens of thousands of civilian contractors are working in Iraq.
So far, none has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. One reason:
Contractors operate in a legal gray area, in which it's uncertain whether
they're subject to civilian law, military law or neither. The latest effort to clear
that up came Wednesday when U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., introduced
legislation he says will bring about transparency, accountability and
coordination for private contractors operating in a war zone. "The lack of a legal
framework for battlefield contracting has allowed certain rogue contractor
employees to perpetrate heinous criminal acts without the threat of
prosecution," Price said. Among other things, Price's
legislation would extend the reach of the Military Extraterritorial
Jurisdiction Act to allow prosecution in civilian courts of any contractor
involved in a military operation. The law has been on the books since 2000
but has not been applied against contractors in Iraq. Price's attempt to subject
contractors to civilian courts comes on the heels of legislation enacted last
fall that seeks to put them under military law. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,
an Air Force Reserve lawyer, inserted language in a military spending bill
that extends the Uniform Code of Military Justice to cover contractors in a
"contingency operation" such as Iraq - not just in a declared war. Whichever approach prevails,
the congressional scrutiny is long overdue, in the view of Peter W. Singer, a
scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written a book about the booming
private military industry. It was Singer who first
called public attention to Graham's move. He wrote last week in Defensetech,
an online military discussion group, that thanks to Graham's phrasing in the
Pentagon budget bill, "contractors' 'get out of jail free' cards may
have been torn to shreds." "It's probably the most
important legal change for the private military industry in its
history," Singer said in an interview. "For the first time, this
vacuum in the law is being plugged. It shows that Congress has woken up from
its slumber on this issue." Not everyone agrees with
Singer's interpretation. Doug Brooks, president of
the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group representing
Blackwater and other military contractors, said that in his view, military
law would not apply to Blackwater contractors working for the State
Department. "It might be doable for
Defense Department contractors, but it's not a panacea," Brooks said.
"It's a square peg in a round hole." Price's bill seeks to cast a
wider net, applying to contractors "employed under a contract (or subcontract
at any tier) awarded by any department or agency of the United States
Government, where the work under such contract is carried out in a region
outside the United States in which the Armed Forces are conducting a
contingency operation." A spokesman for Price said
that he had not heard of the Dec. 24 slaying but that it is the kind of case
the legislation is intended to address. Singer, the Brookings
scholar, said the incident provides further fuel for a vigorous discussion
about the unprecedented privatization of warfighting - a discussion that's
sure to happen in the new Democrat-controlled Congress. According to a recent
Pentagon estimate, more than 100,000 private contractors are carrying out
military roles in Iraq - a figure almost as large as the uniformed military
force there. "This is going to be
part of a much, much bigger debate: Have we outsourced too much?" Singer
said. " It was never debated. The consequences of it were never weighed.
Now we're trying to clean up all the mess that's been created." Staff writer Joanne
Kimberlin contributed to this report. External link: http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=117400&ran=74075 |