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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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January 19th,
2008 - From Texas to Iraq, and Center of Blackwater Case |
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From Texas to Iraq, and
Center of Blackwater Case By Ginger Thompson New York Times January 19, 2008 Dickens, Tex. - Paul Slough
may have worked as a cowboy growing up in this tiny town in northwest Texas, but
soldiers who served with him were stunned to hear he had been accused of
acting like one as a Blackwater security guard in Iraq. “I went on 20 to 30 missions
with Paul. You could always depend on him,” said Jeremiah Thompson, recalling
his tour of duty with Mr. Slough in Iraq for the Texas National Guard. “He
was always careful. He was always professional. I never knew him to break the
rules of engagement.” Today, Mr. Slough, 28, is at
the center of a federal investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting deaths of 17
Iraqis in Baghdad by a convoy of Blackwater security guards. Authorities have
refused to talk about the inquiry, except to say it has focused on one guard,
identified only as “turret gunner No. 3.” Through a review of case
documents and interviews in Texas and Washington, The New York Times
identified the gunner as Mr. Slough, a former infantry soldier who joined
Blackwater Worldwide after his dreams of joining the Army Special Forces were
quashed by recurring problems from an old football injury. His story offers a rare look
at the men employed by the impenetrable private security company with the
highest rate of shootings in Iraq. Military officials and executives of other
contracting companies have long complained that Blackwater hired younger,
financially struggling recruits; encouraged a shoot-first culture, and then
used the company’s deep political connections with the Bush administration to
shield its guards from punishment when they killed innocent people. The Sept. 16 shooting in
Nisour Square is considered by the F.B.I., the Pentagon and the Iraqi
government to be among the most egregious examples of unprovoked violence by
private security contractors. It ignited such outrage that the Iraqi
government threatened to ban Blackwater from the country. The Bush administration
changed the way it manages private security contractors. Congress is
considering legislation aimed at closing loopholes that allow contractors to
escape prosecution for abuses, though Justice Department officials have told
legislators their actions would probably be too late to affect this case. Blackwater has defended the
actions of its guards, saying they had come under attack and the shooting was
justified, and it often points out that no one under its protection has ever
been killed. With his name withheld from
public records about the shootings, Mr. Slough (pronounced like now) has not
drawn much attention. Described as tall and lean with a carrot-colored beard,
he lives with his wife in a well-to-do housing development near Fort Worth. An uncle, Dewey Slough of
Amarillo, said that the last time he talked to his nephew he was working at
The Home Depot and looking to find something better. “I told him I had a
friend with a construction business and would put in a good word,” the uncle
said. “He told me he had found something and was going back to Iraq.” Less than a month after the
shooting, friends said, they saw Paul Slough and his wife at a tailgate party
outside a Texas Tech football game in Lubbock. The group included Mr.
Thompson, the former Texas National Guard member. He said Mr. Slough looked
like the stereotype of a Blackwater guard: Oakley sunglasses, cargo pants,
cropped hair and a chiseled physique. “I asked him: ‘Man, I heard
there was some trouble over there. Were you involved?’ ” Mr. Thompson
recalled. “He just nodded, and told me it wasn’t like what I had read in the
papers.” A Blackwater spokeswoman,
Anne Tyrrell, would not comment for this article, saying the company did not
want to interfere with a continuing investigation. Mr. Slough also declined to
be interviewed for this article, but his first statement to investigators was
posted on the Internet, with just his first name, by ABC News. In it, Mr. Slough recounted
the mayhem in dry military language. He described coming under an elaborate
attack that he said had begun when the driver of a white four-door sedan
ignored numerous hand signals and drove directly at the Blackwater motorcade. “Fearing for my life and the
lives of my teammates,” Mr. Slough said, “I engaged the driver and stopped
the threat.” He said he saw muzzle
flashes from a shack 50 meters, or about 160 feet, behind the car; a man in a
blue button-down shirt and black pants pointing an AK-47; small arms fire
from a red bus that had stopped in an intersection; and a red car backing up
toward his convoy. “Fearing that it was a
vbied,” he said, using the military acronym for a car bomb, “I engaged in
order to stop the threat.” Initial investigations by
the Pentagon, the F.B.I. and the Iraqi government found no evidence to
support Mr. Slough’s account - no car bombs, no signs of enemy fire or
insurgents. The F.B.I. concluded that at least 14 of the 17 fatal shootings
had been unjustified, saying Blackwater guards had recklessly violated
American rules for the use of lethal force. Military investigators went
further, saying all the deaths were unjustified and potentially criminal.
Iraqi authorities characterized the shootings as “deliberate murder.” Mr. Slough’s lawyer, Mark
Hulkower, said security contractors in Iraq work in “an extraordinarily
challenging environment, where the enemy does not wear uniforms, unless
disguised as Iraqi soldiers or police to exploit civilians.” He said contractors “cannot
be asked to ignore real threats when making split-second, life-and-death
decisions.” And he said he was confident federal prosecutors would find that
his client and the other Blackwater guards had acted appropriately under
established rules of engagement. “To conclude otherwise,” he
said, “would cause those now defending against terrorist threats to choose
between dying in a foreign country and being branded as a criminal in their
own.” This flat, arid corner of the
country, settled by cattle ranchers, is not different from many small towns
that propel young men and women into the military. It is a place where
working-class people hold traditional ideas about what it means to be an
American, where churches outnumber restaurants and children learn to handle
weapons not long after learning to read and write. Several people here said
problems with alcohol made it difficult for Mr. Slough’s father, Paul Slough
Sr., to hold a steady job. (The father has since died.) They said the younger
Mr. Slough grew up quickly, juggling schoolwork and a job roping cattle. Mike Norrell, Mr. Slough’s
former teacher at Patton Springs School, recalled Mr. Slough as a boy who
craved learning. He said that while other students memorized lessons, Mr.
Slough questioned everything he read. Rita Brandle, who runs a
general store, said: “It was as if the child was the father, and the father
was the child. We were happy to see him go off and join the Army.” Mr. Slough’s military career
was relatively brief. Joining in 1999, he served in the Third Infantry
Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., conducted at least 100 patrols as part of the
NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia, and reached the rank of sergeant. After an
honorable discharge in 2002, he enlisted in the Texas National Guard, and was
deployed to Iraq in December 2004 as part of a personal security detail. He
ended his yearlong tour with little more than the medals given to every
soldier who serves in Iraq . Still, James Kirksey and Mr.
Thompson, who both served with Mr. Slough, said they looked up to him for his
maturity, discipline and intellect. He had a serious bearing and was the kind
of soldier, Mr. Kirksey said, who obeyed an order whether he agreed with it
or not. When asked what they knew
about Mr. Slough’s reasons for joining Blackwater, they cast about and came
up with conflicting theories. Mr. Thompson said money was not a motive,
though he acknowledged that Mr. Slough was worried about providing a
comfortable life for his new bride. And Mr. Kirksey said the reason was not
some chase for glory, though he acknowledged that Mr. Slough had once told
him he “wanted to become an officer and lead men.” Both were emphatic, however,
in saying that Mr. Slough had not become some kind of cowboy, high on
adrenaline and quick on the trigger. They said it was true Mr. Slough liked
the hardest assignments, which usually meant he served at the rear of their
convoys, perched on a Humvee with his finger on the trigger of a .50-caliber
machine gun. “With some guys at the rear,
I’d get nervous about an ambush,” Mr. Kirksey said. “Some soldiers would
panic and freeze up. You’d never have to worry about that with Paul.” He
added, “But you’d never have to worry about him being jumpy either.” Mr. Thompson and Mr. Kirksey
remembered a mission that took them through a city near Nasiriya. As their
convoy turned down a street, bullets were fired from an apartment building in
the distance. “Paul told me that shots
were buzzing past his head like bees,” Mr. Kirksey said. “He was standing at
a weapon that was strong enough to cut one of those buildings in half. But he
didn’t fire a shot.” “After it was over, I asked
Paul, ‘Why didn’t you light into them?’” Mr. Thompson recalled. “He told me
because he didn’t have a clear target. He didn’t want to hurt innocent
bystanders.” Copyright 2008 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/us/19slough.html |