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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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January 2nd,
2010 - Blackwater Dismissal Risks Hurting Iraq Relations News article from the Wall Street
Journal |
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Blackwater Dismissal Risks
Hurting Iraq Relations By August Cole Wall Street Journal January 2, 2010 The dismissal of charges
against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused by the Justice
Department of recklessly shooting in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007 potentially
strains U.S.-Iraqi relations at a critical moment and raises new questions
for the Obama administration about effective legal oversight of battlefield
contractors. The shooting enraged Iraqi
politicians and created a diplomatic firestorm for the Bush administration.
Now, U.S. combat troops are out of Iraqi cities and a broader drawdown is
under way. The dismissal of charges
comes as the U.S. marked its first month since the war began in 2003 in which
no American forces died in combat in Iraq, according to the Associated Press.
Three U.S. troops died in December as a result of noncombat-related
incidents. In Baghdad Friday, the
ruling was met with outrage on the streets and pledges by the government to
continue to prosecute a case against Blackwater, though it was unclear what
legal remedy remained. "Investigations
conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the
Blackwater guards committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using
arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force,"
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement, the AP
reported. He didn't elaborate on what steps the government planned to take to
pursue the case. In its first year, the Obama
administration has tried to dial back government use of contractors, from
Defense Department back offices to State Department aid projects overseas.
This has proved difficult in areas such as security and intelligence. "Blackwater highlights
the chasm that developed in the Clinton and Bush years between contractors
and the ability of our government to serve the national interest," said
Janine Wedel, a professor at George Mason University and a fellow at the New
America Foundation, a think tank in Washington. In September 2007, a
Blackwater security convoy working for the State Department was involved in a
shooting incident at Baghdad's Nisoor Square, a busy traffic circle, that
left 17 Iraqis dead. In December 2008, the Justice Department unsealed a
35-count indictment and charged five of the guards with voluntary
manslaughter and weapons violations for their alleged role in the shooting. The case was seen in Iraq as
a key test of the U.S.'s desire and ability to hold American security
contractors accountable at a time when they had immunity from Iraqi law. That
immunity is gone, in large part due to a new U.S.-Iraqi agreement covering
U.S. contractors, government civilians and military personnel following the
incident. On Thursday, U.S. District
Court Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed the charges against the men, citing
flaws in how the government handled the case. The judge said prosecutors
incorrectly relied on statements the guards gave soon after the incident that
U.S. law bars from being used later against the defendants. "The explanations
offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their
actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants'
compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and
lacking in credibility," he wrote in a 90-page opinion. All five guards - Donald
Ball, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten, and Paul Slough - were in
their 20s when the shooting happened in 2007. A sixth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway,
35 years old at the time of the incident, had pleaded guilty to voluntary
manslaughter. Justice Department spokesman
Dean Boyd said in a statement that the department is disappointed with the
decision and is "reviewing the opinion and considering our
options." The judge's decision gives
Blackwater's parent company, renamed Xe Services LLC last year, a legal break
as its security business is shrinking. Xe's President and CEO,
Joseph Yorio, said in a statement that he welcomed the dismissal: "With
this decision, we feel we can move forward and continue to assist the United
States in its mission to help the people of Iraq and Afghanistan find a
peaceful, democratic future." The State Department last year replaced
Blackwater with another U.S. security firm after the Iraqi government
effectively barred it from security work there. But the loss of the contract,
accounting for about a third of the company's revenue, was a setback. Xe's
remaining security work is far smaller and involves mostly protecting Central
Intelligence Agency bases and officials overseas. Copyright 2009 Dow Jones
& Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved External link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126229226969112429.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories Iraq outraged
as Blackwater case is dropped By Guy Adams The Independent January 2, 2010 Saying it was
"astonished" by a US court's decision to drop manslaughter charges
against private security guards who were accused of killing 17 civilians
caught up in a Baghdad traffic jam, the Iraqi government yesterday promised
to continue its battle to secure justice for the victims of "people who
like to shoot unarmed people". Wejdan Mikhail, the
country's Human Rights Minister, said she would now support efforts to bring
civil charges against the Blackwater employees accused of firing automatic
weapons and throwing hand grenades at cars negotiating a roundabout in Nisur
Square just over two years ago. A judge in Washington ruled late
on Thursday that the high-profile case, which sparked allegations of a
culture of lawlessness and unaccountability at Blackwater and other private
security firms in Iraq, should be thrown out due to an apparent legal
technicality. The five men, who pleaded
not guilty and claimed they acted in self defence, will not face a trial for
manslaughter, after Ricardo Urbina, a federal judge, decided that there had
been "procedural errors" in the way evidence against them was
collected. Ms Mikhail has demanded a
meeting with US embassy officials in Baghdad to hear an explanation of why
the criminal case was dropped. "I don't understand why the judge took
this decision," she told the news agency AFP. "They killed innocent
Iraqi people that were just in their cars without any weapons. I am very
astonished. So many innocent Iraqis - young, students - were shot by someone
who liked to shoot unarmed people." The bloodbath, which
occurred in September 2007, threw an uncomfortable spotlight on the Bush
government's policy of using private security firms (many of which had links
with the Republican administration) in war zones. Investigators concluded that
the guards, who were escorting a convoy of armoured vehicles,
indiscriminately fired on locals stuck in a traffic jam. They claimed to have
been responding to incoming fire, but there is little evidence that any
victims were armed. The decision was welcomed by
Blackwater, which lost its US government contracts in Baghdad after the
killings and has subsequently changed its name to Xe. But General Ray
Odierno, the commander of US forces in Iraq, said the ruling will heighten
hostility faced by security workers and troops in Iraq. Left-leaning US politicians
described it as an affront to human rights. "A question I've been asking
for a long time is, 'Can private military contractors actually get away with
murder?'" said Jan Schakowsky, a Democratic member of the House of
Representatives who has sponsored legislation to outlaw the use of private
contractors in war zones. "This indicates that the answer is yes." External link: http://tinyurl.com/yfybske ‘They Kept Pumping Bullets Into
Us’ By Firas Al-Atraqchi Al Jazeera January 2, 2010 The Iraqi government is
under increasing pressure to aggressively pursue the prosecution of American
military personnel accused of killing Iraqis. The recent decision by
Ricardo Urbina, a district judge, to dismiss charges against five security
contractors accused of gunning down 17 Iraqis, including women and children,
in September 2007 has re-ignited deep discord among Iraqis, and fuelled
suspicions that US personnel operate in a lawless void while in Iraq. An Iraqi investigation into
the incident two years ago contradicted Blackwater claims that its
contractors had fired in self-defence after coming under attack in central
Baghdad. In January 2008, the Iraqi government barred Blackwater from
providing security detail to US diplomatic staff in the country, citing the
firm's use of excessive force. A US congressional
investigation into Blackwater operations appeared to corroborate Baghdad's
accusations that the firm routinely used "excessive" and
"pre-emptive" force. In November 2007, FBI investigators found that
14 of the 17 killings had been "unjustified" and violated
"deadly force rules" for security contractors operating in Iraq. However, Urbina threw out
the case last week saying that US justice department prosecutors had improperly
used sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. While the Iraqi government
said it regretted the judge's decision and vowed to appeal the ruling,
ordinary Iraqis are left wondering at the apparent double standards of a
legal system which could pioneer rendition, imprisonment and torture based on
far less evidence, but fumble a case like this. However, Mohammed Kinani,
whose nine-year-old son Ali was killed in the shooting, told Al Jazeera that
Urbina's dismissal does not signal the end of the criminal or civil cases
brought against Blackwater. "The FBI has been
investigating this case for 27 months and there are witnesses to the event as
well as forensic evidence which indicate that this is not the end of the
road," he said. ‘Utter devastation’ Kinani, his sister, her
three children and Kinani's son were in a car in Nisour Square on September
14 when Blackwater guards instructed them to stop. "A few minutes after
several cars in the square stopped, they opened fire on us," Kinani
said. "My son was hit, my
sister was lightly injured, my car was hit by dozens of rounds. A man in
front of me was killed and lying in a pool of his own blood and every few
moments they would fire on him again ... they continued pumping bullets into us. "They utterly
devastated everything in front of them. As if they were bent on
revenge." Haitham Ahmed, whose wife
and son were killed in the shooting, told the Associated Press that the way
the prosecution handled the case raises doubts over whether the US justice
system could deliver a fair verdict. "If a judge ...
dismissed the trial, that is ridiculous and the whole thing has been but a
farce," he said. Dahlia Wasfi, an
Iraqi-American who is currently writing a book about the "illegal
occupation of Iraq", says that Iraqis have largely given up on waiting
for justice "or democracy, for that matter", from Washington. "There are over 1.3
million dead Iraqis who deserve justice. There are over 5 million displaced
Iraqis who have the right of return to a safe country who deserve justice.
What the United States has to understand is that without justice, there will
be no peace," she says. Immunity to impunity? But Blackwater Worldwide,
since renamed Xe Services, is not the only security contractor operating in
Iraq. Since the US-led invasion
and occupation in 2003, more than 100 private security firms have set up shop
in Iraq, many of their names and mandates unknown to the media. All have been granted
immunity from Iraqi prosecution under an agreement signed by Paul Bremer, the
Coalition Provisional Authority head, and the Iraqi Governing Council, an
interim political body established after the fall of Baghdad, in 2004. Despite the handing of
sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, 2004, this immunity exemption remains in
effect today. In fact, private security
firms in Iraq, much like Blackwater, took over major tasks and operations,
which had previously been primarily assigned to US forces. The hope at the
time had been that US forces would remain in their barracks, avoid improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) and ambushes, reduce the body count, and keep the US
public firmly behind the war. In effect, private security firms become the de
facto military presence in Iraq - outnumbering the official count of non-US
military "coalition" forces. As of November 2007,
Blackwater had earned more than $485mn in government contracts. "Iraqis are certainly
aware - far more aware than Americans - that there are numerous groups,
armies, and militias working under the occupation to devastate Iraqi society
and terrorise them. Blackwater and its henchmen are known in Iraq; in March
2008, Iraqi doctors in Falluja named an outbreak of severe malarial infection
'Blackwater Fever' because it's so lethal," says Wasfi. Cursory investigations The US government has no
means of monitoring who the private security contractors are, what they do or
how much they are paid and, in June 2009, a US congressional Wartime
Contracting Commission found that the US military had failed to provide
adequate oversight of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraqis have grown tired of
the explanations repeatedly offered as justification for the killing of
civilians and say US investigators have only offered cursory investigations,
usually siding with the accounts of private security firms. Amnesty International USA
has also been critical of the way the US government has handled accusations
of impropriety by private security contractors, saying that "the US
justice department has largely failed in its obligation to prosecute US
contractors for serious human rights violations, and worse, it appears to
have taken steps to undermine access to justice". In his ruling, Judge Urbina
said that lead prosecutor Ken Kohl and others "purposefully flouted the
advice" of senior justice department officials who told them not to use
the statements that he eventually ruled as impermissible. Whether the prosecution's
faux pas was the result of incompetence or willful sabotage is immaterial at
this point; the Blackwater case was seen as a test of future Iraq-US
relations, particularly given that US combat troops are to fully withdraw
from Iraq by 2011. The case also marked the
culmination of years of frustrated efforts by Iraqi civilians and politicians
to hold accountable not only private contractors, but the US military as
well, for excessive use of force. Kinani says his family is
still distraught about the killing of his son but that he derives strength
from knowing that the Nisour Square incident not only brought Iraq's Shias
and Sunnis together but also revealed what ordinary civilians were facing
under occupation. "The killings in Nisour
Square woke the Iraqi and US authorities to the horrors of what such security
firms were doing in Iraq," he said, "and motivated them to take
legal action." External link: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/01/2010128143176494.html |