http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/2...0929bcbcusiraqblackwaterweb_attn_editors_ytop BAGHDAD — On Sept. 9 , the day before Army Gen. David Petraeus , the U.S. military commander in Iraq , and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told Congress that things were getting better, Batoul Mohammed Ali Hussein came to Baghdad on business for the day. A clerk in the Iraqi customs office in Diyala province, she was in the capital to drop off and pick up paperwork at the central office near busy al Khilani Square, not far from the fortified Green Zone, where top U.S. and Iraqi officials live and work. U.S. officials often pass through the square in heavily guarded convoys on their way to other parts of Baghdad . As Hussein walked out of the customs building, an embassy convoy of sport-utility vehicles drove through the intersection. Blackwater security guards, charged with protecting the diplomats, yelled at construction workers at an unfinished building to move back. Instead, the workers threw rocks. The guards, witnesses said, responded with gunfire, spraying the intersection with bullets. Hussein, who was on the opposite side of the street from the construction site, fell to the ground, shot in the leg. As she struggled to her feet and took a step, eyewitnesses said, a Blackwater security guard trained his weapon on her and shot her multiple times. She died on the spot, and the customs documents she'd held in her arms fluttered down the street. Before the shooting stopped, four other people were killed in what would be the beginning of eight days of violence that Iraqi officials say bolster their argument that Blackwater should be banned from working in Iraq . During the ensuing week, as Crocker and Petraeus told Congress that the surge of more U.S. troops to Iraq was beginning to work and President Bush gave a televised address in which he said "ordinary life was beginning to return" to Baghdad , Blackwater security guards shot at least 43 people on crowded Baghdad streets. At least 16 of those people died. Two Blackwater guards died in one of the incidents, which was triggered when a roadside bomb struck a Blackwater vehicle. Still, it was an astounding amount of violence attributed to Blackwater. In the same eight-day period, according to statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers , other acts of violence across the embattled capital claimed the lives of 32 people and left 87 injured, not including unidentified bodies found dumped on Baghdad's streets. The best known of that week's incidents took place the following Sunday, Sept. 16 , when Blackwater guards killed 11 and wounded 12 at the busy al Nisour traffic circle in central Baghdad . Iraqi officials said the guards were unprovoked when they opened fire on a white car carrying three people, including a baby. All died. The security guards then fired at other nearby vehicles, including a minibus loaded with passengers, killing a mother of eight. An Iraqi soldier also died. In Blackwater's only statement regarding the Sept. 16 incident, Anne Tyrell , the company's spokeswoman, denied that the dead were civilians. "The 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies," she said in an e-mail, "and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire." A joint commission of five U.S. State Department officials, three U.S. military officials and eight Iraqis has been formed to investigate the incident, though almost two weeks later, the commission has yet to meet. A U.S. Embassy statement on Thursday, the first official written comment from the embassy since the al Nisour shooting, said that the group was "preparing" to meet. Blackwater and the U.S. Embassy didn't respond to requests for information about the other incidents. But interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors of each incident describe similar circumstances in which Blackwater guards took aggressive action against civilians who seemed to pose no threat. "They killed her in cold blood," Hussein Jumaa Hassan , 30, a parking lot attendant, said of Hussein. Hassan pointed to the bullet-pocked concrete column behind him. He'd hidden behind it. "I was boiling with anger, and I wished that I had a weapon in my hands in those minutes," he said. "They wanted to kill us all." Anyone who moved was shot until the convoy left the square, witnesses said. Also among the dead was Kadhim Gayes , a city hall guard. It took two days for Hussein's family to retrieve her body from the morgue. Before they could, her sister signed a sheet acknowledging the contents of her purse, which had been collected by security guards at the Baghdad city hall— a Samsung cell phone, a change purse with six keys and 37,000 Iraqi dinars ($30) , gold bracelets, a notebook, pens, and photos of her and her children. Three days later, Blackwater guards were back in al Khilani Square, Iraqi government officials said. This time, there was no shooting, witnesses said. Instead, the Blackwater guards hurled frozen bottles of water into store windows and windshields, breaking the glass. Ibrahim Rubaie , the deputy security director at a nearby Baghdad city government office building, said it's common for Blackwater guards to shoot as they drive through the square. He said Blackwater guards also shot and wounded people in the square on June 21 , though there are no official reports of such an incident. On Sept. 13 — the same day Bush gave his "ordinary life" speech— Blackwater guards were escorting State Department officials down Palestine Street near the Shiite enclave of Sadr City when a roadside bomb detonated, ripping through one of the Blackwater vehicles. The blast killed two Blackwater guards. As other guards went to retrieve the dead, they fired wildly in several directions, witnesses said. Mohammed Mazin was at home when he heard the bang, which shattered one of his windows. Then he heard gunfire, and he and his son, Laith, went to the roof to see what was going on. What they saw were security contractors shooting in different directions as a helicopter hovered overhead. Bullets flew through his home's windows, he said. No civilians were killed that day, but five were wounded, according to Iraq's Interior Ministry . The following Sunday, Blackwater guards opened fire as the State Department convoy they were escorting crossed in front of stopped traffic at the al Nisour traffic circle. While U.S. officials have offered no explanation of what occurred that day, witnesses and Iraqi investigators agree that the guards' first target was a white car that either hadn't quite stopped or was trying to nudge its way to the front of traffic. In the car were a man whose name is uncertain; Mahasin Muhsin , a mother and doctor; and Muhsin's young son. The guards first shot the man, who was driving. As Muhsin screamed, a Blackwater guard shot her. The car exploded, and Muhsin and the child burned, witnesses said. Afrah Sattar , 27, was on a bus approaching the square when she saw the guards fire on the white car. She and her mother, Ghania Hussein , were headed to the Certificate of Identification Office in Baghdad to pick up proof of Sattar's Iraqi citizenship for an upcoming trip to a religious shrine in Iran . When she saw the gunmen turn toward the bus, Sattar looked at her mother in fear. "They're going to shoot at us, Mama," she said. Her mother hugged her close. Moments later, a bullet pierced her mother's skull and another struck her shoulder, Sattar recalled. As her mother's body went limp, blood dripped onto Sattar's head, still cradled in her mother's arms. "Mother, mother," she called out. No answer. She hugged her mother's body and kissed her lips and began to pray, "We belong to God and we return to God." The bus emptied, and Sattar sat alone at the back, with her mother's bleeding body. "I'm lost now, I'm lost," she said days later in her simple two-bedroom home. Ten people lived there; now there are nine. "They are killers," she said of the Blackwater guards. "I swear to God, not one bullet was shot at them. Why did they shoot us? My mother didn't carry a weapon." Downstairs, her father, Sattar Ghafil Slom al Kaabi, 67, sat beneath a smiling picture of his wife and recalled their 40-year love story and how they raised eight children together. On the way to the holy city of Najaf to bury her, he'd stopped his car, with her coffin strapped to the top. He got out and stood beside the coffin. He wanted to be with her a little longer. "I loved her more than anything," he said, his voice wavering. "Now that she is dead, I love her more." (Special correspondents Mohammed al Dulaimy , Hussein Kadhim and Laith Hammoudi contributed to this report.) man what a ****ty situation, wonder if they are going to place more regulations in place now.
Yes, some should. Blackwater hid shootings, committee says Security firm fired 122 employees for weapons violations, drugs and alcohol, according to congressional report. By John M. Broder THE NEW YORK TIMES Tuesday, October 02, 2007 WASHINGTON — Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in the vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress. In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims' family members who complained and sought to cover up other episodes, the congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet. In one case last year, the department helped Blackwater spirit an employee out of Iraq less than 36 hours after the employee, drunk on Christmas Eve, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq's two vice presidents. The report, by the Democratic majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, adds weight to complaints from Iraqi officials, U.S. military officers and Blackwater's competitors that company guards have taken an aggressive, trigger-happy approach to their work and have repeatedly acted with reckless disregard for Iraqi lives. The report is also harshly critical of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company's 861 employees in Iraq. On Sept. 16, Blackwater employees were involved in a shooting in a Baghdad square that left at least eight Iraqis dead, an episode that remains clouded. Those shootings have set off outrage among Iraqi officials, who branded them "cold-blooded murder" and demanded that the company be removed from the country. The State Department is conducting three separate investigations of the incident, and on Monday the FBI said it was sending a team to Baghdad to compile evidence for possible criminal prosecution. Neither the State Department nor Blackwater would comment Monday about the 15-page congressional report, but both said their representatives would address it today in testimony before the House committee. Based on 437 internal Blackwater incident reports as well as internal State Department correspondence, the congressional staff report said that Blackwater's use of force was "frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property damage." The report places a significant share of the blame for Blackwater's record in Iraq on the State Department, which has paid Blackwater more than $832 million for security services in Iraq and elsewhere under a diplomatic security contract it shares with two other companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy. Blackwater has reported more shootings than the other two companies combined, but it also currently has twice as many employees in Iraq as the other two companies combined. In the case of the Christmas Eve killing, the report states that an official of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq suggested paying the slain bodyguard's family $250,000, but a lower-ranking official said that such a high payment "could cause incidents with people trying to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family's future." Blackwater ultimately paid the dead man's family $15,000. Blackwater has dismissed 122 of its employees over the past three years for misusing weapons, abusing alcohol or drugs, lewd conduct or violent behavior, according to the congressional report. It has also terminated workers for insubordination, failure to report incidents or lying about them, and publicly embarrassing the company. One employee was dismissed for showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. The 122 personnel terminated by Blackwater is roughly one-seventh of the work force that Blackwater has in Iraq, a ratio that raises questions about the quality of the people working for the company. The only punishment for those dismissed was the termination of their contracts with Blackwater, says the report. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/10/02/1002iraqblackwater.html Congressman Questions Blackwater's Work By RICHARD LARDNER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — The head of a House oversight panel on Tuesday questioned whether the State Department acted as an "enabler" with private contractor Blackwater in Iraq, casting the company as a rogue mercenary force. "Privatizing is working exceptionally well for Blackwater," said Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. "The question for this hearing is whether outsourcing to Blackwater is a good deal to the American taxpayer," he said of Blackwater, which has been paid more than $1 billion in government contracts since 2001. Waxman's House Oversight and Government Reform convened the hearing amid an FBI investigation into a Sept. 16 shootout involving Blackwater personnel that resulted in 11 Iraqis killed. The Justice Department sent the panel a letter Tuesday asking members not to address the incident during the hearing, citing a need to first conclude its investigation. Waxman said he agreed not to probe the specifics of the incident, but that it was within the committee's prerogatives to raise questions about the company's overall performance in Iraq. Several Republicans on the committee called it irresponsible for Waxman to pre-empt the administration's investigation. Blackwater's founder vigorously defended his private security company against charges of covering up Iraqi civilian deaths, saying 30 of its contractors have been killed while protecting U.S. diplomats and no Americans have died while under its watch. "I believe we acted appropriately at all times," Erik Prince told the committee, after praising the skill and dedication of Blackwater employees. Prince sat at the witness table alone. Sitting directly behind him was Stephen Ryan, an attorney with the law firm McDermott Will & Emery. Prince, a former Navy seal, specifically disputed a congressional report's finding that Blackwater is an out-of-control outfit that's indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties. And he maintained that his guards were responding to hostile fire when they engaged in a Sept. 16 shootout while protecting a U.S. convoy. At least 11 Iraqis died as a result of that incident. Prince's contention about the nature of the gunfire exchange is hotly disputed by witnesses and the Iraqi government, and the incident remains under U.S. and Iraqi investigation. "To the extent there was loss of innocent life, let me be clear that I consider that tragic," Prince said in his prepared opening statement to the congressional panel. "Every life, whether American or Iraqi, is precious." But, he added, "based on everything we currently know, the Blackwater team acted appropriately while operating in a very complex war zone." Prince, 38, said existing laws and regulations provide an adequate level of accountability and oversight for contractors in battle zones. But, "Blackwater believes that more can and should be done to increase accountability, oversight and transparency," he said. Prince said the company supports legislation written by North Carolina Democratic Rep. David Price, a longtime advocate of increasing the legal oversight of contractors. This week, the House will consider a bill from Price that would make all contractors subject to prosecution in U.S. courts. Waxman said at least one incident raises questions about the State Department's involvement. In December 2006, after a drunken Blackwater contractor shot an Iraqi guard, the State Department advised the company how much to pay the family and then allowed the contractor to leave Iraq 36 hours after the shooting. Internal e-mails later revealed a debate within the State Department on the size of the payment. "It's hard to read these e-mails and not come to the conclusion that the State Department is acting as Blackwater's enabler," Waxman said. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the committee's top Republican, said the State Department is "trying to get it right," but its oversight of security contractors "seems to have some blind spots as well," according to his opening statement. There's little data on contractor performance, Davis said, "so it's impossible to know if one company's rate of weapons related incidents is the product of a dangerous 'cowboy' culture or the predictable result of conducting higher-risk missions." Davis said concentrating only on Blackwater won't answer the complex questions surrounding the use of security contractors. "Nor are we likely to learn much by focusing on one sensational incident still under investigation," Davis said. Blackwater has nearly 1,000 personnel working in Iraq. Prince rejected a claim in a congressional report released Monday, saying Blackwater does not engage in "offensive or military missions, but performs only defensive security functions." While noting that the Sept. 16 incident remains under investigation, Prince said Blackwater guards acted properly after a car bomb exploded near a diplomatic convoy they were protecting. After the bomb detonated the guards came under small-arms fire and some of them returned fire at "threatening targets," which included vehicles that appeared to be suicide car bombers. Only five of approximately 20 Blackwater guards involved fired their weapons, Prince said. Blackwater helicopters did assist in directing the convoy to safety, but the choppers did not fire their weapons, he said. "Despite the valiant missions our people conduct each day with great success, in this September 16 instance, Blackwater and its people have been the subject of negative and baseless allegations reported as truth," Prince said. On Monday, the FBI opened an investigation of the Sept. 16 incident - the latest fatal shootings in Iraq involving Blackwater guards. The FBI team was sent at the request of the State Department and its findings will be reviewed for possible criminal liability. Blackwater, founded in 1997 by Prince and headquartered in Moyock, N.C., is the largest of the State Department's three private security contractors. The others are Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, both based in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs. Blackwater has had more shooting incidents than the other two companies combined, according to a report written by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ahead of Tuesday's hearing. Blackwater, which has been paid more than $1 billion in federal contracts since 2001, is embroiled in a host of controversies over the conduct of its guards. Among the Monday report's most serious charges was that Blackwater contractors sought to cover up a June 2005 shooting of an Iraqi man and the company paid — with State Department approval — the families of others inadvertently killed by its guards. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/US_Congress/Blackwater_Iraq.html D&D. Impeach Bush.
