[Peace-discuss] Blackwater yet and still

[Barbara kessel]

    Maliki Blasts Blackwater Firm for Other Incidents
    By Leila Fadel
    McClatchy Newspapers

    Wednesday 19 September 2007

    Baghdad - Blackwater security guards who protect top U.S.
diplomats in Iraq have been involved in at least seven serious
incidents, some of which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians,
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Wednesday.

    Maliki didn't detail the incidents, which he said add to the case
against the North Carolina-based security firm. Blackwater's license
to operate here has been revoked while U.S. and Iraqi officials
investigate a shooting Sunday that Iraqi officials now say left at
least 11 people dead.

    But Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al Askari told McClatchy
Newspapers that one of the incidents was former Iraqi Electricity
Minister Ahyam al Samarrai's escape from a Green Zone jail in
December. Samarrai had been awaiting sentencing on charges that he had
embezzled $2.5 billion that was intended to rebuild Iraq's decrepit
electricity grid.

    Another incident, Askari said, was the shooting death last month
of a Baghdad taxi driver when Blackwater guards led a convoy the wrong
way down a street. When the taxi driver failed to stop quickly enough
as the convoy approached, the Blackwater guards opened fire, Askari
said.

    Maliki left no doubt that he had already made up his mind about
Blackwater's culpability in Sunday's incident, which Blackwater has
characterized as an ambush, but which survivors and witnesses have
described as an unprovoked shooting spree.

    The prime minister said Iraqi citizens were shot in "cold blood."

    "This company must be called to account for these violations,
because we don't allow them to kill Iraqi citizens in cold blood," he
said. "The people and the Iraqi government are filled with anger and
hatred after this crime."

    U.S. Embassy officials remained silent on the circumstances of
Sunday's shooting. Without security details, U.S. officials remained
banned from traveling to Iraqi government offices or reconstruction
projects outside the heavily protected Green Zone.

    "We can't move," said embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo. "It's
a situation we're going to be revisiting on a daily basis, and yes, it
does have an impact on our operations, but hopefully we will move
beyond this fairly soon."

    "The embassy can work with the help of other companies" if it
wants to continue aid and other programs, Maliki said.

    Maliki's mention of other incidents was an indication of how
deeply offended many Iraqi officials are by what they believe is the
impunity with which Blackwater operates in Iraq. Under a regulation
issued by the American authority that governed Iraq until 2004, U.S.
security companies and their employees are not subject to Iraqi law.

    "All these things are not acceptable," Askari, the Defense
Ministry spokesman, said. "The Americans were surprised with the firm
opposition from us, which forced the American government to send an
apology through (U.S. Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice. Maybe this
will force them to reassess their work with such companies."

    Askari didn't detail each of the seven incidents Maliki mentioned.
But his inclusion of the Samarrai escape raised new questions about a
strange and little-publicized incident of the war.

    Until now, Iraqi officials hadn't named the private security
company that they believe helped Samarrai, the only Iraqi cabinet
official convicted of corruption, to escape from a jail that was
overseen jointly by U.S. and Iraqi guards. He subsequently was
spirited out of the country and is believed to be living in the United
States.

    The U.S. State Department made note of his escape in its December
report on developments in Iraq, saying that "Iraq's Commission on
Public Integrity (CPI) said they believed he fled with the help of
members of a private security company."

    But the accusation that Blackwater, which earned at least $240
million in 2005 from contracts to provide security to U.S. officials
in Baghdad, assisted in his escape raises questions about what
American officials might have known about the breakout.

    A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman couldn't be reached for comment.

    An off-duty Blackwater guard is also suspected in the December
shooting death of a bodyguard assigned to one of Iraq's vice
presidents. The guard was returned to the United States and no charges
were filed.

    Embassy spokeswoman Nantongo said the men involved in Sunday's
shooting were still in Iraq and were expected to stay during the
investigation.

    Askari said that there was little doubt that the Blackwater guards
fired first in Sunday's shooting. He said that Iraqi investigators
have interviewed witnesses and survivors and that evidence in the
investigation included video from cameras at the intersection.

    U.S. officials have called the incident an "exchange of fire," and
Blackwater said its guards were responding to an attack.

    But survivors and witnesses have told McClatchy Newspapers that
the Blackwater guards opened fire without provocation on a white car
carrying a man, woman and child that had tried to edge to the front of
traffic that had stopped as the convoy passed. The guards then strafed
other stopped cars.

    Government spokesman Ali al Dabbagh said Sunday's shooting might
have been swept under the rug like previous incidents if the death
toll hadn't been so high. He estimated that 23 people had been killed,
though that number contradicted information from both the defense and
interior ministries, which said that 11 had died.

    "If this were a small thing, it would have just been incident No.
7," he said. "But the company should be liable for the mistakes that
have happened."