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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSTUNNER in Sunday's NY Times concerning Blackwater!
[font size=5]Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater[/font]
By JAMES RISEN JUNE 29, 2014
WASHINGTON Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdads Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractors operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwaters top manager there issued a threat: that he could kill the governments chief investigator and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq, according to department reports.
American Embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the State Department investigators as a dispute over the probe escalated in August 2007, the previously undisclosed documents show. The officials told the investigators that they had disrupted the embassys relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave the country, according to the reports.
After returning to Washington, the chief investigator wrote a scathing report to State Department officials documenting misconduct by Blackwater employees and warning that lax oversight of the company, which had a contract worth more than $1 billion to protect American diplomats, had created an environment full of liability and negligence.
< . . . . >
His memo and other newly disclosed State Department documents make clear that the department was alerted to serious problems involving Blackwater and its government overseers before the Nisour Square shooting, which outraged Iraqis and deepened resentment over the United States presence in the country.
< . . . . >
By JAMES RISEN JUNE 29, 2014
WASHINGTON Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdads Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractors operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwaters top manager there issued a threat: that he could kill the governments chief investigator and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq, according to department reports.
American Embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the State Department investigators as a dispute over the probe escalated in August 2007, the previously undisclosed documents show. The officials told the investigators that they had disrupted the embassys relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave the country, according to the reports.
After returning to Washington, the chief investigator wrote a scathing report to State Department officials documenting misconduct by Blackwater employees and warning that lax oversight of the company, which had a contract worth more than $1 billion to protect American diplomats, had created an environment full of liability and negligence.
< . . . . >
His memo and other newly disclosed State Department documents make clear that the department was alerted to serious problems involving Blackwater and its government overseers before the Nisour Square shooting, which outraged Iraqis and deepened resentment over the United States presence in the country.
< . . . . >
(Emphasis added.)
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STUNNER in Sunday's NY Times concerning Blackwater! (Original Post)
markpkessinger
Jun 2014
OP
merrily
(45,251 posts)1. When you dance with the devil......
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)2. +1 And exactly!
gristy
(10,667 posts)3. more discussion here
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)4. Hey! Where did Cheney go???
Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)5. Blackwater = bunch of psychopatic murderers
But the name says it all.
nxylas
(6,440 posts)7. It's not their name any more though, is it?
I thought they were called something else now.
Now it's called "Xe Services", according to wiki.
JustAnotherGen
(31,781 posts)15. No - it's Academi possibly
Constellis Holdings, Inc
Grins
(7,199 posts)6. Whoo-Hoo!!!
Cue Lee Greenwood!!
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)8. More and more rocks being turned over
to expose the scuttling, slimy things beneath....
Light is good. Let's defend all journalists who keep working to shine the light.
Good god.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)11. +1 a whole fucking bunch.
Crowquette
(88 posts)9. Monsanto hired this Republican goon squad to advance GMO goals
Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)13. They are like cancer, really.
Crowquette
(88 posts)17. The whole GMO-chemical corporate onslaught on our food chain is cancerous
pimped as "science" -- while opponents with a host of valid concerns -- are condemned as "anti-science." Talk about projection -- a standard Republican propaganda technique. The GMO-chemical onslaught actually amounts to Fascist Profiteering as corporations systematically enact a totalitarian hegemony over our food system.
Crowquette
(88 posts)19. Shut up and eat your GMO rations
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)10. Lawless America!
Ever since the stolen 2000 election we have not been a nation of laws applied equally.
Faryn Balyncd
(5,125 posts)14. Fascism
Eric Prince should be tried at Nuremberg.
Pholus
(4,062 posts)16. Unsurprising....give a goon a gun and power and...
they act like a goon. Given the whole Eric Prince empire, that particular little gem probably came from the top.
Baitball Blogger
(46,684 posts)18. Now, there's a plug for privatizing.