Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates 1,000 killed in one week

Jan. 04, 2007 - 2:28 PM
Law & Orders
Security Contractors and Reporters, Together Under the Law
Paul McLeary

... In this morning's Washington Post, Griff Witte and Renae Merle reported on a new wrinkle in the contractor debate -- FBI documents released on Tuesday that "include several new allegations of questionable treatment of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay" which "put private contractors at the center of interrogation operations, raising questions once again about where they fit in the military's chain of command."

In the penultimate paragraph of the piece, the two write that, since the contractors fall under shaky legal provenance, "It's unclear how the law would apply to the contractors this time. Contractors have traditionally not been subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the body of laws that governs the behavior of soldiers. Other laws apply to contractors, but many remain untested."

What was left out of this paragraph could fill a library. For a more fleshed-out look at the legal standing of private military contractors, one would be better served to take a look at a post from P.W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, at the DefenseTech.org blog, posted yesterday. Singer knows a thing or two about contractors, having written a book on the subject, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry ...

http://www.cjrdaily.org/politics/security_contractors_and_repor.php

Private U.S. team linked to jail escape
Ex-minister held in the Green Zone for graft has fled, officials say.
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
December 19, 2006

BAGHDAD — A once-prominent Iraqi American, jailed on corruption charges, was sprung from a Green Zone prison this weekend by U.S. security contractors he had hired, several Iraqi officials said.

Ayham Sameraei, a Chicago-area businessman, returned to Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and assumed the position of electricity minister during the interim government of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

A Sunni Arab who claimed ties to the insurgency, Sameraei was arrested in August of this year and charged with a dozen counts of misallocating millions of dollars in Iraqi government money. He was sentenced in October to two years' imprisonment. At that time, security contractors took him to the U.S. Embassy before he could be jailed, but U.S. officials handed him over to Iraqi authorities.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed Monday that Sameraei was no longer in prison. He said U.S. officials scrambled into the evening to locate him ... http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-escape19dec19,0,4268212.story

Hired guns unaccountable
Pentagon releases 400 'serious incident reports' voluntarily filed by security contractors in Iraq
Published: Mar 23, 2006 12:30 AM

Jay Price, Staff Writer
About 6,000 non-Iraqi security contractors are operating in Iraq. During nine months in 2004-05, contractors reported firing into 61 civilian vehicles; no one was ever prosecuted. Security analysts say it is likely that such incidents are vastly underreported.

Security contractors supporting the U.S. effort in Iraq regularly shoot into civilian cars with little accountability, according to a News & Observer analysis of more than 400 reports contractors filed with the government.

In the documents, which cover nine months of the three-year-old war, contractors reported shooting into 61 vehicles they believed were threatening them. In just seven cases were Iraqis clearly attacking -- showing guns, shooting at contractors or detonating explosives.

There was no way to tell how many civilians were hurt, or how many were innocent: In most cases, the contractors drove away. No contractors have been prosecuted for a mistaken shooting in Iraq ...
http://www.newsobserver.com/511/story/421071.html

Private Security Guards Operate with Little Supervision
By T. Christian Miller

Los Angeles Times
December 4, 2005

Private security contractors have been involved in scores of shootings in Iraq, but none have been prosecuted despite findings in at least one fatal case that the men had not followed proper procedures, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Times. Instead, security contractors suspected of reckless behavior are sent home, sometimes with the knowledge of U.S. officials, raising questions about accountability and stirring fierce resentment among Iraqis.

Thousands of the heavily armed private guards are in Iraq, under contract with the U.S. government and private companies. The conduct of such security personnel has been one of the most controversial issues in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last week, a British newspaper publicized a so-called trophy video that appears to show private contractors in Iraq firing at civilian vehicles as an Elvis song plays in the background ... http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/reconstruct/2005/1204supervision.htm

Security Contractors in Iraq Under Scrutiny After Shootings

By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 10, 2005; Page A01

... A U.S. investigation of the July 14 incident concluded that no American contractors were responsible, a finding disputed by the Ismaels, other witnesses, local politicians and the city's top security official, who termed it a coverup. No one has yet been held responsible.

Recent shootings of Iraqi civilians, allegedly involving the legion of U.S., British and other foreign security contractors operating in the country, are drawing increasing concern from Iraqi officials and U.S. commanders who say they undermine relations between foreign military forces and Iraqi civilians ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090902136.html

Marines detain `contractors' in Iraq
`MERCENARIES': In a country where nearly everyone is armed and insurgents carry out daily attacks, trigger-happy private security contractors aren't very popular

AP, BAGHDAD
Friday, Jun 10, 2005, Page 7

The US military said yesterday it is investigating a shooting incident near Fallujah last month that led to 19 private security contractors, including 16 Americans, being detained by Marines.

US Marines said the contractors were held for three days after firing on Iraqis and Marines in western Iraq, the military said. No casualties were caused ... http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/06/10/2003258723

Published on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 by MSNBC
U.S. Contractors in Iraq Allege Abuses
Four Men Say they Witnessed Shooting of Unarmed Civilians
by Lisa Myers

... Later, the convoy came upon two teenagers by the road. One allegedly was gunned down.

"The rear gunner in my vehicle shot him," says Colling. "Unarmed, walking kids."

In another traffic jam, they claim a Ford 350 pickup truck smashed into, then rolled up and over the back of a small sedan full of Iraqis.

"The front of the truck came down," says Craun. "I could see two children sitting in the back seat of that car with their eyes looking up at the axle as it came down and pulverized the back." ...

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0216-01.htm

Here Come the Death Squad Veterans
By Louis Nevaer, Pacific News Service. Posted June 16, 2004.

As violent attacks continue in Iraq, corporate America is turning to Latin America to "outsource" protection services to veterans of the region's 'dirty wars' ...

Pizarro's firm, Servicios Integrales, was contracted by Blackwater USA to recruit the first batch of Chileans in November 2003. By May 2004 he had placed 5,200 men who, after one week of training in Santiago, head to North Carolina for orientation with Blackwater, the private security firm that made headlines when four of its employees where killed in Falluja, their bodies mutilated and hung from a bridge. After training, Blackwater flies the men to Kuwait City to await their assignments in Iraq ...

In an interview with the Santiago-based daily newspaper La Tercera, Chilean Minister of Defense Dr. Michelle Bachelet stated that Chilean "mercenaries for American firms doing business in Iraq" may be subject to "arrest or detention in third countries," a reference to recent arrests in Spain and Mexico of South Americans with war-crimes pasts. South American media report that Chileans have requested travel from Chile to the United States and then directly to the Middle East, to bypass Mexico and the European Union. The thousands of Chileans in Iraq have been nicknamed "the penguins" by American and South African soldiers for hire, a reference both to Chile's proximity to the South Pole and the fact that many Chilean mercenaries are of mixed race ...

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/18967/