Blackwater, State Dept covered up incidents in Iraq
By Steve Benen Sunday Sep 30, 2007 6:54pmThe House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing tomorrow on Blackwater’s activities in Iraq, and by all indications, lawmakers will have plenty to talk about.
Guards working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State Department, a report prepared for a Congressional committee said today.
The report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, depicts the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets.
In one incident, the State Department and Blackwater agreed to pay $15,000 to the family of a man killed by “a drunken Blackwater contractor,” the report said. As a State Department official wrote, “We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission.”
And when it comes to alleged Blackwater malfeasance, that’s really just scratching the surface.
Also note, Republicans want Waxman to postpone the hearing, and despite the scandals, Blackwater keeps getting lucrative contracts.
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It is a Condoleezza cover-up.
-GSD
Still waiting for someone to post the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the Blackwater employees and the owners and business officers. Waiting.
Totally out of control. Why are we paying for a private army that costs us 3-5 times what we pay our military.
The shit has hit the fan. Only question now is, will anyone do anything about it?
when did State give up the "hearts and minds" campaign,why did they go Rambo? Bringing democracy one dead Iraqi at a time.
Talk about the tail wagging the dog... Wouldn't it even be in the Republican best interest to control that evangelical mad-dog that runs Blackwater? I mean really, he sure hasn't helped them politically on the balance. (Financially, sure).
Is it just arrogance that they think that screwing up our chances in Iraq doesn't matter? Or can they really not control some of their own no-bid-contract paid-for goons? If they're going to be corrupt they could at least be competent corrupt politicians.
Since Cofer Black is part of Blackwater, my guess is, this will just be investigated until the next scandel erupts.
A local right wing radio show defended Blackwater insisting they are 'protecting freedom', any anyone who opposes their actions 'hates freedom.
For the love of Jeff, please someone, how exactly do right wingers DEFINE the woird 'freedom'?
Blackwater's reality doesnt seem very Christian Mr Prince.
Senate approves $150B in war funding AP - 1 hour, 20 minutes ago
can you say.... state sponsored terrorism...
GO GET EM WAXMAN!
eddienic @ 5:
It's not just the poor Iraqis, ask any soldier that has had run-ins with these assholes. They get up into the faces of military guys and they know damn good and well that guys in uniform can't do shit because they're are subjet to the UCMJ. Blackwater is not. They are complete dickwads. And many of the lower level guys couldn't pass the background checks here in the states to get rent-a-cop jobs, but over there who gives a shit. They're a danger to everybody.
Choam Nomsky @ 8:
"Freedom is whatever Daddy tells us to do."
GSD @ 1:
Condi has no conscience. No soul. No real intellect. She is empty. And capable of being manipulated.
Anyone still doubt this administration supports terrorists? Blackwater certainly qualifies as a terrorist group by any nations standards. We need laws passed NOW to put this group out of business to bar it's murderers from coming back into the USA when they will no doubt commit more terrorist acts in the name of the GOP when they lose the election next fall.
VietVet8666 @ 15:
Yep. She used to be a Dem. Apparently thought she would be on faster track to the top with Repubs so she switched parties without missing a beat.
Stop using Blackwater? But then how will Halliburton and all the other crooks steal so much money?
Blackwater is not the problem, Blackwater is a symptom of the bigger problem; our government is controlled by immoral criminals. If Blackwater is kicked out of Iraq, all the bad crap will go on with Blackwater being replaced by some other company. While Blackwater isn't something I support as I don't want there to be private armies, they are going to end up being the scapegoat just like the guards at Abu Ghraib.
No one could have predicted that the Bush administration and its corporate donors would cover anything up.
wtf another hearing , wtf another hearing wtf another hearing wtfs it matter
Bitch bitch bitch. Don't you people realize that there is baseball going on right now? Hello--America's pastime?
SD up on the Rox, 5 to 4. A real pitchers' duel.
Well at least Blackwater is providing jobs for all of those young reckless men coming out of prison.
Winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis one bullet, or in the case of Blackwater, multiple bullets at a time.
So what else is new? THis administration is the worst and most corrupt in history.
It was also the military contractors in Abu Ghraib that pushed for torture. What is prohibited in the constitution, the Bush Administration hires mercenaries to perform. We should revoke their citizenship.
When the US hires murderers for hire we all suffer.
im ready to join up !the republican army can start the war in the south we can get them from the north choose yer side!
The day will come when people look back to this time in total disbelief. They will wonder how a free country could give up it's rights to a madman in the hopes of attaining a sense of security. . .
tyree @ 20:
At the moment, the smirking chimp has a pardoning pen, and we have a compromised justice department. If we prosecute anyone, he is just going to pardon them...so we sit on our hands and wait for another 14 months to get justice.
V V
Vitam Vas @ 28:
my justice for thems called colt 45 1911
they also shoot serving US soldiers.
Praise Jaysus! A-MEN, brothers! Larry Craig is NOT gay, and Blackwater serves god's(tm) will!
Godless SOB @ 31:
gods will?
God this makes me so angry. We invaded a country for no legitimate reason and just destroy it. And just to add to the misery we allow blackwater types to stomp their way around, bullying as they went. There was such a lack of respect. Will the blackwater people be held accountable? You know, the world is still looking for the war criminals of Bosnia. What makes these guys any different? The fact that they are American? It's criminal.
Jeanne @ 33:
they will be tough on mop up opperations
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 6:
You're missing the point - don't use your moral imperatives to analyze their actions. The Bush Administration put Blackwater in Iraq, (and in New Orleans after Katrina), and they are not looking at this the same way you are. Seriously. They are just fine with what Blackwater's doing.
Think about it: why would Bush have signed an Executive Order which granted immunity from legal prosecuton to all American corporations and their employees at the start of his little Iraqi business venture? Why? (http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/archives/2003/05/may_22_200...),
American corporations in Iraq have carte blanche to commit murder because George W. Bush wanted it that way and signed an order to make it that way.
They haven't screwed up in Iraq at all. When your political philosophy is "When there's blood in the streets, there's money to be made", then endless war is just what you want.
Bush and his buddies will continue to suck every last drop of blood out of Iraq until he is forcibly stopped.
And I got news for you: as far as Bush is concerned, we're all Iraqis, just here to enrich him & his buddies.
Dana @ 4:
No, but eventually the public will blame Democrats for this.
We're going to spend years getting out from under the mess Bush has created.
One should ask, if Blackwater were to be deployed again in the US, would citizens have the right of shoot first and ask questions later concerning them as they would probably do the same to us.
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 6:
Exactly .... dead on.
Yep, we lowly citizens are being EnWronged by Bush/Cheney. "Trust us" they say, as we keep thinking the government has our best interests at heart, and they bankrupt the entire country financially militarily and morally.
dothehop @ 37:
i vote yes
Most people ignore what is happening because they spend day after day trying to make a living. Who has time to think when your working ten hours days and spending two in traffic? The Bush administration is counting on the people's apathy. I wonder how many really have a clue what Blackwater is. Many still think Iraq was involved with 9/11. It's just easier that way.
bush/cheney and this administration = criminals and enemy combattants of the USA
Blackwater just got a new $92b contract from Uncle Sam. The nuts are running the asylum. They do what they and nobody has the balls to stop this madness.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ02Ak04.html
they do what they want...
screwing up our chances in Iraq ??
Not sure what chances people are talking about here. It's all Business and Money.
Sad and unfortunate that many has taken this so seriously and given up their lives.
Just search for Movie "Iraq for Sale" (runs 1 hr and 6 min) and watch it, if you have not so far.
It is pure business.
If you look who are makes up of CEO/Presidents/Board of this companies and their contacts with Pentagon and Administration, you will understand how public tax money is transferred to some elite group on the name of spreading "Democracy" and "Freedom" around the world.
In the movie one guy, Truck Driver for KBR says (of private contracts) truly "It is a legal way of stealing public money"
One guy says -working for CACI - as interrogator at Abu Ghareb prison made 140K in 8 months.
There are ~180,000 private contractors in addition to 160,000 American Troop in Iraq at present.
Just so we're all clear on this, we taxpayers just paid $15,000 to buy off the family of a man killed by "a drunken Blackwater contractor”.
Proud to be an American... :(
Jeanne @ 41:
You got that right. Gore has even talked about it; first in relation to the environment, but then, in relation to everything that has happened since 2000. If Americans ever really acknowledge what has been done in their name, they will have a moral imperative to act upon that knowledge.
You see it all the time in abused families. Dad's doin' the nasty to one of the kids, and nobody notices it. He gets caught red-handed and everybody swears that they never had a clue. Germans who lived downwind of the concentration camps swore they never smelled a thing, but the troops that liberated the camps said that the stench of death was in the air for miles before they got there.
Atrocities always have witnesses, getting them to admit what they witnessed is a whole other thing. One thing I know: we've got a lot of kids coming home veterans of a bad war, who have seen some bad things, who have done some bad things. At some point this country is going to have to deal with acknowledging what we stood by and allowed in our name.
All because we didn't want to admit, or deal with, what we let into the White House.
another national disgrace
screwing up our chances in Iraq
Not sure what chances people are talking about here. It's all Business and Money.
Sad and unfortunate that many has taken this so seriously and given up their lives.
Just search for Movie "Iraq for Sale" (runs 1 hr and 6 min) and watch it, if you have not so far.
It is pure business.
If you look who makes up of CEO/Presidents/Board of this companies and their contacts with Pentagon and Administration, you will understand how public tax money is transferred to some elite group on the name of spreading "Democracy" and "Freedom" around the world.
In the movie one guy, Truck Driver for KBR says (of private contracts) truly "It is a legal way of stealing public money"
One guy says -working for CACI - as interrogator at Abu Ghareb prison made 140K in 8 months.
There are ~180,000 private contractors in addition to 160,000 American Troop in Iraq at present.
32 tyree Says:
gods will?
God™ is a wholly owned subsidiary of GOPUSA.
Senate approves $150B in war funding
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 1, 6:51 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 92-3 vote comes as the House planned to approve separate legislation Tuesday that requires President Bush to give Congress a plan for eventual troop withdrawals.
Ron @ 3:
I wonder how much the French pay their Foreign Legion?
And our tax dollars just keep on working!
US Pays Steep Price for Private Security in Iraq
By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post
Monday 01 October 2007
It costs the U.S. government a lot more to hire contract employees as security guards in Iraq than to use American troops.
It comes down to the simple business equation of every transaction requiring a profit.
The contract that Blackwater Security Consulting signed in March 2004 with Regency Hotel and Hospital of Kuwait for a 34-person security team offers a view into the private-security business world. The contract was made public last week by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee majority staff as part of its report on Blackwater's actions related to an incident in Fallujah on March 31, 2004, when four members of the company's security team were killed in an ambush.
Understanding the contract's details requires some background: Regency was a subcontractor to another company, ESS Support Services Worldwide, of Cyprus, that was providing food and catering supplies to U.S. armed forces in Fallujah and other cities in Iraq. And ESS was a subcontractor to KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, which had the prime contract with the Defense Department.
So, Blackwater was a subcontractor to Regency, which was a subcontractor to ESS, which was a subcontractor to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, the prime contractor for the Pentagon - and each company along the way was in business to make a profit.
Under the contract, Regency was to pay Blackwater $11,082,326 for one year, with a second year option, to put together a 34-person team that would provide security services for the "movement of ESS's staff, management and workforce throughout Kuwait and Iraq and across country borders including the borders of Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey and Jordan."
Blackwater's personnel were to do more than just convoy security. They were also to run command centers in Kuwait and Iraq 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that were to control all ESS security operations; prepare risk assessments; develop security procedures; train ESS personnel in security; and even vet other Iraqi security forces hired by Regency.
But their main role was to provide "tactically sound and fully mission capable protective security details, the minimum team size [being] six operators with a minimum of two vehicles to support ESS movements."
Blackwater's pricing was to be on "a per person support basis, not including costs for housing, subsistence, vehicles and large equipment items," according to the contract. The team would be made up of two senior managers, 12 middle managers and 20 operators.
Regency was to provide Blackwater personnel with housing and necessities, including meals, as well as office space and administrative support. In addition, Regency would provide basic equipment, including vehicles and heavy weapons, while Blackwater was responsible for purchasing individual weapons and ammunition.
According to data provided to the House panel, the average per-day pay to personnel Blackwater hired was $600. According to the schedule of rates, supplies and services attached to the contract, Blackwater charged Regency $1,075 a day for senior managers, $945 a day for middle managers and $815 a day for operators.
According to data provided to the House panel, Regency charged ESS an average of $1,100 a day for the same people. How the Blackwater and Regency security charges were passed on by ESS to Halliburton's KBR cannot easily be determined since the catering company was paid on a per-meal basis, with security being a percentage of that charge.
Halliburton's KBR blended its security costs into the blanket costs passed on to the Defense Department.
How much more these costs are compared with the pay of U.S. troops is easier to determine.
An unmarried sergeant given Iraq pay and relief from U.S. taxes makes about $83 to $85 a day, given time in service. A married sergeant with children makes about double that, $170 a day.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.
roooth @ 35:
So option "A" then? ;) Frighteningly, your statement reads like a fringe manifesto. Except, I'm firmly in the center, and I concur on almost every point. It is truly amazing just how far out there these guys in the administration really are. I mean WAYYY the frick out there.
That is what I meant by arrogance. They really, actually thought (and apparently still think) that their 7 nations in 5 years hash dream (see Wes Clark), with permanent occupation, and seizure of resources was/is still doable. And the occupation HAS to continue so that money can pump from taxpayer -> government -> no-bid contract cronies -> back to campaign contributions. And meanwhile the personal wealth just explodes for those on the "inside" through investment groups (carlyle) or even the contractors themselves. I agee. Heck, most of the facts are already out there. I do think they underestimated the public backlash and their own ability to sell their planned perpetual war.
I still think that they will be punished for such arrogance in stealing the money from our pockets and the best and brightest from our families. Perhaps not in their lifetimes, but history WILL show them for the traitorous villains they are. Their families, with all their blood money, will be haunted with shame for generations and curse their names. And yes, I know. As they have no religion or morals, they are just fine with this, or so they think.
"noone could have anticipated...."-Condi on her latest shoe shopping expo when asked about Blackwater
o well joke's on them.Ever wonder why none of the leadership doesn't spend much time walking around in Iraq? The whole place is hot in a nuclear kind of way having expended more than 1,820 tons of depleted uranium in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters.The bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was reported to contain 64 kg. of enhiched uranium. Depleted uranium is 60% as active as enriched uranium so the math goes like, 1820 tons X 2000# /141#(64 kg. X 2.2#per kilo) X 60% effectiveness = 15,489 Hiroshima sized bombs.Birth defects are up 600% in Iraq and the same will apply to the blackwater boys coming home or they may slowly waste away from uranium poisoning in the coming decades.Hope they got paid enough.
It is difficult to see this sort of situation as anything other than state-sponsored terrorism.
Could the U.S. be said to be "harboring" Blackwater?
If Congress knows what's good for the country, they'll take Blackwater apart, never to be put back together again.
That's expecting quite alot form corrupt, gutless moral cowards.
Powell covered up May Lay, Rumsfeld covered up most of the Iraq war and now Rice has to cover up this one.
Who does Olbermann quote so often when he says something to the effect of
'we are surrounded by liars and yet are appalled to find out they are lying to us'
The number of true scumbags in top tier Washington positions reveals what a slimeball nation America has been turned into. Ick!
So the republicans want to delay the hearings. Why? When the other reports come in they the talk about them. Meanwhile, for now, there's a lot to keep them busy.
This is typical republican obstruction. When elections occur, a lot of these republicans will expound on how they're really independent of the president and may even trot out a vote or two which went against the president.
Don't believe them. They always carry the water for Bush when it really counts.
If the Dems in Congress were smart, they'd go after Blackwater and de-fund them completely. Call Blackwater what it is - a group of mercenaries. Say it over and over until the label sticks. Without Blackwater, BuchCo would be at a loss to sustain their military clusterfuck in Iraq. Checkmate.
Of course, our Democratic politicians are too stupid and timid to take such bold action.
It's a damn shame we no longer have an independent functioning Justice Department!
Simon White-Thatch Potentloins@62, I don't think it's so much that they are too stupid and timid as it's their stock portfolios.
I hope each and every one of you downloaded the Congressional report as I just did. If not so please do it now:
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf
# 64
Read it, print it , pass it on to your friends and family!
This changes everything!
Erik Prince of PitsofHell, NC (Blackwater's Darling) plans to take a running jump at a CONGRESSIONAL SEAT. Since it's tough to keep that long, red, arrowtipped, ratlike whip of a tail in your pants, we might do well to watch this freak run. Why?.....
Just for the opportunity to chop the head off of Blackwater. Sociopaths please sign up! You're hired!
I hope this freak of nature comes out to play where he can be exposed to SUNLIGHT. Then we can expose ALL of these mercenary murdering opportunists (there are 4 or 5 companies) who think their next gig will be U.S. citizens after they're thrown out of Iraq.
What nobody semes to be commenting on is the cat-and-mouse game our great friend Nuri has been playing with the Prodigy Condi ever since the convenient advent of this latest atrocity. Nuri to Condi: "Wanna talk about one government 'applying pressure' on another? Sure, we'll talk. Just don't bring your bodyguards. And we may need to talk about ending 'extraterritoriality' for your 'total force,' by the way. After all I want you guys around. Just as long as I can use you the way I want."
tyree @ 40:
Watch them move in on citizens in the next state disaster or (expected) gov't sponsored terr'ist strike. Already cut their baby teeth murdering fleeing looters or people just fleeing after Katrina. NO CONSEQUENCES! We also saw bush steal the National Guard from State governance at the time as well. NO CONSEQUENCES!
What to do when paranoid fantasies of a gang of Blackwater (or generic brands thereof) sociopaths are moving in on your family are realistic.
Especially with the fully funded cooperation of our illustrious wrong-headed lost in a dream enabling democratic congress and senate we trusted last 11-06 to close the door on this massive threat to innocent citizens in the ME and the U.S..
Yeah, gearing up to protect ourselves makes total sense.
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