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Blackwater Covered Up 195 Shootings and More
This post, written by Steve Benen, originally appeared on The Carpetbagger Report
The 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.
Previously undisclosed information reveals (1) Blackwater has engaged in 195 "escalation of force" incidents since 2005, an average of 1.4 per week, including over 160 incidents in which Blackwater forces fired first; (2) after a drunken Blackwater contractor shot the guard of the Iraqi Vice President, the State Department allowed the contractor to leave Iraq and advised Blackwater on the size of the payment needed "to help them resolve this"; and (3) Blackwater, which has received over $1 billion in federal contracts since 2001, is charging the federal government over $1,200 per day for each "protective security specialist" employed by the company.Moreover, Josh Marshall has a doozy, highlighting a State Department report that largely exonerates Blackwater personnel involved with the Sept. 16 Baghdad shootings. The report, apparently, was written by Blackwater.
The report was written out of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the folks who hired Blackwater to provide security for US diplomats in Iraq. But it turns out that the State Department employee who interviewed the Blackwater folks and wrote the report, Darren Hanner ... well, he wasn't a State Department employee. He was another contractor from Blackwater.
So yes, you've got that right. We've now reached what can only be called the alpha and the omega of contracting accountability breakdown ridiculousness. We're outsourcing our investigations of Blackwater to Blackwater.And yet, through it all, the U.S. keeps awarding Blackwater more and more lucrative contracts.
Tagged as: iraq war, blackwater, us state department
Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.
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