…you get soaked, dirty, and miserable. Sometimes you feel like things are just out of your hands.
The truth of the matter is that for all its perceived power as America’s elite “security contractors” Blackwater’s fate is no longer determined by Blackwater. Many other players are moving the pieces around the board, and it’s looking more and more like the PMC is the knight being sacrificed to protect the queen.
The US embassy has begun offering thousands of dollars to the victims of a shooting in Baghdad last month involving Blackwater security guards, relatives and US officials say.
But family members of several victims turned down the money, out of concern that acceptance would limit their future claims against the US security firm.
Others said that the money being offered, in some cases $US12,500 ($13,850) for a death, was paltry and that they wanted to sue Blackwater in a US court.
“This is an insult,” said Firoz Fadhil Abbas, whose brother Osama was among 17 Iraqis who died in the barrage of bullets fired by Blackwater guards on September 16. “The funeral and the wake cost more than what they offered. My brother who got killed was responsible for four families.”
The offers of compensation, while a standard practice in the US military, are unusual for the US embassy to undertake, reflecting the diplomatic and political sensitivities raised by the shootings, which sparked outrage in Iraq and the US.
An embassy spokeswoman, Mirembe Nantongo, described the offers as “condolence payments” to support the relatives of the victims and said they were not intended to be a final settlement of their claims. Relatives could still bring suits against Blackwater.
“It’s not an admission of culpability,” Ms Nantongo said.
The “condolence payment”. That’s what the mighty United States of America has been reduced to: a country where the “condolence payment” is now a matter of accepted government “best practices”.
I have no pity for Blackwater. But it’s interesting to see that the company’s being “thrown under the bus” (to use the vernacular) so quickly in order to protect the big fish that matter in this bloody pond. In the chess game, Blackwater was never more than just another piece, another variable in the calculus of death this administration has been scrawling on history’s blackboard. And now more pieces on the chessboard are being sacrificed for the queen’s sake.
Richard Griffin, the State Department official in charge of diplomatic security, announced his resignation today.
According to an internal e-mail read to AP, Griffin gave no reason for his departure upon making the announcement at a weekly staff meeting.
A review panel created after the Sept. 16 shooting of several unarmed Iraqi civilians by Blackwater USA security guards concluded that there was insufficient oversight of private contractors by State Department security personnel. Griffin, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, effectively employs the private guards hired to protect U.S. diplomatic employees in Iraq.
Following the shootings, which prompted the Iraqi government to order Blackwater employees out of the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered new operating guidelines for contractors. Yesterday, the State Department announced that future incidents involving contractors could be referred to the Justice Department, and that the ground rules for security guards would be brought closer in line to those of the U.S. military, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly.
Earlier this month, Rice ordered all Blackwater convoys to be outfitted with cameras and accompanied by a State Department security official.
Meanwhile, more Democrats are signing on to the Blackwater tax evasion investigation juggernaut.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry vowed on Thursday to press for further investigation of the tax practices of Blackwater USA, the private security firm already under scrutiny over killings of Iraqi civilians.
“Blackwater is hiding behind the Bush administration to explain why they bilked the taxpayers out of millions of dollars,” said the Massachusetts Democrat in a statement. “I intend to get to the bottom of this.”
I’d like to hear more from some of the current Democratic candidates for Bush’s job and where they stand on Blackwater’s books, particularly Hillary and Obama.
“How do you know Blackwater is doomed?” people ask me. I reply simply that when your defenders call your actions “horrific” you’re not long for this world.
The U.S. ambassador said yesterday he still held Blackwater USA bodyguards in “high regard” even as he labeled the killing of 17 Iraqis by the company’s security contractors a “horrific” incident that prompted him to seek an FBI probe.
The Iraqi government has demanded Blackwater’s expulsion within six months and $8 million compensation for each of the victims of the Sept. 16 shootings.
Ambassador Ryan Crocker lauded the Blackwater guards, mostly military veterans who protect him and other American envoys and officials in Baghdad’s dangerous streets.
“Those guys guard my back,” he said, “and I have to say they do it extremely well. I continue to have high regard for the individuals who work for Blackwater, as I do for other security contractors. That said, the incident in September was . . . horrific.”
He also said he had failed to fully examine possible problems with Blackwater. Critics have accused the Moyock, N.C.-based company of lax oversight of its heavily armed security teams in Iraq.
“I’m the ambassador here, so I’m responsible,” Crocker said, responding to questions from Western reporters. “Yes, I certainly do wish I’d had the foresight to see that there were things out there that could be corrected.”
If only Crocker would take responsibility for the thousands of other murders in Iraq we’ve committed. you know you’re in trouble when anybody in this administration “takes responsibility” for anything. Again, if this is the best defense of Blackwater that the Bushies can manage, Blackwater’s a goner. It will not survive this incident.
The problem is plenty of PMCs and of course Bush and Cheney will survive this incident.