The Blackwater story, instead of falling away into the memory hole, instead is now getting far worse. The Bush Administration’s expected move to pressure the Iraqis into dropping the case and moving on is instead reaching fierce resistance.
Indeed, it seems Blackwater’s transgressions have not only united the Iraqis — Sunni AND Shi’ite — but have united them against the US, not that they weren’t already. Over the weekend, Blackwater’s situation has gotten markedly worse, and that means the Bush Administration will have to deal with a growing problem that they’re not equipped to deal with.
On Saturday, the Iraqis stated that they had video evidence of Blackwater firing on civilians.
Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in an incident last week in which 11 people died, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case had been referred to the Iraqi judiciary.
Any sympathy about the “‘Merican boys versus them ragheads” is rapidly evaporating.
Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into Thursday’s shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.
He told The Associated Press that the conclusion was based on witness statements as well as videotape shot by cameras at the nearby headquarters of the national police command. He said eight people were killed at the scene and three of the 15 wounded died in hospitals.
Blackwater, which provides most of the security for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq, has insisted that its guards came under fire from armed insurgents and shot back only to defend themselves.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Saturday that she knew nothing about the videotape and was contractually prohibited from discussing any details of the shooting.
This of course can’t be good. Video evidence tends to change the way people view you, especially if it’s, say, killing people. But it gets worse.
Khalaf also said the ministry was looking into six other fatal shootings involving the Moyock, North Carolina-based company, including a February 7 incident outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad in which three building guards were fatally shot.
Not only will this story not “go away” but it’s about to spawn a whole new mess of Blackwater tales, sordid and nasty. More incidents will only lead to more nasty questions being asked by the media.
And it turns out Sunday that the other shoe dropped: the Iraqis will indeed file charges against Blackwater within the week.
The Iraqi government said it will file criminal charges against employees of security firm Blackwater USA who were involved a gun battle in Baghdad in which civilians were killed, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said Sunday.
The official said the charges will come within a week.
It is not clear how Iraqi courts will attempt to bring the contractors to trial.
Now again, the Bushies will protest that these PMC mercs are immune to Iraqi prosecution and should face US justice. But frankly, a US court case would be a circus, one where the whole Bush PMC machine would go on trial daily for however long it took, and it would be a complete disaster for them.
It’s getting to the point where the Bushies are going to have to cut a deal here, and for once the Iraqis are holding all the cards, especially now that the news is out that the US was fully aware of the Blackwater problems and ignored them completely.
Senior Iraqi officials repeatedly complained to U.S. officials about Blackwater USA’s alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm until 11 Iraqis were shot dead last Sunday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
Before that episode, U.S. officials were made aware in high-level meetings and formal memorandums of Blackwater’s alleged transgressions. They included six violent incidents this year allegedly involving the North Carolina firm that left a total of 10 Iraqis dead, the officials said.
“There were no concrete results,” Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister who oversees the private security industry on behalf of the Iraqi government, said in an interview Saturday.
The lack of a U.S. response underscores the powerlessness of Iraqi officials to control the tens of thousands of security contractors who operate under U.S.-drafted Iraqi regulations that shield them from Iraqi laws. It also raises questions about how seriously the United States will seek to regulate Blackwater, now the subject of at least three investigations by Iraqi and U.S. authorities. Blackwater, which operates under State Department authority, protects nearly all senior U.S. politicians and civilian officials here.
U.S. Embassy officials did not respond to several requests to describe what action, if any, was taken in response to the six incidents involving Blackwater. Mirembe Nantongo, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman, said the embassy always looks into anything “outside of normal operation procedures.”
So now people are expecting the Bushies to sweep this under the rug, because of course they have before. The usual right wing tactics of “Well they’re clearly lying” cannot work here, because the Iraqi are our allies — allies the Bush machine put in power to begin with. The usual canards of “liberal media” and “not reporting the good news from Iraq” and “They’re attacking our troops” simply do not apply to Blackwater at all. The Democrats, the Iranians, Al-Qaeda, and the media (the usual right wing scapegoats) aren’t involved. These are our allies accusing us of having a private army that is unregulated. Literal loose cannons. Those tend to be bad press.
So we’re at the point where the media is calling Bush out on making this case disappear…because they know this is a huge story and that last week’s killings were but the tip of a huge black iceberg in a red sea of blood. The Bushies can’t get out of this one easily. They can’t throw around their weight anymore with the Iraqi government, because if it looks like the Bushies are trying to duck this, the voters will destroy him.
Again, there’s been no White House response about this. They don’t want near this issue. It’s not going away.
Nor should it.
