[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: We're paying $440,000 a year for each Blackwater guard Panel: State Department suggested Blackwater pay off dead Iraqi's family Q1x00075_9 Feeling the financial pinch? There's always Iraq. The House Government Reform Committee reports in a new memo that the U.S. government is paying Blackwater USA $1,222 a day for each of the company's guards. (That adds up to $445,000 a year for each of the private security firm's guards, according to the committee.) Chairman Henry Waxman, the Democrat who has been leading an investigation into the controversial private military contractor, says Blackwater USA has averaged 1.4 shooting incidents a week since it started protecting U.S. officials. In about 80% of cases, Waxman says the company's employees fired the first shots. Today's memorandum, which is addressed to members of the committee and available here, also quotes from State Department documents dealing with the deaths of Iraqi nationals. Here's the congressional investigators' summary of one shooting: In a high-profile incident in December 2006, a drunken Blackwater contractor killed the guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi. Within 36 hours after the shooting, the State Department had allowed Blackwater to transport the Blackwater contractor out of Iraq. The State Department Charge d'Affaires recommended that Blackwater make a "sizeable payment" and an "apology" to "avoid this whole thing becoming even worse." The Charge d'Affaires suggested a $250,000 payment to the guard's family, but the Department's Diplomatic Security Service said this was too much and could cause Iraqis to "try to get killed." In the end, the State Department and Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment. One State Department offrcial wrote: "We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission." CEO Erik Prince, a longtime Republican donor, is scheduled to testify at tomorrow's hearing. "We look forward to setting the record straight on this issue and others tomorrow when Erik Prince testifies before the committee," Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell tells On Deadline in an e-mail message. For something a little lighter, check out the latest installment of Tom Ricks's Inbox, a weekly feature in The Washington Post that was devoted this weekend to a phenomenon called "Blackwater Fever." Update at 2:59 p.m. ET: We're scratching our heads over a CNN story that says the State Department assigned a contractor who works for Blackwater to investigate a high-profile incident that involved security guards who also work for Blackwater. "Blackwater -- which provides security to U.S. diplomats -- says its employees responded properly to an insurgent attack on a convoy, and the State Department initial 'spot report' written by the Blackwater contractor underscores that scenario and doesn't mention civilian casualties," CNN says in a story based on anonymous sources. "However, that account is at odds with what the Iraqis are saying." (File photo of private security guards taken Sept. 18 by Patrick Baz, AFP.) I want to see this gang of thugs broken up. For good. They're murdering scum.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
#7. To: Mekons4 (#0)
Thomas Jefferson's comment on mercenaries in the Declaration of Independence.
There are no replies to Comment # 7. End Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||