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Title: We're paying $440,000 a year for each Blackwater guard
Source:
USA Today
URL Source: http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/10/panel-state-dep.html
Published: Oct 1, 2007
Author: n/a
Post Date: 2007-10-01 15:22:54 by Mekons4
Keywords: None
Views: 197
Comments: 11
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.
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#1. To: Mekons4 (#0)
Would the StateInc allow us to excape the murder of an allied State official for 15 thou?
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition I could probably raise that much in an hour, if the right official was involved. So to speak.
That's twice the amount that was reported a year or so ago.
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Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater By DAVID STOUT and JOHN M. BRODER Published: October 1, 2007 WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — 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 to a Congressional committee said today. Skip to next paragraph Related Text of the Report (pdf) Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage » 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.” The report was compiled by the Democratic majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is scheduled to hold a hearing on Blackwater activities on Tuesday. That hearing is sure to be contentious now that the chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, and other members have the staff’s findings to study. A Blackwater spokeswoman, Anne Tyrrell, had no immediate comment. “We look forward to setting the record straight,” she told The Associated Press. Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and chairman, is to testify before Mr. Waxman’s panel. The State Department said several of its senior officials would address the issues in the report at the hearing on Tuesday. The report is likely to raise questions not only about the wisdom of employing private security forces in Iraq, but also about the basic American mission in the country. Blackwater guards have engaged in nearly 200 incidents of gunfire in Iraq since 2005, and in the vast majority of cases Blackwater people fired their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the injured, the report found. The shootings logged by Blackwater were more than those by the other two private military contractors combined, the committee found. Blackwater has more than twice the number of contractors than the other two combined. The other contractors are DynCorp International and Triple Canopy. “Blackwater also has the highest incidence of shooting first, although all three companies shoot first in more than half of all escalation-of-forces incidents,” the staff report said. And the State Department’s own documents “raise serious questions” about how department officials responded to reports of Blackwater killings of Iraqis, the report said. “There is no evidence in the documents that the committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the committee staff wrote. Moreover, contrary to the terms of its contract, Blackwater sometimes engaged in offensive operations with the American military, instead of confining itself to its protective mission, the staff found. The report also raised questions about the cost-effectiveness of using Blackwater forces instead of United States troops. Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day per guard, “equivalent to $445,000 per year, or six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier,” the report said. The incident involving “a drunken Blackwater contractor” arose when the employee killed a bodyguard for the Iraqi vice president, Adil Abd-al-Mahdi, in December 2006. State Department officials allowed Blackwater to take the shooter out of Iraq less than 36 hours later. Then the State Department charge d’affaires recommended that Blackwater make “a sizable payment” and an “apology” in an effort to “avoid this whole thing becoming even worse,” the report went on. The State Department official suggested a $250,000 payment to the guard’s family, but the department’s Diplomatic Security Service said that was too much and could cause Iraqis to “try to get killed.” In the end, $15,000 was agreed upon. The report adds credence to complaints from Iraqi officials, American military officers and Blackwater’s competitors that company guards have adopted an aggressive, trigger-happy approach and displayed disregard for Iraqi life. In late March 2004, four Americans working for Blackwater were ambushed and killed, and an enraged mob then jubilantly dragged the burned bodies through the streets of downtown Falluja, hanging at least two corpses from a bridge over the Euphrates River. Skip to next paragraph Related Text of the Report (pdf) Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage » The Congressional report, based on 437 internal Blackwater incident reports as well as internal State Department correspondence, says that that Blackwater’s use of force “is frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property damage.” It notes that Blackwater’s contract authorizes it to use lethal force only to prevent “imminent and grave danger” to themselves or the people they are paid to protect. “In practice, however,” the report says, “the vast majority of Blackwater weapons discharges are pre-emptive, with Blackwater forces firing first at a vehicle or suspicious individual prior to receiving any fire.” Among the incidents cited in the report: On Oct. 24, 2005, Blackwater guards fired on a car that failed to heed a warning to stop. In the gunfire, a civilian bystander was hit in the head with a bullet, but Blackwater personnel did not stop. Blackwater officials reported the incident as a “probable killing” but there is no evidence the company offered compensation to the victim’s family. On June 25, 2005, a Blackwater team in Hillah fatally shot an Iraqi man, a father of six, in the chest. The victim’s family complained to the State Department, which said in an internal report that the Blackwater gunmen initially failed to report the killing and tried to cover it up. On Sept. 24, 2006, a Blackwater convoy with four vehicles was driving the wrong way on a road in Hillah when a red Opel failed to get out of the way. The Opel skidded into one of the Blackwater vehicles, disabling it. The Opel then hit a telephone pole and burst into flames. The Blackwater team scooped up its people and equipment from the disabled vehicle and fled the scene without attempting to help the occupants of the burning car. On Nov. 28, 2005, a Blackwater motorcade traveling to and from the Iraqi oil ministry collided with 18 different vehicles. According to an internal Blackwater report of the incident, the statements from employees were “invalid, inaccurate, and at best, dishonest.” Two Blackwater employees were dismissed, but there was no other apparent action taken as a result. www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/washington/01cnd-blackwater.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
Only $440,000 per year? I wonder how much the merc sees outta that amount. Boy, that's some big money for what, over 100,000 "contractors"? Lessee, that'd be about $ 44,000,000,000 say wha...$ 44 BILLION?
"I wish for a bright future for all human beings and the dawn of the liberation of and freedom for all humans, and the rule of love and affection all around the world, as well as the elimination of oppression, hatred, and violence, a wish which I expect will be realized in the near future". -- MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
180,000 mercenaries
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Thomas Jefferson's comment on mercenaries in the Declaration of Independence.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
And remember, the head of Blackwater is a right-wing lunatic billionaire who wants to turn the U.S. into a theocracy. And has the troops to do it, perhaps.
I see the mercenaries whithering and disintegrating, rendering their masters impotent.
"I wish for a bright future for all human beings and the dawn of the liberation of and freedom for all humans, and the rule of love and affection all around the world, as well as the elimination of oppression, hatred, and violence, a wish which I expect will be realized in the near future". -- MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
$440,000/year is not too shabby for a discharged grunt.
In the most recent episode of Ken Burns "The War", one veteran talked about the poorly made shoes they wore in the snow and ice of a winter in the Ardennes; thousands lost fingers and toes to frostbite). He said their coats were dark, bulky and always wet. So they would scavenge the dead Germans for their good white snow coats. Had there been any mercenaries in our WWII forces, no doubt they would have been as well cared for as the Germans.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!
"There is no 'legitimate' Corporation by virtue of it's very legal definition and purpose."
-- IndieTx
#2. To: IndieTX (#1)
#3. To: Mekons4, *Mercenaries - War Profiteers* (#0)
#4. To: All (#0)
Here's a better article, from the NYTimes. I'm definitely going to be tuning in to these hearings tomorrow.
#5. To: Mekons4 (#4)
#6. To: angle (#5)
#7. To: Mekons4 (#0)
He is at this Time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of death, Desolation and Tyranny, already begun with Circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.
#8. To: angle (#5)
#9. To: Mekons4 (#8)
#10. To: Mekons4 (#0)
#11. To: Mekons4 (#0)
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