I would like to see someone from the Iraqi Government also before the panel to counter any of the bullshit Blackwater will say.

quote:

Blackwater USA founder defends his guards' actions in Iraq The Associated Press Published: October 2, 2007 WASHINGTON: A House of Representatives committee chairman on Tuesday questioned whether the State Department acted as an "enabler" to Blackwater USA security to cover up Iraqi civilian deaths, and he cast the company as a rogue mercenary force that may be overcharging the U.S. government. "Privatizing is working exceptionally well for Blackwater," said Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat. "The question for this hearing is whether outsourcing to Blackwater is a good deal to the American taxpayer." The House Oversight and Government Reform convened the hearing amid an FBI investigation into a Sept. 16 shootout involving Blackwater personnel that resulted in at least 11 Iraqis killed. The Justice Department sent the panel a letter Tuesday asking members not to address the incident during the hearing, citing a need to conclude its investigation first. Waxman, the panel chairman, said he agreed not to probe the specifics of the incident, but that it was within the committee's right to raise questions about the company's overall performance in Iraq.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007...-Blackwater.php

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quote:

Blackwater incident witness: 'It was hell' From Jomana Karadsheh and Alan Duke CNN BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi police officer who was directing traffic at Baghdad's Nusoor Square on September 16 said Blackwater guards "became the terrorists" that Sunday afternoon when they opened fire on civilians, an incident the Iraqi government said was unprovoked. A 37-year-old Baghdad businessman and a father of four, whose youngest son was killed by a Blackwater bullet, said he wanted no monetary compensation but only for the guards to "admit to the truth." The police officer and businessman on Monday gave CNN vivid descriptions of the incident in which a senior Iraqi investigator said 17 people were killed and 24 wounded. Blackwater USA, the private security contractor hired to guard U.S. diplomats in Baghdad, has said its employees responded properly to an insurgent attack, but the State Department has opened an investigation. The convoy of four Blackwater vehicles drove into the square about half an hour after a bombing prompted another Blackwater team that was guarding a U.S. diplomat to rush from the area and back to the Green Zone, the enclave in Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi government agencies have headquarters. VideoWatch cell phone video from man who says he was there » The police officer, whom CNN is identifying only as Sarhan, said the Blackwater guards "seemed nervous" as they entered the square, throwing water bottles at the Iraqi police posted there and driving in the wrong direction. He said traffic police halted civilian traffic to clear the way for the Blackwater team. Then, he said, the guards fired five or six shots in an apparent attempt to scare people away, but one of the rounds struck a car and killed a young man who was sitting next to his mother, a doctor. Sarhan said he and an undercover Iraqi police officer ran to the car but they were unable to stop it from rolling forward toward the Blackwater convoy. "I wanted to get his mother out, but could not because she was holding her son tight and did not want to let him go," Sarhan said. "They immediately opened heavy fire at us." "Each of their four vehicles opened heavy fire in all directions, they shot and killed everyone in cars facing them and people standing on the street," Sarhan said. The shooting lasted about 20 minutes, he said. "When it was over we were looking around and about 15 cars had been destroyed, the bodies of the killed were strewn on the pavements and road." Sarhan said no one ever fired at the Blackwater team. "They became the terrorists, not attacked by the terrorists," he said. "I saw parts of the woman's head flying in front of me, blow up and then her entire body was charred," he said. "What do you expect my reaction to be? Are they protecting the country? No. If I had a weapon I would have shot at them." Mohammed Abdul Razzaq was driving into Nusoor Square with his sister, her three children and his 9-year-old son Ali at the same time the Blackwater team arrived. "They gestured stop, so we all stopped," Razzaq said. "It's a secure area so we thought it will be the usual, we would stop for a bit as convoys pass. Shortly after that they opened heavy fire randomly at the cars with no exception." "My son was sitting behind me," he said. "He was shot in the head and his brains were all over the back of the car." The others ducked and were spared, he said. He later counted 36 bullet holes in his car, six in his sister's headrest. "Anyone who got out of his car would be killed," he said. "Anyone who would move was killed. Anyone sitting in a car was killed." "I saw a guy in a small car who got out to flee, they shot him and he hit the ground," Razzaq said. "They fired at him again and again with his blood flowing in the street, but they continued to shoot him." "It was hell, like a scene from a movie," he said. More than two weeks later, Razzaq said he is left with questions and nightmares about his son's death. "He was in school, but last year had to leave school because we were displaced. Now the Americans have killed him -- why? What did he do? What did I do? After what I witnessed, I now jump out of bed at night, I have nightmares, it's experiencing death, bullets are flying from here and there and here explosions, cars hit. Why? Why did they do this?" Razzaq said he would rather have answers than money from Blackwater and the U.S. government. "Why should I ask for compensation? What would it do? Bring back my son? It will not." "I only ask why? Just want them to admit to the truth. Maybe if they admit, then many of victims will drop their compensation claims," he said. One State Department investigation is focused on the events of September 16, and another will take a broader look at the department's relationship with private security firms. "Obviously, we want to see these firms be effective in what they do but also play by the rules," Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told CNN on Tuesday. "We have lots of people in Baghdad, it's our largest embassy in the world, and they have to be well protected," Burns said. Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast...ness/index.html

It's like the Wild West out there..

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I really didn't understand who these guys were until recently; interesting stuff indeed...

Especially their connections within the government.

I smell a movie...

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

Here's the article regarding the government connections...

quote:

Man Bush chose to lead Pentagon contracting probes left under fire to become Blackwater COO 10/02/2007 @ 9:15 am Filed by Jason Rhyne and Nick Juliano The private security firm Blackwater USA, which has faced mounting criticism following an incident earlier this month in which armed guards from the group purportedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians, has numerous links to the White House as well as many current and former Republicans. The connections include the firm's chief operating officer Joseph Schmitz, who was tapped by President Bush in 2002 to "oversee and police the Pentagon's military contracts as the Defense Department's Inspector General." The relevation was first reported by Ben Van Heuvelen in Salon. Serving until 2005, Schmitz went on to preside over "the largest increase of military-contracting spending in history" and joined Blackwater just a month after his departure from the Pentagon, according to Van Heuvelen. "The resignation comes after Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) sent Schmitz several letters this summer informing him that he was the focus of a congressional inquiry into whether he had blocked two criminal investigations last year," according to a 2005 article in the LA Times. Then-Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley "accused Schmitz of fabricating an official Pentagon news release, planning an expensive junket to Germany and hiding information from Congress. Schmitz is the senior Pentagon official charged with investigating waste, fraud and abuse." CEO testifies in Congress today Blackwater CEO Erik Prince will testify today before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a hearing centered on the use of private contractors in Iraq -- but the appearance was at first contested by the State Department, who Van Heuvelen said "directed Blackwater not to give any information or testimony without its sign-off." Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice later agreed that Prince could testify. "The ties between State and Blackwater are only part of a web of relationships that Blackwater has maintained with the Bush administration and with prominent Republicans," the story continues. "From 2001 to 2007," says Salon, "the firm has increased its annual federal contracts from less than $1 million to more than $1 billion, all while employees passed through a turnstile between Blackwater and the administration, several leaving important posts in the Pentagon and the CIA to take jobs at the security company." Von Heuvelen goes on to detail additional links between the firm's "luminaries" and the Bush administration and Republican party, including: Erik Prince, Blackwater's founder, who has donated "roughly $300,000 to Republican candidates and political action committees. Through his Freiheit Foundation, he also gave $500,000 to Prison Fellowship Ministries, run by former Nixon official Charles Colson, in 2000." J. Cofer Black, Blackwater Vice Chairman, a 28-year veteran of the CIA Van Heuvelen describes as "one of the more prominent faces associated with the Bush administration's interrogation and extraordinary rendition policies." Black is also a senior adviser to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Rob Richer, Vice President for Intelligence, who is the former head of the CIA Near East Division. "In 2003," according to Salon "he briefed President Bush on the nascent Iraqi insurgency. In late 2004, he became the associate deputy director in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, making him the second-ranking official for clandestine operations." Fred Fielding, a former outside counsel for the firm, who "has had a long career as a lawyer to prominent Republicans. From 1970 to 1972, he was an associate White House counsel in the Nixon administration; from 1972 to 1974, he was present for the denouement of that administration as deputy White House counsel." Fielding is a former counsel to President Reagan and current White House counsel to President Bush. Ken Starr, another counsel to Blackwater, who was hired by the firm in 2006, is best known "as the Independent Counsel who investigated Bill Clinton. He revealed the intimate details of Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky in the infamous Starr Report and set in motion Clinton's impeachment by Congress." Hired guards were involved in more than one shooting per week Private guns-for-hire from Blackwater USA fired their weapons nearly 200 times while working in Iraq, and in four-of-five incidents the security contractors fired the first shots, according to a new Democratic-sponsored congressional report. Blackwater is facing increased scrutiny since a Sept. 16 incident in which the company's security personnel killed between 11 and 20 Iraqi citizens during an incident in which Iraqi investigators say the private contractors were unprovoked before opening fire on the crowd. The Democratic staff of the House Oversight Committee released a 15-page report Monday that examined Blackwater's actions in Iraq based on incident reports compiled by the company and other government documents. The report found that since 2005 Blackwater guards were involved in 195 "escalation of force" incidents in Iraq during which they fired their weapons, an average of 1.4 per week. In more than 80 percent of those cases Blackwater guards fired first, according to the report, in an apparent violation of the company's mandate allowing only defensive fire to prevent "imminent and grave danger." "In practice, however, the vast majority of Blackwater weapons discharges are preemptive, with Blackwater forces firing first at a vehicle or suspicious individual prior to receiving any fire," the report notes. Blackwater has received more than $832 million in contracts from the State Department to guard diplomats and embassy officials in Baghdad, but the new report reveals that State has done little to reign in or punish rogue contractors. "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 Democratic staffers write. At a hearing Tuesday, Blackwater owner Erick Prince will testify along with several State Department officials at an Oversight Committee hearing investigating the Sept. 16 shooting along with other incidents unearthed by the committee. Several Republicans requested a delay in the hearings until internal State Department investigations conclude. The FBI says it is beginning its own investigation into the shooting as well. The controversy apparently has not eliminated Blackwater's ability to secure government contracts. On Friday, the Pentagon announced that a Blackwater subsidiary, Presidential Airways Inc., would receive a $92 million contract for air transportation services in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. Monday's report shows that the State Department not only didn't seek criminal repercussions against rogue guards, in at least one instance the US government acted in concert with Blackwater to help an employee return stateside after he had killed an Iraqi guard. "Even in cases involving the death of Iraqis, it appears that the State Department's primary response was to ask Blackwater to make monetary payments to 'put the matter behind us,'" the report says. "The most serious consequence faced by Blackwater personnel for misconduct appears to be termination of their employment." During the company's time in Iraq, it has fired 122 contractors for problems ranging from violent behavior, to alcohol abuse, to inappropriate use of weapons, according to the report. The Oversight report pointed to a shooting on Christmas Eve last year in which an apparently drunk Blackwater contractor shot and killed a security guard to Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's top aide called the incident "murder," and last month's shooting rekindled Iraqis' anger over the Dec. 24, 2006 event. Blackwater fired the contractor and arranged to have him evacuated from the country; two days later he flew from Baghdad to Jordan, where he returned to the US with the "authority of the DOS [Department of State] Regional Security Officer," according to the report. US Embassy officials worked with Blackwater in arranging a $15,000 payment to the family of the slain guard. "According to the State Department, the incident is still under investigation by the Justice Department," the report notes. "However, given the passage of nine months with no charges filed, it is unclear whether there is any serious effort to pursue a prosecution in this matter."

>>Source<<

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

Black Water seems very well connected to the Bush Admin...

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quote:

Originally posted by Krypton Black Water seems very well connected to the Bush Admin...

It definitely stinks doesn't it?

Anyone want to bet that the system is backing up with gray water pretty fast at this point?

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

quote:

Originally posted by Krypton Black Water seems very well connected to the Bush Admin...

Well, duh. They're basically private mercenaries contracted by the government to do their dirty work. The very existence of these private organizations is to do the work that national militaries can't or won't (think of Executive Outcomes/Aegis in Sierra Leone). Nearly all of the people in Blackwater are former US Military people, so you can imagine the ties to the Pentagon.

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Here's another good article regarding PMC (Private Military Companies) in general...

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com...e-military.html

quote:

Monday, October 01, 2007 Blackwater and the Phenomenon of Private Military Companies Recent hearings by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Blackwater have focused attention on private military companies or PMCs in Iraq. The House Committee's stated goal is to: "determine whether a State Department contract with Blackwater is undermining the overall U.S. mission in Iraq and whether the department has 'responded appropriately to shooting incidents' involving the security firm. The committee is also trying to gauge what U.S. taxpayers pay for Blackwater services." But even the Washington Post stopped short of calling for the elimination of PMCs in Iraq altogether, suggesting that the "downsizing of the U.S. military has left the Army without enough people to perform many specialized tasks". The use of private military companies long predates the US involvement in Iraq. Wikipedia notes that the "Center for Public Integrity reported that since 1994, the Defense Department entered into 3,601 contracts worth $300 billion with 12 U.S. based PMCs." Nor are US government agencies the only customers. According to the Atlantic, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sierra Sierra Leone and private corporations seeking hostage-negotiation or rescue services have been among the biggest customers. Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry puts the return to private providers of military services in historical perspective. "The Monopoly of the state over violence is the exception in world history, rather than the rule. The state itself is a rather new unit of governance, appearing only in the last four hundred years. Moreover, it drew from the private violence market to build it's public power." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reflecting history, one state which still relies almost entirely on PMCs to provide security is the Vatican, which employs the mercenary Swiss Guards as its army. "Swiss Guards are Swiss mercenary soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards, and palace guards at foreign European courts from the late 15th century until the present day ... The Swiss Guard has served the popes since the 1500s as part of the papal army. Ceremonially, they shared duties in the Papal household with the Palatine Guard and Noble Guard, both of which were disbanded in 1970 under Paul VI. Today the Papal Swiss Guard have taken over the ceremonial roles of the former Vatican units, serving now as the army of the sovereign state of the Vatican." But why do organizations like the State Department or the Vatican use "mercenaries" instead of regular soldiers to perform military or quasi-military duties? Part of the problem, at least for organizations like the Vatican, the State Department and many Third World countries, is that it is often much cheaper and more reliable to hire a mercenary force than to raise an army themselves. Creating a well-trained, disciplined force requires an infrastructure and tradition which is not always present in places like, for example, Afghanistan. Mercenary forces are used for the same reason that individuals rent cars instead of building their own automotive assembly plants. The economies of scale preclude building them from scratch. There has even been consideration to using PMCs instead of Third World Armies in peacekeeping missions. The advantages are not limited to lower cost. Well-trained mercenaries are often much more professional and respectful of civilians than a poorly trained rabble. Kent's Imperative correctly identifies the one factor that is often ignored in the recent coverage of abuses attributed to Blackwater and other PMCs: how many abuses there might be if they were not used. "In comparison the corrupt and ineffective third country national forces which typically make up the bulk of peacekeeping deployments, PMCs are provable more effective and – despite all of the IO activity aimed at discrediting their activities – far more respectable in most cases." The BBC for example, notes that using UN peacekeepers and similar forces is not without its downside. It reports that the UN itself has photographic and video evidence of "paedophilia, rape and prostitution" engaged in by UN peacekeepers in the Congo, among the several countries in which they have misbehaved. Abuses and violations are doubtless committed by private military contractors. The Earth Times reports that Blackwater "has sacked 122 employees during its years of guarding convoys and buildings in Iraq." But the question might be how many UN personnel or tribal militiamen might be sacked for offenses while performing a similar task. Then there are also tasks for which the use of national military forces would be inappropriate. Guarding the private property of firms engaged in reconstruction or providing security details for foreign VIPs are examples which readily spring to mind. The White Rabbit at the Blackwater blog points out that PMCs actually have small-war capabilities which large military organizations don't have. Faced with the problem of cheaply delivering supplies to small outposts in Afghanistan, the US military turned to Blackwater Aviation, which had "small, light CASA C-212 cargo planes" capable of dropping supplies from 35 feet altitude with the aid of plastic parachutes -- costing $49 each -- developed for performing emergency relief operations. Blackwater Aviation was used to resupply paratroopers in some of the 22 bases scattered throughout the rugged country. The plastic chutes were so much cheaper than the standard ones that the procedure was to give them away to the locals. Small is sometimes beautiful. The growing importance of PMCs and the problem of regulating their behavior were touched upon by Donald Rumsfeld during a speech at the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Karen Bateman: "There are currently thousands of private military contractors in Iraq and you were just speaking of rules of engagement in regards to Iraqi personnel and US personnel. Could you speak to, since the private contractors are operating outside the Uniform Code of Military Justice, could you speak to what law or rules of engagement do govern their behaviour and whether there has been any study showing that it is cost-effective to have them in Iraq rather than US military personnel. Thank you." Donald Rumsfeld: "Thank you. It is clearly cost-effective to have contractors for a variety of things that military people need not do and that for whatever reason other civilian government people cannot be deployed to do. There are a lot of contractors. A growing number. They come from our country - but they come from all countries; and indeed sometimes the contracts are from our country, or another country, and they employ people from totally different countries; including Iraqis and people from neighbouring nations. And there are a lot of them and it's a growing number. And of course we've got to begin with the fact that, as you point out, they're not subject to the uniform code of military justice; we understand that. There are laws that govern the behaviour of Americans in that country - the Department of Justice oversees that. The [long hesitation] there is an issue that is current as to the extent to which they can or cannot carry weapons and that's an issue. It's also an issue of course with the Iraqis but, if you think about it, Iraq is a sovereign country, they have their laws and they're going to govern. The UN resolution and the Iraqi laws, as well as US procedures and laws, govern behaviour in that country depending on who the individual is and what he's doing, but I'm personally of the view that there are a lot of things that can be done on a short time basis by contractors that advantage the United States, and advantage other countries who also hire contractors. Any idea that we shouldn't have them I think would be unwise." The importance of PMCs in a world where small wars against subnational organizations, often waged inside failed states is probably too well established to be challenged. Whatever happens to Blackwater, PMCs are not going away. But the recent activity and coverage of Blackwater in Iraq has aroused the regulatory instincts of Congress; and probably with justice. As the PMCs have grown in power, so has the need to get a handle on them. As the Washington Post editoralized: More than 130,000 contractors serve the U.S. mission in Iraq, including some 30,000 security guards, and without them it would be impossible for U.S. forces to function. For some time to come, Blackwater or other security companies will be needed to protect senior U.S. diplomats and other personnel. The focus of the current reviews should be ensuring that they conform to the standards governing U.S. troops and can be held accountable when they commit excesses. We can expect renewed efforts to regulate the PMCs. That effort -- like all other attempts at regulation -- is likely to be a two-edged sword. On the one hand laws are necessary to regulate the affairs of men. On the other hand, it is a truism that in Washington, everything is tainted by politics.

>>Source<<

___________________
"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/opinion/03dowd.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

quote:

October 3, 2007 Op-Ed Columnist Sinking in a Swamp Full of Blackwater By MAUREEN DOWD Washington “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster,” Nietzsche said. “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” We’re gazing into the abyss all right, and Blackwater is gazing back. Besides having an army for hire, brave kids who are paid to fight so that most Americans are not personally touched by war, we have the real mercenaries. And they’re a spooky cadre, careening outside the laws of Iraq, the United States and the military. President Bush continues to preach that we must defeat the “dark ideology” of extremists with “a more hopeful vision.” But the compromises W. makes to slog on in Iraq, be it with warlords, dictators or out-of-control contractors, are spreading a dark stain on America’s image. “Blackwater appears to have fostered a culture of shoot first and sometimes kill, and then ask the questions,” said Representative Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, yesterday at a House hearing. The Times reports today that Blackwater’s explanation of an incident in Baghdad on Sept. 16 that left 17 dead and 24 wounded is sketchy. It seems as though a bullet struck an Iraqi man driving his mother to pick up his father, a pathologist, at the hospital. The dead man’s weight, The Times reports, “probably remained on the accelerator and propelled the car forward” toward a Blackwater convoy. Blackwater guards then unleashed a spray of gunfire and explosives, even though witnesses did not see anyone shooting at the American convoy and even though Iraqis were turning their cars around and escaping the scene. Newsweek quotes the Iraqi national police as saying that Blackwater vehicles “opened fire crazily and randomly, without any reason.” The Blackwater desperados are a sinister symbol of how little progress we’ve made in Iraq, that V.I.P.’s — or “packages,” as the contractors call them — can’t make a move in the country without the high-priced hired guns of the State Department. Americans have been antimercenary since the British sent 30,000 German Hessians after George Washington in the Revolutionary War. But W. outsourced his presidency to Cheney and Rummy, and Cheney and Rummy went to war on the cheap and outsourced large chunks of the Iraq occupation to Halliburton and Blackwater. The American taxpayer got gouged, and so did the American reputation. The mercenaries inflame Iraqis even as Gen. David Petraeus tries to win their trust. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, summoned the 38-year-old crew-cut chairman of Blackwater, Erik Prince, to defend his private security company yesterday. Once there was the military-industrial complex. Now we have the mercenary-evangelical complex. Mr. Prince, a former intern to the first President Bush and a former Navy Seal, is from a well-to-do and well-connected Republican family from Michigan. He and his father both have close ties to conservative Christian groups. His sister was a Pioneer for W., raising $100,000 in 2004, and Erik Prince has given more than $225,000 to Republicans. Blackwater, in turn, has been the beneficiary of $1 billion in federal contracts, including a no-bid contract with the State Department worth hundreds of millions. Mr. Waxman yesterday called the State Department “Blackwater’s enabler.” His committee staff summarized State Department reports revealing a cascade of Blackwater trouble. “In a high-profile incident in December 2006, a drunken Blackwater contractor killed the guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi. Within 36 hours after the shooting, the State Department had allowed Blackwater to transport the Blackwater contractor out of Iraq.” The State Department chargé 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, they agreed on a $15,000 payment. “The State Department took a similar approach,” the report stated, “upon receiving reports that Blackwater shooters killed an innocent Iraqi, except that in this case, the State Department requested only a $5,000 payment to ‘put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly.’ ” Mr. Prince was pressed by Representative Paul Hodes about the penalty paid by the Blackwater employee who, while drunk and off-duty at a Christmas party, killed the Iraqi guard. The man was fired. And he had to pay his own airfare home and forfeit his bonuses, amounting to a loss of about $14,697 — slightly less than the amount paid to the family of the Iraqi he blew away.

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Gaawwdd. This is repulsive. Make it stop please make it stop!

Heres more dirt from digging up the Blackwater past. Go figure - They've fucked up before!

quote:

Pilot said 'this is fun' before fatal Blackwater crash WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A 2004 crash that killed everyone on board -- three crew members and three U.S. troops -- was caused by pilots from a Blackwater plane taking a low-level run through a mountain canyon in Afghanistan, testimony revealed Tuesday. "I swear to God, they wouldn't pay me if they knew how much fun this was," the doomed plane's cockpit voice recorder captured the pilot saying shortly before the November 27, 2004, crash. The account of the crash emerged during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Blackwater's performance in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its November 2006 report on the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that Blackwater provided insufficient oversight and guidance of the pilots involved in the 2004 crash. Dispatchers failed to ensure that pilots followed their flight plan and did not adequately track flights in the air. The NTSB said the military "did not provide adequate oversight of the contract carrier's operations in Afghanistan." The company's chairman, Erik Prince, appeared before the committee to defend the firm Tuesday. The twin-engine CASA C-212, a light cargo plane operated by Blackwater sister company Presidential Airways, crashed in a box canyon well off its planned route from Bagram Air Base to the western Afghan town of Shindand. "You're an X-wing fighter Star Wars man," an NTSB report quoted the plane's co-pilot, Loren Hammer, saying during the flight -- a reference to the dizzying battle in the 1977 film. "You're [expletive] right. This is fun," the pilot, Noel English, responded. About eight minutes later, the plane slammed into the wall of the canyon, which was flanked by ridgelines that rose nearly a mile above surrounding terrain. When rescuers found the wreckage three days later, they discovered one of the passengers had survived the crash only to die of internal bleeding and exposure, the NTSB found. When an unidentified passenger asked about the plane's route before the crash, flight mechanic Melvin Rowe told him, "I don't know what we're gonna see. We don't normally go this route." English added, "All we want is to avoid seeing rock at 12 o'clock." English and Hammer had been in Afghanistan less than two weeks, the NTSB found. Federal investigators found each should have been paired with a more experienced aviator, according to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California. Waxman is chairman of the oversight committee, which is investigating Blackwater's performance on more than $1 billion in U.S. government contracts since 2001. He said a company e-mail stated the company had overlooked experience requirements "in favor of getting the requisite number of personnel on board to start up the contract." "The corporation hired inexperienced pilots. They sent them on a route they didn't know about," Waxman said. "It seems to me that it's more than pilot error. There ought to be corporate responsibility, and Blackwater was the corporation involved." Prince said investigators concluded the crash in Afghanistan was not due to corporate error, but pilot error. He rejected Waxman's contention that the pilots "acted like cowboys." "We provided thousands and thousands of flight hours of arrival service since then," Prince said. "Today, still, we're flying more than a thousand missions a month." Passengers on the flight included Lt. Col. Michael McMahon, the commander of a Hawaii-based Army aviation battalion; and two members of his unit, Chief Warrant Officer Travis Grogan, and Spc. Harley Miller. In a letter read to the committee, McMahon's widow, Col. Jeannette McMahon, wrote the accident was the result of a "gross lack of judgment in managing this company." Her husband's unit had a great safety record, she wrote: "It's ironic and unfortunate that he had to be a passenger on this plane versus one of the people responsible for its safe operation." The families of the passengers have filed suit against Presidential Airways and its related firms. Blackwater's effort to dismiss the case is before a federal appeals court in Atlanta, plaintiff's lawyer Robert Spohrer said. The company has come under scrutiny over its work in Iraq, where government officials accuse its contractors of killing as many as 20 civilians in a September clash in Baghdad. The Defense Department hired Blackwater to fly cargo to sites in Afghanistan, where larger transports are unable to take off or land. Prince described the job as "rugged, Alaska-style bush flying." And he said the military violated its own regulations by flying 400 pounds of 81mm mortar rounds along with the passengers and gear. Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10...rash/index.html

I'm willing to bet this list of fuckups is only going to grow. Maybe Bush will give them medals!

Last edited by josh4 on Oct-03-2007 at 07:13

Iraqi investigation now says 17, not 11, people killed in unprovoked Blackwater shooting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7033048.stm

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