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Witness Tells of Carnage in Baghdad Shooting    [

    US Repeatedly Rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater Complaints
    By Sudarsan Raghavan and Steve Fainaru
    The Washington Post

    Sunday 23 September 2007

    Baghdad - 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."

    In the United States, Blackwater is facing a possible federal investigation over allegations that it illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq that later might have been sold on the black market. The accusation first appeared in the Raleigh News & Observer. The company on Saturday denied the allegations, calling them "baseless."

    "The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons," Anne Tyrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said in a statement.

    In its probe, Iraq's Interior Ministry concluded that Blackwater fired without provocation into cars about noon last Sunday in Nisoor Square in the Mansour neighborhood of western Baghdad, killing 11 and injuring 12. Blackwater has said that extremists ambushed guards protecting a State Department convoy and that they had to defend themselves.

    Kamal indicated that Iraqi investigators had a videotape apparently showing Blackwater guards firing at civilians, but he declined to provide further details. On Friday, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the chief Interior Ministry spokesman, said the ministry would refer its findings to a court for possible criminal prosecution.

    "It confirms there was no justification. Blackwater started shooting," Kamal said about the probe's conclusions. "This is a crime, which under Iraqi law, and even under American law, should be punished."

    U.S. investigators have not publicly released any findings. U.S. Embassy officials have declined to comment on the probe and cautioned not to draw premature conclusions.

    Matthew Degn, who served as a senior adviser to the Interior Ministry's intelligence directorate until his tour in Iraq ended last month, said Kamal and other ministry officials became increasingly frustrated by their inability to persuade U.S. officials to regulate Blackwater as allegations against the company mounted.

    Degn said Kamal sent a flurry of memos to company and U.S. officials in an effort to bring Blackwater into compliance. The Iraqis were concerned that the firm had refused to obtain a license to operate legally in Iraq, a process that required companies to provide sensitive personnel data and submit to weapons inspections. Blackwater also refused to answer any questions about the reported incidents.

    Degn said the Iraqis were consistently rebuffed in their requests.

    "Kamal went to State several times; he's the one who's been paying the price for this," Degn said. "We had numerous discussions over his frustrations with Blackwater, but every time he contacted the [U.S.] government, it went nowhere."

    Degn said he became a close friend of Kamal's and shared the deputy minister's frustrations, even as he recognized the complexity of reconciling Blackwater's relationship with the Iraqis while trying to protect the State Department. Degn said Blackwater's reluctance to cooperate was understandable, given that the Iraqi Interior Ministry had been infiltrated by sectarian militia members.

    Kamal said addressing Blackwater's alleged actions was also a matter of preserving Iraq's dignity and honor. Seated in his spacious office, he recalled an incident two months ago when Blackwater guards threw a water bottle at a traffic policeman. The officer was so furious that he submitted his resignation, but his superiors turned it down, Kamal said.

    "This is a flagrant violation of the law," Kamal said. "This guy is an officer with a rank of a brigadier general. He was standing in the street doing his job, regulating traffic. He represents the state and the law, and yet this happened."

    The topic of Blackwater's impunity was discussed during high-level meetings involving American and Iraqi officials, including Kamal, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie and senior officials from the U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

    Tensions escalated over a series of incidents beginning last Dec. 24, when a Blackwater employee allegedly shot and killed a bodyguard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi inside Baghdad's Green Zone. It remains unclear how the Blackwater employee was able to leave Iraq after the incident, which triggered a Justice Department investigation. No charges have been filed.

    On May 24, a Blackwater team shot and killed an Iraqi driver outside the Interior Ministry gate. The incident triggered an armed standoff between Interior Ministry commandos and the Blackwater guards, who later told U.S. Embassy officials that the driver had veered too close to their convoy. Blackwater refused to give the guards' names or details of the incident to the Iraqis. The State Department said it planned to conduct an investigation, but no results have been announced.

    It is unclear whether Blackwater could be criminally prosecuted in Iraq. A U.S. regulation called Order 17 enacted after the invasion by Iraq's U.S. administrators provides immunity from prosecution for private security contractors.

    Kamal, a lawyer by training, suggested that Iraq's government could file lawsuits against Blackwater in U.S. courts to seek compensation for the victims.

    "If Order 17 provides them with immunity from being questioned or the right to be tried under Iraqi law, it does not prevent the Iraqi government from filing suit in an American court," he said.

    --------

    Fainaru reported from El Cerrito, California.

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    Witness Tells of Carnage in Baghdad Shooting
    By Herve Bar
    Agence France-Presse

    Sunday 23 September 2007

    An Iraqi traffic policeman told Sunday how Blackwater security guards caused carnage when they opened fire on civilians in Baghdad, as a senior officer probing the shooting insisted it was unprovoked.

    One week after the gunbattle that killed 10 civilians and enraged Iraq's government, police and interior ministry officials were still gathering witness accounts and hunting video footage perhaps taken by amateurs on mobile phones.

    Blackwater insists the US convoy it was escorting came under attack by insurgents before its guards opened fire but the Iraqi government was incensed by the incident and said it would revoke the security company's licence.

    Traffic officer Ali Khalaf, who was on duty on Sunday last week in Al-Yarmukh, in the mainly Sunni Mansour area of west Baghdad, told AFP he had witnessed the entire incident.

    "The American convoy arrived ... and as usual I stopped the traffic to allow them to pass," Khalaf said.

    As they often do, guards from the US firm - the largest private security operators in Iraq - hurled water bottles at cars to stop traffic as they drove through.

    "Then without reason, they opened fire. Four shots, in the air, aiming just above the cars," Khalaf said.

    "But one of the bullets struck a man in his car. I went to his aid but he was already dead, his body was slumped on the dashboard.

    "His wife was then killed before my eyes by a bullet that hit her in the head."

    Khalaf said he ran to take shelter inside his little hut as the gunfire continued.

    The car with the dead couple "continued to move, with its doors open and the bodies inside - like a phantom vehicle."

    "The Americans fired at everything that moved, with a machine gun and even with a grenade launcher. There was panic. Everyone tried to flee. Vehicles tried to make U-turns to escape."

    According to Khalaf, people then left their cars and tried to flee for cover, some being struck down as they ran. A car was hit by two grenades and burst into fire, engulfing its occupants in flames.

    "There were dead bodies and wounded people everywhere, the road was full of blood. A bus was also hit and several of its occupants were wounded," said the traffic officer.

    Two small black helicopters that always accompany Blackwater on security missions swooped down and sprayed the scene with machine gun fire, Khalaf added.

    On Wednesday, the Iraqi and US governments announced they had set up a joint commission to investigate the shootings as well as to examine the broader question of rules governing foreign security companies operating in Iraq.

    Despite opposition from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Blackwater, which escorts US embassy personnel, was back on the streets of Baghdad on Friday after being grounded for four days.

    According to a senior policeman involved in the investigations, other witnesses are equally adamant that Blackwater opened fire without provocation.

    "The Americans say that the convoy first came under small arms fire. That is totally false," the officer told AFP, asking not to be named because he is not entitled to speak to the media.

    "None of the witnesses we have interviewed speak of an attack," he said.

    "There is at least one video, shot by police using a digital camera just moments after the shooting, which shows the victims," said the police officer. "This video is in our hands and we are examining it."

    He did not rule out the possible existence of other videos taken at the moment of the shooting, including with mobile phones, given the number of people present at the time.

    "The Blackwater guards opened fire on motorists without reason, they were never a target of a single shot or any attack," the officer said.