Immunity Deal Hampers Blackwater Inquiry | Oct 29, 11:17 PM (ET) | By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that immunity had been granted. One official - who refused to be quoted by name- said: "If, in fact, such a decision was made, it was done without any input or authorization from any senior State Department official in Washington."
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The company has said its Sept. 16 convoy was under attack before it opened fire in west Baghdad's Nisoor Square, killing 17 Iraqis. A follow-up investigation by the Iraqi government, however, concluded that Blackwater's men were unprovoked. No witnesses have been found to contradict that finding....
- posted by Editor @ 10:11 AM

Immunity Deals Offered to Blackwater Guards | By DAVID JOHNSTON | Published: October 30, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 — State Department investigators offered Blackwater USA security guards immunity during an inquiry into last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad — a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the company’s employees involved in the episode, government officials said Monday.

The State Department investigators from the agency’s investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, they added.
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The immunity deals were an unwelcome surprise at the Justice Department, which was already grappling with the fundamental legal question of whether any prosecutions could take place involving American civilians in Iraq.
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A second Blackwater convoy, positioned on the crowded square in advance to control traffic, opened fire, killing 17 people and wounding 24.

Blackwater’s original statement on the shooting said the company’s guards had “acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack,” and initial assertions by the State Department stated that the convoy had come under small-arms fire.

But subsequent accounts from witnesses and Iraqi investigators indicated that the convoy had not been attacked and that the Blackwater guards fired indiscriminately around the square. Americans soldiers investigating the scene afterward also found no evidence of an attack.
- posted by Editor @ 10:05 AM

Ex-Commander Blasts Iraq 'Nightmare' | By Robert Parry | October 12, 2007

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq for the first year of the occupation, blamed “incompetence” by President George W. Bush’s national security team for creating a “nightmare” that could last far into the future.

Sanchez, who led coalition forces from June 2003 to June 2004, used an Oct. 12 speech to a conference of Military Reporters and Editors in Arlington, Virginia, to castigate nearly everyone connected to the Iraq War, including the U.S. news media, Congress, the State Department, the White House and the Pentagon.

“There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetence in strategic leadership among our national leaders,” Sanchez said. “They have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these types of leaders would be immediately relieved or court-martialed.”

Though Sanchez did not criticize Bush by name, he left little doubt that he placed most of the blame on the administration’s top leadership, particularly the National Security Council which is led by the President and which was under the day-to-day direction of Condoleezza Rice until her elevation to Secretary of State in 2005.

Sanchez said that starting in July of 2003, the generals on the ground warned that the war could not be won by military means and required a coordinated strategy that brought to bear the full panoply of American power and influence.

“Any sequential solutions would lead to a prolonged conflict and increased resistance,” Sanchez said about these messages to Washington. “By neglect and incompetence at the National Security Council level, that is the path our political leaders chose and now America and more precisely the American military finds itself in an intractable situation.”

Sanchez didn’t spare his fellow commanders from harsh criticism. Asked why they neglected to insist on more effective pre-invasion planning and “did not come forward to prevent the debacle,” Sanchez answered: “It was an absolute lack of moral courage to stand up and do what was right in terms of planning.” ...
- posted by Editor @ 4:10 PM

Iraq Demands $136M Blackwater Payout | Authorities Also Call On U.S. To Sever All Contracts With Security Firm In Iraq | BAGHDAD, Oct. 8, 2007

(CBS/AP) Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater USA within six months and pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed when the firm's guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine gun fire last month.

The demands, part of an Iraqi government report examined by The Associated Press, also called on U.S. authorities to hand over the Blackwater security agents involved in the Sept. 16 shootings to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

CBS News has found the Iraqi witness accounts of the shootings are remarkably consistent.

They say a four-vehicle Blackwater convoy drove into a traffic circle but was blocked by barriers protecting a maintenance crew, reports CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.

The Blackwater guards threw water bottles, warning the cars to stop, but as one car continued to inch forward, Blackwater started shooting, instantly killing the driver.

The tone of the Iraqi report appears to signal further strains between the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the White House over the deaths in Nisoor Square, which have prompted a series of U.S. and Iraqi probes and raised questions over the use of private security contractors to guard U.S. diplomats and other officials.

Al-Maliki ordered the investigation by his defense minister and other top security and police officials on Sept. 22. The findings mark the most definitive Iraqi positions and contentions about the shootings last month. ...
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The report found that Blackwater guards also had killed 21 Iraqi civilians and wounded 27 in previous shootings since it took over security for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad after the U.S. invasion. The Iraqi government did not say whether it would try to prosecute in those cases.

The State Department has counted 56 shooting incidents involving Blackwater guards in Iraq this year. All were being reviewed as part of the comprehensive inquiry ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
- posted by Editor @ 6:35 PM

Poll: 95% of Americans mistrust Bush | Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:26:24
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According to New York Times/CBS News poll, 95 percent of US citizens mistrust the way the Bush administration handles the Iraq war.

Only 5 percent of the respondent said they could still trust Bush's policy on the controversial war in Iraq. ...
- posted by Editor @ 8:48 PM