Thursday 25 October 2007

The US Embassy in Iraq is now offering to pay relatives of those killed in a shooting involving Blackwater USA.

Baghdad - Mohammed Hafidh says he refused to accept an envelope filled with $12,500 in cash from Patricia Butenis, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Baghdad, as compensation for the death of his 10-year-old son, Ali.

"I told her that I want the courts to have their say," says Mr. Hafidh, whose son was among 17 Iraqi civilians killed in a Sept. 16 shooting involving Blackwater USA security guards - private contractors who were escorting a US diplomat at the time.

Haythem al-Rubaie, who lost his son and wife in the same shooting, says he won't even meet with Ms. Butenis, who offered cash compensation on Wednesday to seven of the victims' families, including Hafidh.

Pastor Jules Vivian from an Assemblies of God Christian church in Baghdad says the Iraqi government must put an end to the "law of the jungle" when it comes to security contractors like Blackwater.

He lost Jenevia Jalal, a close friend and minister at his church, who was killed along with a female friend a few weeks after the Blackwater incident by security guards working for another private company, Unity Resources Group (URG).

In a country that has grown almost numb to daily bloodshed, those two incidents triggered widespread outrage at the hired foreign gunmen, who many Iraqis say are mercenaries with licenses to kill. The incidents were a tipping point for Baghdadis, who regularly complain they are bullied by bands of heavily armed contractors bulldozing through traffic in SUVs or armored pickup trucks.

Anywhere from 125,000 to 180,000 foreign contractors operate at any given time in Iraq. Blackwater alone has been involved in at least 195 escalation-of-force incidents since 2005.

Tension over the case continues to rise between the US Embassy and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, seemingly eager to show he is standing up to Blackwater and other security firms. On Wednesday, his government issued an executive order that "cancels" legal immunity for private security groups, a move that still needs approval from Iraq's parliament.

Many Iraqis, especially the victims' families, say that the contractors should face charges in an Iraqi court. They say they are not willing to let the contractors go unpunished, despite the fact that the US government has already started the process of offering many victims' relatives compensation.

Mirembe Natongo, an Embassy spokesperson specially designated to comment on the Blackwater case, says offering to compensate families before the investigation is completed, is "standard procedure … and is not an admission of culpability."

Mr. Rubaie wrote to Mr. Maliki asking the prime minister to take up the case. "I asked the Iraqi government for justice. I said we will only be respected by others if our own government protects and values us," he says. "Justice must be served. Just the way human life is dear in their countries, we want it to be the same here."

Oversight of Security Firms

The pressure that is being brought by the victims' families and the Iraqi government appears to be pushing the US State Department to reconsider oversight of firms that it contracts to protect its employees. Currently they have immunity from prosecution in Iraq, a policy instituted by L. Paul Bremer, head of the former US-led occupation authority until June 2004.

The State Department director of management policy, Patrick Kennedy, who is tasked with reviewing the department's own security practices in Iraq and who was recently in Baghdad, presented Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday with a final report containing some 19 recommendations.

Mr. Kennedy told reporters Wednesday that these include formalizing the requirement, which was already put in place after the Sept. 16 shooting, of having agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security accompany each convoy and installing video recording, audio, and tracking equipment inside the vehicles.

The report also calls for tightening the rules for the use of deadly force and requiring private contractors, such as Blackwater, to undergo training to enhance their "cultural awareness" and to hire Arabic language-speaking staff.

The main point of contention between the Iraqis and the Americans is the immunity enjoyed by private contractors, a policy commonly referred to by Iraqis as Mr. Bremer's "Order 17," as it was the 17th order of his administration here.

US officials are asking Maliki to delay any action against Blackwater until the FBI completes its investigation and a recently created Iraqi-US joint commission, which met for the first time Oct. 7, reviews the results and makes recommendations on the overall status of private security companies in Iraq.

"Blackwater guards committed an unjustified crime in cold blood intended to kill as many Iraqis as possible," says Sami al-Askari, a senior adviser to Maliki. "The American side says it needs much more time … but the prime minister wants them [Blackwater] to leave now. They must leave."

The Drive for Justice in Iraq

Rubaie says he was urged by a State Department official he met on Saturday to put a dollar figure on his loss.

"I asked him if the price would differ if those killed were Americans," he says. "I gave him an astronomical number and insisted that I write on the form that I retain the right to file a lawsuit. My life has been shattered."

Rubaie's son, Ahmed, was reportedly the first to be shot in the Blackwater incident. He probably encountered the guards as they entered a roundabout going against traffic. They were attempting to evacuate a US diplomat caught in a nearby bombing.

Ahmed was driving his mother, a dermatologist, for errands in western Baghdad after dropping off his father, a physician specializing in blood diseases, at work. His friends remember the third-year medical student as popular and energetic, who loved soccer and singing in Spanish with his guitar band. Rubaie still aches with sorrow for his wife, Mahasen. The two were college sweethearts who met in Baghdad while in medical school. They were married soon after graduation.

For Hafidh, who lost his young son, the shooting "was a nightmare. I saw them shoot at people who were already dead over and over again."

He says the FBI paid him $3,500 a week ago in compensation for his damaged car that was being withheld for the investigation. In a previous interview with a State Department official last week, Hafidh wrote on a claims form that he wanted $15 million in total compensation, an apology from Blackwater, and assistance to leave the country with his wife and three other children.

Blackwater declined comment for this article. In an interview with CNN on Oct. 14, Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, said he could not be subjected to Iraqi justice because there is no such thing. "In the ideal sense, we would be subject to the Iraqi law, but that would mean … there was a functioning Iraqi court system where Westerners would actually get a fair trial…. That's not the case right now."

He said Blackwater was accountable under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The US military, which conducted its own investigation, also refused comment for the article, despite having said in the past that there was no evidence that Blackwater was shot at by insurgents that day as it claims.

Susan Burke, the lead counsel in a civil suit against Blackwater filed in Washington earlier this month, says this makes it possible for the Department of Defense to file a criminal suit against the shooters and the company in America.

Ms. Burke says more plaintiffs will be joining the civil suit that was filed on behalf of families of three of the dead and a wounded person in conjunction with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

"We want the punitive damage to be high enough so they take it seriously and change their corporate culture and behavior," she said in a telephone interview from Philadelphia.

The End of a Dream

Mr. Askari, Maliki's adviser, says in contrast to Blackwater's widely perceived defiance in the face of Iraqi charges of wrongdoing, the Australian-owned URG was quick to apologize for the shooting this month and offer to compensate the victims' families.

Still, the pastor at the church where Ms. Jalal served also says compensation alone is not enough.

"The main thing I want is justice," says Mr. Vivian from the backyard of the Church of New Life.

The sound of electric organs could be heard from inside the church as members of the congregation gathered for a service last week.

Friend and taxi driver Marany Awaness was driving Jalal and two of Jalal's relatives back home when they encountered URG guards who were protecting a client working on a US government-funded contract. The Australian-owned company, which is based in Dubai and registered in Singapore, said Ms. Awaness, who was killed with Jalal, failed to heed several warning signals to stop.

Vivian had known Jalal, who was in her early 30s, for 12 years when she and her two sisters joined the church. They hail from an Armenian Orthodox family. Jalal worked at the church as an accountant and was an active minister and counselor. Vivian says Jalal was like a mother to her sisters after their mother passed away a few years ago. The sisters refused to immigrate to America last year with their father.

"The dream that Jenevia had in her life was to help Iraq and its people," he says. "Her laughs and fresh spirit made you feel you were in the presence of someone who loved life and wanted to do something good for people."

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Iraqis Want Contractors Liable

By Doug Smith

The Los Angeles Times

Thursday 25 October 2007

Cabinet presses to end the immunity given to foreign security firms.

Baghdad - The Cabinet of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has decided to press for repeal of the law that gives foreign security contractors immunity from legal action in Iraq, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

A new measure being drafted by government officials would hold private contractors accountable to Iraqi courts for their actions. Maliki spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the Cabinet would send the proposal to parliament next week.

The announcement came a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice unveiled tougher restrictions on the contractors, whose run-ins with Iraqi citizens have become an increasing source of resentment.

Under a rule imposed by American authorities after the U.S.-led invasion, contractors working for multinational forces cannot be prosecuted under Iraqi law. The impunity has fostered reckless disregard for Iraqi lives, critics contend.

Pressure for a change mounted last month after guards from Blackwater USA employed by the State Department were involved in a shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead.

Also Wednesday, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of the multinational force in Iraq, said at a news conference that he expected improving Iraqi forces to resume command over at least half of Baghdad's security within a year.

U.S. forces have taken the lead across much of the capital in recent weeks under a troop buildup launched by the military this year. Odierno and his Iraqi counterpart credited the so-called surge with reducing terrorist and criminal acts in the capital to their lowest levels in eight months.

In violence Wednesday, a double bombing near a gathering spot for laborers in the Jissir Diyala neighborhood of southeast Baghdad left 11 dead, Iraqi police said. Three of the victims were police officers, police said. Also, the bodies of six gunshot victims were found in the capital, police said.

The U.S. military said an American soldier died of injuries suffered in a mine explosion during operations in Salahuddin province north of Baghdad. Three other soldiers were injured.

Elsewhere in the province, another U.S. soldier was killed and five wounded during combat operations near the town of Baiji.

At least 3,835 American military personnel have been killed in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, according to the website icasualties.org.

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doug.smith@latimes.com

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Under Siege, Blackwater Takes on Air of Bunker

By Paul von Zielbauer and James Glanz

The New York Times

Thursday 25 October 2007

Baghdad - The Blackwater USA compound here is a fortress within a fortress. Surrounded by a 25-foot wall of concrete topped by a chain-link fence and razor wire, the compound sits deep inside the heavily defended Green Zone, its two points of entry guarded by Colombian Army veterans carrying shotguns and automatic rifles.

In the mazelike interior, Blackwater employees live in trailers stacked one on top of the other in surroundings that one employee likens to a "minimum-security prison."

Since Sept. 16, when Blackwater guards opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square, the compound has begun to feel more like a prison, too. On that day, employees of Blackwater, a private security firm hired to protect American diplomats, responded to what they called a threat and killed as many as 17 people and wounded 24.

Richard J. Griffin, the State Department official who oversaw Blackwater USA and other private security contractors in Iraq resigned Wednesday.

For weeks, not a word has emerged publicly from the compound, as the F.B.I., the American military and the Iraqi government investigate the Sept. 16 and earlier Blackwater shootings in Iraq.

But in recent days, that secretive Blackwater world has begun to fray under so much scrutiny, said four current and two former Blackwater employees. They described a grating sense among many of Blackwater guards, especially those with years of experience, that the killings on Sept. 16 were unjustified.

"Some guys are thinking that it was not a good shoot, that it was not warranted," said one Blackwater contractor, using military jargon for an episode that results in a wrongful death. "I don't think there was criminal intent involved. I just think it was the application of the use of deadly force gone horribly wrong."

He added, "To mitigate one threat, 17 people had to die?"

Blackwater employees are aware of the conclusions of Iraqi investigators: that Blackwater never received fire and that any threat was illusory. Like the company in its official statements, the guards appear to believe that three armored Blackwater vehicles received several rounds of gunfire somewhere in the city that day, and that this might help explain why the guards fired into Nisour Square.

Still, a growing number of Blackwater guards here believe that the federal investigation may result in criminal charges against some of the four to six members of the team believed to have fired weapons on Sept. 16. Most of the men who fired are former Marine infantrymen still in their 20s, said one Blackwater contractor with a military background.

In a series of detailed interviews, given despite a company policy that forbids contractors to speak openly, the Blackwater employees provided the first glimpse into how the deaths on Sept. 16 and in prior episodes were being recounted and understood by the armed men who protect American officials on Baghdad's streets each day.

Reporters for The New York Times spoke directly with four of the current and former employees; two others communicated with The Times in discussions and e-mail messages passed through intermediaries.

In the weeks since the shootings, Blackwater has been flooded with federal agents and investigators. A new batch of State Department security agents have flown in to help supervise each Blackwater convoy. F.B.I. agents are interviewing Blackwater guards involved in the Sept. 16 episode. Blackwater lawyers also arrived at the camp about two weeks ago, contractors here said, to monitor those interviews.

"I'm just trying to hold on," said one member of the Blackwater convoy that was involved in the Sept. 16 killings, in an e-mail message. "They've been trying to bring in so many state agents, it's getting full over here."

Inside the Blackwater camp, a crisp American flag is carefully raised and lowered each day in Baghdad's dusty heat. In the closely stacked gray metal trailers that serve as living quarters, employees have 8-by-12-foot rooms and shared bathrooms. Recreation time is limited, and the employees eat among themselves. Many of the younger guards sunbathe on their trailer roofs - a few regularly did so in the nude, until female helicopter pilots flew overhead, saw them and complained.

According to Blackwater employees, the leader of the convoy on Nisour Square was a man known as Hoss. He and two or three other members of the team have returned to the United States because their tours of duty were up or their contract with the company had ended, one employee here said. In Hoss's case, the trip home was to remove shrapnel from a wound he received before the Sept. 16 shootings.

Blackwater workers rarely interact with Iraqis in Baghdad, and regulations forbid them to travel outside the Green Zone when they are not on well-armed missions to protect State Department officials. Most convoys through the city do not carry Iraqi translators, leaving the young guards, former military men, to judge whether a gesture, a foreign phrase or a glance suggests a threat strong enough to justify a violent response.

Even in the Blackwater compound, no definitive account has emerged of how and why the Sept. 16 shootings occurred, company employees said. For its part, Blackwater has said that its guards were responding to an insurgent attack. But in furtive discussions over recent weeks, certain details about the episode, they said, have gained currency among many Blackwater workers, many of whom would like to believe that their colleagues acted appropriately.

Those workers said, for example, that Blackwater guards who fired at Iraqis in Nisour Square described how an Iraqi driver had pulled up his car well after the Blackwater convoy had arrived and warned traffic to stay back. The encroaching car, the workers said, caused their colleagues to feel threatened and initiate machine-gun fire. They also said that friction between Blackwater convoys and groups of armed Iraqi police in the days before the shooting had created a mutual distrust, and that the police officers, perhaps as a result of earlier disputes, fired at the Blackwater convoy. "The Iraqi police were testing these guys at various intersections," said one former Blackwater guard who has spoken with men on the convoy at Nisour Square.

Iraqi police at the intersection have said they were not armed that day, and none of the dozens of Iraqi witnesses interviewed by Iraqi investigators and reporters for The New York Times said they saw anyone firing at the Blackwater convoy or even brandishing a weapon.

But in a measure of the gulf between the narratives that have taken hold in the Blackwater compound and on the streets of Baghdad, the former guard and a current employee said that a consistent view had developed within the compound: that Blackwater was fired upon by Iraqis with AK-47s who fled the scene after Blackwater returned an overwhelming amount of fire.

"How long does it take for a dead terrorist to become a dead civilian?" a Blackwater employee said. "As long as it takes to remove an AK-47 from the body," suggesting that accomplices might have removed weapons as they fled.

The Blackwater employees said that talk about the Sept. 16 shootings had also focused on a heated dispute between members of the team in the square, pitting the men pouring gunfire into Iraqi vehicles against other Blackwater guards who were imploring them to stop.

"There was turmoil in the team, where half the guys were saying, 'Don't shoot,'" said a military veteran who spoke to a member of the Blackwater team on the convoy.

But that dispute, the guards said, like the uncertainty in the compound, is likely to remain unresolved until federal investigators finally report their conclusions on what really happened that day on Nisour Square.

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