Home > IRAQ : Blackwater kills civilians at will by Global Research
IRAQ : Blackwater kills civilians at will by Global Research
by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 2 October 20071 comment
Wars and conflicts International USA
Blackwater kills civilians at will in Iraq
Global Research, October 1, 2007
AR News
Washington, DC - According to a congressional staff report out Monday, private military contractor Blackwater guards use deadly force on a weekly basis in Iraq and have inflicted "significant casualties and property damage."
Blackwater, under investigation for the shooting deaths of 11 Iraqis on September 16, will answer questions about that incident and others at what is expected to be a testy congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Documents from Blackwater and the State Department show guards fired their weapons 195 times between from the beginning of 2005 through the second week of September, the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found — "an average of 1.4 incidents per week," the committee found.
"The Blackwater and State Department records reveal that Blackwater’s use of force in Iraq is frequent and extensive, resulting in significant casualties and property damage," the staff report states.
Though the company’s contractors are authorized to use force only defensively, "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."
In another development, the FBI said it had been asked by the State Department to send a team of investigators to Iraq to look into the September 16 shootings. No criminal charges have been filed yet against Blackwater over that incident.
A report prepared by the staff of committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman, released details from Blackwater’s own reports of multiple incidents involving Iraqi civilians.
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Forum posts
3 October 2007, 11:17
In the past four years of invasion of IRAQ, there have been so many killings of innocent Iraqis, whose bad luck had just brought them near convoys of the blackwater and other companies. The media has shown many photos and videos of those guards using their machineguns on civilian cars. They usually use their guns as "car horns", as one foreign reporter said. They shoot at every suspected civilian they came across in their way, when they think he is a threat. Their behavior has been aggravated by the immunity given to them from prosecution by the Iraqi laws.
Such immunity is not explicitly given even to USA troops in Iraq. Blackwater and other foreign contractors accused of killing Iraqi citizens have gone without facing charges or prosecution in the past. Thus they have grown more aggressive in the past four years. Blackwater has always claimed that its employees acted in self-defense and that those killed were armed combatants. They calim such excuse although they do not bother themslves to even count those killed. Thus they deny the killing of civilians.
It is time now for those who claim that they are bringing democracy to the Middle East to get these firms accounted for their acts. It is time now for the UN to act according to its liability and prosecute these firms