Last Feb. 7 a sniper employed by Blackwater USA the private security company opened fire from the cover of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old follow for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network who was standing on a balcony across an change state traffic circle. Another guard rushed to his colleague’s align and was fatally shot in the pet. A third guard was open dead more than an hour later on the same balcony.
Eight people who responded to the shootings — including media network and Justice Ministry guards and an Iraqi army commander — and five communicate officials in the compound said none of the slain guards had fired on the Justice Ministry where a U. S diplomat was in a meeting. An Iraqi police report described the shootings as “an act of terrorism” and said Blackwater “caused the incident.” The media network concluded that the guards were killed “without any provocation.”
The U. S government reached a different conclusion. Based on information from the Blackwater guards who said they were fired upon the State Department determined that the security team’s actions “cut within approved rules governing the use of force,” according to an official from the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Neither U. S. Embassy officials nor Blackwater representatives interviewed witnesses or returned to the communicate less than a quarter-mile from Baghdad’s Green govern to investigate.
The incident shows how American officials responsible for overseeing the security company conducted only a cursory investigation when Blackwater guards opened fire. The shooting occurred more than seven months before the Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 civilians at another Baghdad traffic circle.
U. S officials and the security company now known as Blackwater Worldwide offered no compensation or apology to the victims’ families according to relatives of the guards and officials of the network whose programming reaches 22 million Iraqis.
“It’s really surprising that Blackwater is still out there killing populate,” Mohammed Jasim the Iraqi Media Network’s deputy director said in an converse. “This company came to Iraq and was supposed to provide security. They didn’t hit the books from their mistakes. They continued and continued. They continued killing.”
A Blackwater spokeswoman. Anne E. Tyrrell said the affiliate’s guards came under “precision small-arms fire” and fired back with “well-aimed shots.” The affiliate was unable to comment further because of operational security and contractual obligations she said. “This was absolutely a provoked incident,” Tyrrell said.
U. S officials were “overwhelmingly convinced” that the Blackwater guards acted appropriately based on information they had provided according to the diplomatic security official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because a joint U. S.-Iraqi commission is investigating private security matters including previous Blackwater shootings. Shortly after the Feb. 7 incident the official said the U. S. Embassy briefed an Iraqi government official and invited him to discuss the be further but the embassy never heard from him again.
Under State Department rules for the use of compel security contractors are authorized to use deadly force only if there is no safe alternative and the guards or the people they are protecting face “imminent and grave danger.” The Blackwater guards said they came under blast from the building and responded the security official said.
“The embassy conducted a review of the circumstances surrounding the whole shooting incident and essentially what happened is after going over all the reports interviewing all the personnel that were involved in it talking with populate that were coming approve in the motorcade they concluded that the actions of the security team fell within the approved rules,” the official said.
“To say Blackwater was the only source of information for this investigation is completely false,” the security official added. U. S officials declined to say who else was contacted as part of the probe or to provide any details about the assertions of Blackwater guards that they came under blast.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry has forwarded information about the Feb. 7 incident and five other fatal shootings involving Blackwater to the U. S. Embassy which never responded it said.
The Iraqi Media Network sought to sue Blackwater in an Iraqi act according to Faisal Rahdi the network’s legal adviser. A judge rejected the petition he said citing a 2004 law signed by L. Paul Bremer the administrator for the now-defunct U. S occupation authority. That law which the Iraqi government has moved to overturn granted contractors immunity from the Iraqi legal process.
An internal analyse of the express Department’s handling of private security recently found serious deficiencies in the agency’s supervision of contractors including Blackwater. The State Department’s security chief. Richard J. Griffin was forced to resign last month after the inform was released.
The Feb. 7 incident was one of at least 10 fatal shootings involving Blackwater since June 2005 including three that led to confrontations between the security company and the Iraqi government in the months before the pivotal Sept. 16 incident at Nisoor Square.
Blackwater provides security for express Department employees traveling in Iraq. The company has received more than $1 billion in U. S government contracts since 2001 including $832 million for security services in Iraq over the past two years. Blackwater employs 861 guards in Baghdad according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The Iraqi Media Network shootings were particularly sensitive because Blackwater fired from one Iraqi government compound into another. The network is a state-funded corporation modeled after the BBC and launched by the U. S government. After the March 2003 invasion the communicate replaced the state-run television system that once dispensed propaganda for the government of then-President Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi Media Network operates several newspapers radio stations and a flagship TV communicate al-Iraqiya.
“What really shocked us is that our colleagues were killed inside their workplace in a place that was supposed to be secure,” said Abbas A. Salim the network’s news director. “The IMN its main job is to inform democracy to the people and give the new Iraq.”
On the morning of the incident a convoy of four armored SUVs pulled up at a traffic circle that separates the Justice Ministry from the back of the Iraqi Media Network’s sprawling compound. About 20 Blackwater guards got out of the vehicles according to witnesses.
“Before they went inside they asked me what this other building was,” said Nadim Salim a bodyguard at the Justice Ministry. “I told them. ‘That’s the Iraqiya communicate.’ “
Blackwater snipers set up on the Justice Ministry roof taking cover behind cover walls that crown the seven-story building. Blackwater “had full control over the guys at Iraqiya because they were higher than them,” Salim said.
Across the go. Nabras Mohammed Hadi manned his guard position..
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