skippy the bush kangaroo: never drink when you are invading someone else's country as a paid mercenary

Monday, October 01, 2007

never drink when you are invading someone else's country as a paid mercenary

this is not how to endear ourselves to the iraqis:

a blackwater usa employee under investigation in the killing last december of an iraqi bodyguard in an off-duty confrontation was so drunk after fleeing the shooting that another group of guards took away the loaded pistol he was fumbling with in front of them, a report to a house committee said monday.

the guards, employees of triple canopy, another private military contractor, returned the weapon to the blackwater employee, who smelled of alcohol, and escorted him away from their guard post in the fortified green zone, the report said. shortly afterward, the police detained the man, a 26-year-old firearms technician whom the report did not name, at the blackwater camp inside the green zone, but determined he was too intoxicated to be interviewed.

within 36 hours, the report said, blackwater fired the man for possessing a firearm while drunk and arranged with the state department to fly him back to the united states, angering iraqi officials who said the christmas eve shooting was murder.

the acting ambassador at the united states embassy in baghdad suggested that blackwater claim that the shooting was accidental, apologize for it and pay the dead iraqi man’s family $250,000, lest the iraqi government bar blackwater from working there, the report said. blackwater eventually paid the family $15,000, according to the report, after an embassy diplomatic security official complained that the “crazy sums” proposed by the ambassador could encourage iraqis to try to “get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.”

the report did not identify the acting ambassador, but a state department spokesman, karl duckworth, said it was margaret scobey. - nytimes

paging ms. scobey, ms. margaret scobey...you're wanted at the come-back-to-bite-you-in-the-ass department.

this is only one of many incidents being reported by the house oversight and government reform committee, which will hold hearings tomorrow on blackwater and other mercenaries.

it doesn't look like it will be a fun day for the repubbbs, and in fact, politico sez they are scrambling to delay the hearings. the big problem for the administration is that the state department could come off as looking quite complicit in covering up all the bloody (and deadly) shenanigans. spencer ackerman at tpmmuckraker:

after an infamous december incident wherein a drunken blackwater contractor shot and killed a bodyguard for iraqi vice president adel abdul mehdi, one u.s. embassy official wrote to another:

will you be following in up blackwater [sic] to do all possible to ensure that a sizable compensation is forthcoming? if we are to avoid this whole thing becoming even worse, i think a prompt pledge and apology -- even if they want to claim it was accidental -- would be the best way to assure the iraqis don't take steps, such as telling blackwater that they are no longer allowed to work in iraq.

Labels: iraq, mercenaries