The New York Times is reporting that Blackwater Executives started paying Iraqi officials around $1 million in 2007 to silence them about the shooting death of 17 Iraqi civilians. The information was provided by four former Blackwater executives in interviews. You can read the entire article here.
Now that Baghdad is asserting their sovereignty and will be able to prosecute contractors who violate the law, Blackwater is looking towards new business opportunities: The private security firm Blackwater is planning to offer a new service to make money: protection from the pirate-infested waters off the coast of East Africa. “Blackwater’s push to land […]
That’s how a new report is characterizing the Iraq War: Newly declassified statistics on the frequency of insurgent attacks in Iraq suggest that after major security gains last fall in the wake of an American troop increase, the conflict has drifted into at least a temporary stalemate, with levels of violence remaining constant from November […]
More from “winning hearts and minds“. This is on top of the nine killed by U.S. forces yesterday.
Blackwater sure is quick on fixing damage: Blackwater Worldwide repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack, according to people familiar with the government’s investigation of the incident. Damage to the vehicles in the convoy has been held up […]
Considering how much the right defends them, I guess this is also their method of supporting the troops: The helicopter was hovering over a Baghdad checkpoint into the Green Zone, one typically crowded with cars, Iraqi civilians and United States military personnel. Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a […]
(on a personal note – I wasn’t able to blog yesterday because I decided to take the plunge and move to Vista. I will post about that experience on my tech blog later for those interested). Following yesterday’s news that the State Department decided to give Blackwater immunity, today we find out a new battle […]
Because cronyism and profits always trumps life and pure ethics: The private security firm Blackwater USA, which has faced mounting criticism following an incident earlier this month in which armed guards from the group purportedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians, has numerous links to the White House as well as many current and former Republicans. […]
The party of life – unless it involves corporations. Then the true meaning of the GOP comes out; the party of greed: Seven House Republicans have urged Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) to postpone a hearing about Blackwater USA until the State Department and a separate commission report on the most […]
Time again to see how the surge is going in Iraq. This has become a monthly series for me, and a chart makes it so much easier to gauge. First for U.S. casualties. These past three months have been the deadliest three month cycle for U.S. forces since the war began. While June was not […]