[NYTr] Report Describes Killing of Iraqi by Drunken Thug Mercenary

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The New York Times - Oct 2, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/world/middleeast/02shooting.html

Report Describes Drunk Contractor’s Killing of an Iraqi

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — 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.

The shooting is under investigation by the Justice Department, but it
remains unclear what laws might be applied in the case, because it
occurred overseas.

According to the report, which was based largely on internal Blackwater
e-mail messages and State Department documents and compiled by the
Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee, the episode began between 10:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. on Dec.
24 when the off-duty Blackwater employee, who witnesses said had been
drinking heavily, passed through a gate near Prime Minister Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki’s compound in the Green Zone.

When confronted by bodyguards to Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi of
Iraq, the Blackwater employee fired his Glock 9-millimeter pistol,
hitting one of the guards, Raheem Khalif, three times. Mr. Khalif, 32,
later died at an American military hospital.

The Blackwater employee fled to the Triple Canopy guard post, where he
told the guards that he had been in a gunfight with Iraqis who were
chasing him and shooting at him. But the guards had not heard any shots.

The next day, the Blackwater employee told Army investigators that he
had fired in self-defense after the Iraqi bodyguard shot at him. On
Dec. 26, Blackwater flew the man out of Iraq to Jordan, and then to the
United States.

Senior American Embassy officials immediately determined that
Blackwater should send the dead Iraqi man’s family a letter of
condolence and a cash payment. “Will you be following in up Blackwater
to do all possible to assure that a sizeble compensation is
forthcoming?” Ms. Scobey asked the embassy’s regional security officer
in an e-mail message.

“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 able to work
in Iraq,” Ms. Scobey continued.

The embassy officials disagreed over the size of the payment until the
diplomatic security service official prevailed.

“As you can imagine this has serious implications,” the embassy
security official said in an internal e-mail message. “This was an
unfortunate event but we feel that it doesn’t reflect on the overall
Blackwater performance. They do an exceptional job under very
challenging circumstances. We would like to help them resolve this so
we can continue with our protective mission.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company