BLACKWATER - IRAQ - TRIAL

Re - Article from Washington Post (28 July 2014) - here.

Headline's 'Government suppressed ..." but it's hardly 'suppression' of evidence if the evidence was inadvertently excluded due to a set of oversights.  Well, either that or it's some sort of ruse or performance for the sake of the jury.

Basically, four (4) Blackwater US mercenaries are currently on trial for the deaths of '14' persons in 2007, Nisoor Square, Baghdad, Iraq.

I've not been following the trial and the entire Blackwater and Iraq thing is very new to me.

Defence is claiming that the government withheld photographs taken at the scene, which could be vital evidence in the defence of the accused.

Photographs taken at the scene -- principally, photographs of 8 shell castings that 'could fit' into an AK-47 (which is a weapon used by the insurgents and the Iraqi authorities); as well as photographs of those at the scene.

The prosecution says the absence of the photographs was inadvertent and that it arose out of a series of oversights.

The defence complains that they haven't had the opportunity to question witnesses -- who have already appeared at the trial -- in relation to the photographs.

Nobody on the US side has the shell castings.  Not the State Department.  Not FBI.

In a 2007 statement to the FBI, 'then-army captain' Peter Decareau, one of the first to arrive at the scene, stated that Iraqi army General Baja took items from the scene.

The possibility was raised that the Iraqi authorities took the shell castings.

However, WP also says:

Based on Decareau’s testimony, federal prosecutors understood that Decareau did not observe any AK-47 shell casings on the scene, Machen wrote to the defense lawyers.

I don't know how the jury's going, but I'm thoroughly confused right now.

Is there a distinction between the 'scene' and the bus stop location?  Are the bus stop shell casings part of the 'scene'.  If so, why does Decareau's testimony reflect that he did not observe any castings?

Or was there a 'did not observe' declaration because there were no shell castings -- at all?

I'm a little scattered today and finding it extremely difficult to focus on scraps of the story that don't seem to make sense to me.

As I said, I haven't been following and I don't know the ins and outs.  But from what little I've read so far, a bunch of civilians stuck in in traffic were fired upon by US mercenaries -- as well as a helicopter crew who fired from above -- and even an incendiary device was tossed into a car (or perhaps more than one car?).  Forty bullets were fired into a single white Kia at the scene.  The occupants were killed and burnt to a crisp.

Now there's a magic set of photos that were there but 'not there'.  But there's no magic shell castings -- of shells that 'might fit into' an AK-47?  State Department and FBI involvement? Blackwater mercenaries taking the fall for the government?  

The entire thing sounds like crap to me and I wouldn't believe anything presented, but I'm sure a patriotic jury will believe anything set before them.

US PAYS MERCENARY ARMIES DEPLOYED ON FOREIGN SOIL

Blackwater awarded over $1bn from State Dept. since threat on investigator's life

 RT News

Published time: July 11, 2014 17:28

The US State Department has allocated more than a billion dollars in contracts to the security firm Blackwater and its later manifestations since a top official for the company threatened a government investigator’s life in 2007.

The Huffington Post reported that the notorious security contractor Blackwater, its subsequent incarnations, and its subsidiaries have received more than $1.3 billion since the fall of 2007 for training and operations the world over.

In August 2007, State Department investigator Jean C. Richter said a Blackwater project manager, Daniel Carroll, told Richter “that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” where the investigator was observing - and criticizing - the company’s operations. The New York Times reported the details of the threat last month.

Richter and his partner in the probe were later asked by officials at the American embassy in Baghdad to leave. The next month, Blackwater guards infamously shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians at Nisour Square. The incident sparked outrage with American presence in Iraq among the local population. The US is currently trying to prosecute four of the five guards involved in the incident after a first failed attempt to do it in 2009.

Despite the threat to a government investigator and the Nisour Square killings, the security firm continued to receive crucial, lucrative government contracts. Since the date of the threat - August 21, 2007 - and the end of the next month, the State Department awarded Blackwater over $269 million, according to government spending records analyzed by the Huffington Post, for department services in Iraq, Afghanistan, China, and the US. Some of the more major of those awards were approved after the Nisour Square shooting, though they were associated with agreements signed prior to the incident.

Overall, the State Department has given the firm and its associated entities more than $1.3 billion since the fall of 2007. Blackwater and its subsidiaries have changed official names and management several times since 2007, partly based on efforts to distance the firm from the negative attention it received since the company’s notorious conduct in Iraq.

"In the years following the events of 2007, we reviewed our practices of managing contractors and made improvements to increase oversight and ensure that operational control remains with direct-hire State Department employees," a State Department spokesman said about Blackwater’s continued good graces with department.

"Though we must always ensure that competitive contracts remain fair and open, the safety of our personnel is the highest priority, and we always take into account the past performance and abilities of each contractor."
 
How much the company actually received and what the money was spent on is unknown, as federal government records only indicate what funds an agency like the State Department set aside for the firm.

Additionally, the State Department has revoked nearly $55 million allocated to the firm since August 2007.

More than half a billion dollars has been set aside for the firm and its associated entities since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, despite past criticism of the company from Obama’s first secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. During the 2008 presidential primary campaign against Obama, then-Senator Clinton co-sponsored a bill to ban Blackwater from Iraq.

More than $300 million of that total half billion-plus was awarded before Blackwater was sold by founder Erik Prince in 2010.

During Clinton’s time at State, the firm was tapped to train police officers across Africa, including Nigeria, Djibouti, Kenya, Senegal, and Tunisia. The company has also continued to receive contracts from the Defense Department and US intelligence agencies, according to ThinkProgress.

Since Prince sold the company, the State Department has awarded Blackwater’s current incarnation, Academi, just over $500 million, as opposed to $784 million in the three years prior to his sale of the company.

Academi spokeswoman Callie Wang declined to comment on the company’s current contracts. Since 2010, the firm has merged with security contracting rival Triple Canopy.

Experts told the Huffington Post that major firms continue to win contracts based on capability, reliability, and institutional privilege.

"Blackwater likes to point to their supposedly perfect track record in terms of guarding personnel," said Neil Gordon, of the Project on Government Oversight. "But of course there are much larger issues that have to be taken into account -- their effect on the mission and on international reputation."
 
Blackwater’s continued relationship with the US government is also based on “bureaucratic inertia,” Gordon said, to changing contractors in the midst of crucial operations.

The firm was long in an “umbrella contract” with Triple Canopy and DynCorp to protect State Department diplomats. This kind of contract helped ensure that the companies would earn continued government awards. The State Department said the company’s “qualifications” are consistently monitored as part of the contracting bid process.

"When dealing with an umbrella contract like a World Wide Protective Services (WPPS) task order that had several contractors, federal law requires that all such contractors be given a fair opportunity to compete for task orders issued under that contract," a State Department spokesman said. "The qualifications and ability of any contractor to perform on that task order will, of course, be assessed as part of the bidding process."

Source - RT News - here.
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 COMMENT

What I got out of that is that the US is paying mercenary armies to do their deeds on foreign soil & there's seriously big bucks to be made by guns for hire.

One would gather that by outsourcing, the US government is dodging due:  responsibility, accountability and transparency.

The US and its mercenary forces have fingers in a lot of the African pie (no doubt commercially strategic, but research on resources in regions not done by poster).

In my opinion, the mercenary groups are a lot like the NGO groups, in that they are funded for purpose and, in this case, carrying out US government ends -- at arm's length -- while maintaining the impression of independence from the government.

Blackwater (now known as Academi ... but prior to that "Xe Services") is a division of:

Constellis Holdings along with Triple Canopy 

is owned by by a group of private investors.

Founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, retains rights to 'Blackwater' name is said to have no affiliation with Academi.

The original aim of Blackwater, according to Prince:

Prince stated: "We are trying to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did for the Postal Service".

What, they're in import/export & trying to break the postal union?  LOL


So what did FedEx do for the postal service, I'm wondering.

As at 2012:

... FedEx earned $1.495 billion from the Postal Service last year as the agency's number one supplier. UPS, the Postal Service's 11^th largest supplier, earned $102 million from the Postal Service, a $7 million increase from the year before.

Source:  minyanville - here.

Sounds like FedEx muscled in on the postal service along with some other pesky 'suppliers', but FedEx got the lion's share of the $$$.  LOL.

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[source:  wikipedia, where otherwise not stated]