More Blackwater murders uncovered

"Nabras is hit! Nabras is hit!" The guards said they believed the compound was under attack from insurgents. "We never thought that people would be shooting at us from the Ministry of Justice," said Hussein Abdul Hassan, the guards' chief. "It's a government building. No one would expect it."

This time it's a Blackwater sniper, stationed on the roof of the Iraq Justice Department building, aiming at and killing a guard employed by the Iraq Media Network.  That's what makes it spooky.  The story take on special meaning when contract killers hired by the Bush/Cheney administration make victims of the guardians of the media.  Is that a stretch?  Maybe.  Wait and see.

The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old guard for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network, who was standing on a balcony across an open traffic circle. Another guard rushed to his colleague's side and was fatally shot in the neck. A third guard was found 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 network 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 same old dance has begun, with the US government rushing to justify Blackwater's February 2007 shootings.

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 theBBC and launched by the U.S. government. After the March 2003 invasion, the network 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 network, 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 explain democracy to the people and support the new Iraq."

Time to remember another instance of journalists being under what appeared to be deliberate, unprovoked fire at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. We have to wonder whether "democracy" and its concomitant free press have anything to do with what the administration wants for Iraq.

Comments

[Aaron R. Linderman]

I take pause when I read this story. First, because it's all eye witness accounts. Police investigators today all but discount eye witnesses. Not necessarily because they're dishonest, but because people think they see things that in fact they have not. (The case of Jean Charles de Menezes being shot on the London Underground is a good case of this.)

Second, I pause because Blackwater stands by their work. Two years ago they ASKED the State Department to install cameras in all their vehicles; they believe a video record will bear out their version of events. (Incidentally, State turned down the request, so we still don't have much evidence about what goes on in Iraq. See http://blackblawg.blogspot.com/2007/10/state-department-denied-blackwaters.html.)

Finally, a note on Blackwater's contract with the State Department. While trawling the blogosphere I recently came across someone rhetorically asking 'Who drives against traffic in a traffic circle?' A fair question. The State Department contract with Blackwater, which is about 1,000 pages long and extensively detailed, stipulate that State Department convoys travel quickly and drive aggressively. Furthermore, no State Department official ever travels with less than three vehicles and they're always the biggest stuff they can find, with those obnoxious "Warning: Stay Back" signs and all of that.

This is in contrast to the CIA, which drives around Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, with contract security, all the time, but doesn't run into trouble. Why? Because they're riding in unmarked beat-up pickups and following traffic patterns. The difference, surprisingly, is not the contractors - both employ them - but the agency that hires them and the terms of the contracts.

It's sad to think that the State Department officially has the lead for public diplomacy. Who most heavily opposed the State Department terms under which Blackwater is employed? The Department of Defense (which also employs contractors, but again, under different terms), folks who actually know a thing or two about public diplomacy, even though it's not their primary duty.

The State Department contract also stipulated that diplomatic security guards must wear wrap-around sunglasses (a cultural faux pas in the Arabic world) and prohibited facial hair (another cultural faux pas). Just what were these State Department boys learning at Georgetown?

Lest you think I'm making this up, the Christian Science Monitor recently ran a story along similar lines. It's definitely worth reading: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1102/p09s01-coop.html.

[PW]

Which do I believe, you or my lying eyes!