"They Kept Pumping Bullets into Us"
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/01/2010128143176494.html
'They kept pumping bullets into us'
By Firas Al-Atraqchi
The Iraqi government is under increasing pressure to aggressively pursue
the prosecution of American military personnel accused of killing Iraqis.
The recent decision by Ricardo Urbina, a district judge, to dismiss
charges against five security contractors accused of gunning down 17
Iraqis, including women and children, in September 2007 has re-ignited
deep discord among Iraqis, and fuelled suspicions that US personnel
operate in a lawless void while in Iraq.
An Iraqi investigation into the incident two years ago contradicted
Blackwater claims that its contractors had fired in self-defence after
coming under attack in central Baghdad. In January 2008, the Iraqi
government barred Blackwater from providing security detail to US
diplomatic staff in the country, citing the firm's use of excessive force.
A US congressional investigation into Blackwater operations appeared to
corroborate Baghdad's accusations that the firm routinely used
"excessive" and "pre-emptive" force. In November 2007, FBI investigators
found that 14 of the 17 killings had been "unjustified" and violated
"deadly force rules" for security contractors operating in Iraq.
However, Urbina threw out the case last week saying that US justice
department prosecutors had improperly used sworn statements that had
been given under a promise of immunity.
While the Iraqi government said it regretted the judge's decision and
vowed to appeal the ruling, ordinary Iraqis are left wondering at the
apparent double standards of a legal system which could pioneer
rendition, imprisonment and torture based on far less evidence, but
fumble a case like this.
However, Mohammed Kinani, whose nine-year-old son Ali was killed in the
shooting, told Al Jazeera that Urbina's dismissal does not signal the
end of the criminal or civil cases brought against Blackwater.
"The FBI has been investigating this case for 27 months and there are
witnesses to the event as well as forensic evidence which indicate that
this is not the end of the road," he said.
'Utter devastation'
Kinani, his sister, her three children and Kinani's son were in a car in
Nisour Square on September 14 when Blackwater guards instructed them to
stop.
"A few minutes after several cars in the square stopped, they opened
fire on us," Kinani said.
"My son was hit, my sister was lightly injured, my car was hit by dozens
of rounds. A man in front of me was killed and lying in a pool of his
own blood and every few moments they would fire on him again ... they
continued pumping bullets into us.
"They utterly devastated everything in front of them. As if they were
bent on revenge."
Haitham Ahmed, whose wife and son were killed in the shooting, told the
Associated Press that the way the prosecution handled the case raises
doubts over whether the US justice system could deliver a fair verdict.
"If a judge ... dismissed the trial, that is ridiculous and the whole
thing has been but a farce," he said.
Dahlia Wasfi, an Iraqi-American who is currently writing a book about
the "illegal occupation of Iraq", says that Iraqis have largely given up
on waiting for justice "or democracy, for that matter", from Washington.
"There are over 1.3 million dead Iraqis who deserve justice. There are
over 5 million displaced Iraqis who have the right of return to a safe
country who deserve justice. What the United States has to understand is
that without justice, there will be no peace," she says.
Immunity to impunity?
But Blackwater Worldwide, since renamed Xe Services, is not the only
security contractor operating in Iraq.
Since the US-led invasion and occupation in 2003, more than 100 private
security firms have set up shop in Iraq, many of their names and
mandates unknown to the media.
All have been granted immunity from Iraqi prosecution under an agreement
signed by Paul Bremer, the Coalition Provisional Authority head, and the
Iraqi Governing Council, an interim political body established after the
fall of Baghdad, in 2004.
Despite the handing of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, 2004, this
immunity exemption remains in effect today.
In fact, private security firms in Iraq, much like Blackwater, took over
major tasks and operations, which had previously been primarily assigned
to US forces. The hope at the time had been that US forces would remain
in their barracks, avoid improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and
ambushes, reduce the body count, and keep the US public firmly behind
the war. In effect, private security firms become the de facto military
presence in Iraq - outnumbering the official count of non-US military
"coalition" forces.
As of November 2007, Blackwater had earned more than $485mn in
government contracts.
"Iraqis are certainly aware - far more aware than Americans - that there
are numerous groups, armies, and militias working under the occupation
to devastate Iraqi society and terrorise them. Blackwater and its
henchmen are known in Iraq; in March 2008, Iraqi doctors in Falluja
named an outbreak of severe malarial infection 'Blackwater Fever'
because it's so lethal," says Wasfi.
Cursory investigations
The US government has no means of monitoring who the private security
contractors are, what they do or how much they are paid and, in June
2009, a US congressional Wartime Contracting Commission found that the
US military had failed to provide adequate oversight of private
contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraqis have grown tired of the explanations repeatedly offered as
justification for the killing of civilians and say US investigators have
only offered cursory investigations, usually siding with the accounts of
private security firms.
Amnesty International USA has also been critical of the way the US
government has handled accusations of impropriety by private security
contractors, saying that "the US justice department has largely failed
in its obligation to prosecute US contractors for serious human rights
violations, and worse, it appears to have taken steps to undermine
access to justice".
In his ruling, Judge Urbina said that lead prosecutor Ken Kohl and
others "purposefully flouted the advice" of senior justice department
officials who told them not to use the statements that he eventually
ruled as impermissible.
Whether the prosecution's faux pas was the result of incompetence or
willful sabotage is immaterial at this point; the Blackwater case was
seen as a test of future Iraq-US relations, particularly given that US
combat troops are to fully withdraw from Iraq by 2011.
The case also marked the culmination of years of frustrated efforts by
Iraqi civilians and politicians to hold accountable not only private
contractors, but the US military as well, for excessive use of force.
Kinani says his family is still distraught about the killing of his son
but that he derives strength from knowing that the Nisour Square
incident not only brought Iraq's Shias and Sunnis together but also
revealed what ordinary civilians were facing under occupation.
"The killings in Nisour Square woke the Iraqi and US authorities to the
horrors of what such security firms were doing in Iraq," he said, "and
motivated them to take legal action."
--
Dan Clore
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Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"