Eric Prince founder of Blackwater Mercenary Company, Crusader, Fascist, Freak

Blackwater involved in 195 shootings: report

8 deadly days for Blackwater

Pentagon Rewards Murder and War Crimes: Issues Blackwater New $92 Million Contract

Blackwater force in 56 shootings

Blackwater, a large, privately owned security contractor based in North Carolina, has provided security to diplomats on 1873 convoy runs in Iraq so far this year, and its personnel fired weapons 56 times, according to a statement by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

The State Department did not release comparable 2007 numbers for other security companies.

But the Blackwater numbers show a far higher rate of shootings per convoy mission than experienced last year by one of the company's main competitors, DynCorp International. DynCorp reported 10 cases in about 1500 convoy runs.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Blackwater's rate of shootings was at least twice as high as the rates for other companies providing similar services to the State Department in Iraq.

We'll see. Iraq to end contractor 'immunity'

The new code would require contractors to be subject to Iraqi law and to be monitored by the Iraqi government.
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Correspondents say their behaviour has incensed Iraqis who view them as private armies acting with impunity on their soil.

The contractors are currently granted immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law by Order 17 of the Coalition Provisional Authority - the now-defunct interim body set up by the US-led coalition in the wake of the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The agreement was extended shortly before the CPA was disbanded in June 2004.

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Romney, Advised By Blackwater’s Vice Chairman, Stays Silent On Blackwater Shootings

Romney has a clear interest not condemning Blackwater. Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater, currently serves as a Senior Adviser for counterterrorism and national security issues on the Romney campaign. From the April press release announcing that Black would be joining the campaign:

“I am pleased to welcome Cofer Black to our campaign. He has a long and impressive career dedicated to making America safer and more secure in the world,” said Governor Romney. “Our country faces a new generation of challenges and Black’s experience at the forefront of our nation’s counterterrorism efforts will be a tremendous asset.”

The recent incident was not the first violent episode that involved Blackwater in Iraq. Iraqi officials are now investigating “allegations about the security firm’s involvement in six other violent episodes this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.” The day before the Coalition Provisional Authority ceased to exist, L. Paul Bremer, then the chief American envoy in Iraq, issued an order that “granted American private security contractors immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts.”

Black previously served as the CIA’s chief of counterrorism. In 2001, he infamously ordered an agent to “Capture Bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice.”

Iraqi Government Ban on Blackwater almost as much of a Joke as George Bush as president

American diplomats today resumed travel in Iraq in convoys escorted by Blackwater USA, the private American security contractor, less than a week after the Iraqi government banned the company following a shooting in which at least eight Iraqis were killed.

It was unclear, however, whether the Iraqi authorities had approved the decision to allow Blackwater to resume operations and what this resumption of convoy traffic means in the developing dispute between Iraqi and American officials over the use of private security contractors in Iraq. Mirembe Nantongo, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy, said a limited number of diplomats had traveled outside the heavily fortified Green Zone and were likely accompanied by Blackwater guards. “As a general rule, in a limited manner, Blackwater is operating,” she said.
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Blackwater Weapons Smuggling

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The News & Observer, citing unidentified sources, reported that the probe was looking at whether Blackwater had shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq without a license.

The paper's report that the company itself was under investigation could not be confirmed by the AP.

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Blackwater's 'Drug War' Bonanza

While Blackwater's mercenaries beg for mercy for killing a baby and 19 other people in Baghdad on Sunday, they're already working on another lucrative government contract on yet another foreign adventure: the "war on drugs."

In a major new outsourcing deal reported by only a few outlets, including the Army Times, Blackwater will divvy up a $15 billion pot of government gold, along with four huge defense contractors: Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Arinc.

Blackwater claims to be building remote-control spy airships. Purty darn good for an army based in a little North Carolina town — no, it's Currituck, not Mayberry.

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t probably didn't hurt the mercenary army that, according to federal campaign records, its top execs gave $1,000 to Tom DeLay's campaign on December 14, 2004. Or that they contributed mostly to other openly God-fearing lawmakers, like Bono pal Rick Santorum, Kansas's Todd Tiahrt, and Indiana's Mike Pence — whose campaign-finance tool is the Principles Exalt a Nation PAC.

America's Mercenary Army

When years from now historians and government officials reexamine precedents set by the U.S. experience in Iraq, many "firsts" are likely to pop up.

One still playing out is the extraordinarily wide use of private contractors. A Congressional Research Service report published last month titled "Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues," puts it this way: "Iraq appears to be the first case where the U.S. government has used private contractors extensively for protecting persons and property in potentially hostile or hostile situations where host country security forces are absent or deficient."

Only estimates are available for the total employment by contractors in Iraq that perform "functions once carried by the U.S. military," according to the study. Testimony at an April 2007 congressional hearing gave the impressive figure of 127,000 as the number working in Iraq under Defense Department contracts. Breakdowns don't exist, but one Pentagon official said less than 20 percent were American.

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But the expanded contractor use has evoked new attention to a 1995 criticism of the practice. According to the study, a Defense Department Commission on Roles and Missions found then that depending on contractors was detrimental and that it kept the Pentagon "from building and maintaining capacity needed for strategic or other important missions."

An advertisement last week on IntelligenceCareers.com illustrates part of the problem. It seeks an "Intelligence Analyst" to work in Iraq for a Dayton, Ohio-based outfit called MacAulay-Brown, or MacB, which in turn is a subcontractor to the giant Lockheed Martin information technology group. The client is Counterintelligence Field Activity, the Defense Department's newest intelligence arm, which is responsible for coordinating force protection for the military services inside the United States and abroad.

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Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to Audit Blackwater

Blackwater, based at a sprawling compound in the tiny town of Moyock, has won more than $700 million in federal contracts since 2004 to protect American diplomatic personnel in Iraq.

Trigger Happy, Taxpayer Funded Amerikkkan Mercenaries Shoot it up In Baghdad

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.
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Since Blackwater Security Thugs, and other private army members employed by the US government and paid by taxpayer dollars that ought to be going to education and health care (to name just 2 neglected priorities), are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice they may murder how many ever they see fit and experience no consequence.

Blackwater's security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq, and its employees operate in a perilous environment that sometimes requires the use of deadly force. But last week's incidents underscored how deeply these hired guns have been drawn into the war, their murky legal status and the grave consequences that can ensue when they take aggressive action.
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Washington Post coverage is so polite as to obfuscate the facts. BushCo has been busy privatizing the US military along with the rest of government functions. Rummy's war plans were far more focused on how to feed tax payer dollars to private mercenaries than how to establish peace in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam. Make no mistake though - it is damn hard to plan the details of a war of aggression and choice like the Bushites threw here, like Hitler threw in Europe.

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The Iraqi official said the driver encountered the Blackwater convoy after leaving a gas station just outside the Interior Ministry. Some witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked, the official said. He said the driver had wounds in his shoulder, chest and head.

The Blackwater employees refused to divulge their names or details of the incident to Iraqi authorities, according to two of the U.S. officials and the Iraqi official. The officials described a tense standoff that ensued between the Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces -- both sides armed with assault rifles -- until a passing U.S. military convoy intervened.

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If the Bullshit democrat controlled (by however slim a margin) congress, elected to stop Bush, cannot hold these private murderers who were also deployed on the streets on New Orleans post Katrina accountable is time to storm Washington.