Good People,
Constitutional Legal Justice DEMANDS that, Security and safety for all people be GUARANTEED and is a MUST. Any lapse or failure thereof, is a sign of incompetency and a dysfunctional system that must not be taken as an excuse more or so where tax-payer pay for its upkeep in terms of salaries with other stipends to those charged with responsibilities of public affairs.
People have RIGHTS to take the matter to COURT for Remedy and/or REMOVAL of those who fail to measure up-to expectation. The Court is DUTY-BOUND to investigate and determine justification with consequences of the same and make ruling for the urgency of Security and Public Safety. It is a matter of Law and order mandated for compliance that is a requirement and not a matter of privileges for Security and Safety to measure up- to expectation. Blame-Game is neither here nor there.
Security of People is number one Constitutional Rights and a prerogative of the Government to its people, for which leaders took Oath to uphold. Law and Order cannot be overshadowed by any mode of Dialogue except Justice must take its jurisdiction seriously to address matters of Public Security Concern with the urgency it deserves.
A Democratic Constitution is a Policy Binding Legal Law Mandated by People how they wish to be Governed. It does not provide for options outside its Code of Rules where a group of Special Interested Parties should lobby to chart passage to avoid and escape discipline of Law and Order and instead have a Peoples' Mandate fashioned differently to by-pass the Legal Jurisdiction Arm of Government procedure; where disputes must be addressed. Beware that no corrupt Politician will pretend to be an Angel if they cannot address Socially Legitimate Concern of people when on the other hand they hold interest of Special Corporate Business Interest on the other hand. Saba Saba is equal to Land Grabbing and Land Grabbing cannot happen without dissorganizing Institution of Governance that of the Democratic Constitutional Rights through the GUN......and terrorism.
Wake up people, lest you water-down and weaken potentials of Law and Order needed to protect security of life with preservation of livelihood and survival.
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com/
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 7/2/14, Tom Oreje <tomoreje@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: [PK] Not Raila this time.
To: "progressive-kenyans" <progressive-kenyans@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2014, 8:30 AM
From the
star
IG Kimaiyo aide
blames Kaindi for insecurity
A comment on social
media by a civilian consultant for Inspector General of
Police David Kimaiyo has castigated Deputy IG Grace Kaindi
and blamed her for the rising insecurity across the
country.Faith Muthoni, a communication consultant for
Kimaiyo, posted on her Facebook page: "Now who replaced
the police commissioner [sic]? Grace Kaindi, what role does
she play. All the time, I always hear Kimaiyo this Kimaiyo
that."The statement immediately drew shap reactions from
people associated with Kaindi, who accused Kimaiyo's
office of engaging in an unwarranted blame
game."During the old constitution Kenya Police was
referred to as a Force headed by commissioner of police but
now it's a service headed by a Deputy Inspector General.
Persons who held this position were Ben Gethi, Nyasenda
[sic], Kiluki [sic], Hinga, Hussein Ali, and Mathew Iteere
among others. The position is currently held by Madam Grace
Kaindi but not IG Kimayo. ??"Kimaiyo is the head of
National Police Service; Kenya Police, Administration
Police, KWS, KFS, NYS, Kenya Prisons. Each of the service do
have a person who is in charge [sic]," added
Kimaiyo's aide.?Muthoni is a civilian
hired by the IG whose known job description includes
handling Kimaiyo's Facebook and Tweeter accounts and
writing media commentaries on his behalf.Junior and senior
officers who read the comment reacted with anger - and some
said that the IG was shifting blame to his deputy for the
security lapses witnessed up and down the
country.Speaking to the Star, one officer complained:
"This was not necessary especially in a disciplined
service. The IG should own up to failures in the police and
stop pushing the blame. The buck stops with
him"."This tells you that all is not well in the top
hierarchy of the police," said a senior police officer
who uses Facebook and tweets.The comments have the
potential of straining the relationship between Kimaiyo and
Kaindi, coming at a time when President Uhuru Kenyatta has
threatened to sack the IG and CID Chief Ndegwa Muhoro if
they fail to tame insecurity nationwide.Yesterday, the Star
sought a comment from Kimaiyo on whether the sentiments
expressed by his aide were the IG's position or the
writer's personal take, but he did not respond to our
calls and text messages. Kaindi could not be reached for
comment either.The IG has two other communication consultants,
Justus Waimiri, who is seconded by the United Nations Office
on Drug and Crime (UNODC), and Eliud Nthiga, who is said to
be a long-time associate and friend of Kimaiyo.Last evening, Muthoni
said the comments she made were her personal sentiments and
had not been sanctioned by Kimaiyo. She said her comments
should not be taken to mean that there is a fight between
the top police chiefs.
=====================================
Ruto: Ultimatum not healthy for dialogue
By ERIC WAINAINA
Updated Wednesday, July 2nd 2014 at 15:20 GMT +3 Share this story: NAIROBI, KENYA: Deputy President William Ruto has reiterated that the Government will not engage the opposition in any platform outside the constitutionally created institutions or heed to their dialogue demands out of threats.
Mr Ruto said Jubilee Government has no problem in engaging Cord coalition in a dialogue but the dialogue cannot be in a situation where there are conditions and ultimatums issued, which he said are uncalled for.
"If they (Cord) want a structured engagement, we have said there are institutions that we can use to engage in a constructive manner," the deputy president said.
Kenyans, he said, are tired of talks and want action that will change their lives for the better and said there are people who want the Government to continue engaging in more talks.
Speaking during a live interview with a local TV channel on Tuesday night, Ruto also said Cord leaders; among them former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has direct links with President Uhuru Kenyatta such as phone calls as well as him which he can use to have a discussion with him to layout issues he has.
The deputy president gave an example in which Raila said he had a one-hour phone conversation with the President before he flew to US and said he can use the same means and discuss about issues, noting that he and Raila often communicate.
See also: Ban planned Saba Saba rally, President Uhuru told
He said that the much touted call for dialogue with the Government by the opposition has been dramatised and is marred by theatrics which makes it more impractical for the Government to engage in the said dialogue.
"If it is an honest discussion between Kenyan leaders, they (Cord) know they can get an honest discussion from us. What we do not want is discussions about mass action... I don't know we are going to do this, if you don't do this we are going to make the country ungovernable," he said.
Cord leaders have been demanding for dialogue with the Government on national issues and warned of a "tsunami" if the Government fails to call for it but the Uhuru-led administration has remained adamant.
Kenyans, he said, should be spared such kind of discussions, adding that they are only interested in service delivery and not mere talk.
Cord, he said, are free to hold their hyped Saba Saba rally scheduled for Monday next week at Uhuru Park in Nairobi but cautioned that they do not want Kenya to go through a route of mass action which could lead to losa of lives and destruction of property.
=============================
2 hours ago
MPs form all-party group for dialogue
Members of Parliament from the Government and Opposition have formed a group to spearhead national dialogue in the wake of the political stand-off between Jubilee and Cord.
MPs form group to push for talks as diplomats ask Cord to call off rally
Diaspora Messenger | July 1, 2014
Members of Parliament from the Government and Opposition have formed a group to spearhead national dialogue in the wake of the political stand-off between Jubilee and Cord.
The Inter-party Parliamentary Caucus will function along the lines of the Inter-party Parliament Group which negotiated important constitutional reforms before the 1997 election.
Even as MPs were closing ranks, Cord leaders were increasingly coming under diplomatic pressure to drop their push for a rally on Monday.
The MPs and diplomats are stepping in with just six days to the Saba Saba day rally called by Cord Leader Raila Odinga to press for national dialogue on security, alleged corruption, the cost of living, government appointments and disbandment of the electoral commission.
President Uhuru Kenyatta and the government have made it clear that dialogue should be held through the people's representatives in Parliament but Cord insists that the issues are too weighty to be left to MPs.
Some 115 members from Cord and Jubilee are reported to support the Inter-party Parliamentary Caucus and will hold their first meeting today. The meeting is expected to form a steering committee with a chairman to spearhead the talks.
"Anybody who has been involved in the reform agenda will tell you that for us to make any progress in terms of key issues affecting the country, you must work with Parliament," said the Rev Mutava Musyimi, who was instrumental in the formation of the caucus.
The Rev Musyimi said the process would best be guided by elected leaders and these are in Parliament, where the caucus would handle the issues.
However, he also said that given that there is a Constitution that addresses issues of sharing of resources and devolution of power, it is difficult to understand where the current agitation was coming from.
The idea for Parliament to form a caucus was first mooted two weeks ago by the Budget and Appropriations Committee, which the Mbeere South MP chairs, following a war of words between Cord and Jubilee over insecurity.
The committee proposed to the House to have a 25-member ad hoc committee to work with religious leaders to ensure MPs also take political responsibility.
However, the House Business Committee rejected the proposal, saying the suggestion could not be handled through a select committee.
The Rev Musyimi thereafter successfully petitioned the Speaker of the National Assembly to allow for the establishment of the caucus. The Speaker approved it and promised support and facilitation from his office after the MP presented the petition with 115 signatures from members.
The idea is to have 16 members from Cord and 16 from Jubilee and a neutral chairperson.
Ainamoi MP Benjamin Langat said he supported dialogue within the National Assembly.
"This is the House that should resolve the main issues affecting Kenyans. It is wrong to say this is a House of small issues…let us sit and discuss issues through a legally recognised process."
DIALOGUE WITHIN PARLIAMENT
Majority Leader Aden Duale also said that dialogue should be within Parliament.
"It cannot be done outside the confines of the institutions set by this Constitution," he said. "When I was told that the HBC had rejected the proposal to form an ad hoc committee I asked myself how can we carry it forward in a structured way and that is how I went for the petition," he said.
In the letter accompanying their petition addressed to the Speaker, the 115 MPs said: "As representatives, we are interested in establishing a caucus that permits and facilitates a network on the prevailing antagonistic political situation in the country. The caucus brings together legislators from all parties and from all parts of the country to ensure that important issues are adequately addressed through dialogue and policy."
Mr Muturi then approved the formation of the caucus. The issues to be addressed are security, devolution and inclusive economic growth.
Yesterday, Mr Junet Mohammed (Suna East, ODM) said the Rev Musyimi was yet to communicate about the caucus to Cord.
"Cord has to take it to their Parliamentary Group… and then when we have approval from there, Cord MPs can take it from there," he said.
Mr Agostino Neto (Ndhiwa, ODM) said without a clear idea of what the caucus was seeking to achieve, it would be a hard sell.
"The last IPPG was for constitutional reform. What is the end result of this particular interparty parliamentary committee? Is it talking for talking's sake?" he asked. "What do we hope to achieve? That is the most important question. There needs to be a clear outcome."
nation.co.ke
http://diasporamessenger.com/mps-form-group-to-push-for-talks-as-diplomats-ask-cord-to-call-off-rally/
=============================
African leaders vote to give themselves immunity from war crimes
The decision comes as two sitting presidents face charges at the International Criminal Court
July 1, 2014 2:06PM ET
African leaders gathered for a continent-wide summit voted to give themselves and their allies immunity from prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide at a new African Court of Justice and Human Rights.
The decision comes as the continent confronts human-rights violations and has two sitting presidents and one ousted president facing charges at the International Criminal Court.
Amnesty International called it "a backward step in the fight against impunity and a betrayal of victims of serious violations of human rights."
"At a time when the African continent is struggling to ensure that there is accountability for serious human-rights violations and abuses, it is impossible to justify this decision which undermines the integrity of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, even before it becomes operational," said Amnesty's Netsanet Belay.
The decision came Friday at an African Union summit vote in Equatorial Guinea from which journalists were excluded, Amnesty International said. News of the vote was imparted obliquely in a statement Monday night about the summit outcomes. A paragraph listing legal instruments agreed to at the meeting included the "Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights."
That amendment bars the court from prosecuting sitting African leaders and vaguely identified "senior officials."
Forty-two African and international civil society and rights groups had objected to the amendment, noting in an open letter before the summit that the impunity violates international and domestic laws as well as the constitution of the African Union.
Simon Allison of the South African-based Institute for Security Studies wrote in an op-ed piece before the vote that "there are enough compromised African leaders who might stand to benefit from the immunity on offer."
He noted that there is an argument to be made that guaranteed immunity for presidents and senior officials might actually encourage African states to engage more enthusiastically with the proposed new court, and to abide by its rulings.
"If Africa's leaders aren't worrying about their own fate, they won't have anything to lose by cooperating," he wrote.
And it might keep the court clear of the complicated political issues that have bogged down the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
That court has been accused of unfairly singling out African leaders. Earlier this year the African Union urged its members to "speak with one voice" to prevent criminal proceedings at ICC against sitting presidents. Only Botswana objected then, as it has now to the promised impunity at the African court.
The African Union has failed to persuade the U.N. Security Council to defer the trials of Kenya's president and his deputy on charges of crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating postelection violence that killed more than 1,000 people in 2007. Both men deny the charges. The Africans also wanted the deferral of criminal proceedings against Sudan's president, who has been charged with genocide in Darfur.
The Associated Press
=========================================
Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater
Blackwater considered itself above the law, US state department was warnedDepartment told of lax oversight at firm with $1bn contract to protect US diplomats weeks before Blackwater guards killed 17 IraqisShare 437
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inShare12Email Mark Tran
The Guardian, Monday 30 June 2014 09.06 EDT
Blackwater private security guards scan Baghdad from their helicopter. Photograph: Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images
A state department investigator warned that the private security firm Blackwater considered itself above the law, just weeks before Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians, it has been reported.
According to the New York Times, Jean Richter, who was sent to Iraq to review Blackwater's operations, warned in a memo dated 31 August 2007 that little oversight of the company, which had a $1bn contract to protect US diplomats, had created "an environment full of liability and negligence".
Blackwater guards "saw themselves as above the law", Richter wrote in the memo. His inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager said he could kill the government's chief investigator and no one could or would do anything about it as it was in Iraq. The threat came from Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's project manager in Iraq, during a meeting with Richter and another state department official, Donald Thomas, to discuss the review, which had uncovered overbilling and complaints about a cafeteria in Blackwater's compound.
Richter wrote: "I took Mr Carroll's threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract."
US embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the state department investigators as tension escalated between Richter and Blackwater in August 2007, the Times reported on Monday. The officials told the investigators they had disrupted the embassy's relationship with the security contractor and asked them to leave. Once back in Washington, Richter wrote his 31 August memo to state department officials to warn of lax oversight of the company.
The state department has not commented on the aborted investigation. A spokesman for Erik Prince, the founder and former chief executive of Blackwater, who sold the company in 2010, told the Times that Prince had never been told about the matter. Blackwater was renamed Xe Services in 2009. After Prince sold the company, the new owners named it Academi. In early June, it merged with Triple Canopy, one of its rivals for government and commercial contracts to provide private security. The new firm is called Constellis Holdings.
On 16 September 2007, Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqis at Nisour Square. A nine-year-old boy was among the civilians killed. Federal prosecutors later said Blackwater personnel had shot indiscriminately with automatic weapons and heavy machine guns, and had used grenade launchers. Four Blackwater guards involved in the shooting are on trial in Washington, the government's second attempt to prosecute the case in a US court after previous charges against five guards were dismissed in 2009.
The shooting soured relations between the US and Iraq, contributing to Baghdad's refusal the next year to agree to a treaty allowing US troops to stay in the country beyond 2011. The absence of a deal haunts the Obama administration to this day. Critics cite the lack of a US troop presence as a factor behind the military success of the jihadist militants of Isis.
===================================
Blackwater Manager Allegedly Threatened to Kill a State Department Investigator
By Margaret HartmannFollow @marghartmann
Weeks before Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
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Photo: PATRICK BAZ/2007 AFP
Those who read just two sentences past the boring, quintessentially New York Times headline "Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater," will find an explosive report by James Risen on the security contractor that had billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In August 2007, two State Department investigators were sent to Iraq to review Blackwater's operations. They found evidence of all sorts of misconduct — ranging from joyriding in a $180,000 armored vehicle to making low-paid foreign workers live in "squalid" conditions — but Blackwater's head manager in Iraq managed to top all of that. The State Department's lead investigator claims that Blackwater's project manager threatened "that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq." The investigation was then shut down, and a few weeks later, Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in
Nisour Square.
According to internal State Department documents uncovered during a lawsuit against Blackwater, shortly after arriving in Baghdad for a monthlong review, investigators Jean C. Richter and Donald Thomas Jr. uncovered many examples of Blackwater's contract violations, including:
Changing the staffing of security details for American diplomats without State Department approval
Blackwater guards storing automatic weapons and ammunition in their rooms, where they would party and drink heavily with many female guests
Blackwater guards carrying weapons that they weren't certified to use
Four drunk Blackwater guards driving an $180,000 vehicle to a party, and crashing it
Overbilling the State Department and falsifying records
A Blackwater-affiliated firm forcing low-paid foreign workers to live in filthy conditions, with three people packed into a tiny room with no bed
Richter and Thomas felt the problem was caused by personnel at the American Embassy in Baghdad getting too close to the contractor, and what happened next seems to confirm their suspicions. Richter was informed that someone had accused him of "inappropriate behavior," and he was instructed to start bringing Thomas to all of his meetings. The men said in their reports that when they met with Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's project manager in Iraq and a former member of Navy SEAL Team 6, he snapped that they had no right to question him about complaints about sanitary conditions in his cafeteria, then made the death threat.
"Mr. Carroll's statement was made in a low, even tone of voice, his head was slightly lowered; his eyes were fixed on mine," Richter wrote later in a memo. "I took Mr. Carroll's threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract." Thomas confirmed his story, and said others had told them to be "very careful."
Incredibly, it gets worse. Embassy officials sided with Blackwater and ordered the investigators to leave immediately, as they had become "unsustainably disruptive to day-to-day operations and created an unnecessarily hostile environment for a number of contract personnel." Once they returned to Washington, Richter wrote a report describing how Blackwater guards considered themselves "above the law," and had created "an environment full of liability and negligence."
Richter filed the memo on August 31, 2007. On October 5, 2007, three weeks after Blackwater guards killed 17 people and wounded about 20 in what several investigations concluded was an unprovoked attack, State Department officials finally responded to Richter's warning. They took statements from the two investigators about Carroll's alleged threat, but apparently did nothing else. In 2009, a judge threw out the indictment of five former Blackwater guards over the Baghdad shooting, and a federal court is currently trying four other guards on charges related to the incident.
NYT
===================================
World news
Iraq · Xe (Blackwater) · US foreign policy · United States · Middle East and North Africa
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More on this story
Iraq threatens action after Blackwater case collapses
Officials and relatives of 17 Iraqis killed in Baghdad react with fury to US judge's decision to dismiss all charges
US court dismisses charges against Blackwater security guards
========================
John Amato / Latest from Crooks and Liars: Bush Campaign Advisor: Sending Troops Into Iraq Was A Huge Mistake The First Time — Matthew Dowd, the former chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney '04 presidential campaign, said that it was a mistake America got involved in fighting in Iraq the first time.
Link Search: IceRocket, Google, and Ask
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Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater
By JAMES RISENJUNE 29, 2014
Inside
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Blackwater personnel escorting Paul Bremer, an American civil administrator, upon his arrival in Ramadi, Iraq, in March 2004. Credit Image by Peter Andrews/Reuters Continue reading the main story Share This Page
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campaign: nyt2014_sharetools_mkt_topstories_478QW -- 247890, creative: nyt2014_sharetools_mktg_topstories_478QW -- 373809, page: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/us/before-shooting-in-iraq-warning-on-blackwater.html, targetedPage: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/us, position: MiddleLeftContinue reading the main story Continue reading the main story WASHINGTON — Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor's operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager there issued a threat: "that he could kill" the government's chief investigator and "no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq," according to department reports.
American Embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the State Department investigators as a dispute over the probe escalated in August 2007, the previously undisclosed documents show. The officials told the investigators that they had disrupted the embassy's relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave the country, according to the reports.
After returning to Washington, the chief investigator wrote a scathing report to State Department officials documenting misconduct by Blackwater employees and warning that lax oversight of the company, which had a contract worth more than $1 billion to protect American diplomats, had created "an environment full of liability and negligence."
Continue reading the main story
OPEN Document
Document: State Department Documents on Blackwater Episode "The management structures in place to manage and monitor our contracts in Iraq have become subservient to the contractors themselves," the investigator, Jean C. Richter, wrote in an Aug. 31, 2007, memo to State Department officials. "Blackwater contractors saw themselves as above the law," he said, adding that the "hands off" management resulted in a situation in which "the contractors, instead of Department officials, are in command and in control."
His memo and other newly disclosed State Department documents make clear that the department was alerted to serious problems involving Blackwater and its government overseers before the Nisour Square shooting, which outraged Iraqis and deepened resentment over the United States' presence in the country.
Today, as conflict rages again in Iraq, four Blackwater guards involved in the Nisour Square shooting are on trial in Washington on charges stemming from the episode, the government's second attempt to prosecute the case in an American court after previous charges against five guards were dismissed in 2009.
The shooting was a watershed moment in the American occupation of Iraq, and was a factor in Iraq's refusal the next year to agree to a treaty allowing United States troops to stay in the country beyond 2011. Despite a series of investigations in the wake of Nisour Square, the back story of what happened with Blackwater and the embassy in Baghdad before the fateful shooting has never been fully told.
The State Department declined to comment on the aborted investigation. A spokesman for Erik Prince, the founder and former chief executive of Blackwater, who sold the company in 2010, said Mr. Prince had never been told about the matter.
After Mr. Prince sold the company, the new owners named it Academi. In early June, it merged with Triple Canopy, one of its rivals for government and commercial contracts to provide private security. The new firm is called Constellis Holdings.
Continue reading the main story Experts who were previously unaware of this episode said it fit into a larger pattern of behavior. "The Blackwater-State Department relationship gave new meaning to the word 'dysfunctional,' " said Peter Singer, a strategist at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute, who has written extensively on private security contractors. "It involved everything from catastrophic failures of supervision to shortchanging broader national security goals at the expense of short-term desires."
Even before Nisour Square, Blackwater's security guards had acquired a reputation among Iraqis and American military personnel for swagger and recklessness, but their complaints about practices ranging from running cars off the road to shooting wildly in the streets and even killing civilians typically did not result in serious action by the United States or the Iraqi government.
But scrutiny of the company intensified after a Blackwater convoy traveling through Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007, just over two weeks after Mr. Richter sent his memo, fired on the crowded traffic circle. A 9-year-old boy was among the civilians killed. Blackwater guards later claimed that they had been fired upon first, but American military officials who inspected the scene determined that there was no evidence of any insurgent activity in the square that day. Federal prosecutors later said Blackwater personnel had shot indiscriminately with automatic weapons, heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.
Founded in 1997 by Mr. Prince, a former member of the Navy SEALs and an heir to an auto parts fortune, Blackwater began as a small company providing shooting ranges and training facilities in rural North Carolina for the military and for police departments. After the American-led invasion of Afghanistan and later Iraq, it ramped up to become a global security contractor with billions of dollars in contracts for the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The company's gung-ho attitude and willingness to take on risky tasks were seductive to government officials in Washington. The State Department, for example, secretly sent Blackwater guards to Shenyang, China, to provide security for North Korean asylum seekers who had gone to the United States Consulate there and refused to leave for fear the Chinese government would force them to go back to North Korea, according to company documents and interviews with former Blackwater personnel.
But Blackwater's rapid growth and the State Department's growing dependence on the contractor led to unbridled hubris, according to several former company officials. That was fostered, they said, by Mr. Prince, who not long before the Nisour Square shooting gathered employees in front of Blackwater headquarters in Moyock, N.C., and demanded that they swear an oath of allegiance.
Saying that the business was on the verge of being awarded lucrative new contracts, Mr. Prince told the workers that they had to take a pledge — the same one required of those entering the United States military — "to display our commitment to the war on terror," several former employees recalled.
Continue reading the main story As he was speaking, the employees were handed copies of the oath, which had a Blackwater bear paw logo on top, and told to sign and return it to their supervisors after reciting the words. But some balked.
Continue reading the main story
This was an oath for soldiers, not the employees of a private company, and many in the crowd were veterans who believed that it was inappropriately being linked to the company's commercial prospects.
"It was kind of like pledging allegiance to Erik," said a former Blackwater employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he had been required to sign a nondisclosure agreement with Blackwater. "That's how a lot of us interpreted it."
Soon after State Department investigators arrived in Baghdad on Aug. 1, 2007, to begin a monthlong review of Blackwater's operations, the situation became volatile. Internal State Department documents, which were turned over to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Blackwater that was unrelated to the Nisour Square shooting, provide details of what happened.
Continue reading the main story Video Play Video|6:26The Blackwater Shooting
The Blackwater ShootingWitnesses shed new light on the killing of 17 Iraqis by American contractors in Baghdad.
Image Credit Image by Johan Spanner for The New York Times It did not take long for the two-man investigative team — Mr. Richter, a Diplomatic Security special agent, and Donald Thomas Jr., a State Department management analyst — to discover a long list of contract violations by Blackwater.
They found that Blackwater's staffing of its security details for American diplomats had been changed without State Department approval, reducing guards on many details to eight from 10, the documents said. Blackwater guards were storing automatic weapons and ammunition in their private rooms, where they also were drinking heavily and partying with frequent female visitors. Many of the guards had failed to regularly qualify on their weapons, and were often carrying weapons on which they had never been certified and that they were not authorized to use.
The armored vehicles Blackwater used to protect American diplomats were poorly maintained and deteriorating, and the investigators found that four drunk guards had commandeered one heavily armored, $180,000 vehicle to drive to a private party, and crashed into a concrete barrier.
Blackwater was also overbilling the State Department by manipulating its personnel records, using guards assigned to the State Department contract for other work and falsifying other staffing data on the contract, the investigators concluded.
A Blackwater-affiliated firm was forcing "third country nationals" — low-paid workers from Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, including some who performed guard duty at Blackwater's compound — to live in squalid conditions, sometimes three to a cramped room with no bed, according to the report by the investigators.
Continue reading the main story
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Peter DYesterday
Blackwater guards were not "security contractors" - they were playing the role of soldiers, and their loyalty was determined by their...
cmYesterday
Risen's article strangely concludes with quote from State Dept. official saying "nothing to see here" when most of article seems to imply...
juepuctaYesterday
ah, the joys of hiring mercenaries...
See All Comments The investigators concluded that Blackwater was getting away with such conduct because embassy personnel had gotten too close to the contractor.
On Aug. 20, 2007, Mr. Richter was called in to the office of the embassy's regional security officer, Bob Hanni, who said he had received a call asking him to document Mr. Richter's "inappropriate behavior." Mr. Richter quickly called his supervisor in Washington, who instructed him to take Mr. Thomas with him to all remaining meetings in Baghdad, his report noted.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story The next day, the two men met with Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's project manager in Iraq, to discuss the investigation, including a complaint over food quality and sanitary conditions at a cafeteria in Blackwater's compound. Mr. Carroll barked that Mr. Richter could not tell him what to do about his cafeteria, Mr. Richter's report said. The Blackwater official went on to threaten the agent and say he would not face any consequences, according to Mr. Richter's later account.
Mr. Carroll said "that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq," Mr. Richter wrote in a memo to senior State Department officials in Washington. He noted that Mr. Carroll had formerly served with Navy SEAL Team 6, an elite unit.
"Mr. Carroll's statement was made in a low, even tone of voice, his head was slightly lowered; his eyes were fixed on mine," Mr. Richter stated in his memo. "I took Mr. Carroll's threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract."
He added that he was especially alarmed because Mr. Carroll was Blackwater's leader in Iraq, and "organizations take on the attitudes and mannerisms of their leader."
Mr. Thomas witnessed the exchange and corroborated Mr. Richter's version of events in a separate statement, writing that Mr. Carroll's comments were "unprofessional and threatening in nature." He added that others in Baghdad had told the two investigators to be "very careful," considering that their review could jeopardize job security for Blackwater personnel.
Mr. Richter was shocked when embassy officials sided with Mr. Carroll and ordered Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas to leave Iraq immediately, according to the documents. On Aug. 23, Ricardo Colon, the acting regional security officer at the embassy, wrote in an email that Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas had become "unsustainably disruptive to day-to-day operations and created an unnecessarily hostile environment for a number of contract personnel." The two men cut short their inquiry and returned to Washington the next day.
Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas declined to comment for this article. Mr. Carroll did not respond to a request for comment.
On Oct. 5, 2007, just as the State Department and Blackwater were being rocked by scandal in the aftermath of Nisour Square, State Department officials finally responded to Mr. Richter's August warning about Blackwater. They took statements from Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas about their accusations of a threat by Mr. Carroll, but took no further action.
Continue reading the main story Write A Comment Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state, named a special panel to examine the Nisour Square episode and recommend reforms, but the panel never interviewed Mr. Richter or Mr. Thomas.
Patrick Kennedy, the State Department official who led the special panel, told reporters on Oct. 23, 2007, that the panel had not found any communications from the embassy in Baghdad before the Nisour Square shooting that raised concerns about contractor conduct.
"We interviewed a large number of individuals," Mr. Kennedy said. "We did not find any, I think, significant pattern of incidents that had not — that the embassy had suppressed in any way."
A version of this article appears in print on June 30, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Before Shooting in Iraq, Warning on Blackwater. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
Constitutional Legal Justice DEMANDS that, Security and safety for all people be GUARANTEED and is a MUST. Any lapse or failure thereof, is a sign of incompetency and a dysfunctional system that must not be taken as an excuse more or so where tax-payer pay for its upkeep in terms of salaries with other stipends to those charged with responsibilities of public affairs.
People have RIGHTS to take the matter to COURT for Remedy and/or REMOVAL of those who fail to measure up-to expectation. The Court is DUTY-BOUND to investigate and determine justification with consequences of the same and make ruling for the urgency of Security and Public Safety. It is a matter of Law and order mandated for compliance that is a requirement and not a matter of privileges for Security and Safety to measure up- to expectation. Blame-Game is neither here nor there.
Security of People is number one Constitutional Rights and a prerogative of the Government to its people, for which leaders took Oath to uphold. Law and Order cannot be overshadowed by any mode of Dialogue except Justice must take its jurisdiction seriously to address matters of Public Security Concern with the urgency it deserves.
A Democratic Constitution is a Policy Binding Legal Law Mandated by People how they wish to be Governed. It does not provide for options outside its Code of Rules where a group of Special Interested Parties should lobby to chart passage to avoid and escape discipline of Law and Order and instead have a Peoples' Mandate fashioned differently to by-pass the Legal Jurisdiction Arm of Government procedure; where disputes must be addressed. Beware that no corrupt Politician will pretend to be an Angel if they cannot address Socially Legitimate Concern of people when on the other hand they hold interest of Special Corporate Business Interest on the other hand. Saba Saba is equal to Land Grabbing and Land Grabbing cannot happen without dissorganizing Institution of Governance that of the Democratic Constitutional Rights through the GUN......and terrorism.
Wake up people, lest you water-down and weaken potentials of Law and Order needed to protect security of life with preservation of livelihood and survival.
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com/
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 7/2/14, Tom Oreje <tomoreje@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: [PK] Not Raila this time.
To: "progressive-kenyans" <progressive-kenyans@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2014, 8:30 AM
From the
star
IG Kimaiyo aide
blames Kaindi for insecurity
A comment on social
media by a civilian consultant for Inspector General of
Police David Kimaiyo has castigated Deputy IG Grace Kaindi
and blamed her for the rising insecurity across the
country.Faith Muthoni, a communication consultant for
Kimaiyo, posted on her Facebook page: "Now who replaced
the police commissioner [sic]? Grace Kaindi, what role does
she play. All the time, I always hear Kimaiyo this Kimaiyo
that."The statement immediately drew shap reactions from
people associated with Kaindi, who accused Kimaiyo's
office of engaging in an unwarranted blame
game."During the old constitution Kenya Police was
referred to as a Force headed by commissioner of police but
now it's a service headed by a Deputy Inspector General.
Persons who held this position were Ben Gethi, Nyasenda
[sic], Kiluki [sic], Hinga, Hussein Ali, and Mathew Iteere
among others. The position is currently held by Madam Grace
Kaindi but not IG Kimayo. ??"Kimaiyo is the head of
National Police Service; Kenya Police, Administration
Police, KWS, KFS, NYS, Kenya Prisons. Each of the service do
have a person who is in charge [sic]," added
Kimaiyo's aide.?Muthoni is a civilian
hired by the IG whose known job description includes
handling Kimaiyo's Facebook and Tweeter accounts and
writing media commentaries on his behalf.Junior and senior
officers who read the comment reacted with anger - and some
said that the IG was shifting blame to his deputy for the
security lapses witnessed up and down the
country.Speaking to the Star, one officer complained:
"This was not necessary especially in a disciplined
service. The IG should own up to failures in the police and
stop pushing the blame. The buck stops with
him"."This tells you that all is not well in the top
hierarchy of the police," said a senior police officer
who uses Facebook and tweets.The comments have the
potential of straining the relationship between Kimaiyo and
Kaindi, coming at a time when President Uhuru Kenyatta has
threatened to sack the IG and CID Chief Ndegwa Muhoro if
they fail to tame insecurity nationwide.Yesterday, the Star
sought a comment from Kimaiyo on whether the sentiments
expressed by his aide were the IG's position or the
writer's personal take, but he did not respond to our
calls and text messages. Kaindi could not be reached for
comment either.The IG has two other communication consultants,
Justus Waimiri, who is seconded by the United Nations Office
on Drug and Crime (UNODC), and Eliud Nthiga, who is said to
be a long-time associate and friend of Kimaiyo.Last evening, Muthoni
said the comments she made were her personal sentiments and
had not been sanctioned by Kimaiyo. She said her comments
should not be taken to mean that there is a fight between
the top police chiefs.
=====================================
Ruto: Ultimatum not healthy for dialogue
By ERIC WAINAINA
Updated Wednesday, July 2nd 2014 at 15:20 GMT +3 Share this story: NAIROBI, KENYA: Deputy President William Ruto has reiterated that the Government will not engage the opposition in any platform outside the constitutionally created institutions or heed to their dialogue demands out of threats.
Mr Ruto said Jubilee Government has no problem in engaging Cord coalition in a dialogue but the dialogue cannot be in a situation where there are conditions and ultimatums issued, which he said are uncalled for.
"If they (Cord) want a structured engagement, we have said there are institutions that we can use to engage in a constructive manner," the deputy president said.
Kenyans, he said, are tired of talks and want action that will change their lives for the better and said there are people who want the Government to continue engaging in more talks.
Speaking during a live interview with a local TV channel on Tuesday night, Ruto also said Cord leaders; among them former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has direct links with President Uhuru Kenyatta such as phone calls as well as him which he can use to have a discussion with him to layout issues he has.
The deputy president gave an example in which Raila said he had a one-hour phone conversation with the President before he flew to US and said he can use the same means and discuss about issues, noting that he and Raila often communicate.
See also: Ban planned Saba Saba rally, President Uhuru told
He said that the much touted call for dialogue with the Government by the opposition has been dramatised and is marred by theatrics which makes it more impractical for the Government to engage in the said dialogue.
"If it is an honest discussion between Kenyan leaders, they (Cord) know they can get an honest discussion from us. What we do not want is discussions about mass action... I don't know we are going to do this, if you don't do this we are going to make the country ungovernable," he said.
Cord leaders have been demanding for dialogue with the Government on national issues and warned of a "tsunami" if the Government fails to call for it but the Uhuru-led administration has remained adamant.
Kenyans, he said, should be spared such kind of discussions, adding that they are only interested in service delivery and not mere talk.
Cord, he said, are free to hold their hyped Saba Saba rally scheduled for Monday next week at Uhuru Park in Nairobi but cautioned that they do not want Kenya to go through a route of mass action which could lead to losa of lives and destruction of property.
=============================
2 hours ago
MPs form all-party group for dialogue
Members of Parliament from the Government and Opposition have formed a group to spearhead national dialogue in the wake of the political stand-off between Jubilee and Cord.
MPs form group to push for talks as diplomats ask Cord to call off rally
Diaspora Messenger | July 1, 2014
Members of Parliament from the Government and Opposition have formed a group to spearhead national dialogue in the wake of the political stand-off between Jubilee and Cord.
The Inter-party Parliamentary Caucus will function along the lines of the Inter-party Parliament Group which negotiated important constitutional reforms before the 1997 election.
Even as MPs were closing ranks, Cord leaders were increasingly coming under diplomatic pressure to drop their push for a rally on Monday.
The MPs and diplomats are stepping in with just six days to the Saba Saba day rally called by Cord Leader Raila Odinga to press for national dialogue on security, alleged corruption, the cost of living, government appointments and disbandment of the electoral commission.
President Uhuru Kenyatta and the government have made it clear that dialogue should be held through the people's representatives in Parliament but Cord insists that the issues are too weighty to be left to MPs.
Some 115 members from Cord and Jubilee are reported to support the Inter-party Parliamentary Caucus and will hold their first meeting today. The meeting is expected to form a steering committee with a chairman to spearhead the talks.
"Anybody who has been involved in the reform agenda will tell you that for us to make any progress in terms of key issues affecting the country, you must work with Parliament," said the Rev Mutava Musyimi, who was instrumental in the formation of the caucus.
The Rev Musyimi said the process would best be guided by elected leaders and these are in Parliament, where the caucus would handle the issues.
However, he also said that given that there is a Constitution that addresses issues of sharing of resources and devolution of power, it is difficult to understand where the current agitation was coming from.
The idea for Parliament to form a caucus was first mooted two weeks ago by the Budget and Appropriations Committee, which the Mbeere South MP chairs, following a war of words between Cord and Jubilee over insecurity.
The committee proposed to the House to have a 25-member ad hoc committee to work with religious leaders to ensure MPs also take political responsibility.
However, the House Business Committee rejected the proposal, saying the suggestion could not be handled through a select committee.
The Rev Musyimi thereafter successfully petitioned the Speaker of the National Assembly to allow for the establishment of the caucus. The Speaker approved it and promised support and facilitation from his office after the MP presented the petition with 115 signatures from members.
The idea is to have 16 members from Cord and 16 from Jubilee and a neutral chairperson.
Ainamoi MP Benjamin Langat said he supported dialogue within the National Assembly.
"This is the House that should resolve the main issues affecting Kenyans. It is wrong to say this is a House of small issues…let us sit and discuss issues through a legally recognised process."
DIALOGUE WITHIN PARLIAMENT
Majority Leader Aden Duale also said that dialogue should be within Parliament.
"It cannot be done outside the confines of the institutions set by this Constitution," he said. "When I was told that the HBC had rejected the proposal to form an ad hoc committee I asked myself how can we carry it forward in a structured way and that is how I went for the petition," he said.
In the letter accompanying their petition addressed to the Speaker, the 115 MPs said: "As representatives, we are interested in establishing a caucus that permits and facilitates a network on the prevailing antagonistic political situation in the country. The caucus brings together legislators from all parties and from all parts of the country to ensure that important issues are adequately addressed through dialogue and policy."
Mr Muturi then approved the formation of the caucus. The issues to be addressed are security, devolution and inclusive economic growth.
Yesterday, Mr Junet Mohammed (Suna East, ODM) said the Rev Musyimi was yet to communicate about the caucus to Cord.
"Cord has to take it to their Parliamentary Group… and then when we have approval from there, Cord MPs can take it from there," he said.
Mr Agostino Neto (Ndhiwa, ODM) said without a clear idea of what the caucus was seeking to achieve, it would be a hard sell.
"The last IPPG was for constitutional reform. What is the end result of this particular interparty parliamentary committee? Is it talking for talking's sake?" he asked. "What do we hope to achieve? That is the most important question. There needs to be a clear outcome."
nation.co.ke
http://diasporamessenger.com/mps-form-group-to-push-for-talks-as-diplomats-ask-cord-to-call-off-rally/
=============================
African leaders vote to give themselves immunity from war crimes
The decision comes as two sitting presidents face charges at the International Criminal Court
July 1, 2014 2:06PM ET
African leaders gathered for a continent-wide summit voted to give themselves and their allies immunity from prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide at a new African Court of Justice and Human Rights.
The decision comes as the continent confronts human-rights violations and has two sitting presidents and one ousted president facing charges at the International Criminal Court.
Amnesty International called it "a backward step in the fight against impunity and a betrayal of victims of serious violations of human rights."
"At a time when the African continent is struggling to ensure that there is accountability for serious human-rights violations and abuses, it is impossible to justify this decision which undermines the integrity of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights, even before it becomes operational," said Amnesty's Netsanet Belay.
The decision came Friday at an African Union summit vote in Equatorial Guinea from which journalists were excluded, Amnesty International said. News of the vote was imparted obliquely in a statement Monday night about the summit outcomes. A paragraph listing legal instruments agreed to at the meeting included the "Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights."
That amendment bars the court from prosecuting sitting African leaders and vaguely identified "senior officials."
Forty-two African and international civil society and rights groups had objected to the amendment, noting in an open letter before the summit that the impunity violates international and domestic laws as well as the constitution of the African Union.
Simon Allison of the South African-based Institute for Security Studies wrote in an op-ed piece before the vote that "there are enough compromised African leaders who might stand to benefit from the immunity on offer."
He noted that there is an argument to be made that guaranteed immunity for presidents and senior officials might actually encourage African states to engage more enthusiastically with the proposed new court, and to abide by its rulings.
"If Africa's leaders aren't worrying about their own fate, they won't have anything to lose by cooperating," he wrote.
And it might keep the court clear of the complicated political issues that have bogged down the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
That court has been accused of unfairly singling out African leaders. Earlier this year the African Union urged its members to "speak with one voice" to prevent criminal proceedings at ICC against sitting presidents. Only Botswana objected then, as it has now to the promised impunity at the African court.
The African Union has failed to persuade the U.N. Security Council to defer the trials of Kenya's president and his deputy on charges of crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating postelection violence that killed more than 1,000 people in 2007. Both men deny the charges. The Africans also wanted the deferral of criminal proceedings against Sudan's president, who has been charged with genocide in Darfur.
The Associated Press
=========================================
Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater
Blackwater considered itself above the law, US state department was warnedDepartment told of lax oversight at firm with $1bn contract to protect US diplomats weeks before Blackwater guards killed 17 IraqisShare 437
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inShare12Email Mark Tran
The Guardian, Monday 30 June 2014 09.06 EDT
Blackwater private security guards scan Baghdad from their helicopter. Photograph: Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images
A state department investigator warned that the private security firm Blackwater considered itself above the law, just weeks before Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians, it has been reported.
According to the New York Times, Jean Richter, who was sent to Iraq to review Blackwater's operations, warned in a memo dated 31 August 2007 that little oversight of the company, which had a $1bn contract to protect US diplomats, had created "an environment full of liability and negligence".
Blackwater guards "saw themselves as above the law", Richter wrote in the memo. His inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager said he could kill the government's chief investigator and no one could or would do anything about it as it was in Iraq. The threat came from Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's project manager in Iraq, during a meeting with Richter and another state department official, Donald Thomas, to discuss the review, which had uncovered overbilling and complaints about a cafeteria in Blackwater's compound.
Richter wrote: "I took Mr Carroll's threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract."
US embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the state department investigators as tension escalated between Richter and Blackwater in August 2007, the Times reported on Monday. The officials told the investigators they had disrupted the embassy's relationship with the security contractor and asked them to leave. Once back in Washington, Richter wrote his 31 August memo to state department officials to warn of lax oversight of the company.
The state department has not commented on the aborted investigation. A spokesman for Erik Prince, the founder and former chief executive of Blackwater, who sold the company in 2010, told the Times that Prince had never been told about the matter. Blackwater was renamed Xe Services in 2009. After Prince sold the company, the new owners named it Academi. In early June, it merged with Triple Canopy, one of its rivals for government and commercial contracts to provide private security. The new firm is called Constellis Holdings.
On 16 September 2007, Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqis at Nisour Square. A nine-year-old boy was among the civilians killed. Federal prosecutors later said Blackwater personnel had shot indiscriminately with automatic weapons and heavy machine guns, and had used grenade launchers. Four Blackwater guards involved in the shooting are on trial in Washington, the government's second attempt to prosecute the case in a US court after previous charges against five guards were dismissed in 2009.
The shooting soured relations between the US and Iraq, contributing to Baghdad's refusal the next year to agree to a treaty allowing US troops to stay in the country beyond 2011. The absence of a deal haunts the Obama administration to this day. Critics cite the lack of a US troop presence as a factor behind the military success of the jihadist militants of Isis.
===================================
Blackwater Manager Allegedly Threatened to Kill a State Department Investigator
By Margaret HartmannFollow @marghartmann
Weeks before Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
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Photo: PATRICK BAZ/2007 AFP
Those who read just two sentences past the boring, quintessentially New York Times headline "Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater," will find an explosive report by James Risen on the security contractor that had billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In August 2007, two State Department investigators were sent to Iraq to review Blackwater's operations. They found evidence of all sorts of misconduct — ranging from joyriding in a $180,000 armored vehicle to making low-paid foreign workers live in "squalid" conditions — but Blackwater's head manager in Iraq managed to top all of that. The State Department's lead investigator claims that Blackwater's project manager threatened "that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq." The investigation was then shut down, and a few weeks later, Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in
Nisour Square.
According to internal State Department documents uncovered during a lawsuit against Blackwater, shortly after arriving in Baghdad for a monthlong review, investigators Jean C. Richter and Donald Thomas Jr. uncovered many examples of Blackwater's contract violations, including:
Changing the staffing of security details for American diplomats without State Department approval
Blackwater guards storing automatic weapons and ammunition in their rooms, where they would party and drink heavily with many female guests
Blackwater guards carrying weapons that they weren't certified to use
Four drunk Blackwater guards driving an $180,000 vehicle to a party, and crashing it
Overbilling the State Department and falsifying records
A Blackwater-affiliated firm forcing low-paid foreign workers to live in filthy conditions, with three people packed into a tiny room with no bed
Richter and Thomas felt the problem was caused by personnel at the American Embassy in Baghdad getting too close to the contractor, and what happened next seems to confirm their suspicions. Richter was informed that someone had accused him of "inappropriate behavior," and he was instructed to start bringing Thomas to all of his meetings. The men said in their reports that when they met with Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's project manager in Iraq and a former member of Navy SEAL Team 6, he snapped that they had no right to question him about complaints about sanitary conditions in his cafeteria, then made the death threat.
"Mr. Carroll's statement was made in a low, even tone of voice, his head was slightly lowered; his eyes were fixed on mine," Richter wrote later in a memo. "I took Mr. Carroll's threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract." Thomas confirmed his story, and said others had told them to be "very careful."
Incredibly, it gets worse. Embassy officials sided with Blackwater and ordered the investigators to leave immediately, as they had become "unsustainably disruptive to day-to-day operations and created an unnecessarily hostile environment for a number of contract personnel." Once they returned to Washington, Richter wrote a report describing how Blackwater guards considered themselves "above the law," and had created "an environment full of liability and negligence."
Richter filed the memo on August 31, 2007. On October 5, 2007, three weeks after Blackwater guards killed 17 people and wounded about 20 in what several investigations concluded was an unprovoked attack, State Department officials finally responded to Richter's warning. They took statements from the two investigators about Carroll's alleged threat, but apparently did nothing else. In 2009, a judge threw out the indictment of five former Blackwater guards over the Baghdad shooting, and a federal court is currently trying four other guards on charges related to the incident.
NYT
===================================
World news
Iraq · Xe (Blackwater) · US foreign policy · United States · Middle East and North Africa
More news
Iraq threatens action after Blackwater case collapses
Officials and relatives of 17 Iraqis killed in Baghdad react with fury to US judge's decision to dismiss all charges
US court dismisses charges against Blackwater security guards
========================
John Amato / Latest from Crooks and Liars: Bush Campaign Advisor: Sending Troops Into Iraq Was A Huge Mistake The First Time — Matthew Dowd, the former chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney '04 presidential campaign, said that it was a mistake America got involved in fighting in Iraq the first time.
Link Search: IceRocket, Google, and Ask
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Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater
By JAMES RISENJUNE 29, 2014
Inside
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campaign: nyt2014_sharetools_mkt_topstories_478QW -- 247890, creative: nyt2014_sharetools_mktg_topstories_478QW -- 373809, page: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/us/before-shooting-in-iraq-warning-on-blackwater.html, targetedPage: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/us, position: MiddleLeftContinue reading the main story Continue reading the main story WASHINGTON — Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor's operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager there issued a threat: "that he could kill" the government's chief investigator and "no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq," according to department reports.
American Embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the State Department investigators as a dispute over the probe escalated in August 2007, the previously undisclosed documents show. The officials told the investigators that they had disrupted the embassy's relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave the country, according to the reports.
After returning to Washington, the chief investigator wrote a scathing report to State Department officials documenting misconduct by Blackwater employees and warning that lax oversight of the company, which had a contract worth more than $1 billion to protect American diplomats, had created "an environment full of liability and negligence."
Continue reading the main story
OPEN Document
Document: State Department Documents on Blackwater Episode "The management structures in place to manage and monitor our contracts in Iraq have become subservient to the contractors themselves," the investigator, Jean C. Richter, wrote in an Aug. 31, 2007, memo to State Department officials. "Blackwater contractors saw themselves as above the law," he said, adding that the "hands off" management resulted in a situation in which "the contractors, instead of Department officials, are in command and in control."
His memo and other newly disclosed State Department documents make clear that the department was alerted to serious problems involving Blackwater and its government overseers before the Nisour Square shooting, which outraged Iraqis and deepened resentment over the United States' presence in the country.
Today, as conflict rages again in Iraq, four Blackwater guards involved in the Nisour Square shooting are on trial in Washington on charges stemming from the episode, the government's second attempt to prosecute the case in an American court after previous charges against five guards were dismissed in 2009.
The shooting was a watershed moment in the American occupation of Iraq, and was a factor in Iraq's refusal the next year to agree to a treaty allowing United States troops to stay in the country beyond 2011. Despite a series of investigations in the wake of Nisour Square, the back story of what happened with Blackwater and the embassy in Baghdad before the fateful shooting has never been fully told.
The State Department declined to comment on the aborted investigation. A spokesman for Erik Prince, the founder and former chief executive of Blackwater, who sold the company in 2010, said Mr. Prince had never been told about the matter.
After Mr. Prince sold the company, the new owners named it Academi. In early June, it merged with Triple Canopy, one of its rivals for government and commercial contracts to provide private security. The new firm is called Constellis Holdings.
Continue reading the main story Experts who were previously unaware of this episode said it fit into a larger pattern of behavior. "The Blackwater-State Department relationship gave new meaning to the word 'dysfunctional,' " said Peter Singer, a strategist at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute, who has written extensively on private security contractors. "It involved everything from catastrophic failures of supervision to shortchanging broader national security goals at the expense of short-term desires."
Even before Nisour Square, Blackwater's security guards had acquired a reputation among Iraqis and American military personnel for swagger and recklessness, but their complaints about practices ranging from running cars off the road to shooting wildly in the streets and even killing civilians typically did not result in serious action by the United States or the Iraqi government.
But scrutiny of the company intensified after a Blackwater convoy traveling through Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007, just over two weeks after Mr. Richter sent his memo, fired on the crowded traffic circle. A 9-year-old boy was among the civilians killed. Blackwater guards later claimed that they had been fired upon first, but American military officials who inspected the scene determined that there was no evidence of any insurgent activity in the square that day. Federal prosecutors later said Blackwater personnel had shot indiscriminately with automatic weapons, heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.
Founded in 1997 by Mr. Prince, a former member of the Navy SEALs and an heir to an auto parts fortune, Blackwater began as a small company providing shooting ranges and training facilities in rural North Carolina for the military and for police departments. After the American-led invasion of Afghanistan and later Iraq, it ramped up to become a global security contractor with billions of dollars in contracts for the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The company's gung-ho attitude and willingness to take on risky tasks were seductive to government officials in Washington. The State Department, for example, secretly sent Blackwater guards to Shenyang, China, to provide security for North Korean asylum seekers who had gone to the United States Consulate there and refused to leave for fear the Chinese government would force them to go back to North Korea, according to company documents and interviews with former Blackwater personnel.
But Blackwater's rapid growth and the State Department's growing dependence on the contractor led to unbridled hubris, according to several former company officials. That was fostered, they said, by Mr. Prince, who not long before the Nisour Square shooting gathered employees in front of Blackwater headquarters in Moyock, N.C., and demanded that they swear an oath of allegiance.
Saying that the business was on the verge of being awarded lucrative new contracts, Mr. Prince told the workers that they had to take a pledge — the same one required of those entering the United States military — "to display our commitment to the war on terror," several former employees recalled.
Continue reading the main story As he was speaking, the employees were handed copies of the oath, which had a Blackwater bear paw logo on top, and told to sign and return it to their supervisors after reciting the words. But some balked.
Continue reading the main story
This was an oath for soldiers, not the employees of a private company, and many in the crowd were veterans who believed that it was inappropriately being linked to the company's commercial prospects.
"It was kind of like pledging allegiance to Erik," said a former Blackwater employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he had been required to sign a nondisclosure agreement with Blackwater. "That's how a lot of us interpreted it."
Soon after State Department investigators arrived in Baghdad on Aug. 1, 2007, to begin a monthlong review of Blackwater's operations, the situation became volatile. Internal State Department documents, which were turned over to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Blackwater that was unrelated to the Nisour Square shooting, provide details of what happened.
Continue reading the main story Video Play Video|6:26The Blackwater Shooting
The Blackwater ShootingWitnesses shed new light on the killing of 17 Iraqis by American contractors in Baghdad.
Image Credit Image by Johan Spanner for The New York Times It did not take long for the two-man investigative team — Mr. Richter, a Diplomatic Security special agent, and Donald Thomas Jr., a State Department management analyst — to discover a long list of contract violations by Blackwater.
They found that Blackwater's staffing of its security details for American diplomats had been changed without State Department approval, reducing guards on many details to eight from 10, the documents said. Blackwater guards were storing automatic weapons and ammunition in their private rooms, where they also were drinking heavily and partying with frequent female visitors. Many of the guards had failed to regularly qualify on their weapons, and were often carrying weapons on which they had never been certified and that they were not authorized to use.
The armored vehicles Blackwater used to protect American diplomats were poorly maintained and deteriorating, and the investigators found that four drunk guards had commandeered one heavily armored, $180,000 vehicle to drive to a private party, and crashed into a concrete barrier.
Blackwater was also overbilling the State Department by manipulating its personnel records, using guards assigned to the State Department contract for other work and falsifying other staffing data on the contract, the investigators concluded.
A Blackwater-affiliated firm was forcing "third country nationals" — low-paid workers from Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, including some who performed guard duty at Blackwater's compound — to live in squalid conditions, sometimes three to a cramped room with no bed, according to the report by the investigators.
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Blackwater guards were not "security contractors" - they were playing the role of soldiers, and their loyalty was determined by their...
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See All Comments The investigators concluded that Blackwater was getting away with such conduct because embassy personnel had gotten too close to the contractor.
On Aug. 20, 2007, Mr. Richter was called in to the office of the embassy's regional security officer, Bob Hanni, who said he had received a call asking him to document Mr. Richter's "inappropriate behavior." Mr. Richter quickly called his supervisor in Washington, who instructed him to take Mr. Thomas with him to all remaining meetings in Baghdad, his report noted.
Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story The next day, the two men met with Daniel Carroll, Blackwater's project manager in Iraq, to discuss the investigation, including a complaint over food quality and sanitary conditions at a cafeteria in Blackwater's compound. Mr. Carroll barked that Mr. Richter could not tell him what to do about his cafeteria, Mr. Richter's report said. The Blackwater official went on to threaten the agent and say he would not face any consequences, according to Mr. Richter's later account.
Mr. Carroll said "that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq," Mr. Richter wrote in a memo to senior State Department officials in Washington. He noted that Mr. Carroll had formerly served with Navy SEAL Team 6, an elite unit.
"Mr. Carroll's statement was made in a low, even tone of voice, his head was slightly lowered; his eyes were fixed on mine," Mr. Richter stated in his memo. "I took Mr. Carroll's threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract."
He added that he was especially alarmed because Mr. Carroll was Blackwater's leader in Iraq, and "organizations take on the attitudes and mannerisms of their leader."
Mr. Thomas witnessed the exchange and corroborated Mr. Richter's version of events in a separate statement, writing that Mr. Carroll's comments were "unprofessional and threatening in nature." He added that others in Baghdad had told the two investigators to be "very careful," considering that their review could jeopardize job security for Blackwater personnel.
Mr. Richter was shocked when embassy officials sided with Mr. Carroll and ordered Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas to leave Iraq immediately, according to the documents. On Aug. 23, Ricardo Colon, the acting regional security officer at the embassy, wrote in an email that Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas had become "unsustainably disruptive to day-to-day operations and created an unnecessarily hostile environment for a number of contract personnel." The two men cut short their inquiry and returned to Washington the next day.
Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas declined to comment for this article. Mr. Carroll did not respond to a request for comment.
On Oct. 5, 2007, just as the State Department and Blackwater were being rocked by scandal in the aftermath of Nisour Square, State Department officials finally responded to Mr. Richter's August warning about Blackwater. They took statements from Mr. Richter and Mr. Thomas about their accusations of a threat by Mr. Carroll, but took no further action.
Continue reading the main story Write A Comment Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state, named a special panel to examine the Nisour Square episode and recommend reforms, but the panel never interviewed Mr. Richter or Mr. Thomas.
Patrick Kennedy, the State Department official who led the special panel, told reporters on Oct. 23, 2007, that the panel had not found any communications from the embassy in Baghdad before the Nisour Square shooting that raised concerns about contractor conduct.
"We interviewed a large number of individuals," Mr. Kennedy said. "We did not find any, I think, significant pattern of incidents that had not — that the embassy had suppressed in any way."
A version of this article appears in print on June 30, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Before Shooting in Iraq, Warning on Blackwater. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
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