Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

In contrast to the Bush administration’s approach to Nisour Square, the Iraqi authorities began their investigation within moments of the massacre, interviewing scores of witnesses and piecing together a timeline of events. When the Iraqis released their findings, defenders of Blackwater quickly stepped up to cast aspersions on Baghdad’s integrity. “Iraqis claim that the Blackwaterites fired indiscriminately and without provocation. There is no reason to assume—as so many critics do—that the more damning version is true,” wrote Blackwater apologist Max Boot in the Los Angeles Times , “especially because the harshest condemnations have come from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, a notorious hotbed of sectarianism.” 150

While Blackwater refused to answer specific questions on the incident, citing an ongoing investigation, the company did, in fact, have its own version of events. The morning of Prince’s appearance before the Oversight Committee, his prepared remarks were released to the media. He would never publicly deliver them, but they would constitute the most comprehensive account of the incident Blackwater would provide. Prince alleged that his men came under fire in Nisour Square. “Among the threats identified were men with AK-47s firing on the convoy, as well as approaching vehicles that appeared to be suicide bombers. The Blackwater personnel attempted to exit the area but one of their vehicles was disabled by enemy fire,” Prince claimed in the statement. “Some of those firing on this Blackwater team appeared to be wearing Iraqi National Police uniforms, or portions of uniforms. As the withdrawal occurred, the Blackwater vehicles remained under fire from such personnel.” 151

Two months after the shooting, ABC News obtained the sworn statement of Blackwater operative Paul Slough, a twenty-nine-year-old Army veteran. Slough was Blackwater’s turret gunner that day and is believed to be the main shooter in the square. 152His statement was given, with the promise of immunity, to the State Department three days after the incident. In it, he described his version of how the shooting began, describing the car driven by Ahmed, the medical student, and his mother, Mahasin. “As our motorcade pulled into the intersection I noticed a white four door sedan driving directly at our motorcade,” Slough alleged. “I and others were yelling, and using hand signals for the car to stop and the driver looked directly at me and kept moving toward our motorcade. Fearing for my life and the lives of my teammates, I engaged the driver and stopped the threat…. A uniformed individual then started pushing the vehicle toward the motorcade and again I shouted and engaged the vehicle until it came to a stop.” 153This stood in sharp contrast to the Iraqi version of events, including those of several eyewitnesses, who insisted the shooting was entirely unprovoked. It was also contradicted by major media investigations and aerial photos of the aftermath. 154Slough went on to describe several more instances in which he “engaged” Iraqis to “stop the threat.” 155

In his Congressional statement, Prince insisted that “based on everything we currently know, the Blackwater team acted appropriately while operating in a very complex war zone.” He alleged that “Blackwater and its people have been the subject of negative and baseless allegations reported as truth” and that “many public reports have wrongly pronounced Blackwater’s guilt for the death of varying numbers of civilians.” Prince concluded there had been a “rush to judgment based on inaccurate information.” 156

There was one force that did rush to the scene to obtain information. And, unlike the Iraqi government, the media, or witnesses, this investigator could not be easily dismissed or discredited: the U.S. military, which arrived on the scene the day of the incident at 12:39 p.m., moments after the shooting ended. 157

Amid the carnage of Nisour Square, soldiers from the Third Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment of the Second Brigade, First Cavalry Division, interviewed witnesses, conducted an on-site investigation, and held talks with Iraqi police. The forces under the command of Lieut. Col. Mike Tarsa contradicted almost every one of Prince’s and Slough’s assertions. They bluntly concluded there was “no enemy activity involved,” determined that all of the killings were unjustified and labeled the shootings a “criminal event.” Tarsa’s investigation found that many Iraqis were shot as they attempted to flee, saying “it had every indication of an excessive shooting.” Combing the scene, Tarsa’s soldiers found no bullets from AK-47 assault rifles or BKC machine guns used by Iraqi military and police that Prince had alleged were fired. But they did find an abundance of evidence of ammunition from U.S.-manufactured weapons, including M4 rifle 5.56-millimeter brass casings, M240B machine gun 7.62-millimeter casings, and M203 40-millimeter grenade-launcher casings. Tarsa’s soldiers also said they were “surprised at the caliber of weapon being used.” 158Blackwater said at the time, in early October, it would not comment until the FBI had concluded its investigation, but Prince did attempt to cast aspersions on Tarsa’s conclusions. “It’s from one colonel,” Prince said. “And I don’t know what his experience is in doing crime scene investigations.” 159

In November, the first glimpse into the conclusions of the FBI probe emerged in the New York Times , which reported that the federal agents had “found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq.” 160The report added, “Investigators found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians,” quoting one official as saying, “I wouldn’t call it a massacre, but to say it was unwarranted is an understatement.” A military investigator “said the F.B.I. was being generous to Blackwater in characterizing any of the killings as justifiable.” The military was clearly outraged at the shootings, and some officials believed it would have a blowback effect on U.S. soldiers. “It was absolutely tragic,” Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, the Army’s top commander for Baghdad, told the Washington Post . “In the aftermath of these, everybody looks and says, ‘It’s the Americans.’ And that’s us. It’s horrible timing. It’s yet another challenge, another setback.” 161During this period, a chorus of voices rose against Blackwater from within the ranks of the military. The pay disparity between private contractors and official soldiers was hurting morale, and senior commanders complained that the misconduct of Blackwater and other private forces was damaging the U.S. “counterinsurgency” campaign. This critique was sounded from the highest levels of the military. In an unusually blunt comment a month after Nisour Square, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the mission of many private security contractors was “at cross-purposes to our larger mission in Iraq,” adding that “in the objective of completing the mission of delivering a principal safely to a destination, just based on everything I’ve read and what our own team has reported, there have been instances where, to put it mildly, the Iraqis have been offended and not treated properly.” 162

What was particularly troubling (aside from the loss of Iraqi civilian life) was that even if Blackwater were not so politically connected to the White House and even if there were a truly independent U.S. Justice Department and even if immunity had not been offered and even if there had been an aggressive investigation, it would not have been enough. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dispatched a team to Baghdad, led by veteran diplomat Patrick Kennedy, to review the department’s private security force in the aftermath of Nisour Square, the team returned with the conclusion that it “is unaware of any basis for holding non-Department of Defense contractors [like Blackwater] accountable under US law.” 163