« MoveOn.org Rakes in the Cash After "Betray Us" Ad | Blog Index | Army's Methodology for Calculating Sectarian Violence Finally Revealed »

U.S. Officials Informed of Blackwater Misdeeds Many Times, Failed to Act

When this happened, we should have known this was the case:

Senior Iraqi officials repeatedly complained to U.S. officials about Blackwater USA's alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm until 11 Iraqis were shot dead last Sunday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Before that episode, U.S. officials were made aware in high-level meetings and formal memorandums of Blackwater's alleged transgressions. They included six violent incidents this year allegedly involving the North Carolina firm that left a total of 10 Iraqis dead, the officials said.

"There were no concrete results," Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister who oversees the private security industry on behalf of the Iraqi government, said in an interview Saturday.

The lack of a U.S. response underscores the powerlessness of Iraqi officials to control the tens of thousands of security contractors who operate under U.S.-drafted Iraqi regulations that shield them from Iraqi laws.

Read the full Post article for more info. Read this Mother Jones feature for more on Blackwater.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 09/23/07 at 5:55 PM | E-mail | Print | Digg | de.licio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Yahoo! MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Netscape | Google |