When it comes to prosecuting Blackwater contractors on murder charges, the Justice Department has a pretty weak track record. The government’s case against 5 contractors charged in connection with 2007’s mass shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square imploded last January, thrown out by a judge who said prosecutors had relied on tainted interviews. A few weeks ago, the case against two contractors for a Blackwater shell company who were charged with killing Afghan civilians ended in a mistrial. And late Monday came word that federal prosecutors have decided against indicting Andrew Moonen after an investigation that lasted nearly 4 years.
Moonen is the Blackwater contractor who, on Christmas Eve 2006, fatally shot one of the Iraqi vice president’s bodyguards following a drunken confrontation in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Blackwater whisked Moonen out of the country immediately after the incident. The company—now known as Xe—was subsequently accused of destroying evidence. (Similar allegations have surrounded the Nisour Square shooting, including reports that Blackwater immediately repaired the vehicles its contractors were riding in when the incident occured.)
All three incidents have been highlighted as examples of contractor-related abuses that seriously undermined US war efforts, inflaming anti-American sentiments. It certainly doesn’t help local notions of American accountability and justice in the theaters of Iraq or Afghanistan that the DOJ is now 0 for 3 against Blackwater. If concerns about prosecution had anything to do with Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s recent relocation to Abu Dhabi, perhaps he needn’t have worried.
