Blackwater manager blamed for 2004 massacre in fallujah

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Source: Raleigh News&Observer

Joseph Neff, Staff Writer

When four Blackwater USA security guards were ambushed and massacred in Fallujah in 2004, graphic images showed the world exactly what happened: four men killed, their bodies burned and dragged through the streets. A chanting mob hung two mutilated corpses from a bridge.

Since then, Congress and the families of the murdered private security contractors have been demanding answers: Why did the lightly armed and undermanned team go through the heart of one of Iraq's most hostile cities? Why did the two teams sent out that day have four members, not the usual six?

Some answers can be found in memos from a second team for Blackwater operating around Fallujah on March 31, 2004.

Blackwater, based in North Carolina, sent two squads through Fallujah without maps, according to memos obtained by The News & Observer. Both of the six-man teams, named Bravo 2 and November 1, were sent out two men short, leaving them more vulnerable to ambush.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/630475.html

[CottonBear]

1. Why would the mercs have gone out WITHOUT maps?

The Blackwater mercs are mostly retired military. Wouldn't they know better than to go out without a map?

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4. At the end of the article, it says that one of those left behind FOUND the maps.

The whole incident is really weird.

[CottonBear]

11. That is very weird. The whole operation is suspect IMHO. n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. 2 points --

1) Well, DUH!

2) In a country where a hundred people a day are being blown to bits, how does the deaths of 4 mercenaries become a 'massacre'?

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5. Remember, it led to the total destruction of Fallujah by U.S. troops

and a major escalation of the war. The deaths of these mercenaries was used as an reason to slaughter thousands of Iraqi citizens.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. So, technically, he was responsible for the massacre of thousands

of Iraqis.

I don't think that's exactly how the article meant it, though.

[yardwork]

8. I don't really believe that this Blackwater manager decided all by himself to do this.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. 4 or 6 per car, what difference would it make?

Those cars were blown up with RPGs.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. The third man in each car was the eyes to the rear -

the driver can't scan for hostiles, so you have one guy in shotgun watching ahead, and one guy watching behind. It is far easier to ambush if there are only 2 in the vehicle. The ambusher waits for them to pass, steps out from a side street and fires - something he couldn't do if there was somebody watching behind for just such a thing.

[yardwork]

9. kick

This is important. The U.S. has more private mercenaries fighting in Iraq than troops. These private contractors are not subject to the same laws as the military. They do their work in secret. The Pentagon has handed Blackwater and other private corporations hundreds of millions of dollars (at least) in no-bid contracts to do secret work, including torture and murder.

[SpiralHawk]

10. The highly paid mercenaries are the republicon Praetorian Guard

They are the profit-making war tool in this needless and ugly Oil Profits Crusade, and there is a high likelihood that they will be deployed in the USA someday to round up and control citizens of the USA.

They are the tool of the republicon-christofascist empire that seeks to destroy America.