Blackwater manager blamed for 2004 massacre in Fallujah

[FourScore]

(Once again, the problem is not with this manager that they are trying to pin it on...the real question is why private contractors are doing military work in a war zone?)

AN EXCERPT:

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.

The Bravo 2 team members had protested that they were not ready for the mission and had not had time to prepare their weapons, but they were commanded to go, according to memos written by team members. The team disregarded directions to drive through Fallujah and instead drove around it and returned safely to Baghdad that evening.

The November 1 team went into Fallujah and was massacred.

The Bravo 2 team memos, in emotional, coarse and damning language, placed the blame squarely on Blackwater's Baghdad site manager, Tom Powell.

"Why did we all want to kill him?" team member Daniel Browne wrote the following day. "He had sent us on this mission and over our protest. We weren't sighted in, we had no maps, we had not enough sleep, he was taking 2 of our guys cutting off field of fire. As we went over these things we new the other team had the same complaints. They too had their people cut."

The memos surface amid heightened congressional scrutiny of Blackwater, a private security firm based in Moyock, and the private security industry, which grows ever more valuable to the Pentagon. Reports last week indicate that there are now more private contractors than troops operating in Iraq. Blackwater has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts.



http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsobserver.com%2Fnews%2Fstory%2F630475.html

[aikoaiko]

1. Do we even know what those teams were supposed to be doing?

I always wondered.

BTW: That last tidbit about "more private contractors than troops" is a bit misleading since a vast majority of the contractors are truck drivers, construction people, support staff that don't even get to carry a gun.

[LaPera]

2. They were guarding kitchen supplies...Blackwater knew the danger & didn't give a fuck!

The families of the slain contractors hired Callahan & Blaine, a Newport Beach law firm, and sued Blackwater, citing evidence the company, whose corporate leadership includes former top Bush administration officials, violated its own security procedures by sending them to a hotbed of the insurgency without a risk-assessment study, armor plating, or rear-door gunners for their vehicles. So far, Blackwater has made repeated, if unsuccessful, efforts to have the case thrown out and has refused to answer any questions posed by the families' attorneys. The company even rehired a key witness in the case, shipping him from Alaska to Baghdad to avoid being deposed in the lawsuit.

"Blackwater has done nothing but stall this case," lawyer Marc Miles of Callahan & Blaine told the Weekly last year. (See "Only Pawns in Their Game," July 13, 2006.) "It has now been one year since we filed the case, and Blackwater has not answered one question or produced one document."

Now Blackwater has done something other than stonewall: It has filed a $10 million lawsuit against the bereaved families. The lawsuit threatens to bankrupt the families and also seeks to prevent them from even speaking publicly about the case. According to a statement by Callahan & Blaine obtained by the Weekly, they've also been "threatened" with legal action by Blackwater for taking the case. If so, that tactic hasn't produced the desired results. The firm is now trying to raise donations to help keep the lawsuit afloat.

"I have found the evidence concerning Blackwater's involvement in the deaths to be overwhelming and appalling," says Dan Callahan, the chief attorney for the families. "Even more disturbing is the callous nature in which Blackwater has not only concealed the truth, but also outright sued to force the families to stop pursuing the case and to silence them."

If you're interested in helping the families see their day in court, send donations to C&B ITF Blackwater Victims Defense Fund, c/o Callahan & Blaine, 3 Hutton Centre Dr., 9th Floor, Santa Ana, CA 92707, or online at www.blackwatervictims.com.

[rubberducky]

3. I think that the whole point is that

we are paying all of these contracters $$$$$ for things that the troops used to do. The really sad part is that it costs us way more than it otherwise would. Most people that I talk to do not even knoew about all the contracters over there. It should be the headlines of the news. When you consider how much this occupation is costing us , I wonder how much actually goes to the troops. Somehow I don`t think that our troops are getting wealthy over there. We need to bring them all home,troops and contracters.

[LaPera]

4. Those are certainly my feelings as well!

[FourScore]

5. Ya' hit the nail on the head, rubberducky!

(As I find you often do.):toast:

[YOY]

6. Don't call them 'contractors'. They are mercenaries. Nothing more.

Calling them 'contractors' makes them sound like they are there to install toilets.