Blackwater Usa

The House passed a bill Thursday that would make all private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones subject to prosecution by U.S. courts. It was Congress' first major response to a deadly shooting in Baghdad involving Blackwater USA security guards. Democrats called the 389-30 vote an indictment of the incident, which left at least 11 Iraqis dead.

Vice President Joe Biden promised Saturday that the Obama administration would appeal a U.S. court's decision to drop charges against a group of Blackwater guards involved in a shooting that left at least 14 Iraqi civilians dead. The September 2007 shootings in a busy Baghdad square enraged Iraqis, and tempers were further inflamed last month when a U.S. federal judge dismissed criminal charges against five of the former guards for the security firm now known as Xe. The judge ruled that the prosecution improperly built the case on incriminating statements the guards were forced to give to the State Department.

The brother of State Department Inspector General Howard J. Krongard quit as an advisor to Blackwater USA, two days after the relationship with the security contractor was sharply criticized by a congressional oversight committee. Erik Prince, Blackwater's top executive, said the conflict-of-interest questions raised by the connection prompted Alvin B. Krongard to submit his resignation. It was unclear whether the move would salvage Howard Krongard's damaged credibility and career, however.

Several victims of a 2007 shooting involving American private security guards employed by the firm formerly known as Blackwater alleged Sunday that they were coerced into reaching settlements, and they demanded that the Iraqi government intervene to have the agreements nullified. The Iraqis said they were pressured by their own attorneys into accepting what they now believe are inadequate settlements because they were told the company was about to file for bankruptcy, that its chairman was going to be arrested and that the U.S. government was about to confiscate all of the firm's assets.

Re "America's own unlawful combatants?" Oct. 15 The government of Iraq wants Blackwater USA out of Iraq. Can you blame it? Blackwater contractors are accountable to neither U.S. courts nor Iraqi courts. They are mercenaries immune from justice. Get them out. Use the money we are paying them to raise the salaries of U.S. soldiers. Maybe then our military men and women will be more likely to reenlist rather than "going Blackwater."

Re "In defense of Blackwater," Opinion, Oct. 3 Max Boot claims that mercenaries are a fact of war, echoing testimony by the Blackwater USA founder that the U.S. has relied on contractors for all its wars. Both are spin. We may have a history of hiring private contractors to support such non-battle duties as cooking, laundry and transportation, but we have never before hired heavily armed mercenaries to engage in combat in war zones.

The CIA's decision to hire contractors from Blackwater USA for a covert assassination program was part of an expanding relationship in which the agency has relied on the widely criticized firm for tasks including guarding CIA lockups and loading missiles on Predator aircraft, according to current and former U.S. government officials. The 2004 contract cemented what was then a burgeoning relationship with Blackwater, setting the stage for a series of departures by senior CIA officials who took high-level positions with the North Carolina security company.

Top State Department officials and the head of their beleaguered private security firm, Blackwater USA, put forth a unified defense Tuesday against an onslaught of congressional criticism over the company's violent encounters with Iraqis. The State Department and security officials attempted to portray Blackwater's armed guards as highly trained professionals who open fire in the streets of Baghdad only when the lives of the diplomats they are hired to protect are threatened.

In the days after Usama Abbass was shot dead in a Baghdad traffic circle by security guards working for Blackwater USA, his brother visited the U.S.-run National Iraqi Assistance Center seeking compensation. Like other Iraqis who have done the same, he learned a harsh truth: The center in Baghdad's Green Zone handles cases of Iraqis claiming death or damages due to military action, but not due to actions of private contractors such as Blackwater, who work in Iraq for the U.S.

The State Department's internal watchdog, accused of politicizing his office, told a congressional panel Wednesday that he will step aside from any future probe of Blackwater USA because his brother serves on the advisory board of the controversial security contractor. The testimony by Howard J. Krongard, the department's inspector general, came as a surprise at a congressional hearing about his performance. At first, Krongard denied that his brother, former CIA official Alvin B.

The security firm formerly known as Blackwater has reached a settlement in seven civil lawsuits filed against it by families of Iraqis killed during what the suits called "senseless slaughter" by company guards. In an unrelated shooting involving Blackwater guards in Afghanistan in May, two former employees of the North Carolina-based security contractor were charged Thursday with killing two Afghan civilians after a traffic incident. The legal developments came a week after a federal judge dismissed manslaughter charges against five Blackwater guards charged with killing at least 14 civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in September 2007.

Cars breezed by the trimmed green hedges and flowers of Baghdad's Nisoor Square on Friday, while pedestrians strolled past billboards of smiling men and women promoting national elections. Little trace was left of the September 2007 day when Blackwater security guards opened fire on the crowded intersection, killing 17 civilians. On Thursday, a judge in a U.S. federal court had thrown out the criminal prosecution of five Blackwater guards involved in the shootings. The consequences of that decision were still being felt Friday by survivors of the attack, politicians and ordinary Iraqis, who expressed feelings of helplessness at the hands of the United States.

A federal judge in Washington on Thursday dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of killing 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians in an incident that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations and sparked an outcry over the military's use of private contractors. The judge did not rule on the substance of the charges against the security guards, but instead decided that prosecutors had wrongly relied on what the guards told State Department investigators shortly after the incident.

The CIA's decision to hire contractors from Blackwater USA for a covert assassination program was part of an expanding relationship in which the agency has relied on the widely criticized firm for tasks including guarding CIA lockups and loading missiles on Predator aircraft, according to current and former U.S. government officials. The 2004 contract cemented what was then a burgeoning relationship with Blackwater, setting the stage for a series of departures by senior CIA officials who took high-level positions with the North Carolina security company.

The secret CIA program to assassinate top Al Qaeda leaders was outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA, the private security contractor whose operations in Iraq prompted intense scrutiny, according to two former intelligence officials familiar with the events. The North Carolina-based company was given operational responsibility for targeting suspected terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry, but the program was canceled before any missions were conducted, the two officials said.

Lawyers for the widow and young sons of an Iraqi man allegedly killed by a drunken employee of the former Blackwater Worldwide security firm after a Christmas Eve party in Baghdad have filed a damage suit in federal court in San Diego. The suit alleges that the employee got lost after the 2006 party and, after confronting Raheem Khalaf Saadoon, shot him for no reason. Saadoon, 32, was a bodyguard for an Iraqi vice president.

The secret CIA program to assassinate top Al Qaeda leaders was outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA, the private security contractor whose operations in Iraq prompted intense scrutiny, according to two former intelligence officials familiar with the events. The North Carolina-based company was given operational responsibility for targeting suspected terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry, but the program was canceled before any missions were conducted, the two officials said.

First it became a brand name in security for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it's taking on intelligence. The Prince Group, the holding company that owns Blackwater USA, has been building an operation that will sniff out intelligence about natural disasters, business-friendly governments, overseas regulations and global political developments for clients in industry and government.

Blackwater Worldwide is still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, but executives at the beleaguered security firm are taking their biggest step yet to put that work and the ugly reputation it earned the company behind them. Blackwater said Friday that it would no longer operate under the name that came to be known worldwide as a caustic moniker for private security, dropping the tarnished brand for a disarming and simple identity: Xe, which is pronounced like the letter "z."

Attorneys for five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead accused the government Saturday of engaging in unfair second-guessing of decisions in a combat zone. The five guards -- a sixth is in plea negotiations -- were indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Washington in the 2007 Baghdad shooting, according to several sources familiar with the case. The indictment was sealed, and the exact charges are not known.