Blackwater

The widow of an Iraqi vice presidential guard killed last year by a Blackwater USA employee said Sunday that she had yet to receive compensation, and Iraq's government concluded that a shooting last month by the private security firm's guards was unjustified. A statement from government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said that a commission formed by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to investigate the Sept.

Winning the George Polk award last week was bittersweet vindication for investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. His book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," was ignored by most major news organizations (including this one) when it was released in February 2007.

A federal appeals court has revived the manslaughter prosecution of four Blackwater security guards who were charged after a 2007 bloodbath that left more than a dozen Iraqi civilians dead. That horrific act of violence occurred in Baghdad on Sept. 16, 2007. When a car bomb exploded near a meeting between Iraqi officials and a U.S. diplomat, a team from the security contractor blocked traffic at a crowded city square in order to get the diplomat to safety. Suddenly, shots were fired.

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 number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns. More than 180,000 civilians -- including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis -- are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

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.

A federal appeals court in Washington revived manslaughter and weapons charges against four Blackwater Worldwide security guards in a fatal 2007 shooting in Baghdad that outraged Iraqis. The decision by three members of the U.S. Court of Appeals here Friday said that U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina "made a number of systemic errors based on an erroneous legal analysis. " They reversed Urbina's ruling and sent it back to him for further proceedings. "We are pleased with the ruling," said Dean Boyd, a Department of Justice spokesman.

A fourth lawsuit has been filed in federal court against the former Blackwater Worldwide security firm on behalf of family members of Iraqis allegedly killed by Blackwater guards. The lawsuit alleges that three Blackwater guards on a rooftop killed three guards for the Iraqi Media Network and that 20 other Blackwater employees refused to cooperate with Iraqi officials investigating the Feb. 7, 2007, shooting. North Carolina-based Blackwater has changed its name to Xe. The lawsuit was filed in San Diego because Xe operates two training facilities there, lawyers said.

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.

To understand why Northern Ireland's conflict has defied solution for so long, take the road less traveled and meet the divided people of Moy. The popular image of Northern Ireland is of urban Belfast battlegrounds, where high steel barricades daubed with tribal slogans make divisions between Catholic and Protestant immediate and obvious.