NYT: Blackwater tied to CIA death plot

WASHINGTON - The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the new C.I.A. director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

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NYT: Blackwater tied to CIA death plot

“The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not capture or kill any terrorist suspects.” That we have been TOLD about…

Let me make one thing very clear, no one at the CIA or Blackwater is going to look at you and say, “Sure, we captured old so-and-so and we killed 3 of his top aids too…”

It just doesn’t work that way. The overly sensitive and incredibly PC among us don’t believe in political kidnapping, taking terrorists prisoner, and/or killing, ie: assassinating them. We have LAWS against that sort of thing you know. Why would the Agency, or any Blackwater operator knowingly expose himself to a war crimes or murder charge?

It has also drawn controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in downtown Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to renew the company’s operating license.

Excessive force huh?

Let me point something else out for those less than well informed individuals that have no idea what fighting an insurgency in a place like Iraq is all about. Do ANY of you know the difference between an Enemy Combatant and a civilian? In a theater like Iraq or Afghanistan? Anyone??

Once the shooting stops and the smoke clears, a CIVILIAN is the one that managed to hide his AK-47 before anyone else. That’s it, the only difference. 10 seconds prior he was killing everything in front of him, but he laid that weapon DOWN before you got a round in him, so, YOU are wrong, YOU are now guilty of killing a civilian and YOU are a WAR CRIMINAL. Too bad, so sad. Leavenworth here I come!

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Sept. 30, 2007 - Since the fatal Sept. 16 Blackwater USA shooting in Baghdad’s Nasoor Square, officials from the private security company have insisted that their guards were responding to fire from “armed enemies.�? Yet an extensive evidence file put together by the Iraqi National Police and obtained by NEWSWEEK—including documents, maps, sworn witness statements and police video footage—appears to contradict the contractors’ version of events. A confidential incident report, which has been provided by Iraqi National Police investigators to American military and civilian officials, concludes that the Blackwater vehicles “opened fire crazily and randomly, without any reason.�?

A nine-minute police video made in the moments after the shooting shows helicopters similar to those used by Blackwater still hovering over the wreckage of charred, smoking and bullet-pocked cars. The graphic images include footage of burned human remains and show the street littered with brass bullet casings. They also show what appears to be a police officer waving a pistol at the scene; the footage was captured by a different police officer, who had run over from the nearby Iraqi National Police headquarters. (Portions of the video have been previously broadcast; it was recorded without sound.)

Iraqi National Police investigators also believe that Blackwater’s helicopters fired on the cars from above, according to confidential police documents and interviews with senior police officials. A memo written on Sept. 17 by the lead Iraqi police investigator states that shortly after the shooting began, “helicopters opened fire from the air toward the cars and civilians.�? Gen. Hussein al-Awadi, the commander of the Iraqi National Police, told NEWSWEEK that the trajectory of some of the bullet wounds could only have been caused by fire from the air. “If anyone moved—whenever they saw someone leaving—either the convoy or the chopper shot him,�? says Ali Kalaf Salman, an undercover Iraqi National Police officer who was working as a traffic cop at the scene. (One of the police documents lists 17 fatalities and many more wounded from the shooting. Other accounts have put the death toll at 11.)

Blackwater officials have acknowledged that their helicopters were at the scene of the shooting, but have denied that the guards in the choppers opened fire. In statements from Blackwater guards provided to the U.S. State Department and obtained by ABC News, the guards say they were fired upon by uniformed Iraqi police officers and others dressed in civilian clothes from multiple locations near the traffic circle. Still images provided to the network show a Blackwater vehicle pocked with five bullet marks. Anne Tyrrell, a company spokesperson, said shortly after the incident that the company “acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack in Baghdad … The ‘civilians’ reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire.�?

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Blackwater: The Confidential Iraqi Incident Report