Today’s Must ReadRemember that recently-impaneled grand jury looking at Blackwater’s Nisour Square shootings? Turns out it’s not just about Blackwater.
Four years into the occupation, prosecutors are attempting to build the first criminal case against private security companies — who up until now worked in a system rigged to ensure unaccountability.
The Washington grand jury has issued subpoenas to several private security firms, including Blackwater, a legal source briefed on the probe said yesterday. Authorities are seeking company “after-action” reports and other documents that may shed light on specific incidents, he said.
The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, declined to say which incidents have been targeted, but he said the investigation ranges well beyond Blackwater. Private security companies in Iraq “have been shooting a lot of people,” he said.
That’s an understatement.
There’s no word from the piece about which non-Blackwater firms are in the grand jury’s crosshairs, nor which incidents are potentially criminal. As the paper reports, the Iraqi government claims it knows more than 20 potential criminal incidents involving private security companies — most of which it lays at the feet of Blackwater — but whether that list has anything to do with the grand jury’s focus is unknown.
Also unknown is the specific law which the security firms could be accused of breaking:
But the U.S. government’s ability to prosecute remains hampered by the lack of clarity over what laws may apply. For instance, contractors were immunized from Iraqi laws under a June 2004 order signed by the U.S. occupation authority. That ruling remains in effect.
In addition, investigations are complicated by questions about evidence, jurisdiction and the availability of witnesses. “If they’re going to try to indict, they’ve got a lot to overcome,” said Patricia A. Smith, an Alexandria lawyer who represents two former employees of Triple Canopy, a private security firm based in Herndon, in a civil lawsuit. The former employees say they were wrongfully terminated after reporting that their Triple Canopy team leader fired shots into the windshield of a taxi for amusement last year on Baghdad’s airport road.
