Blackwater’s 99 Problems

For a company that was supposed to be outside the law, investigations of Blackwater have been proliferating like wild ever since the September 16th Nisour Square shooting, which left seventeen Iraqis dead. The number has been growing so fast, in fact, that we lost count.

So we decided to catch up. Here, then, is our rundown of the ongoing investigations that have been reported. If we miss one, let us know and we’ll update our tally.

House oversight committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has, of course, been leading the charge over the preceding months in an investigation that has followed a number of strands. Waxman’s probe of the 2004 ambush in Fallujah led to the conclusion that Blackwater’s cost-cutting was at the heart of the debacle. And he’s continued to widen the scope of the probe since the Nisour Square shootings. As such, it’s impossible to detail all of its aspects here. It’s concentrated, however, on four main areas:

* The Nisour Square shootings:

An Iraqi investigation concluded that the Blackwater guards were not under attack when they opened fire. As a result, the Iraqis asked the State Department to pull Blackwater out of Iraq.

The FBI is leading the most active American-led investigation of the shootings. The FBI investigation superseded a preliminary State Department investigation which consisted primarily of taking written statements from Blackwater witnesses and hence largely absolved BW of blame.

A joint U.S.-Iraqi commission, with the predominant U.S. component coming from the military, is reportedly having trouble getting any information while the FBI investigation is ongoing.

The United Nations plans to investigate deaths caused by the U.S. military and contractors in Iraq, including the recent Blackwater case in Baghdad.

* Small arms smuggling:

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges. Update: NBC reports that federal investigators are probing whether Blackwater sent silencers to Iraq without the proper permit.

* Tax evasion:

Last week, Waxman’s oversight committee charged that Blackwater had hidden “tens of millions of dollars, if not more” in Social Security, Medicare and retirement taxes by classifying its security guards in Iraq as independent contractors. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) followed up by writing a letter to the Treasury Department asking for an investigation, and John Kerry (D-MA) called for the Senate Finance Committee to investigate.

* Murder:

After stonewalling a reporter’s inquiry about a Christmas Eve 2006 incident, where a drunken Blackwater guard allegedly killed a security guard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi, the State Department moved past its own initial administrative review of the incident. Condoleezza Rice told the oversight committee that the case was referred to the Justice Department, but that a lack of evidence had hobbled the investigation.

Adrianne Jeffries contributed research to this post.