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The staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has unearthed new information that raises questions about State Department actions with regard to contractor Blackwater USA, highlighting an incident in which a drunken contractor killed an Iraqi guard.
According to a document released Monday, the intoxicated Blackwater contractor shot and killed the guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi. Within two days of the incident, the department had allowed the contractor to leave the country and “recommended that Blackwater make a ‘sizeable payment’ and an ‘apology’ to ‘avoid this thing becoming even worse.’” While at first a department official suggested payment of $250,000, it was later deemed that the sum was too high and a payment of $15,000 was agreed upon. “There is no evidence in the documents that the Committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” according to the committee document. According to the panel, Blackwater has been involved in an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week since 2005 and in a vast majority of the cases its contractors fired the first shots. The committee is planning to hold a hearing on Blackwater on Tuesday, although Republicans have asked for a postponement to allow other investigations to be concluded first. The staff document also shows that Blackwater has received more than $1 billion in federal contracts between 2001 and 2006, with more than half of that total coming from last year. |
