Blackwater Officials Indicted for Weapons Violations

By Jeremy Scahill April 19, 2010

From the first days of the launch of the so-called “war on terror,” Blackwater has been at the epicenter of some of the most secretive operations conducted by US forces globally. It has worked on government assassination programs and drone bombings, operated covertly in Pakistan for both the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command, assisted secret raids inside of Syria, trained foreign militaries and continues to bodyguard senior US officials in Afghanistan. The company also has a bloody track record of killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many seasoned observers believe that the extent of the dark acts committed by Blackwater have yet to come to light.While Congressional committees, the IRS, the FBI and lawyers representing foreign victims of the company have fought for years to hold Blackwater and its forces accountable for their alleged crimes, the company has proved to be Teflon. Not a single case against the company has resulted in any significant action. Following last December’s dismissal of the high-profile criminal case against the Blackwater operatives allegedly responsible for the 2007 Nisour Square shootings that left seventeen Iraqis dead and more than twenty others wounded, federal prosecutors have now launched another salvo.

Last week, the Justice Department announced that a federal grand jury had returned a fifteen-count indictment against five current and former Blackwater officials, charging them with conspiracy to violate a series of federal gun laws, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Among those indicted were Blackwater owner Erik Prince’s longtime right-hand man, former company president Gary Jackson, Blackwater’s former legal counsel Andrew Howell and two former company vice presidents. Given Blackwater’s track record and the severity of other allegations against the company–including killing unarmed civilians–if the charges in this case stick, it would be somewhat akin to Al Capone going down for tax evasion. The one major difference being, the number-one man at Blackwater, Erik Prince, is evading prosecution and jail. Prince, who remains the Blackwater empire’s sole owner, was not indicted.

The weapons charges stem from Blackwater’s purchase of 227 “short barrels” for use with the company’s government-issued M4 rifles in Iraq and Afghanistan, a violation of State Department weapons guidelines for contractors. Former Blackwater employees have alleged in sworn affidavits that Prince had used his personal planes to smuggle banned weapons into Iraq, sometimes wrapping them in large shipments of dog food for the company’s K-9 teams in Iraq. Prince, however, is not named in the indictment.

The indictment also charges that the Blackwater officials “arranged straw purchases” of Romanian AK-47s and fully automatic M-4 rifles for use inside the United States. According to the indictment, the local sheriff’s department in Blackwater’s home base of Moyock, North Carolina, provided Blackwater with blank stationery that “was used to prepare letters claiming the sheriff’s office wanted” the weapons. “The weapons were paid for by Blackwater, were immediately delivered to Blackwater upon their arrival, and were locked in Blackwater’s armory to which the sheriff’s office had no direct access,” according to federal prosecutors.

In March 2009, the ATF informed Blackwater that it would be coming to the company’s compound for an inspection of the armory of Blackwater subsidiary XPG. Former Blackwater officials told The Nation that XPG was created in part as a successor to Blackwater SELECT and Blackwater PTC, the divisions of the company that did sensitive covert work for the CIA and JSOC.

When Blackwater was informed of the impending ATF investigation, according to the Justice Department:

Allegedly, [Blackwater lawyer Andrew] Howell did not want any more SBRs [Short Barrel Rifles] to be found and told a subordinate that disclosing the SBRs was “not an option.” He and [Blackwater vice president Ana] Bundy subsequently ordered the short-barreled guns in XPG’s armory to be moved to Blackwater’s armory where the barrels could be switched out. Only the long-barreled guns were returned to XPG. Howell then prepared a letter for the company president’s signature and attached it to an e-mail. The letter was intended to be back-dated and would have given a false impression that the President had ordered the alteration of the guns–which had already been accomplished by direction of Howell and Bundy.

The Justice Department also alleges that Blackwater officials, in an attempt to win a lucrative contract with the Kingdom of Jordan, presented several guns as gifts to Jordanian officials who came to tour Blackwater’s private military base in North Carolina. According to the indictment, “the officials were presented with one M4, three Glocks, and a Remington shotgun. Each was inscribed with the Blackwater logo and presented in a case. Subsequently, the company realized it could not account for the guns in its required records.” Blackwater president Gary Jackson, prosecutors allege, “then organized the false completion” of federal documents that “were designed to give the appearance that employees had bought the guns for their own use.”

Until recently, Blackwater had a partnership with Sig Sauer to manufacture a Blackwater-brand 9 millimeter pistol. For years the company has done a multimillion-dollar business with Jordan, training the company’s special-forces helicopter pilots and advising the kingdom on intelligence matters. Blackwater also has a headquarters in Jordan. Last year the New York Times reported that Gary Jackson was involved in a scheme to bribe Iraqi officials to stay quiet on the company’s alleged massacre of seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in September 2007 and to allow Blackwater to continue operating in the country despite the public outrage in Iraq. That alleged plot, according to the Times, involved the transfer of $1 million into Jordan for ultimate use in Iraq.

Each of the charges against the Blackwater officials potentially carries a penalty of three to twenty years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Lawyers for the accused have said their clients are not guilty of the charges and will fight them. There are two other pending criminal cases against Blackwater. Prosecutors have apealed the dismissal of the Nisour Square case, and two Blackwater operatives have been indicted on charges they killed innocent Afghan civilians. In a recent interview, Prince estimated his monthly legal bills to be between $2-3 million.

Meanwhile, as Blackwater officials face another round of attempted criminal prosecutions, the company continues to fight off the remaining civil lawsuits stemming from the Nisour Square shooting. Last year Blackwater settled with most of the victims, reportedly for a total of $5 million. The only remaining suit against the company over Nisour Square was brought by a small group of Iraqis, most prominent among them Mohammed Kinani, the father of the youngest known victim of the shooting. His 9-year-old son, Ali, was shot in the head that day and died shortly after from his injuries. Kinani originally sued Blackwater in state court in North Carolina, but last week a federal judge sided with Blackwater and took control over the case. That judge, Terrence Boyle, was a former legislative aide to the late Republican Senator Jesse Helms, who urged President Ronald Reagan to appoint Boyle, which Reagan did. For more than a decade, Democrats blocked Boyle’s nomination to the appelate court, characterizing him as an ultraconservative who opposed civil rights and was often over-ruled on appeal. It is hard to imagine a better judge for Blackwater to draw in this case.

As it has done in other cases, Blackwater has asked the Obama Justice Department to intervene in Kinani’s case and to make the US government–not Blackwater and the individual shooters in the case–the defendant. Legal experts have told The Nation that if the Justice Department did that, the case would be dead in the water. The Justice Department has not responded to Blackwater’s request. Blackwater, however, is not wasting any time seeking out alternatives.

On April 7, lawyers for the six alleged shooters and Blackwater asked Judge Boyle to replace Blackwater and the shooters with the “United States” in the case, citing the Westfall Act, which was passed in 1988 “to protect federal employees from personal liability for common law torts committed within the scope of their employment, while providing persons injured by the common law torts of federal employees with an appropriate remedy against the United States.” If Boyle were to do this, the case would likely be immediately dismissed.

In its filing, Blackwater’s lawyers argued that the actions taken by the alleged Blackwater shooters at Nisour Square “indisputably fall within the scope” of their State Department employment. But Kinani’s lawyers and federal prosecutors have alleged that the men disobeyed orders from their superiors not to proceed to Nisour Square that day, leading to the shooting. One of the Blackwater guards, Jeremy Ridgeway, pled guilty to killing an unarmed Iraqi in the square. In his sworn proffer that accompanied his guilty plea, Ridgeway admitted that he and the other five accused shooters “opened fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians…killing at least fourteen people” and wounding at least twenty others. “None of these victims was an insurgent, and many were shot while inside of civilian vehicles that were attempting to flee” the Blackwater forces, the proffer stated. Ridgeway also admitted that his team had “not been authorized” to leave the Green Zone and that after they departed, they “had been specifically ordered” by US Embassy officials to return. “In contravention of that order,” they proceeded to Nisour Square, according to Ridgeway.

The Justice Department could intervene in the Kinani case at any point and produce evidence showing that Blackwater does not equal the US government and therefore should not be allowed to shift the burden of responsibility for the shooting onto the US government. To date, that has not happened, and it is currently a decision for one man: Judge Terrence Boyle.

bout Jeremy Scahill

Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, published by Nation Books. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!

http://rebelreports.com/

Report on Mrs. Bhuttu’s assasination has been released

Analysis: Pakistan tells the USA, that it is time to pay up.

Pakistan is likely to bring a laundry list of demands to talks with the US today, as the two sides reassess their frayed relationship.

By Nicolas Brulliard – GlobalPost

Published: March 24, 2010 06:48 ET

Pakistani supporters of hardline pro-Taliban party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Nazaryati torch a U.S. flag in Quetta on Feb. 4, 2010, to protest a U.S. court verdict against Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, found guilty in the United States of trying to kill a U.S. serviceman. (Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When Pakistani officials sit down with their American counterparts for a round of high-level talks in Washington today, they’ll be a demanding bunch.

They’ll say that their armed forces have paid a heavy price to fight what many here see as America’s war, and they’ll argue that their country continues to bear the brunt of the war on terror with bomb blasts claiming the lives of Pakistanis nearly every week.

“We have already done too much,” Foreign Minister Shah here last week. “Pakistan has done its bit, we have delivered; now it’s your turn. Start delivering.”

The United States government has already taken steps to address Pakistan’s grievances. U.S. officials have markedly increased the frequency of their visits to Islamabad in recent months, and America is helping fund the country’s recent military offensives. In addition, Congress has passed legislation that provides for $7.5 billion of economic and development assistance to Pakistan over a five-year period.

Despite all these gestures of goodwill, deep mistrust subsists between the two strategic allies. Pakistan remembers that Americans were quick to leave the region once their objectives were attained at the end of the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the widely held view is that the same will happen when American troops depart from Pakistan’s neighbor.

U.S. efforts to improve its image have often turned into public-relations disasters, and anti-Americanism seems to be on the rise among the general Pakistani population.

“Ultimately, they want to change the tone of this relationship,” said Moeed Yusuf, South Asia adviser at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “This is a realization on both sides that the relationship has failed to deliver.”

Qureshi, who will officially lead Pakistan’s delegation, intends to bring an exhaustive list of demands when he meets with his counterpart Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today. He has identified no less than 10 “sectoral engagements” that go much beyond military cooperation and include everything from energy and education to health and agriculture.

Pakistan, a country of 175 million people — half of them illiterate — with an economy crippled by corruption and chronic power outages, has proved particularly fertile ground for fundamentalist ideologies and militant groups.

As a result, U.S. officials have increasingly emphasized economic development as a key component of their relationship with Pakistan, and the $7.5 billion aid package passed by Congress late last year was meant as a substantial move in that direction.

But the Kerry-Lugar bill, as the piece of legislation is known here, is a symbol of the dangers the United States faces when trying to woo the country’s population.

Instead of focusing on the bill’s potential benefits to Pakistan, local politicians and media preferred to turn their attention to the conditions of good governance the bill carried and labeled them as yet another infringement on Pakistan’s sovereignty.

More recently, a U.S. tour of Pakistani legislators also turned into a PR fiasco when the tour members suddenly decided to return to Pakistan after experiencing what they saw as excessively intrusive body screening at Washington’s Ronald Reagan Airport.

Perceived American favoritism in favor of India, Pakistan’s historical enemy, has also proved to be a major stumbling block in U.S.-Pakistan relations.

“Washington’s heavy tilt in favor of India and its helplessness in nudging India to seriously address Kashmir and other issues is another source of friction,” wrote Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant general, in The News, a local newspaper. “Pakistan also cannot kowtow America’s Afghanistan policy either unless it takes into account Pakistan’s security and strategic concerns.”

Pakistan has always sought to ensure a friendly Afghan regime would allow it to focus the bulk of its military might on its eastern border. The involvement of India in the training of Afghan armed forces is therefore seen as a strategic menace to Pakistan’s interests, said Imtiaz Gul, the executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank.

“We do not want an army operating in our backyard … that has been trained by our archrival,” he said.

Gul said a recalibration of the U.S.-India relationship that would take into account Pakistan’s interests would go a long way toward mending fences between America and Pakistan.

He said the upcoming talks between the United States and Pakistan are unlikely to yield guarantees besides agreements related to the energy sector. Nonetheless, he said he views the intensification of the dialogue between the two countries as a major opportunity.

“I think they’re developing into a much more positive relationship,” Gul said. “Pakistan stands a very good chance to benefit from it.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/pakistan/100323/pakistan-us-talks?page=0,0

“hayethim I am just nothing …” Celebrating Dassehra

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Have you found yet this great blog from a young man in Pakistan? Let’s show we are friends – not enemies -visit him at http://hayethim.blogspot.com to get to know his world.

Dassehra was celebrated with great pomp and show, epitomising the victory of Good over Evil. Effigies of demon king Ravan, his brother Kumbhkaran and son Meghnad waited to meet their nemesis.

Demons could be seen across the country’s capital. Many people burnt their inner evils alongwith the effigies. There were, however, few exceptions.

In the Ramayan-reversal of sort, Ravana was the first one to go- apparaently by mistake. Asardar Sonia Gandhi was here with Sardar Manmohan Singh. With the spectre of elections looming large on Haryanvi and Maharashtrian horizons, the duo must have thought to uproot their biggest enemy first- the way Ravana went up in flames first.

Kumbhkaran ate flames and slept- forever.

Meghnad followed his father and uncle. The crowd cheered.

In another Ramlilla, just a few days before the third anniversary of complete ban on child labour, these kids could be seen making human chain, protecting any intrusion or suspicious people.

The kid in blue, guard-like uniform is not participating in any fancy dress competition as I first thought seeing him. When I spoke to him, I got to know he has never been to school and has seen very little of Ramlilla performance as most of the time his back is turned towards the stage. Reminds me of a story, masons build our big houses but themselves live in shanties.

Dilli 6 looked nice, even as Allah and Ramleela coexisted.

Ram must have smiled as the exile he started on December 6, ended in Delhi 6.

Happy Dassehra to you all.

Posted by Hayethim at 3:18 AM

http://hayethim.blogspot.com/2009/09/dassehra.html

Bribery case against Khosa referred to Pakistan Bar Council

(The lawyer’s of Pakistan have shown themselves to be willing to take political action in the form of protests when pushed too far so good to keep an eye on the PBC for interesting news. V.)

From The Nation on The Web February 28, 2010

February 27, 2010 ISLAMABAD – The Supreme Court has forwarded bribery case against former attorney general of Pakistan Sardar Latif Khan Khosa to the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC).
A three-judge bench of the apex court headed by Justice Mian Shakir Ullah Jan announced its judgement here on Friday. The bench also directed the PBC to decide the case within 30 days.
Dr Mazhar Jamal, in an affidavit on September 2009, appealed to Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry that Mr Khosa took Rs 30 million from her husband for securing a court decision in his favour but that did not happen. National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Peshawar convicted her husband, Hamid Maghfoor, in a corruption case a few years back. After that Maghfoor moved the apex court for relief.
Syed Ali Zafar, Counsel for Khosa, argued that only PBC was entitled to take action against any lawyer under legal practitioners. The PBC Act 1973 is the only rule for conducting proceedings against the lawyers, who are allegedly involved in bribery, crime, malpractice, misbehaving and others by their clients or someone else, the learned counsel further argued.
However, the court remarked that there was something serious in shape of allegations being levelled against the judges of superior judiciary. “The court is entitled to take action against any lawyer under the apex court rules 1980,” the court observed.
The Attorney General of Pakistan argued that the court should not hear the case even if it was entitled to do so and leave the issue to PBC. As the Attorney General concluded his arguments, Justice Shakir reserved the judgement on 22nd February.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/27-Feb-2010/Bribery-case-against-Khosa-referred-to-PBC

The Drone Wars – New American Foundation study findings

The Drone Wars.

Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation have completed their latest study into the use of drones in Pakistan (with a handy map of the strikes no less). A few of the relevant facts and figures:

Between 830 and 1,210 people have been killed. A third of those have been civilians, two-thirds have been militants.

There were 51 reported strikes in 2009, more than during the entire Bush administration, in which there were 45.

Pakistanis hate the drone attacks. Only 9% of Pakistanis approve of their use.

In the three weeks following the suicide bombings that killed several CIA Agents in Khost, there were 13 drone strikes, which were likely retaliation for the attack.

The bottom line however, seems to be that drones’ usefulness is limited:

But the U.S. drone strikes don’t seem to have had any great effect on the Taliban’s ability to mount operations in Pakistan or Afghanistan or deter potential recruits, and they no longer have the element of surprise.

Still, heavy use of drones is likely to continue, despite strategic concerns about blowback and the possibility that the strikes themselves are illegal — both because they’ve been successful at hitting certain high value targets and because it’s the only way for the U.S. to target its enemies inside Pakistan.

— A. Serwer

Posted by Adam Serwer on February 25, 2010 1:56 PM

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2010&base_name=the_drone_wars

USA Verdict Sparks Pakistan Protests

US verdict sparks Pakistan protests

AJE  http://bit.ly/9Uye5R

Thousands of Pakistanis have staged rallies against the conviction of the Pakistani scientist found guilty of trying to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan.

Protests were held on Thursday in several cities in Pakistan, where many believe that Aafia Siddiqui is innocent.

The neuroscientist, branded “Lady Qaeda” by some in the US press, disappeared for five years before her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008.

She was convicted in a New York court on Wednesday.

Siddiqui’s relatives condemned the verdict, with Fauzia Siddiqui, her sister, saying the verdict had “rejuvenated” the family.

“And we’re proud to be related to her,” she said, speaking from the Pakistani city of Karachi.

“America’s justice system, the establishment, the war on terror, the fraud of the war on terror, all of those things have shown their own ugly faces.”

The AFP news agency quoted Ismat Siddiqui, Aafia’s mother, who lives in Karachi, as saying the family had been braced for the verdict but would continue to work for her release.

“I did not expect anything better from an American court. We were ready for the shock and will continue our struggle to get her released,” she was quoted as saying.

Government ‘dismayed’

Pakistan’s government has expressed “dismay” over the verdict, vowing to consult her family and lawyers on how to secure her release.

Abdul Basit, a foreign ministry spokesman, said the government would do its best to secure Siddiqui’s release.

“The ultimate objective is to get her back to Pakistan and we would do everything possible and we’ll apply all possible tools in this regard,” he said.

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Islamabad, said that as far as public opinion is concerned, the verdict is definitely not in favour of the Americans.

“There is also disappointment with the [Pakistani] government for failing to find a diplomatic way out and getting Aafia Siddiqui back home, because they feel she was innocent.”

Siddiqui, who was arrested in 2008, was accused of grabbing a US serviceman’s rifle and opening fire on her American interrogators, who returned fire.

While none of the US agents or personnel were injured, Siddiqui was shot in the incident.

Before her arrest, Siddiqui had been missing for five years, during which time her family alleges she was held at the US military’s Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.

Both the US and the Pakistani authorities deny that Siddiqui was in custody before her arrest in 2008 in the town of Ghazni.

Hyder said: “Many hundreds of people have disappeared from Pakistan – they’re still not accounted for – and now that Dr Aafia’s case has come up, that’s likely to be a rallying point for the anti-American sentiment.”

Trial ‘flawed’

Cageprisoners, a UK-based rights group, rejected the verdict, citing the fact that evidence about Siddiqui’s whereabouts prior to her arrest had been disallowed from the trial.

“The case of Aafia Siddiqui carries great significance in terms of the ability of the Obama administration to administer justice,” Asim Qureshi, a spokesman for the group, said, referring to the administration of Barack Obama, the US president.

Siddiqui was missing for five years prior to her arrest in Afghanistan [EPA]

“Already we have seen a blanket refusal to look at the facts of her detention prior to 2008, this verdict will only confirm what many already believe, that it is impossible for Muslim terrorism suspects to receive a fair trial in the US.”

At the time of her arrest Siddiqui was allegedly carrying containers of chemicals and notes referring to mass-casualty attacks and New York landmarks.

But she was not charged in connection with those materials and the charges she was convicted of made no mention of terrorism.

During the trial, Linda Moreno, Siddiqui’s defence lawyer, argued that there was no evidence the rifle Siddiqui was accused of taking had ever been fired, since no bullets, shell casings or bullet debris were recovered and no bullet holes detected.

Moreno also said the testimony of the government’s six eyewitnesses contradicted one another.

Siddiqui faces up to life in prison when she is sentenced on May 6.

Her lawyers have said they intend to appeal the verdict.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ExxAVSb5-0 Video report from AJE

Defense Secretary Robert Gates Confirms Blackwater in Pakistan

Rebel Reports By Jeremy Scahill

In an interview with the Pakistani TV station Express TV, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the private security firms Blackwater and DynCorp are operating inside Pakistan. “They’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” Gates said, according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There are rules concerning the contracting companies.  If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”

This appears to be a contradiction of previous statements made by the Defense Department, by Blackwater, by the Pakistani government and by the US embassy in Islamabad, all of whom claimed Blackwater was not in the country. In September, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, denied Blackwater’s presence in the country, stating bluntly, “Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan.”

Please follow Jeremy Scahill’s blog Rebel Reports so you will not miss his latest updates on this important report.

http://rebelreports.com/