...most responsible for the deaths of 4 Blackwater 'contractors' in Fallujah that led to naplam...
Blackwater manager blamed for 2004 massacre in Fallujah
Military contractors write that a site manager sent four Americans on an ill-advised, fatal mission
Joseph Neff, Staff Writer
News ObserverWhen four Blackwater USA security guards were ambushed and massacred in Fallujah in 2004, graphic images showed the world exactly what happened: four men killed, their bodies burned and dragged through the streets. A chanting mob hung two mutilated corpses from a bridge.
Since then, Congress and the families of the murdered private security contractors have been demanding answers: Why did the lightly armed and undermanned team go through the heart of one of Iraq's most hostile cities? Why did the two teams sent out that day have four members, not the usual six?
Some answers can be found in memos from a second team for Blackwater operating around Fallujah on March 31, 2004.
Blackwater, based in North Carolina, sent two squads through Fallujah without maps, according to memos obtained by The News & Observer. Both of the six-man teams, named Bravo 2 and November 1, were sent out two men short, leaving them more vulnerable to ambush.
The Bravo 2 team members had protested that they were not ready for the mission and had not had time to prepare their weapons, but they were commanded to go, according to memos written by team members. The team disregarded directions to drive through Fallujah and instead drove around it and returned safely to Baghdad that evening.
The November 1 team went into Fallujah and was massacred.
The Bravo 2 team memos, in emotional, coarse and damning language, placed the blame squarely on Blackwater's Baghdad site manager, Tom Powell.
"Why did we all want to kill him?" team member Daniel Browne wrote the following day. "He had sent us on this [expletive] mission and over our protest. We weren't sighted in, we had no maps, we had not enough sleep, he was taking 2 of our guys cutting off [our] field of fire. As we went over these things we new the other team had the same complaints. They too had their people cut."
The memos surface amid heightened congressional scrutiny of Blackwater, a private security firm based in Moyock, and the private security industry, which grows ever more valuable to the Pentagon. Reports last week indicate that there are now more private contractors than troops operating in Iraq. Blackwater has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts.
The aftermath of the killings shows one difference between contractors and the military. Had an officer sent four lightly armed soldiers into Fallujah, he would likely have faced public scrutiny in the military justice system. In this case, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been trying to get do ents such as these memos from Blackwater without success.
The families of the four men killed in the ambush -- Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Scott Helvenston and Michael Teague -- sued Blackwater in Wake County Superior Court in an effort to find out what happened. Blackwater countersued the estates of the four men in federal court, successfully arguing for arbitration, in which the proceedings are closed to the public and the investigation of the incident can be much more limited.
Powell, the site manager, left Blackwater shortly after the Fallujah incident. He will not discuss the event while litigation is pending, said his attorney, Clifford Higby of Panama City, Fla. Efforts to reach the other Blackwater contractors for comment were unsuccessful.
Blackwater, owned by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, did not respond to requests for comment starting in early June. A company lawyer, John W. Phillips of Seattle, sent a letter protesting the paper's possession of the memos and suggesting possible legal action if they were used in a news report.
That's what happens when we have a woosie like Clinton, allowing such a contractor to take the place of the military jobs in 1997!
I wonder how proud he is for downsizing the military? Politics.... claim to save military spending by reducing the military jobs, just to quietly replace them with expensive contract jobs.
What can I say besides democrats spending tax dollars [un]wisely....
Clinton's fault? holy ing , you're stupid.
Clinton didn't have a post-9/11 war on terror post to fight.
The downsizing of the US military began when the Soviet Union collapsed, and during a Repug domination and acquiesence of both houses, that were more concerned with harassing Clinton's Exec with 1000+ witch-hunting subpoenas than actually doing their jobs.
The dubya and head have expanded privatization military and intelligence immensely, exploded revenues to firms like Blackwater and Halliburton.
And this is Clinton's fault? Holy ing , you're knee-jerk stupid. The Iraq and all its ups are fully the responsibility of dubya and head. Clinton? GMAFB
At what point do you head right-wing nuts stop blaming Clinton for ALL of dubya and head's ups?
My oh my…. You get worked up easy.
Please don’t blow a gasket.
Did I claim such a thing?
Yes, I was there. My job was one of many during the five year reduction that was replaced by contractors. The five year plan was implemented by president Bush 41, and my job fields was fixed site, not tactical. President Clinton, in having to out-do president Bush, continued to make more cuts in the military. Cuts that today, we see as disasterous!
How did they do that when these corporations were integrated into the military under president Clinton? President Bush 43 has no choce but to use contractors already in place. Rebuilding such segments of the military takes years.
I see your mirror is working fine.
Get a clue. I am a veteran. I served during Desert Storm and while the wall fell. I was in the nuclear theatre directly supporting the Command and Control at Patch Barracks!
I think I have some knowledge about these things….
I have yet to see a valid argument against president Bush in these matters. Immigration and spending, I have complaints. Otherwise, president Bush has done a good job. Too bad small minded people cannot get a grasp on that.
How many countries did president Clinton attack while in office?
The desert sand must have replaced your brain.
"How did they do that when these corporations were integrated into the military under president Clinton?"
dubya/ head were not obligated to explode no-bid contracts to their corporate buddies. Yes, the military was downsized in the 90s under Bush41 and Clinton, but there was enough bi-partisan support, way beyond Clinton, for downsizing that blaming Clinton for downsizing is your typical knee-jerk s -bag Swift-boat lie.
The dubya/ head/rummy trio has continued privatizing much more aggressively than Clinton ever did, rather than building up the military these past 6 years for the "long haul" war on terror that dubya is so fond of quoting. What held back dubya, who had both houses of Congresses rubber-stamping his every whim, from upgrading the military from 2001 til now? He didn't do it, he preferred to enrich his corpoate/MIC buddies. That's not Clinton's fault.
Some of these contracts were already in place, and you don't change players in the middle of a war.
But congress isn't the Commander in Chief. President Clinton should have never wanted or approved the extra downsizing and conversion of supply, mess, post office, etc. sections of the military to contractors. He also cut another brigade or two of combat soldiers.
Not to my knowledge. Am I wrong?
As for building it back up, the recruitment numbers are and were barely above the needed numbers. Trying to rebuild military infrastructure now controlled by civilians would be very difficult, and even more costly than what is spent now.
Repeating unsubstantiated rumors (lies) again now are we? Any evidence? let me see it. All I see if you being a Kool-Aid drinking lemming, repeating the leftist lies.
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