Let’s Charge the Real Culprits
“Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves”
Justice Department prosecutors allege the five guards, working under Blackwater’s contract with the U.S. State Department to protect State Department personnel in Iraq, on the date in question, sprayed a busy intersection with machine gun fire and grenades; action which killed at least fourteen unarmed civilians and wounded at least twenty others. Government prosecutors said one of the Iraqi men was shot in the chest while his hands were raised in submission.
Assistant Attorney General Patrick Rowan stated the indictment demonstrates those who engage “in unprovoked attacks will be held accountable.” But does it really?
Just as when the torture and humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison came to light, and only junior military personnel were ever charged, so in this case is the government refraining from leveling charges against senior Blackwater personnel. Rather than place Blackwater management under scrutiny for this action, the government contents itself with going after the people at the bottom of the employment hierarchy.
And totally missing from any accusation of culpability are the policy makers in the State Department and the Bush Administration whose decisions in Iraq over the past five years have made an incident of this nature all but inevitable.
Apparently, the Blackwater guards were nervous because of an earlier car bombing in Baghdad that day. Blackwater says the convoy in which the guards were traveling came under attack by insurgents, prompting the guards to fire in self-defense. “Tragically, people did die,” defense attorney Paul Cassell told reporters.
But there is a huge difference between self-defense and the kind of indiscriminate shelling the Blackwater team is accused of letting loose on unarmed Iraqi citizens. One has to question if, with proper training and supervision, the guards would have made better split-second decisions amid the chaos of Nisoor Square. And that training and supervision is the responsibility of the Blackwater company’s senior management. Rather than give Blackwater a free pass, the Justice Department needs to investigate just what training these men received before they were sent into the streets of Baghdad and, once there, how they were supervised.
Blackwater company executives should have to answer, under oath, questions that would help determine whether or not these men were adequately trained and whether or not their actions were in line with Blackwater company policies. If they constitute a rogue group who acted outside everything they had been taught, then, fine, hold them and them alone accountable. But the government must first ensure there is no culpability further up the management chain within Blackwater.
The presence of the estimated 30,000 security “contractors” in Iraq, many of whom are heavily armed, has become a sore point between the U.S. and Iraqi governments. Until now, these mercenaries have been immune from prosecution by the Iraqi courts for any alleged crimes. When the new U.S.-Iraqi security pact goes into effect at the beginning of 2009, these contractors will be placed under the jurisdiction of Iraqi law. For now, though, it is up to the United States to administer legal reprobation for unlawful acts such as this massacre.
No matter how we end up placing the blame for this massacre, it was, ultimately, the Bush administration that decided to police Iraq largely with private rather than regular troops. For that policy alone, there must be an accounting. The people of the United States deserve, at a minimum, a thorough investigation of what Blackwater and other security contractors have done in our name.
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