New Evidence That Blackwater Guards Took No Fire

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

Fresh accounts of the Blackwater shooting last month, given by three rooftop witnesses and by American soldiers who arrived shortly after the gunfire ended, cast new doubt Friday on statements by Blackwater guards that they were responding to armed insurgents when Iraqi investigators say 17 Iraqis were killed at a Baghdad intersection.

The three witnesses, Kurds on a rooftop overlooking the scene, said they had observed no gunfire that could have provoked the shooting by Blackwater guards. American soldiers who arrived minutes later found shell casings from guns used normally by American contractors, as well as by the American military.

The Kurdish witnesses are important because they had the advantage of an unobstructed view and because, collectively, they observed the shooting at Nisour Square from start to finish, free from the terror and confusion that might have clouded accounts of witnesses at street level. Moreover, because they are pro-American, their accounts have a credibility not always extended to Iraqi Arabs, who have been more hostile to the American presence.

Their statements, made in interviews with The New York Times, appeared to challenge a State Department account that a Blackwater vehicle had been disabled in the shooting and had to be towed away. Since those initial accounts, Blackwater and the State Department have consistently refused to comment on the substance of the case.

The Kurdish witnesses said that they saw no one firing at the guards at any time during the event, an observation corroborated by the forensic evidence of the shell casings. Two of the witnesses also said all the Blackwater vehicles involved in the shooting drove away under their own power.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/world/middleeast/13blackwater.html?hp

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Past time to pull their contract and all Blackwater contracts with the U.S. Government! And charge the Blackwaters Mercs with murder!

[Gregorian]

1. It's a massacre. They've done it before.

We've all seen the videos of them driving around town shooting at cars. And laughing away.

It's time to get serious. No more conservative political agendas getting in the way. This is our Mai Lai. It's sick. It cannot be ignored.

[TacticalPeek]

2. K & R

:kick:

[dbt]

3. K& R because our "government" has more MERCENARIES in Iraq than

it has MILITARY PERSONNEL. The ones who have Sworn an Oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America--as opposed to the ones who signed on to serve the Highest Bidder.

There are more "contractors" in Iraq than there are military personnel. RECKON WHY THIS IS?!?!?!?