Source:
Washington PostFamily Members Of Some View Amount as Paltry
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 25, 2007; Page A19
BAGHDAD, Oct. 24 -- The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday began offering tens of thousands of dollars in payments to victims and families of victims of the Sept. 16 shootings in Baghdad involving security guards from the firm Blackwater Worldwide, according to relatives and U.S. officials.
Family members of several victims turned down the compensation, out of concern that accepting the funds would limit their future claims against the North Carolina-based security contractor and its chief executive, Erik Prince. Others said that the money being offered -- in some cases $12,500 for a death -- was paltry and that they wanted to sue Blackwater in an American court.
"This is an insult," said Firoz Fadhil Abbas, whose brother Osama was killed in a barrage of bullets. "The funeral and the wake cost more than what they offered. My brother who got killed was responsible for four families."
The offers of compensation, while a standard practice in the U.S. military, are unusual for the U.S. Embassy, reflecting the diplomatic and political sensitivities raised by the shootings, which sparked outrage in Iraq and the United States.
Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102401936.html
Australian Headline:
US embassy offers blood money
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-embassy-offers-blood-money/2007/10/25/1192941241434.html?s_cid=rss_world