Iraqis outraged over Blackwater’s slow exit from the country.
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on April 22nd, 2009 4:32 am by HL
Iraqis outraged over Blackwater’s slow exit from the country.
In January, the Iraqi government announced that it would “not issue a new operating license to Blackwater Worldwide,” which is now known as Xe, and that the company would have to be out of the country “as soon as a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee finishes drawing up guidelines for private contractors.” But the AP reports today […]
In January, the Iraqi government announced that it would “not issue a new operating license to Blackwater Worldwide,” which is now known as Xe, and that the company would have to be out of the country “as soon as a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee finishes drawing up guidelines for private contractors.” But the AP reports today that the company is “still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, even though the company has no license to operate there and has been told by the State Department its contracts will not be renewed two years after a lethal firefight that stirred outrage in Baghdad.” Some victims of that firefight are angry that the company has yet to leave:
Some Iraqis wounded in the September 2007 shootout by guards for the former Backwater Worldwide security firm expressed anger and dismay Tuesday after reports that the company will continue work in Iraq longer than previously thought.
Hussein Jabber, a Baghdad lawyer hit by gunfire in the deadly melee, says he was outraged at the Iraqi government for not taking a harder stance against the company, now known as Xe.
“The Blackwater personnel are mercenaries. The Iraqi government knows that very well,” said Jabber, who still has bullet fragments in his arm and side from the Sept. 16, 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead and another 20 wounded in Baghdad’s busy Nisoor Square.
The State Department has said that the company’s guards will stop protecting U.S. diplomats on the ground in Baghdad on May 7, when that specific contract is up. But the AP reports that the company’s guards “are slated to continue ground operations in parts of Iraq long into the summer, far longer than had previously been acknowledged.”
Harman: ‘I’m Just Very Disappointed’ NSA Wiretapped Me, After I Voted To Allow Them To
On Sunday, CQ reported that the NSA had wiretapped Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), listening in on a call in which she apparently offered a quid pro quo to a lobbyist group. Harman has vigorously denied the reports. Today, she appeared on MSNBC to express her shock and outrage that her phone calls were listened to, […]
On Sunday, CQ reported that the NSA had wiretapped Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), listening in on a call in which she apparently offered a quid pro quo to a lobbyist group. Harman has vigorously denied the reports. Today, she appeared on MSNBC to express her shock and outrage that her phone calls were listened to, saying she was “disappointed” that the U.S. could have allowed such “a gross abuse of power”:
HARMAN: I’m just very disappointed that my country — I’m an American citizen just like you are — could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years. I’m one member of Congress who may be caught up in it, but I have a bully pulpit and I can fight back. I’m thinking about others who have no bully pulpit and may not be aware, as I was not, that right now somewhere, someone’s listening in on their conversations, and they’re innocent Americans.
Watch it:
Harman’s anger seems a bit disingenuous, considering that she was one of the earliest supporters of Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. When the practice was revealed by the New York Times in 2005, she defended it as “essential,” though admitted she was “concerned” about its scope:
“I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to U.S. national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities,” Harman said. “Like many Americans, I am deeply concerned by reports that this program in fact goes far beyond the measures to target Al Qaeda about which I was briefed.”
In fact, in 2004 she “urged that The [New York] Times not publish the article” revealing Bush’s program.
Indeed, she issued a press release in 2007 specifically highlighting that the updated FISA bill she approved of would fully allow warrantless wiretapping:
This bill does a good job — a far better job than the bill reported last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee. … This legislation arms our intelligence professionals with the ability to listen to foreign targets — without a warrant — to uncover plots that threaten US national security. The bill also protects the Constitutional rights of Americans by requiring the FISA court, an Article III Court, to approve procedures to ensure that Americans are not targeted for warrantless surveillance.
To her credit, Harman warned against “a slippery legal slope to potential unprecedented abuse of innocent Americans’ privacy” and stated her opposition to granting telecommunications companies retroactive immunity. Perhaps her outrage at being a target of wiretapping herself will force her to realize that the program she deemed “essential” invaded the privacy of untold millions of Americans.