Cross-posted on Daily Kos.

Today in the understated language that is his style, Rep. Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a memorandum of Additional Information about Blackwater USA. In actuality, the memo is a shot across the bow of Blackwater and the craven Republicans on the committee and the State Department who will rise to defend the firm and its CEO Erik Prince who is scheduled to appear before the committee Tuesday, October 2 at 10:00 AM.

The memorandum, prepared by the Majority Staff, reveals:

Incident reports compiled by Blackwater reveal that Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 “escalation of force” incidents in Iraq since 2005 that involved the firing of shots by Blackwater forces. This is an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week. Blackwater’s contract to provide protective services to the State Department provides that Blackwater can engage in only defensive use of force. In over 80% of the shooting incidents, however, Blackwater reports that its forces fired the first shots.

195 “incidents” coming at an average of 1.4 per week since 2005 where Blackwater shot first over 80% of the time.

Since this is a work of the U.S. government and not copyrighted, I’m going to quote liberally from the memorandum, which continues:

In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fires shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties. Even so, Blackwater’s own incident reports document 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 incidents with property damage, primarily to vehicles owned by lraqis. In over 80% of the escalation of force incidents since 2005, Blackwater’s own reports document either casualties or property damage.

So not does Blackwater shoot first in 80% of the time, 80% of their “escalation of force incidents” either causes “casualties or property damage”. With the September 16 massacre at Nissour Square in Baghdad, the Iraqi investigations concluded that, once again, Blackwater was unprovoked. (Details of the Iraqi report can be found in the mentioned article in The New York Times, in victim accounts, survivor accounts, and in my diary, ‘Blackwater, Private Security Contractors “Making A Killing”‘. Even the ‘first blush’ report by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad has reached similar conclusions according to the Washington Post.) The number killed in the Nisoor Square massacre has been reported between 11 and 28 people. The memo continues:

The reports describe multiple Blackwater incidents involving Iraqi casualties that have not previously been reported. In one of these incidents, Blackwater forces shot a civilian bystander in the head. In another, State Department officials report that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed an apparently innocent bystander. In a third, Blackwater provided no assistance after a trafft accident caused by its “counter-flow” driving left an Iraqi vehicle in “a ball of flames.” Blackwater also reports engaging in tactical military operations with U.S. forces.

The State Department’s own people claim Blackwater has, at least on one occasion, tried to “cover-up” a crimes committed by one of its mercenaries. Almost everywhere Blackwater convoys go, they leave a trail of death and destruction at a rate significantly higher than the other two “private security contractors” employed by the State Department. The memo continues:

In addition to Blackwater, two other private military contractors, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, provide protective services to the State Department. Blackwater reports more shooting incidents than the other two contractors combined. Blackwater also has the highest incidence of shooting first, although all three companies shoot first in more than half of all escalation of forces incidents.

In a September 20 article in the Washington Post, ‘Where Military Rules Don’t Apply‘. Jack Holly, a retired Marine colonel who oversees several private security firms as director of logistics for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said “the State Department was partly to blame for what he described as Blackwater’s ‘heavy-handed, almost arrogant’ tactics. ‘It’s obviously condoned by State and it’s what State expects, because they have contract oversight and if they didn’t like it they would change it,’ he said.” Other reports have made it pretty clear that these mercenaries are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s private army. Immediately after Blackwater’s Nisoor square massacre, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other senior officials in Iraq’s government expressed their outrage and initially tried to expel Blackwater from Iraq claiming this was a “crime” and an affront on Iraqi sovereignty. However, the Iraqis backed down after Rice apologized on Blackwater’s behalf and agreed to a joint-investigation to what happened that day. Since the massacre, Blackwater has remained defiant and maintains their employees were provoked.

The memorandum examines the State Department responses to the many Blackwater incidents. In nearly every case, the department payed a wergeld, blood money, to the victim’s family trying to quickly hush-up the matter. The memo states:

In the end, the State Department and Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment. One State Department offrcial wrote:
“We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission.”

The State Department took a similar approach upon receiving reports that Blackwater shooters killed an innocent lraqi, except that in this case, the State Department requested only a $5,000 payment to “put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly.”

There is no evidence in the documents that the Committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation.

There is no evidence of oversight of or accountabliy for Blackwater in Rice’s State Department. The Los Angeles Times reported that normally misdeeds by private security contractors are covered-up. “Several U.S. diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity said in interviews that past private security misdeeds had been swept under the rug. ¶ ‘It’s one of the big holes we’ve had in our policy: the lack of control, the lack of supervision over the security force,’ a U.S. diplomat told The Times on condition of anonymity because of the topic’s sensitivity. ‘No one took on the responsibility of policing these units, neither the military or the Regional Security Office [the embassy’s security department]… So many people, not just the Blackwater people, are there in Baghdad unsupervised with basically diplomatic immunity,’ he said.”

The memorandum shatters the myth that private contractors is saving the U.S. taxpayer money.

Using Blackwater instead of U.S. troops to protect embassy officials is expensive. Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day for the services of a private military contractor. This is equivalent to $445,000 per year, over six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier. In total, Blackwater has received over $1 billion in federal contracts from 2001 through 2006, including more than $832 million under two contracts with the State Depafment to provide protective services in Iraq.

The cost differences between the U.S. military and using mercenaries is startling. In a diary today, John Campanelli writes that Washington Post reporter, Walter Pincus, found that Gen. David Petraeus earns $493 per day, compared to the Blackwater Manager who make $1,075 per day.

And while Blackwater and other private contractors got their start during the Clinton administration, the memorandum from the oversight committee notes:

Blackwater’s government contracts have grown exponentially during the Bush Administration, particularly since the start of the war in Iraq. Blackwater went from having government contracts worth less than a million dollars in 2001 to contracts worth more than half a billion dollars in2006. Figure A shows the increase in Blackwater’s government contracts over the past six years, while Table A shows the dollar amounts Blackwater received in each of these vears.

Not only is Blackwater and other mercenaries not helping save money for the Unites States, but Blackwater’s numerous incidents are making the United States’ stated mission in Iraq more difficult. Blackwater is hated by the Iraqis and the State Department’s mercenaries are confused by the Iraqis with American troops. The use of Blackwater and other mercenary firms undermines the U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq. Incidents like the 2004 deaths of Blackwater employees in Fallujah were found to be the fault of Blackwater, but yet triggered a major escalation in response by the U.S. military.

According to a TPM Muckraker exclusive, a report by private-military contractor expert P.W. Singer concluded “What the contracting industry diminishes in political cost it compounds in actual cost to counterinsurgency. Iraqis view private companies like Blackwater as lawless, and they have no reason to distinguish between private contractors and U.S. troops — thereby compounding the danger to U.S. forces from infuriated Iraqis… ¶ Even more simply, private military contractors aren’t in the chain of command, meaning U.S. officers are powerless to stop them from engaging in activities deleterious to a command plan.” And, the Washington Post reported last week that the U.S. military has formed similar conclusions in an article called ‘Private Security Puts Diplomats, Military at Odds‘:

In high-level meetings over the past several days, U.S. military officials have pressed State Department officials to assert more control over Blackwater, which operates under the department’s authority, said a U.S. government official with knowledge of the discussions. “The military is very sensitive to its relationship that they’ve built with the Iraqis being altered or even severely degraded by actions such as this event,” the official said… “This is a big mess that I don’t think anyone has their hands around yet,” said another U.S. military official. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing these guys are being held accountable. Iraqis hate them, the troops don’t particularly care for them, and they tend to have a know-it-all attitude, which means they rarely listen to anyone — even the folks that patrol the ground on a daily basis.”

“This is a nightmare,” said a senior U.S. military official. “We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib, and it comes at a time when we’re trying to have an impact for the long term.”

Not only is the presence of Blackwater undermining U.S. strategic efforts in Iraq by increasing the mistrust of Iraqis and further endangering U.S. military personel, but also the U.S. taxpayers are paying through the nose.

The memorandum from the House oversight committee is 15 pages long and it is densely packed with information. It is Waxman’s investigative bow shot and he lowers the boom on Blackwater and the State Department during the October 2 hearing. May he hit his mark and sink the use of mercenaries by the United States government.

This is an OPEN THREAD. Here are four stories in the news at 4 o’clock to get you started.

1. The U.S. Supreme Court opened its 2007-08 term today. The Los Angeles Times provides a good overview of what the court will consider this term. The Supreme Court on Monday opens a new term that includes a rich mix of cases on election law, sentencing in drug cases, executions by lethal injection, age bias in the workplace and the rights of employees who put their money into 401(k) accounts. The court also will consider — again — whether the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have a right to plead their innocence before a judge… ¶ The dispute turns on the Constitution, which says ‘the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended,’ except during times of ‘rebellion or invasion.’ Civil libertarians have urged the court to say Congress violated this provision when it took away from the Guantanamo prisoners the right to go to court.”

   Already the Supreme Court is making news. Reuters reports U.S. top court won’t hear Guantanamo prisoner’s case. “The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned down an appeal by a Guantanamo prisoner whose legal challenges had forced changes to… George W. Bush’s anti-terrorism program last year. ¶ The justices refused to take up the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who faces a possible military tribunal as an accused driver and guard for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan… ¶ The high court may have denied the appeal because a U.S. appeals court has yet to rule on Hamdan’s case.” The Los Angeles Times reports the Supreme Court rejects greater rights for church groups. “The Supreme Court refused today to expand the rights of church groups, turning down appeals in a pair of cases. ¶ In the first, the justices rejected a free-speech claim from an evangelical minister from Northern California who wanted to hold worship services in the meeting room of a public library. ¶ In the second, the court rejected a freedom-of-religion claim from Catholic Charities in New York, which objected to a state law that requires them to pay for contraceptives for their employees as part of their prescription drug coverage.”

2. The AP is reporting US and Iraqi civilian deaths fell sharply in September. “Deaths among American forces and Iraqi civilians fell dramatically last month to their lowest levels in more than a year, according to figures compiled by the U.S. military, the Iraqi government and The Associated Press. ¶ The decline signaled a U.S. success in bringing down violence in Baghdad and surrounding regions since Washington completed its infusion of 30,000 more troops on June 15. A total of 64 American forces died in September — the lowest monthly toll since July 2006. ¶ The decline in Iraqi civilian deaths was even more dramatic, falling from 1,975 in August to 922 last month, a decline of 53.3 percent. The breakdown in September was 844 civilians and 78 police and Iraqi soldiers, according to Iraq’s ministries of Health, Interior and Defense. ¶ In August, AP figures showed 1,809 civilians and 155 police and Iraqi soldiers were killed in sectarian violence. The civilian death toll has not been so low since June 2006, when 847 Iraqis died.” Frankly anyone who claims this is progress is daft. Fatality statistics should be compared to pre-invasion counts not the previous year’s death toll. How anyone can see the deaths of 844 civilians and 78 Iraqi police as progress is beyond my understanding.

3. Here is today’s summary of Blackwater news and op-eds.

   • In ‘Death From All Sides‘, Kevin Peraino of Newsweek writes about the “confidential incident report” it has obtained. The “extensive evidence file put together by the Iraqi National Police… including documents, maps, sworn witness statements and police video footage” that contradict Blackwater’s account of their massacre in Baghdad’s Nasoor Square on September 16. The report concludes that Blackwater mercenaries “‘opened fire crazily and randomly, without any reason.‘” The police video is “footage of burned human remains and show the street littered with brass bullet casings.” The burned human remains is a woman and an infant and the driver of her car. The report found that “‘helicopters opened fire from the air toward the cars and civilians.’ Gen. Hussein al-Awadi, the commander of the Iraqi National Police, [said] that the trajectory of some of the bullet wounds could only have been caused by fire from the air. ‘If anyone moved—whenever they saw someone leaving—either the convoy or the chopper shot him,’ says Ali Kalaf Salman, an undercover Iraqi National Police officer who was working as a traffic cop at the scene.” Blackwater has denied their helicopters were involved in the shooting. Blackwater is still claiming they were attacked by the people their employees killed.

     “No one shot at Blackwater,” says Col. Faris Saadi Abdul, the lead Iraqi police investigator. “Blackwater shot without any cause.” Al-Awadi, the National Police commander, says that minutes after he heard the shooting begin, he rushed to the scene, which is just around the corner from the National Police headquarters. (He says he was accompanied by a unit of American military trainers embedded with his police.) “We were trying to figure out why they were shooting” … “We tried to find a reason and we couldn’t.” He says that his men searched the civilian cars at the scene, but didn’t find any weapons. When Iraqi investigators later stopped a different Blackwater convoy near the scene of the shooting, the general says that the Blackwater guards refused to comment about the incident.

     Blackwater mistook everyday events for hostile actions. “I pulled my radio out to call an ambulance, and they shot at me,” said Sirhan Diab, a traffic policeman who was working in Nasoor Square at the time of the shooting. Blackwater also shot at Iraqi police trying to help the victims.

     According to the accompanying incident report, the Blackwater guards opened fire on an Iraqi Army checkpoint on a nearby road leading away from the square. The convoy also apparently sideswiped at least one Iraqi civilian vehicle in the circle. Samir Hobi, 40, says he got out of his car and complained to the Blackwater guards about the damage. He says one of the guards shouted back: “Shut up or I’ll shoot you.”

   • The House oversight committee has released new information about Blackwater. “Previously undisclosed information reveals (1) Blackwater has engaged in 195 ‘escalation of force’ incidents since 2005, an average of 1.4 per week, including over 160 incidents in which Blackwater forces fired first; (2) after a drunken Blackwater contractor shot the guard of the Iraqi Vice President, the State Department allowed the contractor to leave Iraq and advised Blackwater on the size of the payment needed “to help them resolve this”; and (3) Blackwater, which has received over $1 billion in federal contracts since 2001, is charging the federal government over $1,200 per day for each ‘protective security specialist’ employed by the company.” In about 80% of the escalation incidents, Blackwater shot first. Additionally, disclosed in a committee staff memorandum, is the State Department’s suggestion to buy off the Iraqi families who had members murdered by Blackwater mercenaries. “The State Department took a similar approach upon recieving reports that Blackwater shooters killed an innocent Iraqi, except in this case, the State Department requested only a $5,000 payment to ‘put this unforunate matter behind us quickly.'” The Blackwater hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.

   • The Los Angeles Times reports that a U.S. team has begun a review of private contractors in Iraq. “Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, the department’s director of management policy, and Ambassador Eric Boswell, a former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, arrived in Baghdad on Sunday and have begun meeting with U.S. and Iraqi officials, said Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo. ¶ Other members of the team are expected to arrive soon. Kennedy, who heads the panel, will present his preliminary findings to Rice by the end of the week, Nantongo told reporters.”

   • Harold Pincus reports in the Washington Post that the U.S. pays a steep price for private security in Iraq. “It costs the U.S. government a lot more to hire contract employees as security guards in Iraq than to use American troops. It comes down to the simple business equation of every transaction requiring a profit… How much more these costs are compared with the pay of U.S. troops is easier to determine. ¶ An unmarried sergeant given Iraq pay and relief from U.S. taxes makes about $83 to $85 a day, given time in service. A married sergeant with children makes about double that, $170 a day. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.” (Hat tip John Campanelli.)

   • The craven Wall Street Journal has an op-ed written by a mercenary and apologist: Ben Ryan, a “a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer who spent time in Iraq as an employee of Triple Canopy, a private security firm.” Ryan praises Blackwater contractors as “highly professional and well trained” and excuses their Nissour Square massacre because of what happend with Blackwater in Fallujah in 2004. Ryan claims “contractors are cost-effective” because “they usually receive no benefits”. He also feels mercenaries are not above the law. “Contractors are also subject to numerous U.S. statutes and regulations, as well as international treaties. Just last year, Congress amended the Uniform Code of Military Justice to include contractors. Contractors can also be prosecuted under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, which permits charges to be brought in federal court for crimes abroad.”

   • In a very colorful op-ed in the New York Post, worth reading for the use of language alone, retired Army officer Ralph Peters writes about ‘Trouble for Hire‘ and places the blame for Blackwater at the State Department’s doors. “Americans have always despised mercenaries. Our dislike of hired killers dates back to the days of our Founding Fathers. When Washington crossed the Delaware to defeat the Hessians at Trenton, he targeted hirelings who’d burned, raped and murdered their way across northern New Jersey… And now the United States has become the world’s No. 1 employer of hired thugs. By a conservative count, we and our partners in Iraq employ 5,000 armed American and other Western expatriates, at least 10,000 third-country-nationals or TCNs, and upwards of 15,000 Iraqis who should be serving their own country in uniform.” Peters writes that American troops get the blame for Blackwater’s crimes. “The Bush administration has made sure that there’s no real accountability in the contracting arena, but the particular villain in this mess in the State Department. Our military has been doing all it can to keep Blackwater’s cowboys at arms’ length in Iraq. But State’s diplomats – the men and women theoretically responsible for building good relations with Iraqis – prefer the Blackwater approach (shoot first, and don’t bother asking questions)… ¶ So State’s mission for Blackwater is straightforward: ‘Protect the principal.’ Defend the diplomat, whatever the cost. Well, maybe it’s time for State to risk a few principals in support of America’s principles. ¶ Our country has been dishonored. By our ‘Hessians.'”

4. The Guardian reports that Portugal gambles on ‘sea snakes’ providing an energy boost. “Portugal is poised to open what will be the world’s first commercial wavefarm, and while the coastline’s formidable surf will be a source of electricity, the engineers need a decent “weather window” to be able to get their machinery out to sea. ¶ The Pelamis machines, named after the Latin for sea snake and developed by a Scottish company that leads the world in one of the newest renewable energy fields, are a series of red tubes, each about the size of a small commuter train, linked together, and pointed in the direction of the waves. The waves travel down the tubes, causing them to bob up and down, and a hydraulic system harnesses this movement to generate electricity. ¶ The three ‘sea snakes’ will soon be towed out to a spot some three miles from the coast of northern Portugal at Agucadoura, from where the electricity they produce will be pumped into the national grid.”

One more story about the Kiwi’s flag below the fold…

5. The Telegraph reports New Zealand in flap over plans for new flag. “New Zealand’s prime minister, Helen Clark, has suggested removing the Union flag from her country’s national flag. Ms Clark said that removing the British emblem would ‘New Zealandise’ the flag, leaving it as a stylised Southern Cross on a blue background. ¶ New Zealanders have agonised for years over whether to change their national emblem, with some recoiling at the inclusion of the Union flag and wanting it replaced with a Maori-influenced design. The most favoured alternative design is a silver fern, in Maori a ponga, on a black background — the emblem of the All Blacks national rugby team since 1893.”

Light Emitting Pickle here to bring you the most recent open thread. First, a few words about Pickle Pony Parties:

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

Good morning! Hope everyone is well on this fine Monday morning. I had hoped to provide details on why pickles glow and why they generally glow orange/yellow. But instead, I procrastinated, so instead, you’re getting a sorry excuse for a pony party. Oh, well – no pony for me!