FBI scientists couldn't match bullets from the square to guns carried by the Blackwater guards and FBI investigators found foreign cartridge cases of a kind not used by U.S. or Blackwater personnel. While they weren't the only private contractor to provide military security, the name Blackwater would soon be so notorious that the company would change their name. Formed in 1997 as Blackwater Training, the companys initial aim was to provide training services to US military and law enforcement and soon they opened multi-million dollar training facilities in the US to do so. The massacre lasted four hours and only ended when another US soldier, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, intervened and ordered his men to shoot any Charlie Company troops who shot at the civilians. Liberty was found guilty of one firearms offense, 12 counts of attempted manslaughter, and 8 counts of voluntary manslaughter. IE 11 is not supported. is not pillaging. [49], An Interior Ministry spokesman said Iraqi authorities had completed their investigation into the shooting and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths. As Raven 23 was departing Nisour Square, several members continued to discharge their weapons, causing additional civilian deaths and injuries. 1 acre = 43,560 square foot 1 square yard = 9 square foot 1 square meter = 10.76 square foot 1 square inch = 0.00064516 square foot Calculating Cost Per Square Foot. Blackwater, which has since rebranded itself twice and is now known as Academi, is a private military company that, at the time, had a $1 billion contract with the United States government to provide security services to US officials in Iraq. Instead, they tried to help and protect Blackwater by cleaning up evidence in the square and promising the employees involved immunity for what they told State Department officials, which they didnt have the authority to do. (The mercenaries were only charged for 14 of the 17 murders.) For a moment, it appeared as though Blackwater was going to be responsible for guarding the FBI agents, but the Bureau soon announced that the FBI agents would instead be guarded by "official personnel," rather than the very company that they were to be investigating. 0 rating. However, as The New York Times reports, "not one witness heard or saw any gunfire coming from Iraqis around the square." Blackwater mercenaries acting as security guards for the U.S. State Department officials opened fire on civilian traffic on a busy Baghdad street without warning. An Iraqi traffic officer, Sarhan Thiab, halted northbound traffic on Yarmouk Street. Subscribe 944. In the wake of the massacre in 2007, the Iraqi government banned Blackwater from working in the country and cancelled their license. Drone Captures Speeding Tank Crush Fleeing ISIS fighters. 273. One such incident is the Blackwater massacre, also known as the Nisour Square massacre. "Anything that moved in Nusoor Square was shot. [79] Three weeks later, Vice President Joe Biden, who was overseeing U.S. policy in Iraq, promised Iraqi leaders the U.S. would appeal the dismissal of these charges. The order did not say when the suspension would expire. This contract ended up being extended into 2006 and the total cost of that single contract came out to over $300 million. [37], Henry Waxman, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which held hearings on the use of Private Security Contractors in February 2007, said his committee would hold hearings "to understand what has happened and the extent of the damage to U.S. security interests". In 2003, the firm was tasked with its first overseas contract following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 when it was given a $21 million contract to provide security and two military-grade helicopters for the head of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, Paul Bremer. Leaked footage of Blackwater contractors in Iraq. Their first contract, awarded in June 2004, was for $100 million for one year. It looks at the rise of private security contractors such as Blackwater in the era of modern warfare. Trump Just Pardoned Those Convicted Killers", "Pardons in killings of Iraqi civilians stir angry response", "Chief of Blackwater Defends His Employees", "Tracing the Paths of 5 Who Died in a Storm of Gunfire", "Blackwater Execs Remain Free as Guards Convicted for Killing 14 Iraqis in Massacre", Use of white phosphorus by the United States, United States and the International Criminal Court, A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time", AfghanIraqi Freedom Memorial (Salem, Oregon), The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nisour_Square_massacre&oldid=1141803510, Violent non-state actor incidents in Asia, People convicted of murder by the United States federal government, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 22:05. The driver, who was shot in the head, lost control of the car, so the car continued to roll forward towards the convoy, which is when other Blackwater guards also opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers. When the smoke cleared, 17 Iraqi civilians lay dead. Very difficult. His father may be the one man standing between Blackwater and total impunity. The guard was immediately flown out of Iraq, but no charges have ever been filed against him. According to eyewitness accounts of both Iraqi civilians and other Blackwater employees, several Blackwater guards began shooting recklessly at Iraqi civilians in the square, even those who were fleeing or turning their cars around to flee. [21][75] In the memorandum opinion, Judge Urbina ruled the cases against Slough, Liberty, Heard, Ball, and Slatten had been improperly built on testimony given in exchange for immunity;[76] that evidence included statements the guards had been compelled to give to State Department investigators, and as these statements would have been self-incriminating, they could not be used as evidence under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As he slumped forward, his weight on the accelerator meant the car kept moving. Slough was found guilty of one firearms offense, 17 counts of attempted manslaughter, and 13 counts of voluntary manslaughter. The Russian Deep State. However, according to "Blackwater" by Jeremy Scahill, the report was written by Darren Hanner, a Blackwater contractor. Around midday on September 16, 2007, Ahmed Haithem Ahmed and his mother Mohassin were driving to the hospital to pick up Ahmed's father, Haythem, who worked as a pathologist. The Iraqi government, citing eyewitness reports, concluded that the Blackwater guards fired on . 0. . The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, according to the report. Robert Young Pelton, a journalist who spent a month with Blackwater in Iraq, said that the guards "use[d] their machine guns like car horns," per Tidings Media. The committee was co-chaired by Abd al Qadir, the Iraqi Minister of Defense, and Patricia A. Butenis, the Charg d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. Five Blackwater security guards are getting ready to turn themselves in, after being indicted on manslaughter and gun charges in connection with a 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisour Square. [82][20] On June 5, 2012, the US Supreme Court declined to review the Appeal Court ruling, allowing the trial to proceed. The facts of the Nisour Square massacre case have been well documented and authenticated. [33], Three Blackwater guards who witnessed the incident later said that they believed the shootings were unjustified. However, the company was allowed to continue to operate in Iraq until January 2009 when the U.S.Iraq Status of Forces Agreement took effect. Describing the video dated April 2006 that shows a woman being hit by a Blackwater vehicle, Glass writes: "A woman in a black full-length burka began to cross the street. Within 10 days of the massacre, it appeared as though the State Department had already investigated the incident based on a report leaked to the media. The square footage of a room measuring 12 feet wide by 12 feet long is 144 square feet. But this was likely due to the fact that the U.S.Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which took effect in 2009, ended contractor immunity. The unprovoked murder of 17 unarmed civilians in 2007, including women and children, was a horror show that enraged Iraqis, even after years of violence following the U.S. invasion. In 2008, the United States Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Donald Ball, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten (pictured, center), and Paul Slough, all of whom were Blackwater guards during the Nisour Square massacre. Erik Prince said that he didn't believe the FBI had fully investigated the sources of all the used bullets in Nisour Square, arguing that it would have been helpful if the defense had been in possession of a complete ballistics report. If you found this article, please share it: Where we discuss economics, history, and everything in between. Why the case of four Blackwater guards, charged with murdering 14 Iraqis in Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007 (the Iraqi government had originally accused them of killing 17), took so long to reach . Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, is no longer involved with the. [37], Blackwater, which had been operating in Iraq without an Iraqi government license, applied for one after the incident, but the application was rejected by Iraqi officials in January 2009. "[21] Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki harshly criticized the dismissal. The Nisour Square massacre was a blot the US cannot get rid of even today. Some of the counts resulted in a mistrial, but none of the defendants got an acquittal on any count. They said the guards reacted lawfully to gunfire deliberately aimed at them. According to Vox, investigators Jean C. Richter and Donald Thomas Jr. discovered, among other issues, that migrant workers were being used as guards for the Blackwater compound and Blackwater guards had neglected to even give them beds to sleep on in their living quarters. "The jury got it exactly right, this was murder," US Judge Royce Lamberth said while pronouncing the life sentence in Washington, DC. the convoy opened fire on a crowd of unarmed citizens killing 14 and wounding 18. Unfortunately, Blackwater continued to operate in Iraq and the United States didn't cancel their contract. In August 2019, Slatten was once more sentenced to life in prison without parole, Al Jazeera reports. 20ft 20ft = 400 sq ft. How many square feet is a 12x12 room? [19] According to this account, the security team fired warning shots and then lethal fire at the Kia. 0. . The so-called Nisour Square massacre was the single bloodiest incident involving American private security contractors during the Iraq conflict. [48] According to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised a "fair and transparent" investigation into the incident. 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