Witness: Blackwater shootings unprovoked
One week after the gun battle that killed 10 civilians and enraged Iraq’s government, police and interior ministry officials were still gathering witness accounts and hunting video footage perhaps taken by amateurs on mobile phones.
Blackwater insists the US convoy it was escorting came under attack by insurgents before its guards opened fire, but the Iraqi government was incensed by the incident and said it would revoke the security company’s licence.
State minister for national security affairs Shirwan al-Waili said the Iraqi government expects to refer criminal charges to the Iraqi courts within days.
Traffic officer Ali Khalaf, who was on duty on Sunday last week in Al-Yarmukh, in the mainly Sunni Mansour area of west Baghdad, said he had witnessed the entire incident.
“Without reason, they opened fire,” Khalaf said.
“One of the bullets struck a man in his car. I went to his aid but he was already dead.
“His wife was then killed before my eyes.”
“The Americans fired at everything that moved, with a machine gun and even with a grenade launcher.”
Two small black helicopters that always accompany Blackwater on security missions swooped down and sprayed the scene with machine gun fire, Khalaf added.
On Wednesday, the Iraqi and US governments announced they had set up a joint commission to investigate the shootings as well as to examine the broader question of rules governing foreign security companies operating in Iraq.
Despite opposition from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Blackwater, which escorts US embassy personnel, was back on the streets of Baghdad on Friday after being grounded for four days.
“The Americans say that the convoy first came under small arms fire. That is totally false,” said a senior policeman involved in the investigations.
“There is at least one video, shot by police using a digital camera just moments after the shooting, which shows the victims,” said the police officer. “This video is in our hands and we are examining it.”
The Iraqi Interior Ministry has complained that US authorities had ignored repeated complaints about past Blackwater behaviour as the company was implicated in six other fatal shootings.
“Our complaints went nowhere,” deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal said.
Yesterday an Iraq government official said his country will not rush to expel US firm Blackwater because it would leave a “security vacuum” in Baghdad.
On Saturday, the company denied it was involved in illegally shipping automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq.
In what appeared to be a further softening of Iraq’s response to the shooting, a government spokesman for Baghdad security said Blackwater and other private security companies were doing important work guarding foreign diplomats.
Iraq has said it would review the status of all private security firms, while the Interior Ministry has said it is drawing up legislation giving it wider powers over security contractors.
