This article concerning immunity and others on the fleecingof American dollars might be a good reason for not becoming a countrythat uses contractors for everything. Some matters are just to importantand need oversight and accountability. What if the programs TIs areunder are being done by contractors? Is that just a way for ourgovernment to surveillance/torture and limit liability, to commit acrime without anyone having to answer for it?
I still think XeService means , "Kill(X) the enemy(e) Services. The question then is whois the enemy and who determines that? When innocent people are killedwho gets charged for murder? For TIs there is no accountability or evenan admission thatthese programs exist yet they are using the latest technology andweapons against us.
Peter Rosenholm
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/21contractors.html?th&;emc=th
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Efforts to Prosecute Blackwater Are Collapsing
By JAMES RISEN
Published: October 20, 2010
WASHINGTON— Nearly four years after the federal government began a stringof investigations and criminal prosecutions against BlackwaterWorldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraqand Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by alegal obstacle of the government’s own making.
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Times Topic: Blackwater Worldwide
Inthe most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department onMonday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J.Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to anIraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006. Justice officials said that theywere abandoning the case after an investigation that began in early2007, and included trips to Baghdad by federal prosecutors and F.B.I.agents to interview Iraqi witnesses.
The government’s decision todrop the Moonen case follows a series of failures by prosecutors aroundthe country in cases aimed atformer personnel of Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services. InSeptember, a Virginia jury was unable to reach a verdict in the murdertrial of two former Blackwater guards accused of killing two Afghancivilians. Late last year, charges were dismissed against five formerBlackwater guards who had been indicted on manslaughter and relatedweapons charges in a September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Squarein Baghdad, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.
Interviewswith lawyers involved in the cases, outside legal experts and a reviewof some records show that federal prosecutors have failed to overcome aseries of legal hurdles, including the difficulties of obtainingevidence in war zones, of gaining proper jurisdiction for prosecutionsin American civilian courts, and of overcoming immunity deals given todefendants by American officials on the scene.
“The battlefield,” said Charles Rose, a professor at StetsonUniversity College of Law in Florida, “is not a place that lends itself to the preservation of evidence.”
Thedifficulty of these cases also illustrates the tricky legal questionsraised by the government’s increasing use of private contractors in warzones.
Such problems clearly plagued the Moonen case. In theimmediate aftermath of the Christmas Eve shooting, Mr. Moonen wasinterviewed, not by the F.B.I., but by an official with the RegionalSecurity Office of the United States Embassy in Baghdad, the StateDepartment unit that supervised Blackwater security guards in Iraq.
Mr.Moonen’s lawyer, Stewart Riley, said that his client gave the embassyofficials a statement only after he was issued a so-called Garritywarning — a threat that he might lose his job if he did not talk, butthat he would be granted immunity from prosecution for anything he said.
Thelegal warning and protection given to Mr. Moonen weresimilar to warnings that embassy officials later gave to Blackwaterguards involved in the Nisour Square case. In each case, the agreementspresented an obstacle to prosecution in the United States. In effect,the Blackwater personnel were given a form of immunity from prosecutionby the people they were working for and helping to protect.
“Onceyou immunize statements, it is really hard to prosecute,” said AndrewLeipold, a law professor at the University of Illinois. “In the field,the people providing the immunity may value finding out what happenedmore than they do any possibility of prosecution. But that just makesany future prosecution really very hard.”
Justice Departmentofficials declined to comment Wednesday about specific Blackwater cases.But the department has appealed the dismissal of the Nisour Squarecase, and a new trial has been scheduled for next March in the Virginiamurder case after a mistrial was declared.And Justice officials noted that the government had had a number ofsuccessful prosecutions against contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan,including several for sexual assaults and other violent crimes. Morethan 120 companies have been charged by the Justice Department forcontract fraud and related crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait,officials said. ........................................................
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