Time magazine reports, "According to the incident report, the skirmish occurred at 12:08 p.m. on Sunday when, 'the motorcade was engaged with small arms fire from several locations' as it moved through a neighborhood of west Baghdad.
"'The team returned fire to several identified targets' before leaving the area. One vehicle engine was hit and disabled by bullets and had to be towed away. A separate convoy arriving to help was 'blocked/surrounded by several Iraqi police and Iraqi national guard vehicles and armed personnel,' the report says. Then an American helicopter hovered over the traffic circle, as the U.S. convoy departed without casualties. Some reports have said the helicopter also opened fire on Iraqis, but a Blackwater official told TIME that no shots were fired from the air."
A Blackwater official tells Time that, contrary to some reports, "the convoy was violently attacked by armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job, they fired back to defend human life." The official said that "Blackwater works in a war zone under contract," its personnel are under frequent fire, and all the rules of engagement permit them to defend themselves."
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1 comment:
funny on two counts
one, this is the first entry. kinda coincidentally timely, dontcha think? BW needed some PR work done fast after the slaughter of innocents and voila here's a new pro-BW blog
two, the initial report trumpeted here was later discovered to have been written by a BW employee on State Dept letterhead
I'd laugh if it weren't so sad
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