AP Says New Evidence Discredits Federal Case Against Ex-Blackwater Guards

Evidence is piling up that casts more and more doubt on federal prosecutors' case against five American military veterans who served as elite diplomatic security guards with Blackwater in Iraq.

We've already seen the reports that prosecutors would have to bend the law to make it fit the case. And the bullet damage to the armored command vehicle of Blackwater's Raven 23 team (click on picture for larger image).

And that, in what looks like a sloppy investigation, prosecutors are resting their case heavily on two discredited sources: The Iraqi Ministry of Interior and National Police, and an ex-Blackwater guard who admitted, in exchange for a lighter sentence, to killing civilians at Nisoor Square.

Now, even two of the company's biggest serious media critics - Matt Apuzzo and Lara Jakes Jordan of the Associated Press - admit that the government's case looks flimsier and flimsier. Here's what they reported on December 19:

• "Radio logs from a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad cast doubt on U.S. government claims that Blackwater Worldwide security guards were unprovoked when they killed 14 Iraqi civilians."


• "Because Blackwater guards were authorized to fire in self-defense, any evidence their convoy was attacked will make it harder for the Justice Department to prove they acted unlawfully."


• "The logs add a new uncertainty to an already murky case."


• While AP received a secondhand, anonymous report that at least one Blackwater guard "saw no gunfire," "others in the convoy told authorities they did see enemy gunfire. And Blackwater turned over to prosecutors pictures of vehicles pocked with bullet holes, which the company says proves the guards were shot at."


• Prosecutors don't even purport to know who shot whom: "And though they can't say for sure exactly which guards shot which victims, all five guards are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter."


• Federal prosecutors are now on the defensive and won't talk about the issue: "Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to discuss the contents of the logs."

AP: 'All decorated military veterans who have served in some of the world's most dangerous places'

A change of tone from the Associated Press duo covering the Blackwater Nisoor Square issue.

Matt Apuzzo and Lara Jakes Jordan report in what AP calls a "breaking news update":

• "The five Blackwater Worldwide guards indicted for a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting are all decorated military veterans who have served in some of the world's most dangerous places."

More 'Unusual' Spin from the Associated Press

The Associated Press is a mixed bag in terms of the objectivity of its writers, so one always has to be careful when reading AP stories.

The latest cause for caution is headlined, "US Mulls Unusual Tactic as Charges Loom," by the AP's Matt Apuzzo (pictured) and Lara Jakes Jordan.

Apuzzo and Jordan breathlessly report that some people in the Justice Department are considering use of the "Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988" as an inspired flash of brilliance in a long-shot effort to convict Blackwater security guards involved in the September 2007 incident at Nisoor Square in Baghdad.

It's another non-story that AP axe-grinders crank out to blow more smoke about Blackwater, leading people to think there's now some kind of drug connection. There's nothing "unusual" about the 1998 law, incorporated into the federal statute called 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).

That law makes it a crime to use any gun in connection with a "violent crime." Of course, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 was a Reagan-era law designed to crack down on drug traffickers. Now, some in the Justice Department want to twist the intent of the law so they can go after Blackwater.

The law in question provides legal beagles of the world a whole a la carte smorgasbord of extra charges to heap on an accused person in order to try to scare them into making a plea.

Abusing 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) in order to scare people of forcing a plea is nothing "unusual."

If Apuzzo and Jordan at AP had looked at the Nazario case (the Marine accused of killing Iraqis) that they trotted out in their very own article, they would have promptly seen that the charge was used there.

In fact, they could have checked out just about any federal court case involving allegations of “violent crime” and they’d have found The Anti-Drug Abuse Act charge at work.

Want a statistical measure of how “new” and “unusual” is this count? Well, in 1990 it was used 4,000 times. In 2000 it was used 5,000 times.

If our intrepid mudslingers weren’t up to going down to the courthouse and digging through legal cases (usually they're content to let trial lawyers and political hacks feed them with dirt), even though they wanted to spout off about them, they could have found out how "unusual" is use of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) by going to Wikipedia. An entry there describes 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) as “a frequently used section of the federal criminal code.”

But we can't expect those two AP reporters to be careful or objective. Apuzzo admitted that he was a "D" student in college before he decided to become a journalist. And if AP stuck to professional journalism standards, it would never hire someone like Jordan to cover contentious political issues because her husband is a career Washington political operative.