Obama Administration Stands by DoD Ruling that Protects Blackwater Men

The Department of Defense is standing by a 2007 letter that guts federal prosecutors' case against five former Blackwater diplomatic security guards.

Prosecutors have built their case against the Raven 23 team members on the thinnest of legal principles, with forensic evidence so weak that they can't even say who allegedly killed whom in the September 2007 shootout at Nisoor Square in Baghdad.

One of those legal tenets is the idea that the Blackwater guards, who are hired by the State Department and not by the Defense Department, are actually operating in support of a DoD mission and therefore are liable under federal laws governing DoD.

Now, the Associated Press is reporting that the Obama administration is standing by a 2007 letter by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who wrote that the Blackwater contractors "were not engaged in employment in support of the DoD mission" and that consequently the Justice Department lacked jurisdiction to try the men.

Pentagon spokesman Chris Isleib tells AP that DoD's view is unchanged.

Congress had written the law to apply only to contractors in support of DoD missions, not State Department missions. When Blackwater became a politically partisan issue, lawmakers critical of the Bush Administration tried to bend the meaning of the law to make it apply to the State Department security contractors. Prosecutors, under pressure to appease the Iraqi government to try the men, used that same flawed logic.

According to AP, "Defense contractors can be prosecuted in US courts for crimes committed overseas, but because of a legal loophole, contractors for other agencies can face charges only if their work assignments supported the Defense Department. Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, works for the State Department. Five of its guards face manslaughter charges for a 2007 shooting that killed 17 Iraqis."

The defense team has provided evidence showing that their convoy was fired upon, and not even the prosecutors are attempting to prove who killed whom. Other reports say that a number of the Iraqi dead did not undergo autopsies prior to burial.

Radio Transcript 'Tells a Different Story' About Nisoor Incident

Radio transcript of the September 16, 2007 shootout at Nisoor Square "tells a different story" about the incident than federal prosecutors are alleging.

Foster's Daily Democrat, the hometown New Hampshire newspaper of Evan Liberty, a former Marine and one of five former Blackwater guards being put on trial, has studied the transcript, photographs and other evidence and concluded that the facts show something very different from what prosecutors claim.

Nobody involved with the prosecution - including the turret gunner in the convoy who copped a plea - has said that the Blackwater security convoy came under fire when guards reportedly opened up in defense of the American diplomat being protected.

"There is no mention of the team coming under fire or the vehicle being disabled in court documents based on the accounts by Ridgeway and the Iraqi witnesses," according to the newspaper.

'NOT GUILTY'

The five former Raven 23 team members of the Blackwater security convoy involved at Nisoor Square all plead before a federal judge that they are not guilty for having committed crimes.

The government has no idea who shot whom, but is nevertheless charging the five with "14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter," and - for good measure - a special charge of using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

"We want to make it clear to everyone these men committed no crime. They were defending themselves on a battlefield in a war zone when this occurred," said their defense lawyer, David Schertler, in comments covered by CNN.

Federal prosecutors wanted to ram the oddly prepared case through the courts as fast as possible, but the defense says it needs as much time to prepare to address the charges as the government took to make them.

"The United States government had a year and a half to investigate the case, and we did not. So we need a year to catch up," the defense says, according to CNN.

Raven 23 Defense Fund

Want to help the three Marines and two soldiers being unjustly prosecuted for doing their job protecting an American diplomat for Blackwater?

The Raven 23 Defense Fund is accepting donations online. Christmas is a great time to make a contribution to help these guys out. Click here to go to the site and make a contribution by credit card or Paypal.

Independent Source Verifies Blackwater Team Was Under Fire at Nisoor Square

An independent source within the State Department's Tactical Operations Center in Baghdad has verified the account of Blackwater's Raven 23 unit, saying he was present at the Center when the radio calls came in that the convoy was under enemy fire at Nisoor Square.

The existence of such a source blows another huge hole in the US government's case against three former Marines and two former soldiers who served in the Raven 23 team on September 16, 2007. Prosecutors allege that the men deliberately and illegally killed innocent Iraqis without provocation. Apparently the defense is convinced that it has plenty of information to discredit the government's case, which some say is motivated by the Iraqi government's insistence on a prosecution in exchange for signing the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). If so, we'll probably see the hard evidence come to light as the defense makes its case.

The TOC is controlled by US State Department diplomatic security officials, not by Blackwater. Independent corroboration is likely to devastate the government's case, which rests on the idea that Raven 23 shot without provocation and therefore committed crimes.

Blackfive's Jim Hanson, co-host of the Blackfive show, tells G. Gordon Liddy what he learned from the source he developed within the TOC. Click here for the podcast. Hanson says on his blog that he knows the identity and the duty assignment of his source, who does not work for Blackwater.

He says in the interview, “the government’s case in this situation is highly leveraged on the idea that there was no incoming fire. That these gentlemen misperceived the situation and created a massacre."

Not so, Hanson says, with his source who was inside the TOC at the time. After reading the news accounts of the radio logs, the source called Hanson, who relates the following: “He heard these radio calls live. . . . he said they accurately reflect what was going on at the time. He heard these calls come in. As a matter of fact, the first call that he heard come in was, 'Contact, contact, contact.'"

"Contact" is shorthand for coming under enemy fire.

"And during that call he heard gunfire across the radio airwaves," Hanson continues, "It was obvious to him and to everyone else in that operations center that the folks who were calling in the radio seriously believed they were being attracked and were returning fire based on that. So it’s a tremendous blow to the government’s idea that this was some sort of cold-blooded massacre."

Hanson says he has about 30 photographs of the Raven 23 convoy after the incident, showing "several dozen bullet holes across the four vehicles that were involved in this convoy."

The source gave a vivid account of what he heard, real-time, over the radio in the TOC. "My source heard them describing Iraqi policemen in uniform and other folks in civilian clothes engaging them at this time."

Blackwater diplomatic security convoys had been attacked "at least five times in the previous week," according to Hanson. The nature of the radio calls on September 16, 2007, were consistent with the other calls when convoys came under attack. "They believed they were being ambushed by insurgents and were returning fire trying to exit the vehicles from the area."

Insider Account Reconstructs Nisoor Square Shootout

A source in Baghdad close to Blackwater, the Pentagon, the State Department, FBI and Iraqi government during and after the Nisoor Square shootout has reconstructed the scene for Blackfive's Jim Hanson.

Using clinical language, Hanson posts the description as an exclusive on his blog. Blackwater's Raven 23 convoy entered Nisoor Square to stop traffic, when a white Kia sedan failed to stop and the gunner, Jeremy Ridgeway, opened fire. Apparently members of Raven 23 mistook the Kia driver as a suicide bomber. Excerpts follow:

"The convoy entered the square and stopped traffic. The white Kia approached and ignored signals to stop. It was engaged and as stated in his proffer Ridgeway began engaging the passenger. A nearby Iraqi IP responded to the passenger side and was likely trying to assist the passenger, but to the guards it appeared he was pushing the vehicle toward them as it was still moving forward. They oriented fire toward him and he returned fire at them. This led other IP in the area to join and support his fire."

Standard practice for Blackwater is to get its protectees out of a hot situation as quickly as possible. In this case it didn't happen - the Raven 23 command vehicle had been put out of commission by incoming fire. The armored vehicle needed to be towed away. Hanson continues:

"This caused them to remain in the area longer while engaged attempting to put tow chains on the vehicle. During this time the Blackwater personnel continued to fire at muzzle flashes they identified from multiple areas around the square. Once the vehicle was ready to go they exfiltrated the area."

It's understandable why Raven 23 so easily mistook the oncoming white Kia as a suicide bomber. Over the previous week, insurgents had ambushed Blackwater convoys almost daily; days before a Blackwater helicopter was shot down, with a rescue team coming under attack by dozens of insurgents. Based on the reconstruction from his source, Hanson describes what the previous week had been like for the Blackwater guards:

"To the guards this may have seemed like another ambush in what had been a week of sophisticated ambushes almost every day. Less than a week prior one of their helicopters had been shot down with an RPG and the DART team sent to extract it was ambushed by several dozen insurgents. A day later a convoy was hit by up to 50 insurgents causing a large gunfight as they sought to disengage. The same week one of their vehicles was hit by an EFP, fortunately it hit the engine block and didn’t kill anyone. But the over force from the explosion actually ejected a turret gunner into the street and they had to recover him while again under fire."

Hanson has loaded his blog with photos, documents and other information relating to this case. Check it out at http://www.blackfivemedia.net/.

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."

Radio Logs Prove Blackwater Convoy Was Under Fire at Nisoor Square

Radio logs from Blackwater's Baghdad security teams show that the unit involved at the Nisoor Square shootout did indeed come under enemy fire.

Newsday reports, "Prosecutors said the men unleashed a gruesome attack on unarmed Iraqis. But the radio logs from the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting, turned over to prosecutors by Blackwater, suggest otherwise. The guards were authorized to fire in self-defense, so any evidence their convoy was attacked will make it harder for the Justice Department to prove they acted unlawfully."

The Salt Lake Tribune, covering the defense team in Salt Lake City, reports the story under the headline, "Blackwater Logs Depict Mortal Threat to Guards."

Below is a summary of the logs, as reported by the Associated Press. Raven 4 is a Blackwater convoy protecting an American diplomat near a car bombing. Raven 22 is a Blackwater unit that responds to assist Raven 4. Raven 23 was sent to secure Nisoor Square, a traffic circle, at which the deadly shootout occurred.

The following timeline from the September 16, 2007 Blackwater radio logs is from the Associated Press. The quotes are from the AP report:

11:59: Raven 4 reports a car bombing
12:00: Raven 22 leaves the Green Zone through Checkpoint 12 to back up Raven 4
12:10: Raven 22 and Raven 4 depart for Green Zone
12:11: Raven 23 reports securing Nisoor Square
12:12: "Raven 23 reports multiple insurgent small arms fire"
12:13: "Blackwater air support advised of small arms fire at Nisoor Square. Raven 23 reports Iraqi police shooting at convoy" [Note: The FBI would later credit the Iraqi police with helping build the federal prosecution of five Raven 23 team members.]
12:14: Raven 23 is ordered to proceed to Green Zone checkpoint 2
12:16: Raven 23 says that its command vehicle is disabled
12:18: Raven 23 attempts to tow its disabled command vehicle but says its members are still under attack
12:20: Raven 22 is "advised of Raven 23 shooting at Nisoor Square." Checkpoint 12 of the Green Zone is closed.
12:20: Raven 23 reports it is in traffic, "still taking sporadic small arms fire."

(Note: The facsimile of the radio log is brought to us through Blackfive.)

Federal Prosecutors Are Silent About Radio Logs

Federal officials prosecuting five former Blackwater security guards had plenty to say to reporters when spinning public allegations of premeditated homicide - but they're silent about the radio logs that show the security teams under enemy fire at Nisoor Square.

A Justice Department official did tell the Associated Press that prosecutors are "fully aware" of the documents, but they'll wait to answer them in court.

"We cannot comment on evidence related to a pending case, but we are fully prepared to address in court arguments made by the defense concerning the documents you reference," Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd tells AP.

This is the same Justice Department that had no problem scripting carefully worded accusations against the five military veterans of "unprovoked and illegal attacks on civilians." Now it won't comment on evidence that the attacks might have been provoked and therefore legal.

Coup Plot Allegations Focus on Corruption and Infiltration of Principal Blackwater Accuser

The Iraqi Ministry of Interior is "reputedly dominated by Shi'ite militias and rife with corruption," CNN reports, citing confusing information an alleged plot within the ministry to overthrow the US-backed government.

An Iraqi military spokesman said, "The operation was based on information about some officers facilitating terrorist activities and helping outlaws and the remnants of the vanquished [Baath Party] regime," according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Minister of Interior says the whole controversy is a politically motivated hoax to affect elections next month. An Iraqi judge threw out the case, citing lack of evidence. However, many remain concerned that the ministry, which controls the national police, remains a haven for Shi'ite terrorists and insurgents as well as criminal elements.

The matter is especially important to followers of Blackwater because the Ministry of Interior has been a primary source of some of the most sensational allegations against the company and its men over the Nisoor Square shootout.

An independent US commission of retired American generals and police chiefs recommended that the Ministry of Interior be closed down and reorganized due to its inherent dysfunctionality. US prosecutors have relied heavily on the Ministry of Interior and national police to build their case against five former Blackwater guards.

'Justice Department Began Presentation to American People with a Lie'

"The Justice Department began their presentation to the American people with a lie" when prosecutors accused five former Blackwater guards of premeditated manslaughter in an unprovoked "massacre." So says the defense for one of the accused, former Army Sergeant Nick Slatten. AP has the story.

That's why the defense team released the Blackwater radio logs of September 16, 2007, concerning the Nisoor Square shootout.

Accused Marine Seen as 'Patriotic, Respectful, Courageous, Self-Sacrificing, Kind and Caring'

"Evan Liberty, a 26-year-old former Marine, is routinely described by friends and family here with the kind of all-American accolades reserved for hometown heroes. Patriotic, respectful, courageous, self-sacrificing, kind, and caring. That's Evan Liberty, they say."

So begins a Boston Globe story about the former Blackwater security guard from New Hampshire who faces federal charges for allegedly killing civilians at Baghdad's Nisoor Square.

The Boston Globe is considered the most liberal big-city newspaper in the country. It is owned by the New York Times.

Liberty's "defenders are reflexively adamant that the scrappy athlete and consummate outdoorsman could not possibly have gunned down innocent people while working for Blackwater Worldwide, the largest private security contractor in Iraq," according to the Globe.

The feds are basing much of their case against Liberty against a former colleague, a turret gunner who copped a plea and admitted to indiscriminately shooting civilians.

"These guys are some of the most highly trained people in the world," said Liberty's father, who told the Globe that his son joined Blackwater as a way to continue serving America after leaving the Marines: "It wasn't for the money. He saw this as a way to serve his country."

As a Marine, Liberty was part of the elite guard that protects US embassies abroad. He served at the US embassies in Cairo and Guatemala City, leaving the service "because another embassy posting was unavailable." He was well suited for diplomatic security. "As an alternative, he joined Blackwater," the Globe reports.

"The whole family is a good American family," Liberty's grandfather says. "Nobody knows what's around the trail. You keep going ahead, and turn the bend, and maybe you'll find out."

Federal Prosecutor Says Nisoor Incident Should Not Reflect Negatively on Blackwater

The federal government's prosecution of five former Blackwater guards over the Nisoor Square incident should not reflect negatively on Blackwater or its contractors overall, a top federal prosecutor says.

Jeffrey A. Taylor (pictured), United States Attorney for the District of Columbia said, "It bears emphasis that today's indictment is very narrow in its allegations. Six individual Blackwater guards have been charged with unjustified shootings on September 16, 2007, not the entire Blackwater organization in Baghdad. There were 19 Blackwater guards on the Raven 23 team that day at Nisour Square. Most acted professionally, responsibly, and honorably. Indeed this indictment should not be read as an accusation against any of those brave men and women who risk their lives as Blackwater security contractors."

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince cites Taylor's comment in an op-ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.

Blackwater Chief Describes Mettle of His Security Men

Few critics of Blackwater have ever spent time with the company's security professionals who are constantly being maligned.

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince personally knows more than a thousand of the military and police veterans he has hired and trained to run diplomatic security operations for the State Department in war zones. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Prince introduces the public to one of them with a compelling personal story:

One of these brave people is Derrick Wright. In April 2007, a rocket tore through the Baghdad living quarters where Blackwater personnel were sleeping. Fortunately, no one was killed. But many were seriously injured, including Mr. Wright, a West Point graduate, Army Ranger and father of three. He suffered grave injuries when a portion of his skull was shattered in the attack.

Stabilized in the Green Zone, Mr. Wright was airlifted to a hospital in Europe where his prognosis was bleak. When Mr. Wright's wife arrived, she found her husband coming out of brain surgery and described him as a man who "had one foot in this world and one out." He has since shown remarkable progress after extensive physical therapy, a cranioplasty to repair damage to his skull, and many other procedures.

Derrick Wright and the other team members injured that day were not in Iraq to fight the war. Just like every Blackwater professional who makes the trip to Iraq, they were putting their lives at risk each day to protect U.S. Department of State officials and other civilians working in the country. Yet somehow that role and the part they play in this war have been grossly misunderstood.

While some of our critics seize upon inaccurate labels, I doubt they have ever known one of our contractors personally or been protected by them. Our teams are not cooking meals or moving supplies. They are taking bullets. They are military veterans who have chosen to serve their country once again. Very few people know someone who would voluntarily go into a war zone to protect a person he has never met. I know 1,000 of them, and I am proud that they are part of our team.

'The most thoroughly vetted - and cleared - contractor in the war in Iraq'

"In nominations for the most thoroughly vetted - and cleared - contractor in the war in Iraq, who would have guessed it would turn out to be Blackwater?

"But that’s exactly what happened last Monday (December 8)," Patrick McGuigan writes in Tulsa Today. "After more than a year of gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses around the world, a grand jury found no evidence to indict Blackwater and, instead, indicted five of the contractors who were working for the company on September 16 when a shooting incident occurred in Nisour Square.

The editor adds, "no other company has been subjected to anywhere near the level of media scrutiny, Congressional hounding, or prolonged investigation that Blackwater has weathered.

"So after all the public condemnations and damning headlines just how bad is Blackwater? It turns out that there’s not a shred of evidence that the company has done anything wrong at all. In this instance, a few of its contractors appear to have been caught in a bad situation in Baghdad and innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire – it’s terrible but it’s war; our troops have been involved in similar situations countless times. And just how evil is Blackwater? So evil that every single person they’ve protected is alive and well because of that protection."

"Looking at the facts," McGuigan says, "it’s hard to come up with a company that has been more thoroughly vetted. Maybe, just maybe, they deserve a little credit for doing a good job."

(Photo: General David Petraeus in Baghdad with a Blackwater diplomatic security team who saved the life of Poland's ambassador to Iraq.)

US Prosecutors Briefing Iraqis are Identified

CNN has identified the three US federal prosecutors in Baghdad to advise relatives and survivors of the Nisoor Square shootout. They are: Assistant US Attorney Kenneth C. Kohl (pictured), Assistant US Attorney Jonathan M. Malis, and trial attorney Barry Jonas of the Justice Department's National Security Division.

An Iraqi official has said that one or more of the US officials would advise Iraqis how to use the American legal system to sue Blackwater for financial damages, even though a federal grand jury has found no reason to investigate the company for wrongdoing. The Justice Department has not publicly commented on the report, which appeared in the New York Times.

FBI Calls It 'Instrumental.' Gen. Jones Calls It 'Dysfunctional.'

"The assistance provided by the Iraqi national police was instrumental to our success of our mission." That's what FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Joseph Persichini, Jr., tells reporters when unveiling the government's case against five former Blackwater men allegedly involved in the 2007 Nisoor Square shootout.

This is the same force that's so plagued with corruption and infiltrated by terrorists that it can scarcely function.

The same force under the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, which a panel of retired US generals and police chiefs said was so dysfunctional that it should be shut down and that the police should be "disbanded and reorganized." The panel, called the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, concluded,

"The Ministry of Interior is a ministry in name only. It is widely regarded as being dysfunctional and sectarian, and suffers from ineffective leadership. Such fundamental flaws present a serious obstacle to achieving the levels of readiness, capability, and effectiveness in police and border security forces that are essential for internal security and stability in Iraq."

One of the members of the panel was Gen. James Jones USMC (Ret.), whom President-Elect Barack Obama recently appointed to be his National Security Advisor.

The group's report was published and released in a highly publicized news conference just 10 days before the Nisoor incident.

And the FBI says the force that Gen. Jones said should be shut down was "instrumental" in helping build the case?

Click here for a PDF of the independent commission's report.

Prosecutor Sounds Like He Knows He's On Shaky Ground

The chief federal prosecutor leading the charge against the five former Blackwater men sounded pretty un-confident during his December 8 news conference at which he outlined the case.

Assistant Attorney General Patrick Rowan (pictured) stumbled when a reporter asked how sure he was that the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) applies to the defendants. Here's the section from the full transcript:

QUESTION: If I could just follow up on your answer on MEJA, your contention is then that the State Department was in Iraq supporting the Department of Defense?

MR. ROWAN: Well, our contention is that, well first of all let me make it clear. Our evidence on this point is something we will present to the judge and the jury, and they will have the opportunity to determine whether or not we've provided sufficient evidence of this point. What we are saying is that the defendants who we've charged were supporting the mission of the Department of Defense and that's the charging language we use, that's the predicate for the use of MEJA in this case.

QUESTION: So any U.S. personnel in Iraq at the time were supporting the Department of Defense, is that the theory here?

MR. ROWAN: I wouldn't go so far as to say that's so. We believe -- and again I'm obviously avoiding getting into the evidence. But we believe the evidence in this case is sufficient to establish that these individuals were supporting the mission in the Department of Defense.

That doesn't sound like a very confident prosecutor. The prosecutors are building this case on a technicality, and a weak one, at that. Small wonder the defense team sounds so relaxed.

Legal Analyst: Government Might Not Have the Law On Its Side

The federal case built against the five former Blackwater men rests on a thin reed that has no legal precedent. That's according to yet another legal analyst who has blown holes in the credibility of the Justice Department's prosecution.

The prosecutors' choice to rest the case heavily on the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) provides "special opportunities for the defense, and headaches for the prosecution," says Charles Putnam, co-director of the Justiceworks program at the University of New Hampshire.

"It is fair to say one of the things the defense attorneys will do is to hold the government's feet to the fire and make sure the law works the way it was supposed to work," Putnam says.

One of the accused, former Marine Evan Liberty, is from New Hampshire, and he's getting a lot of public support from the people who know him personally. Liberty's hometown newspaper, Foster's Daily Democrat, has run a series of supportive articles about him and the case.

Prosecutors Use Admitted Killer to Twist Facts Against Blackwater Men

The turret gunner who admitted to killing civilians at Nisoor Square has made a false statement cooked by prosecutors in their bid to make the facts fit their case.

Jeremy P. Ridgeway pleaded guilty to the killings and is now seeking leniency by turning state's evidence against his former Blackwater colleagues. In the first paragraph of his "Factual Proffer In Support of Guilty Plea," he makes a false statement:

"Defendant Ridgeway's employment as a Blackwater contractor related to supporting the mission of the Defense Department in Iraq."

The statement is false because, as the proffer specifies, Ridgeway and colleagues were contractors for the Department of State.

This is an important point. Federal prosecutors are relying on the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), which applies only to civilian contractors for the Department of Defense. MEJA was later amended to include contractors who "support" the "mission" of DoD, which is why prosecutors made Ridgeway use that wording in his proffer.

The prosecution's case is weak. We reported a year ago that the Justice Department would "shoehorn the facts" to make its allegations stick.

Blackwater clearly and explicitly is supporting the State Department's mission, not the Pentagon's, in Iraq. Its Worldwide Personal Protective Services contract is with the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security, not with the military. The contract is to protect US Embassy civilian personnel - including diplomats and US Agency for International Development people - and, according to reports, explicitly places Blackwater security personnel in Iraq under the operational control of the State Department.

Constitutionally, the State Department is the highest-ranking cabinet agency, and therefore outranks the Defense Department under the law. DoD supports the State Department, not vice-versa.

Hat tip to The Skeptical Bureaucrat for pointing this out.