Federal contracts required Blackwater to repair shot-up vehicles

After its armored vehicles were shot up by enemy gunfire during the September 16 incident at Nisoor Square in Baghdad, Blackwater made repairs as required under its State Department contract.

But the company is coming under criticism for destroying evidence in the process, even though no federal investigation was underway when the repairs were made.

It's another case of the security provider getting stuck between two departments of the federal government: the State Department, for which it protects US diplomats in Iraq, and the Justice Department, which opened an investigation of the Nisoor incident - well after Blackwater fixed the damaged vehicles.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell tells AP that any repairs "would have been done at the government's direction." According to AP, "Blackwater's contract with the State Department requires that the company maintain its vehicles and keep them on the road." That means the company acted properly in repairing the damaged vehicles. Blackwater also repainted its Baghdad fleet shortly after the incident, on State Department instructions, as a security measure to make the familiar white vehicles less conspicuous.

People who allege an obstruction of justice don't know what they're talking about. Especially because the repairs and paint jobs took place well before the FBI and federal grand jury investigations. The ruined evidence, as AP notes, would have ratified Blackwater CEO Erik Prince's word tht his men were fired upon at Nisoor Square and acted properly. AP reports that the repairs make it "harder for Blackwater to prove its innocence."

True to form, the State Department won't talk about it. According to AP, "The State Department would not comment on whether it ordered the repairs to the vehicles involved in the shooting."

Feds narrow Blackwater probe to 3 guards

In a big victory for Blackwater, federal prosecutors have narrowed their wrongdoing probe to only 3 guards involved in the September 16 shootout at Baghdad's Nisoor Square.

The Associated Press reports, "two weeks into a federal grand jury investigation, people close to the case told AP that authorities have focused the number who could face charges to about three of the dozen or more guards on the security detail."

This is a sure sign that federal prosecutors do not believe that the company itself acted improperly, and that wrongdoing, if any, on September 16 was a very rare exception to the rule. Blackwater has provided more than 17,000 diplomatic security missions successfully in Iraq since 2004. US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker - one of the nation's most respected career ambassadors - has strongly stood by Blackwater and its practices that are credited with saving the lives of American diplomats and others.

Being the subject of a criminal investigation does not, under US law and custom, mean that the individuals are guilty.

But the small number of guards expected to be prosecuted also indicates that the federal grand jury does not believe the line from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior (MOI) that the security providers as a whole shot indiscriminately or without provocation that day. The MOI controls the country's national police. Evidence backs up Blackwater's original reports that the diplomatic convoy under the company's protection was indeed fired upon at Nisoor Square on that day.

Effort to undermine US-Iraqi joint probe?

As if to steal the headlines away from news of the first meeting of the joint US-Iraqi committee investigating the September 16 Blackwater incident, the Iraqi Prime Minister's office releases its own verdict, calling the company guilty of "deliberate murder."

Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim (pictured) admits in the International Herald Tribune that his government's investigation is one-sided, and that Iraqi investigators took little if any information from the Americans involved.

No Iraqi official in the article explained how the probe concluded "deliberate murder" without information from the Blackwater guards and the State Department. Nor did any official attempt to explain why the prime minister's office released the "murder" finding on the day of the first US-Iraqi joint investigation.

Blackwater has yet to give its side of the story publicly, a position that makes the Iraqi report especially one-sided.

Is the Iraqi government trying to hide some of its own dirty laundry?