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.

Pap Smear

Here's the video of trial lawyer Mike Papantonio's self-described "Pap Attack" on Blackwater. He's seen narrating the piece that ran in the Pensacola News Journal, which we dissected in the following post.

Out of Control Buffoonery - Trial Lawyer Embarrasses Himself with Ill-Informed Hit Piece

Imagine - a trial lawyer is calling someone a "phenomenally rich multimillionaire inheritance baby."

That's what Florida trial lawyer Mike Papantonio (pictured) calls former Navy SEAL and Blackwater founder Erik Prince.

But Papantonio's hit job is way off the mark, showing a staggering level of ignorance of American history, law, and of the subject of his attack. The trial lawyer's clumsily-worded, error-filled screed appeared in the Pensacola News Journal. I'm almost embarrassed for him. The piece looks it was written by someone who's had too much to drink.

Papantonio is a radio talk show host on Air America and is founder of GoLeft.tv.

Standish has found at least nine major, glaring errors in Papantonio's attack piece.

1. Papantonio has his legal definitions wrong. He repeatedly refers to Prince and Blackwater as "mercenary." As a lawyer, Papantonio should know better. The international legal definition of mercenary, as defined by the Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, to which the US is a party, is as follows in Protocol I, Article 47.2:

A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

Blackwater contractors do security guard, logistics work, training and related jobs abroad on contract for the US government or under US government license. They are not "specially recruited" to "fight in an armed conflict" or to take "direct part" in hostilities. Their main motivation is to serve their country again, not "essentially the desire for private gain;" as we'll see below, Blackwater contractors are well paid financially, but they pay high taxes and receive none of the non-taxable benefits that military personnel receive, so in the end, the compensation is comparable to those on active duty. All Blackwater personnel guarding the State Department are nationals and residents of the US, a party to the conflict (support staff are multinational). So they do not meet the Geneva Conventions' six standards to be considered mercenary.

Consequently, Papantonio is slandering American veterans who return from their private lives to serve their country again in wartime. The story of helicopter pilot Art Laguna, who gave his life in defense of a trapped US diplomat in Iraq two years ago, shows the caliber of the military vets who join Blackwater: Unusually dedicated people. The Defense Department gave Art Laguna the Legion of Merit posthumously last year, citing his "exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements." Click here for the story.

2. Papantonio says that Erik Prince's (deceased) father funded a "neo-con[servative] revolution." Again, the trial lawyer is wrong, misusing a word intended as a pejorative. Edgar Prince funded Reagan-line social conservatives, including leaders of evangelical Christian causes. Those folks are very different from neo-conservatives, a movement founded by Norman Podhoretz, who characterized neo-cons as liberals "mugged by reality." Neo-cons and social conservatives have seldom been comfortable with one another on major issues; neo-cons tend to be hawkish on defense issues but more liberal on social matters. Many prominent neo-cons turned their backs on their Marxist backgrounds, which is why so many on the left particularly hate them. Neo-conservative movement ideology centered around Podhoretz and other Jewish intellectuals with Commentary magazine - a totally different kind of movement than what Edgar Prince supported, which was based on Protestant Christianity. (Erik Prince is not an evangelical but a Catholic, so his views are not the same as those of his late father.) But "neo-con" is now an unpopular epithet, used both as a means of discrediting the recently-departed Bush Administration's first-term defense team that included some prominent neo-cons. It's also a code word for "Jew" among some closet anti-semites.

3. Papantonio is wrong when he states, "today, the Prince family's private army numbers about 25,000 strong." That's an outrageous estimate. It's not even on the most oddball, foil-hat conspiracy websites. Papantonio must be making it up. It looks like he is referring to the number of private security guards in Iraq, which is estimated at about 25,000, but most of those are Iraqi nationals working for other (mainly Iraqi) security companies.

Blackwater makes up only about 1,000 of the private security guards in Iraq, perhaps even fewer. If one adds the press reports and State Department testimony of Blackwater personnel abroad, and the company's own statements, one finds that the actual number of Blackwater personnel at about 700 in the US and between 1,000 and 3,000 contractors abroad. All Blackwater contractors abroad are either in the direct employ of the United States government, or operating with US allies under explicit US government permission and license. Many of these people are trainers and logisticians, not guards.

4. Papantonio is wrong when he claims, "Soldiers enlisted in the U.S. military get paid about $70 a day to put themselves in harm's way, while Mr. Prince's private soldier gets about $1,500 a day for facing the same risks." This is nonsense, an allegation that was debunked during a congressional hearing nearly a year-and-a-half ago, and by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in August 2008. Blackwater guards make only a fraction of that, and they have to pay their own expenses, from food, housing and healthcare to self-employment taxes and other items that soldiers receive as part of their non-taxable benefits. A 2007 Serviam magazine study found that the compensation is roughly the same. Blackwater has published its own comparison figures.

The CBO discussed cost comparisons less exaggerated than the figures Papantonio uses, and discounted the data. "Those figures are not appropriate for comparing the cost-effectiveness of contracting the security function or performing it using military personnel," according to the CBO. "The figures of $1,222 a day represents the contractor's billing rate, not the amount paid to the contractor's employees. The billing rate is greater than an employee's pay because it includes the contractor's indirect costs, overhead, and profit." CBO says a better comparison would be to estimate the total cost to the government. "CBO performed such an analysis, comparing the costs of a private security contractor with those of a military alternative. That analysis indicates that the costs of the private contractor did not differ greatly from the costs of having a comparable military unit performing similar functions."

5. Papantonio is wrong when he says that Blackwater guys are unaccountable to American law. He claims, "to this day, the lawyers for the Prince-family soldiers are still arguing that these mercenaries can't be prosecuted under traditional criminal and civil U.S. statutes." This claim is false. Indeed, some prominent legal scholars say that Congress never bothered to keep the laws up-to-date, creating a "legal vacuum" and accountability problems. Keeping federal laws up-to-date are up to Congress, not Blackwater, to solve. Blackwater operates under the laws in existence - some of which are either imprecise or contradictory - and it has urged that the laws be updated so that the company's work can be more specifically defined.

6. Papantonio is wrong when he implies that Blackwater is in danger of becoming an "independent, unchecked power in America." The company is tightly regulated under a host of state and federal laws. Its operations are regulated by the Justice Department, Defense Department, Treasury Department, Commerce Department and State Department. It is subject to the same gun-control and export laws that govern everyone else. Where laws haven't kept up with the outsourcing trend, they have been amended, and Blackwater has been urging Congress to continue updating the law. Congress even passed a law that Prince personally advocated in testimony before Congressman Henry Waxman's oversight panel on October 2, 2007.

7. Papantonio is wrong when he says that the US won World War II without the use of "American mercenaries." Perhaps he's never heard of the famous American Volunteer Group (AVG), better known as the Flying Tigers, led by Claire Chennault - a private air force of American aviators who fought the Japanese in Burma, China and Australia. Most people are familiar with the AVG's famous P-40 fighter plane with its distinctive shark-mouth paint job (pictured). Other "American mercenaries," as the trial lawyer would define them, were the armed civilian crews of the Liberty Ships who ferried supplies across the Atlantic to make D-Day possible. The US relied heavily on private contractors to support the military during World War II. In 1941, prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress passed the Defense Base Act (DBA) to provide insurance for civilian contract workers on US military bases, an Act that Congress has expanded over the years as the contracting sector has grown.

8. Papantonio is wrong when he says that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would have opposed private military companies to do outsourcing military work in the service of the United States. As soon as he became Commander in Chief of the Continental Army in 1775, Washington outsourced a naval force, without consent of the Continental Congress, leasing private ships and hiring private sea captains as what he called "privateers." Military historian James L. Nelson documents this in his new book, George Washington's Secret Navy. (See how Nelson's account takes the legs out from under another Blackwater critic, Bill Sizemore of the Virginian-Pilot.)

Washington as general and Jefferson as a member of the Second Continental Congress personally supported the legalization and regulation of private military companies to make war on British shipping, in March, 1776. Washington commanded ships that worked in partnership with privateers, and during the war he even held an ownership stake in a private warship. As president, Thomas Jefferson made extensive use of private warships to compensate for US naval weakness in defense of American trading interests against the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean. Robert H. Patton's book Patriot Pirates: The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution is a great introduction to the subject in the 1770s and early 1780s. Privateering is one of the few businesses specifically authorized in the US Constitution, under the "letters of marque and reprisal" clause in Article I, Section 8. Papantonio is a trial lawyer who doesn't even know the Constitution.

9. Papantonio makes the preposterous claim that "Blackwater has reached a level of overgrown and unchecked power that makes it capable of overpowering the military of many of the world's governments." The company can do nothing abroad without the legal authorization of the State Department, Commerce Department, Defense Department and Justice Department. Its powers are not unchecked at all. Blackwater is liable under state and federal gun control laws, military export laws, labor and safety laws, and a host of regulations that fall under those laws.

"Blackwater spokesmen tell us that their mercenaries operate under a pledge of strict loyalty and patriotism," Papantonio says. "But take time to follow the story about this mercenary group, and you will wonder who or what entity actually benefits from that loyalty pledge." '

Papantonio's attack on Blackwater is one of the most ignorant this blogger has ever seen. Phony and sloppy allegations like his are what have given many well-intentioned people a false impression of the company and its role. The more people know about Blackwater, the more they appreciate what it does. So it was no surprise when last summer, a US Senator receiving Blackwater protection in Afghanistan said in comments picked up by US News & World Report, "Blackwater is getting a bad rap." That senator is now the new president of the United States.

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.

Trial Lawyer Still Hiding from Media

The trial lawyer who took advantage of grieving Blackwater families and tried to profit from the terrorists who murdered four contractors is still hiding from the media.

More than a week after a federal court effectively threw out his case against Blackwater, California trial lawyer Daniel Callahan has avoided making any press appearances.

Callahan devised a high-profile psychological campaign to discredit Blackwater, exploit the families of four Blackwater contractors murdered in Fallujah in 2004, and make millions from his made-for-media lawsuit. He's the source of phony allegations that Rep. Henry Waxman made against the company - allegations repeated without substantiation in the media. But since the federal court told the plaintiffs to abide by the terms of Blackwater's own contract, Callahan has been strangely silent.

Profile in courage.

Loser In Fallujah Suit Is Hiding from Press

California trial lawyer Daniel Callahan was never shy about talking to the press during his effort to profit financially from the deaths of four American military veterans in Iraq.

But now that a federal appeals court has effectively thrown out his suit against Blackwater, Callahan suddenly isn't talking.

The Virginian-Pilot, which serves the area near Blackwater Worldwide's headquarters and has been one of the main newspapers to break stories about the company, tried to get comments from both sides of the case for its October 21 story about the court decision.

Only Blackwater spokesman Anne Tyrrell would talk to the newspaper. According to Virginian-Pilot reporter Louis Hansen, the trial lawyers "did not respond to requests for comment."

Three Federal Judges Throw Out Fallujah Lawsuit

A panel of three federal judges has effectively thrown out the highly publicized lawsuit against Blackwater in relation to the ambush of four of its security contractors in 2004. The federal appeals court judges have ruled that Blackwater's contract that each of the men signed - requiring any disputes to be resolved in confidential arbitration and not in court - is valid and must be observed.

The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, which serves the area near Blackwater Worldwide's headquarters, has the story. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond dismissed the petition filed by trial lawyer Daniel Callahan on behalf of shell companies that another trial lawyer set up in the names of the estates of the deceased.

Callahan planned to make millions of dollars profiting from the insurgents who murdered the four American military veterans, mutilated their bodies, and hung two of the bodies from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq, in March, 2004.

Blackwater spokesman Anne Tyrrell says that the federal appeals court has vindicated the company, and upheld the firm's contracts. "The federal courts have now honored those written agreements," Tyrrell says in the article.

Report: War Profiteer Defeated in Federal Court

We're hearing out of the US Federal Court of the Fourth Circuit in Richmond that a federal judge has rejected the trial lawyers' suit against Blackwater for the terrorist ambush in Fallujah, and has told the parties to settle their differences out of court.

This is a huge blow for ambulance chasing trial lawyer Dan Callahan (pictured), who had shell companies set up in North Carolina in the names of four deceased Blackwater contractors whom Islamist insurgents ambushed, murdered and mutilated in 2004. Via the shell companies, which he represented as "estates," Callahan was hoping to pocket many millions of dollars by taking advantage of the terrorists' attack on the Blackwater men. He persuaded several grieving members of the deceased men's families to go along, blaming Blackwater instead of the terrorists for the deaths, and holding out the prospect of lots of money from a court decision.

The trial lawyer is going to have to settle for a lot less now - if anything at all - after spending millions of dollars in venture capital in hopes of profiting from the atrocities.

It's also a big blow to Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Cal.), who opened up his "investigation" of Blackwater at Callahan's request, had Callahan's anti-Blackwater clients testify before Congress as expert witnesses, and followed the trial lawyer's script in holding the hearings and leaking confidential documents to the media.

Of course, this blogger's opinion that Dan Callahan is a sleaze is, indeed, an opinion, and is therefore protected speech. I'll be sure to post links to legal documents and news reports as soon as they're online.

Lawyers Accuse Blackwater - But their Cop-Killer and Al Qaeda Ties Taint Allegations

Trial lawyers suing Blackwater Worldwide on behalf of Iraqis allegedly suffering from the September 16 Nisoor Square incident in Baghdad are accusing the company of covering up evidence.

But the trial lawyers' documented ties to terrorist groups and activists causes undermine the credibility of the accusations. And the propagandistic reporting of the Associated Press undermines the credibility of the news organization.

For months, the Associated Press has avoided identifying the trial lawyers by name andtheir terrorist connections in its reporting on the issue. In a display of the wire service's increasingly sloppy journalism, the AP's April 25 headline reads, "Iraqis Accuse Blackwater of Shredding Documents." The article identifies none of the accusers and carries no byline, raising questions about accountability within AP's editorial offices.

As this blog has documented, members of the legal team suing Blackwater in this case include Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who has spent the better part of 40 years defending terrorists and cop-killers as part of his self-described professional mission; and Shereef Hadi Akeel, who represents a group the US says is an al Qaeda organization.

For more of AP's propagandistic reporting of this lawsuit, see our December 19 posting.

Atrocity bridge rededicated in Fallujah

"Four years ago today," the New York Daily News writes, "four American security men from Blackwater were ambushed in Fallujah. They were shot in their vehicles, doused in gasoline and set afire, mutilated and strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River. The grisly images of their blackened corpses dangling from the steel bridge fueled the drive for a ... Marine offensive into the city days later."

The four men were led into ambush by their Iraqi security detail. The attackers planned the ambush for its international propaganda value; some of the attackers had video cameras to record the murders and mutilations, and relied on the international news media to spread the images around the world. A trial lawyer is trying to profiteer from the tragedy by holding Blackwater - not the terrorists - responsible for the killings. He is suing the company on behalf of some of the family members of the deceased.

Four years after the horrible incident, the city of Fallujah is much quieter. In fact, the Public Affairs Office of the Multi-National Corps at has announced that the bridge, reportedly nicknamed "Blackwater Bridge," has been refurbished and will be rededicated on 5 April. The bridge was first dedicated by King Feisel in 1927 and will henceforth bear his name.

Congressional failure: 'Gaps in law' may not allow prosecutions

"Gaps in the law" are among the problems the Justice Department is finding in the prosecution of Blackwater guards involved in the September 16 shootout in Baghdad, where 17 civilians were killed.

The antics of a few showboating congressmen, including Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Cal., pictured), have followed the script of a California trial lawyer who stands to make millions suing Blackwater, and have diverted lawmakers from the real problem: Gaps in the laws that they themselves are responsible for writing.

The New York Times reports that those "gaps,"as well as State Department immunity for the Americans who risk their lives daily protecting diplomats and VIPs in Iraq, are complicating and might not even permit a prosecution of those allegedly involved.

We reported last November that, because of Congress's failure to update the law, the Justice Department might have to "twist" the facts of the case and even the law itself in order to prosecute the diplomatic security guards.

Administration misses deadline; jeopardizes private contractors

Despite President Bush's personal support for the private companies that provide security and military support in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration has missed a deadine to provide a federal court with information that would be helpful Blackwater. Trial lawyers are suing the company for a fatal accident that occurred while supporting US troops in Afghanistan.

That failure could be a victory for the trial lawyers and spell defeat for US military forces and diplomats who need private sector support for their wartime operations and safety.

"After the President has said that, as Commander-in-Chief, he is ultimately responsible for contractors on the battlefield it is disappointing that his administration has been unwilling to make that interest clear before the courts," Blackwater CEO Erik Prince tells Time magazine after the administration missed a November 7 deadline. "And this is happening even as our professionals risk their lives every day in support of vital US priorities, while Congress and several federal agencies publicly discuss the issues at stake in this particular lawsuit."

A trial lawyer win would spell doom for the industry and the US government's dependence on it. According to Time, "Blackwater and other contractors say that if the Florida damages case is allowed to proceed, it will expose them to potentially large liabilities that could cripple their ability to play the role for which they're hired by the U.S. government. Blackwater has argued that because [a Blackwater operation in Afghanistan] was under the command and control of the U.S. military, the company should be covered by the same 'sovereign immunity' that protects the U.S. military from lawsuits."

Waxman 'investigation' tracks trial lawyer allegations

Blackwater's report to a House panel on the killings of four of its men in Fallujah in 2004 says that the congressional committee's "investigation" is politically motivated and that it tracks with a lawsuit filed by a trial lawyer who stands to make millions of dollars from suing the company.

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA, pictured) has led the hearings in response to a request from trial lawyer Daniel Callahan.

Bloomberg reports, "Blackwater officials, in their response yesterday to Waxman's accusations about the Fallujah incident, said there were 'striking similarities' between Waxman's report and a lawsuit filed against the company on behalf of the families of the four victims.

"The complaint and the Waxman report, for example, both accuse Blackwater of not using armored vehicles as a way to save costs. Waxman's report 'intentionally or not, tracks the litigation position,' Blackwater said.

"The report also noted a Dec. 13, 2006, letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which an attorney for the families urged Congress to investigate allegations of cost cutting by 'extremely Republican companies' such as Blackwater."

2004 Fallujah incident was ambush

The 2004 incident in Fallujah that left four Blackwater guards dead and mutilated was a planned ambush designed for its propaganda effect.

That's what a Blackwater report to Congress explains, in the company's first significant public comment on the matter. A California trial lawyer is suing Blackwater, alleging that the firm was negligent in sending its men on the fatal mission. That lawyer, Daniel Callahan, has been the source of congressional allegations against the North Carolina company.

After years of silence, Blackwater gives a revealing account of a well-prepared ambush of private security guards Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Michael Teague and Scott Helvenston. The Associated Press gives the following highlights:

• Sectarian Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) personnel "intentionally betrayed" the Blackwater guards and led them into the ambush;


• "It was ICDC betrayal and enemy ambush — not contractor incompetence — that led to the deaths of four Blackwater personnel on March 31, 2004," the company says.


• "Stronger weapons, armored vehicles, ammunition or maps would not have shielded these brave military veterans from the certain death that awaited them on that morning," Blackwater says. "Even if Blackwater had placed six men on the mission, the result would likely have been the same."


• ICDC representatives showed the Blackwater guards the quickest route through Falljuah. At a downtown crossing, Iraqi police stopped the convoy.


• As the convoy moved out of the intersection, at least five gunmen opened fire at close range with Kalashnikov assault rifles. Two of the shooters held video cameras in one hand.


• "The fact that the assailants were set to record the murders is further proof that there was a pre-existing plan at work," according to Blackwater.


• Oncoming traffic cut off the escape route. The non-US drivers escaped. The four American guards never had time to fire a shot.


• "The ambush, apparently, was only intended to kill the Americans."


• Nearly four hours passed before the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps or Iraqi police began to investigate.
  

Text of Blackwater statement on Fallujah ambush

Blackwater's First Public Response on Fallujah:

Murdered Blackwater Men Were the Victims of a Well-Coordinated Ambush and Attack - A tragedy for which no one but the terrorists are to blame

Moyock, NC - In response to a document issued by Chairman Waxman's Majority Staff in September, Blackwater has issued its own report that is the first publicly available account by Blackwater on the tragic events leading to the death of four of its personnel in Fallujah on March 31, 2004.

The full Blackwater report, available on Blackwater's website at http://www.blackwaterusa.com/press_releases/pr_07-10-23.asp, explains the following:

Blackwater personnel were deliberately led into a well-planned ambush by personnel of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corp and enemy insurgents.

Blackwater uses the facts to refute findings of the Majority Staff Report regarding the staffing, preparation, equipment and other resources used: the experienced team of military veterans who were killed, including an Arabic speaker, had all of the resources they needed.

The Majority Staff Report seeks to assess blame for the death of Americans in Fallujah. Within a year of these events Fallujah was the subject of significant U.S. military effort and casualties, when Marines and Army personnel were required to take this city back from the enemy insurgents block by block, and faced severe and well organized military resistance.

The lower profile manner by which the Fallujah mission was carried out is blamed by the Majority Staff for the death of the Blackwater personnel. The same staff has criticized Blackwater for excessive use of force on September 16, 2007. For years Blackwater critics have inappropriately and inconsistently labeled Blackwater as being too casual and unprepared (see Fallujah) and too aggressive (see September 16). The truth is Blackwater professionals are the same personnel trained by the U.S. military and law enforcement, and who do their best every day in a very dangerous war zone, where the enemy has a vote.

Blackwater demonstrates the significant overlap between the complaint of trial lawyers suing Blackwater and the findings of the Majority Staff Report.

The entire Blackwater family mourns the loss of these heroic lives. Our thoughts remain with their families.

Guided by integrity, innovation, accountability, and a desire for a safer world, Blackwater Worldwide leverages state-of-the-art training facilities, professional program management teams, and innovative manufacturing and production capabilities to deliver world-class, customer-driven solutions.

Waxman abusing his power to help trial lawyers value Blackwater suits?

Congressman Waxman appears to be abusing his authority as chairman of House oversight committee, demanding to know the profits of a private company as part of his "accountability" crusade.

Congress has no legitimate reason to know the profits of a private company. Yet, at the behest of a trial lawyer who stands to make millions by suing Blackwater, Waxman is using his committee to try to do just that.

Using data furnished by the State Department, Waxman has already shown that Blackwater saves the taxpayer an estimated $100,000,000 a year or more as a private sector alternative to diplomatic security in Iraq.

The only reason why Waxman would need to know Blackwater's total

profits is if he was colluding with the trial lawyer who is suing the company. If he can get Blackwater to divulge its profits in dollar terms, he will will help the trial lawyers establish exactly how much they can hope to steal from Blackwater in a litigation maneuver.

The trial lawyers currently suing Blackwater include Daniel Callahan of Callahan & Blaine, terrorist attorney Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and al Qaeda fundraising attorney Shereef Hadi Akeel of Akeel & Valentine.

Forging ahead for the trial lawyers

Congressman Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is pressing ahead with more political favors requested by trial lawyers.

The Federal Times has the story.

In December 2006, a major California trial lawyer, Daniel Callahan, requested incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Waxman to hold hearings on Blackwater whose scope and content coincided with his lawsuit against the company.

Waxman (pictured) complied, holding a hearing featuring Callahan's plaintiff clients in February, and an October 2 hearing with the defendant in Callahan's case, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, as the main witness.

Waxman is now demanding more information from Blackwater, including data on Blackwater's profit margin from its government contracts. As a private company, Blackwater is not liable to divulge such information. Prince told lawmakers at the hearing that they were asking him to reveal trade secrets that would damage his business.

Full text of 'Lawyers for Terror'

For some reason, a powerful op-ed about the trial lawyers suing Blackwater is practically impossible to find on Google. The item, which exposes the terrorist connections of some of the attorneys, appeared in the New York Post on October 17, 2007. Our illustrated story about the op-ed is above, but for Googlers we're reprinting the entire text below.

'Lawyers for Terror: Radical Attorneys in the Blackwater Suit'

by J. Michael Waller, New York Post, October 17, 2007

October 17, 2007 -- HERE'S a new twist in the Blackwater story: A legal group with a four-decade record of aiding and abetting terrorists, spies and cop-killers is suing the company.
Joining it is an Egyptian attorney who has been representing what the U.S. Treasury Department calls a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda.

The Sept. 16 incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square resulted in at least 17 deaths. Three families of the Iraqi victims, plus one injured survivor, are suing the "contract-security" firm. But their choice of attorneys is remarkable.

The legal team includes attorneys from the Philadelphia firm of Burke O'Neil LLC - plus the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, as well as CCR's president, Michael Ratner - plus Shereef Hadi Akeel of Akeel & Valentine PC.

The Center for Constitutional Rights calls itself a civil-rights group, working for the "least popular" in society in order to defend the rights of all. But it seems to specialize in defending the enemies of American society.

The CCR and its lawyers have provided legal aid to the murderer of two FBI agents; bombers and bank robbers from the 1960s, and '70s terrorist groups. It has even litigated on behalf of illegal-combatant detainees at Guantanamo and mounted a spirited moral defense of Lynne Stewart, convicted for conspiring with the spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

If a terrorist needs help, the CCR isn't far away. Its lawyers gave legal aid to the Puerto Rican FALN terrorists who planted more than 100 bombs in Chicago and New York. You know, the group that in 1975 blew up the Fraunces Tavern in New York City, killing four and wounding 54.
CCR leader Michael Ratner went to the U.S. Supreme Court to get constitutional protections extended to captured terrorists and illegal combatants. He sued to weaken post-9/11 counterterrorism laws.

He's also an aggressive propagandist of the Soviet old school who knows how to make headlines to spin public opinion. Where he once pushed communist causes, today he's pushing Islamist extremism. His involvement in the Blackwater lawsuit must be seen in that context.
Joining Ratner as counsel in the suit is Akeel, an Egyptian-born lawyer in Michigan who has represented a group the Treasury Department says is a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda.

Akeel has been a defense counsel for the Islamic Relief Agency, which Treasury says supports Osama bin Laden. A federal court backed Treasury's findings in a decision earlier this year, rejecting Akeel's request that the government unfreeze his client's assets.

CCR lawyers, either individually or as part of the organization, provided legal help to the late Soviet KGB agent Wilfred Burchett, who operated undercover as a journalist; and to a U.S. Marine guard at the U.S. embassy in Moscow who was seduced to betray his country for the Soviet KGB.

They gave legal and political support to Leonard Peltier, an Indian militant convicted of murdering FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams. They've defended or litigated on behalf of cop-killers who left a trail of dead policemen and deputies in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

They gave legal support to Abdul Majid and Bashir Hameed, now in prison for snuffing the life from New York City Police Officer John Scarangella and attempting to kill his partner. They provided legal counsel for Joanne Chesimard, convicted of murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and now hiding in Cuba.

They filed motions for Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, a Muslim cleric formerly known as H. Rap Brown, now serving a life sentence for murdering Georgia Deputy Ricky Kinchen.

They provided legal counsel for Mousa abu Marzouk, a leader of Hamas; Mazin Assi, who firebombed a New York-area synagogue; and Japanese Red Army terrorist Yu Kikamura, who attempted to bomb a Manhattan building on behalf of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi.

They provided legal and political support to Lynne Stewart, the lawyer convicted of providing "material support" to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheik" who was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and was considered a spiritual leader to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

The CCR's Ratner has gone to the mat for Stewart, even after her conviction for supporting terror. At the same time, he has been a harsh - even hysterical - critic of Blackwater, serving as a longtime source of comment for The Nation magazine's anti-Blackwater agitpropster Jeremy Scahill. (Ratner and Scahill go back to at least 1999, when they co-wrote a bulletin on the former Yugoslavia denouncing NATO military involvement against the Milosevic regime.)

As we await the facts to establish responsibility for the Sept. 16 tragedy in Nisoor Square, we must demand answers to another question: Of the million-plus lawyers in the United States they could have chosen to sue Blackwater, how did ordinary Iraqis manage to pick the few who aid cop-killers and terrorists?

J. Michael Waller is a vice president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.

Legal group that aids terrorists is suing Blackwater over 9/16 incident

A New York-based legal group with a 40-year history of aiding terrorists, foreign spies and cop-killers is filing suit against Blackwater over the September 16 incident in Baghdad.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) provides legal defense and litigation services to political extremists from around the world, from Marxist-Leninists to Islamist fundamentalists. The group's leader, Michael Ratner, is an occasional collaborator with Blackwater critic Jeremy Scahill.

Depending on one's perspective, the CCR has been described variously as a "human rights" group, a "civil rights" group, a "terrorist support" group and a "fifth column law factory."

As we reported on September 19, Ratner and CCR lawyers have represented or advocated for a rogue's gallery of cop-killers and enemies of the United States. Over the years they include:

• Abdullah al-Muhajir (aka Jose Padilla) , the convicted al Qaeda conspirator known as the "dirty bomber";
  
• Mumia Abu-Jamal, a convicted cop killer;


• Leonard Peltier, convicted of murdering two FBI agents;


• Clayton Lonetree, a former Marine convicted of spying for the Soviet KGB;


• Wilfred Burchett, a journalist and KGB agent.


• Victor Manuel Gerena, a Puerto Rican terrorist on FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, now hiding in Cuba;


• Kurt Groenwald, a German Red Army Faktion (Baader-Meinhof Gang) terrorist lawyer;


• Yu Kikamura, a Japanese Red Army terrorist working for Libya;


• Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (aka H. Rap Brown), a convicted cop killer;


• Abdul Majid and Bashir Hameed, both convicted cop killers;


• Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard), a convicted bank robber and cop killer;


• William Morales, a Puerto Rican convicted terrorist bomber;


• Mousa Abu Marzook, a leader of HAMAS;


• Mazin Assi, a Palestinian convicted of firebombing a Bronx synagogue;


• Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," a spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad who was convicted of being behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York; considered an early spiritual leader of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.


• Lynne Stewart, convicted of aiding a designated terrorist organization; a lawyer and activist on behalf of Omar Abdel Rahman.

How trial lawyers drive the anti-Blackwater train

One of the deans of Washington's journalistic community describes how trial lawyers are driving the anti-Blackwater movement.

In his October 8 Washington Post piece, syndicated columnist Robert Novak tells how an ambulance-chasing attorney crafted Congressman Henry Waxman's hearings against Blackwater. Novak cites the December, 2006 letter from a California trial lawyer requesting that incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Waxman (D-CA) probe Blackwater.

BlackwaterFacts.com posted the letter on October 3.

Among other things, Novak reveals that the same day Waxman demanded that Blackwater CEO Erik Prince appear before his committee, the trial lawyer, Daniel Callahan, called Blackwater counsel Joseph Schmitz. And here's where the case reeks of what reasonable people might call extortion: The trial lawyer told Schmitz that he could "bury" the bad publicity if Blackwater would fork over $20 million in cash.

Callahan is suing in North Carolina, along with local trial lawyer David Kirby, a former partner of ex-Senator John Edwards (pictured).

"While the trial lawyers wanted money, Democrats wanted more bad publicity for Blackwater -- and the Bush administration," says Novak. "Questioning by Democrats seemingly came straight from Callahan's legal briefs."