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Blackwater Said to Pursue Bribes to Iraq After 17 Died
MARK MAZZETTI and JAMES RISEN
NY
Times
Wednesday, Nov 11th, 2009
WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater
Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to
Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism
and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which
Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in
Baghdad, according to former company officials.
Blackwater approved the cash payments in December
2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings
in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about
reckless practices by the security company’s employees.
American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that
the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling
for Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and company
officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating
license it would need to retain its contracts with the State
Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of
dollars annually.
Four former executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson,
who was then Blackwater’s president, had approved the
bribes and that the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where
the company maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in
Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether
the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities
of the potential recipients.
Blackwater’s strategy of buying off the government officials,
which would have been illegal under American law, created a
deep rift inside the company, according to the former executives.
They said that Cofer Black, who was then the company’s
vice chairman and a former top C.I.A. and State Department official,
learned of the plan from another Blackwater manager while he
was in Baghdad discussing compensation for families of the shooting
victims with United States Embassy officials.
Full
article here
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