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This post, written by GottaLaff, originally appeared on Cliff Schecter's Brave New Films
Well well well. Our lovely, transparent State Department is busted again trying to protect poor, innocent Blackwater:
Even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended her department's oversight of private security contractors, new evidence surfaced Thursday that the U.S. sought to conceal details of Blackwater shootings of Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.
In one instance, internal e-mails show that State Department officials tried to deflect a 2005 Los Angeles Times inquiry into an alleged killing of an Iraqi civilian by Blackwater guards.
But Blackwater never does that! They're perfect!
Uh-oh! An email! I guess it didn't get deleted with the other 5 million:
"Give [the Los Angeles Times] what we can and then dump the rest on Blackwater," one State Department official wrote to another in the e-mails... "We can't win this one."
Not any more you can't. Oh, there was a whole chain of emails:
[T]he "findings of the investigation are to remain off-limits to the reporter." Another recommended that there be no mention of the existence of a criminal investigation since such a reference would "raise questions and issues."
That's not nice. That's just not nice. Play fair, State.
In the May 2005 incident, Blackwater opened fire on a taxi, wounding the driver and killing a passenger, 19-year-old newlywed.
Not nice at all. Neither was this:
Peter Mitchell, then a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, told superiors that he planned to tell a reporter that the State Department had "thoroughly investigated" the incident and that "no criminal act occurred."
But the investigation was only "administrative", not criminal. Two Blackwater employees were fired.
I'm sure they're sorry for what they didn't do.
According to the emails, David Satterfield, now Rice's senior advisor on Iraq, recommended that any response to the reporter be approved by Washington. More emails:
In another e-mail obtained by the news channel, a regional State Department official complained of several incidents in which Blackwater guards had allegedly fired at innocent civilians.
Money quote: "In the worst-case scenario, some might seek revenge."
Yeah, there's that.
As Condi said yesterday, "Thank God for Blackwater."
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