Surprise! Blackwater smuggling weapons

cat's meow · #1 (**permalink**) 09-21-2007, 11:27 PM

I can't say I am surprised, this is the same sort of sh*t guns for hire in African countries have done over and over when playing soldier/vigilante/bounty hunter...oh but no, not an American company, please tell me it can't be so...Dick Cheney hired them, they have to be good.

Quote:

Feds probe Blackwater links to arms smuggling

Updated: 20 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.

The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, and a spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. Pentagon and State Department spokesmen declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a review of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq following a deadly incident involving Blackwater USA guards protecting an embassy convoy.

Rice’s announcement came as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad resumed limited diplomatic convoys under the protection of Blackwater outside the heavily fortified Green Zone after a suspension because of the weekend incident in that city.

Early stages of investigation
Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.

The officials could not say whether the investigation would result in indictments, how many Blackwater employees are involved or if the company itself, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in government security contracts since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is under scrutiny.

In Saturday’s editions, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that two former Blackwater employees — Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth “Max” Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C. — are cooperating with federal investigators.

Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty in early 2007 to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, and aided and abetted another in doing so, according to court papers viewed by The Associated Press. In their plea agreements, which call for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the men agreed to testify in any future proceedings.

Calls to defense attorneys were not immediately returned Friday evening, and calls to the telephone listings for both men also were not returned.

The News & Observer, citing unidentified sources, reported that the probe was looking at whether Blackwater had shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq without a license.

The paper’s report that the company itself was under investigation could not be confirmed by the AP.

Turkish complaint led to internal probe
In the United States, officials in Washington said the smuggling investigation grew from internal Pentagon and State Department inquiries into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq. It gained steam after Turkish authorities protested to the U.S. in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels.

The Turks provided serial numbers of the weapons to U.S. investigators, said a Turkish official.

The Pentagon said in late July it was looking into the Turkish complaints and a U.S. official said FBI agents had traveled to Turkey in recent months to look into cases of missing U.S. weapons in Iraq.

Investigators are determining whether the alleged Blackwater weapons match those taken from the PKK.

It was not clear if Blackwater employees suspected of selling to the black market knew the weapons they allegedly sold to middlemen might wind up with the PKK. If they did, possible charges against them could be more serious than theft or illegal weapons sales, officials said.

The PKK, which is fighting for an independent Kurdistan, is banned in Turkey, which has a restive Kurdish population and is considered a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department. That designation bars U.S. citizens or those in U.S. jurisdictions from supporting the group in any way.

Probe perhaps accidently made public
The North Carolina investigation was first brought to light by State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, who mentioned it, perhaps inadvertently, this week while denying he had improperly blocked fraud and corruption probes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Krongard was accused in a letter by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of politically motivated malfeasance, including refusing to cooperate with an investigation into alleged weapons smuggling by a large, unidentified State Department contractor.

In response, Krongard said in a written statement that he “made one of my best investigators available to help Assistant U.S. Attorneys in North Carolina in their investigation into alleged smuggling of weapons into Iraq by a contractor.”

His statement went further than Waxman’s letter because it identified the state in which the investigation was taking place. Blackwater is the biggest of the State Department’s three private security contractors.

The other two, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, are based in Washington’s northern Virginias suburbs, outside the jurisdiction of North Carolina’s attorneys.

© 2007 The Associated Press.

crowonapost · #2 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 01:54 AM

I am amazed that people are not livid about this Merchants of war crap.

It's funny in a Fellini kind of way that we the United States have become the EXACT caricature of every bad guy stereotype we've ever seen in Hollywood with this 'private' mercenary armies (plural) that are equal to the forces we have there. Doing what?

What are they protecting?

Corporate interests.

Who sits at the front line while they do it? Our tax paid citizen soldiers who are brainwashed like (Smitty311) into believing they are doing it for the Iraqis....

It's actually morbid & very dark.

cat's meow · #3 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 02:20 AM

The most sick thing about it is these companies like Blackwater do not hire the best of what has come from the armed forces. The best guys that are degreed or want to become degreed go into the work world and lead very good lives (a friend who was an artillery Major who has a MS/Engineering from Georgia Tech is like this) and get on with very good employment in a field they degreed in. The guys who still 'want to play war' and had to get out do this other stuff. That is not a lot of guys but it is certainly more than enough to give the U.S. a balck eye and further deteriorate our foriegn relations because in the end they got approved to be hired by our government.

crowonapost · #4 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 02:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cat's meow

The most sick thing about it is these companies like Blackwater do not hire the best of what has come from the armed forces. The best guys that are degreed or want to become degreed go into the work world and lead very good lives (a friend who was an artillery Major who has a MS/Engineering from Georgia Tech is like this) and get on with very good employment in a field they degreed in. The guys who still 'want to play war' and had to get out do this other stuff. That is not a lot of guys but it is certainly more than enough to give the U.S. a balck eye and further deteriorate our foriegn relations because in the end they got approved to be hired by our government.

I'm tellin' ya' it's a bad B movie gone wrong...

Amazing the depths of stupidity we have devolved too.

freedomlover · #5 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crowonapost

I'm tellin' ya' it's a bad B movie gone wrong...

Amazing the depths of stupidity we have devolved too.

Cat beat me to this thread, I was just getting ready to post it. I agree with you both. This is beyond pitiful. If this is true (and since two have already pleaded guilty) this is treasonous. Some of these weapons are being used against our own military. Bush should shut these people down, period.

graybeard · #6 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freedomlover

Cat beat me to this thread, I was just getting ready to post it. I agree with you both. This is beyond pitiful. If this is true (and since two have already pleaded guilty) this is treasonous. Some of these weapons are being used against our own military. Bush should shut these people down, period.

Can he? Does he want to? No one knows to what extent these private armies are being utilized domestically. They are unregulated, congress has no over-sight and they have not done anything illegal here that we know of.

freedomlover · #7 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by graybeard

Can he? Does he want to? No one knows to what extent these private armies are being utilized domestically. They are unregulated, congress has no over-sight and they have not done anything illegal here that we know of.

Would love to see the contract the American Government has with these companies. Congress may not have any over-sight, but they do control the purse strings. Pull the plug on the money going to these mercenaries.

Maliki wants them out of their country. If Bush really respects that government, he needs to obey their wishes. Otherwise, he really doesn't believe in their sovereinty.

gixaholic · #8 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 08:47 AM

this is funny.... you guys dont care about what happend... you care that it helps the antiwar cause....

Maybee you folks should ask murtha on what happens when you judge before all the facts are out....

freedomlover · #9 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gixaholic

this is funny.... you guys dont care about what happend... you care that it helps the antiwar cause....

Maybee you folks should ask murtha on what happens when you judge before all the facts are out....

We know first hand what happens when you judge before all the facts are out.... you get suckered into a war in Iraq.

Two have already pleaded guilty Gix, that is fact! And they are cooperating.

Still Dizzy · #10 (**permalink**) 09-22-2007, 08:52 AM

WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE! Where the hell were you Liberals when Blackwater did the same shit in New Orleans, after Katrina? Is it because New Orleans is a Liberal town, and they were protecting the Limo Liberals?