The Case of Andrew J. Moonen
But private security contractors are not immune from Iraqi law should they break it on their own time. They’re not supposed to be immune, anyway. That hasn’t been the case in at least one notable instance.
On Dec. 24, 2006, a Blackwater employee who, according to American and Iraqi officials, had been drinking heavily, got into an argument with Raheem Khalif, a bodyguard to Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. The Blackwater employee shot Khalif three times. Khalif died within hours. The only suspect in the matter is Andrew J. Moonen, an ex-Army paratrooper employed as a private security guard with Blackwater at the time. Moonen, originally from Montana, is no longer with Blackwater. He lives in Seattle. He is under FBI investigationover the shooting, but no charges have been brought.
Blackwater and the Sept. 16, 2007 Killing Spree
As Kim Sengupta of Britain’s Independent reported, there was a bomb blast as Blackwater was escorting a United States Agency for International Development convoy through central Baghdad. “But it was too far away to pose any danger to the Blackwater guards. […] Witnesses say the first victims of the shootings were a couple with their child, the mother and infant meeting horrific deaths, their bodies fused together by heat after their car caught fire. The contractors, according to this account, also shot Iraqi soldiers and police and Blackwater then called in an attack helicopter from its private air force which inflicted further casualties. […] The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious, round after round mowing down terrified men women and children, slamming into cars as they collided and overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape. Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of them, trapped in the flames.”
Blackwater claims the victims were “armed insurgents and our personnel acted lawfully and appropriately in a war zone protecting American lives.”
The Iraqi government almost immediately pulled Blackwater’s license to operate in Iraq. The act should have stopped the company’s work immediately, in accordance with CPA Memorandum Number 17 of June 17, 2004, which explicitly states that private security contractors “may not operate in Iraq” without a license issued by the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of Transportation.
The memorandum further states (using the acronym for private security contractors) that “Where a PSC, or an employee of that PSC, breaches this Memorandum or any other law in force in Iraq, the MOI may suspend or revoke the Operating License. Any such decision to revoke or suspend an operating license must be based on reasonable grounds and be proportional to the breach of the law initiating such action.”
The CPA’s June 17 Memorandum, however, contradicts the CPA’s June 27 Order Number 17. The Iraqi government acted on the authority of the June 17 memo. The State Department acted on authority of the June 27 order.
Further Immunity: The State Department Mucks Up the Investigation
On Oct. 30, the New York Times reported that State Department investigators “offered Blackwatter USA security guards immunity” during an investigation into the September 16 shooting, “a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the company’s employees involved in the episode.” Investigators offered the immunity deal even though they hadn’t secured the authority to do so. But the offer continues a pattern of State Department protection to its vast private security contractor apparatus.The same day, the Pentagon agreed to bring security contractors under its control. What that means, in effect, is not clear beyond setting out standards on the use of force and contractor training. It does not settle the question of accountability and legal authority.
In sum, American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are too dependent on private security contractors to make more than cosmetic changes at the moment. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, is too weak to force more than cosmetic changes of its own.
