The “Break it Down” Blog

This whole “private military” thing is getting crazy. In a 2006 incident where a Blackwater vehicle ran into an Army humvee and got tangled up, the Blackwater troops exited their vehicle, and then at gun-point disarmed the US Troops and had them lay on their stomachs until the Blackwater personnel had untangled the cars and prepared to drive off.

In multiple cases cited the Blackwater troops act with absolutely no oversight in Iraq, not obeying standard military procedures like disarming their weapons when entering a green zone.

In another case a drunk Andrew Moonen (Blackwater soldier) shot and killed the personal body guard of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi in a Green Zone (see first paragraph). While justice demanded that Moonen be punished appropriately, he was fired and “charged”, but evidence shows he simply went right back to Iraq again working for another defense company. Fucking brilliant.

While there is work to pass legislation that would put the private army under the same restrictions at the US army operates under, there is concern that the FBI-force that would need to be deployed to Iraq in order to follow up on complaints with investigations would take away from the US-based FBI resources that are fighting terrorism.