An official Iraqi investigation into a deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA guards raised the number of Iraqis killed to 17 and said the gunfire was not warranted and those involved should face trial, the government said.
The final results showed that convoys from the North Carolina-based security company did not come under direct or indirect fire, before the men shot up a key intersection.
"It was not hit even by a stone," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Sunday.
A US-Iraqi commission also met for the first time on Sunday to review US security operations after the Sept. 16 shootings in which Blackwater guards are accused of opening fire on Iraqi civilians in a main square in Baghdad.
The panel is one of at least three investigations involving Americans.
The Moyock, North Carolina-based security company contends its employees came under fire first.
The incident has caused outrage among Iraqis and calls for the rules governing those protecting US diplomats to be overhauled.
The Iraqi investigative committee, which was ordered by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, put the casualty toll at 17 killed and 23 wounded, giving a higher number than other estimates, and it found that seven vehicles were burned or damaged.
It said the shootings amounted to a deliberate crime and recommended those involved be held legally accountable.
Al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi Cabinet would weigh the Iraqi findings with those of the joint commission "and subsequently adopt the legal procedures to hold this company accountable."
The recommendations also would include that the company compensate the victims after the three-member panel led by Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi determined that Blackwater guards sprayed western Baghdad's Nisoor Square with gunfire without provocation.
The US embassy was tightlipped yesterday over whether those involved in the Sept. 16 killings would be handed over for prosecution.
"This and other matters will be discussed by the Joint Commission as they proceed with their work, best not to prejudge outcome of their discussions at this point," embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS