UPDATE: Good stuff in comments on Daily Kos crosspost. Nickle points to a Guardian story about private security contractors working the "Iraqi bubble." No one knows how many there are (possibly as many as 48,000), how many have been killed (more than 800), or who they're accountable to.
Sam Wise Gingy recommends this not-to-be-missed clip of President Bush taking a question on private security contractors earlier this year. He's laughing; we're not.
Help, indeed.
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WaPo reporting on a lawsuit by two former employees Herndon, VA, security contractor who charge that a fellow employee shot without provocation into an Iraqi vehicle, “possibly killing at least one person.”
All three worked for Triple Canopy, a security corp. formed in 2003 to provide security for the U.S. government and private companies, like Halliburton subsidiary KBR, in the Middle East. Triple Canopy earned more than $90 million from the U.S. government last year.
Grisly details after the flip.
The alleged shooting occurred in July, according to the lawsuit, when the two former employees, Shane Schmidt and Charles L. Sheppard III, rode with their shift leader in a convoy to the Baghdad airport to pick up a KBR employee.
As their vehicle approached the airport, their shift leader declared that he was "going to kill someone today," the lawsuit states. The man then stepped out of the vehicle and fired several shots from his M4 rifle into the windshield of a stopped truck.
…
After their convoy picked up the KBR employee, the crew headed to its next destination. At this point, Schmidt and Sheppard allege, their shift leader declared, "I've never shot anyone with my pistol before." The man then opened his door and fired seven or eight rounds into the windshield of a nearby taxi. Schmidt and Sheppard later heard that a cabdriver was found shot to death in the area, according to the suit. Schmidt and Sheppard allege that Triple Canopy did not report the shootings to KBR or the government. They say that no one has ever contacted them about the shootings.
Schmidt and Sheppard, both former U.S. military, reported the incident to Triple Canopy, and apparently were fired as a result (and allegedly blackballed from working for other security contractors in the Middle East).
Not only that:
Sound familiar? Maybe you’re recalling this story and this video of Brit contractors in Iraq shooting at cars. Or maybe you’re remembering this MSNBC story and video about “allegations that heavily armed private security contractors in Iraq are brutalizing Iraqi civilians.”
The use of unaccountable, $1,000-a-day mercenaries in Iraq cries out for Congressional investigation. But, with so much oversight to catch up on, you wonder when the new Dem Congress will find the time.
As we go round and round debating benchmarks for Iraqis and timetables for withdrawals of U.S. troops, maybe we can agree on this: Stop paying the mercenaries NOW and get them the hell out of there.
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