And despite subsequent trials, it's unclear if the victims of the massacre and their families got the justice they deserve. This evidentiary use of tainted information constitutes yet another Kastigar violation. [26][29], An Iraqi government account of the incident stated that as the convoy drew close to Nisour Square, a Kia sedan with a woman and her adult son in it was approaching the square from a distance, driving slowly on the wrong side of the road, and that the driver ignored a police officer's whistle to clear a path for the convoy. "[32] According to Blackwater vice-president Marty Strong, the convoy was hit with "a large explosive device" and "repeated small arms fire" which disabled a vehicle. [28] TST 22 arrived at Nisour Square after Raven 23 had left; when TST 22 tried to withdraw, its route was blocked by Iraqi Army and Police vehicles. The State Department announced an American-Iraqi joint commission to investigate both the shooting and the broader issue of employing private security contractors. As he slumped forward, his weight on the accelerator meant the car kept moving. [80], On April 22, 2011, after closed-door testimony, a federal appeals-court panel revived the Justice Department's prosecution of the former Blackwater Worldwide guards by reinstating the manslaughter charges against the five men. Their first contract, awarded in June 2004, was for $100 million for one year. A State Department employee who was walking into the department's Baghdad operations center on the day of the incident heard a radio call from the convoy: "Contact, contact, contact! Raven 23 "returned defensive fire" and withdrew from Nisour Square with one of its BearCat vehicles in tow. [21]:116[22] The Blackwater commander, Jimmy Watson, had received an order to stand by and not leave the Green Zone upon reaching a checkpoint, but he made a "tactical decision" to advance to Nisour Square after waiting for a few minutes; upon informing the Blackwater Tactical Operations Center of this, he was ordered to return to the Green Zone. They interview members of the 19-man Raven 23 team about their minute-by-minute experiences during the Nisour Square incident and its aftermath. The so-called Nisour Square massacre was the single bloodiest incident involving American private security contractors during the Iraq conflict. Responsible for firing the first bullet in the Nisour Square massacre in 2007, former Blackwater security contractor Nicholas Slatten was sentenced Wednesday to life in federal prison. The vehicle struck the . From left to right: Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten, and Paul Slough. The Intercept reports that others who tried to run for cover were killed by machine gunfire. [19] According to this account, the security team fired warning shots and then lethal fire at the Kia. Formed in 1997 as Blackwater Training, the companys initial aim was to provide training services to US military and law enforcement and soon they opened multi-million dollar training facilities in the US to do so. In his testimony, Prince noted that, "It seems the ballistics analysis was done to prove the guilt of the Americans, not to just try to identify what happened there." [29] Several sources have stated that the explosion was caused by a mortar round, though this is not reflected in the State Department's incident report. The aide also said that the Iraqi government was pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable". Blackwater mercenaries acting as security guards for the U.S. State Department officials opened fire on civilian traffic on a busy Baghdad street without warning. Various employees of the PMC were also killed during the war in Iraq in their various sole to sole engagements with Iraqi insurgents. Ultimately, Blackwater repeatedly insisted that their guards "were fired upon and responded appropriately." Additionally, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating Blackwaters account of events, Blackwater claimed that their account of events could be corroborated and proven by damage done to Blackwater vehicles. From firing rifles into traffic and smashing cars out of the way to running a woman over trying to cross the street, the footage added fuel to evidence that the PMC encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.. [101][102] The Iraqi Foreign Ministry urged the United States to reconsider, declaring the pardons "did not take into account the seriousness of the crime committed".[103]. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Heard, Liberty, and Slough were given sentences of 30 years. With the contract to provide security for L. Paul Bremer, Blackwater essentially "cement[ed] its presence at the center of conflict in Iraq," per PBS. This is the untold truth of the Blackwater massacre. In fact, they even renewed the contract in 2008. [78] The opinion elaborated "the government failed to establish that the Iraqi witnesses it presented to the second grand jury were not in any way influenced by their previous exposure to the defendants' compelled statements. Why U.S. It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. One of the Blackwater guards reportedly screamed "No! Best. The Blackwater team also claimed that some of the "aggressors" were dressed like Iraqi Police as well as civilians. This case study addresses on incident that arose with one such contractor, Blackwater Worldwide. On January 31, 2009, the U.S. State Department notified Blackwater that it would not be renewing its security contract with the company. [15] The incident sparked at least five investigations, including one from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Erik Prince. In 2003, the firm was tasked with its first overseas contract following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 when it was given a $21 million contract to provide security and two military-grade helicopters for the head of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, Paul Bremer. [25], A State Department spot report published the same day as the incident stated that eight to ten attackers opened fire on Raven 23 "from multiple nearby locations, with some aggressors dressed in civilian apparel and others in Iraqi police uniforms" after the convoy had entered Nisour Square,[26] starting at 12:08p.m.[27] The report added that another Blackwater Tactical Support Team (TST 22), who had escorted the officials and TST 4 back to the Green Zone, was redirected to support Raven 23. The Blackwater Massacre and What Really Happened in Nisour Square. It is important to note that none of the civilians fired at the Blackwater guards. In total, the defendants faced 14 counts of voluntary manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter. [41] Senate Democratic leaders said they planned to pass similar legislation as soon as possible. The incident led to at least five investigations and although the Blackwater guards repeatedly claimed that their actions were justified, several of them came to the opposite conclusion. Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted on multiple charges of voluntary and attempted. POV from Ukrainian tank during an offensive, Point blank kills: intense trench firefight caught on GoPro camera. Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, is no longer involved with the. If you found this article, please share it: Where we discuss economics, history, and everything in between. Leaked footage of Blackwater contractors in Iraq. May 9, 2015, 9:30 PM. To calculate feet squared (or sq. Founded by Putin's close confidante, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Wagner Group is the Russian version of Blackwater. ", Once their name was associated with the Nisour Square massacre, Blackwater ended up changing its name to Xe Services. [17], Just before noon on September 16, 2007, a car bomb exploded near the Izdihar Compound where US and Iraqi officials were meeting,[20]:547 and a 19-man Blackwater Tactical Support Team (TST) consisting of a convoy of four trucks, answering to the call sign "Raven 23", took up positions on the south side of Nisour Square to secure an evacuation route for the US officials and another Blackwater team providing security for them. In the end, after seven weeks of deliberations, Slough, Heard, and Liberty were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and Slatten was found guilty of murder, since he was responsible for the first death in Nisour Square, Reuters reports. 0ur_Benefactors 6 yr. ago. All in all, Blackwater had a dark history in Iraq prior to the Nisour Square Massacre. The Nisour Square shooting damaged the reputation of Blackwater, which changed its name to Xe Services and then Academi. Robert Young Pelton, a journalist who spent a month with Blackwater in Iraq, said that the guards "use[d] their machine guns like car horns," per Tidings Media. This is a mashup from the men of Raven 23 (SRS EP . The Charlie Company of the US military tortured and slaughtered 504 unarmed civilians, mostly women, children, and elderly people, on March 16, 1968, in the My Lai sub-hamlet during the Vietnam War. ft. B: 12 ft. x 10 ft. = 120 sq. BMP-2 still a great Infantry Fighting Vehicle? Add a Comment. The shape is of a large rectangle and a smaller rectangle. The order did not say when the suspension would expire. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract." The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. They then set off stun grenades to clear the scene. Blackwater Security Consulting, also known as Blackwater Worldwide, was founded in 1997 by Al Clark and Erik Prince as a private security firm. While they weren't the only private contractor to provide military security, the name Blackwater would soon be so notorious that the company would change their name. He has utilized KGB-era narrative control devices to flood social media with disinformation. Very easy. Following the US invasion of Afghanistan, Blackwater was amongst the hundreds of private military firms employed by the US government but their contracts were more high end than others. Instead, it appears as though the massacre was started by a single bullet fired by Nicholas Slatten, a Blackwater guard. We just need to measure two consecutive sides in feet and multiply the values together. Circuit Holds It Cruel and Unusual to Impose Mandatory Thirty-Year Sentence on Military Contractors for Gun Charge, "Former Blackwater contractor found guilty of murder in Iraq massacre", "Former Blackwater Guard Sentenced to Life for 2007 Baghdad Traffic-Circle Shooting", "Former Blackwater security contractor sentenced to life in Iraq shootings; In all, 10 men, two women and two boys, ages 9 and 11, were killed", "Blackwater Contractors Resentenced in 2007 Attack on Baghdad Civilians", "Survivors of Blackwater massacre in Iraq slam Trump's pardons for US guards behind killing", "Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency", "Relative of Blackwater victim in Iraq says pardons 'unfair', "UN criticises Trump's pardons for Blackwater guards jailed over Iraq killings", "I Sued Blackwater for the Massacre of Iraqi Civilians. The Kia continued to roll forward after the driver was killed, according to an eyewitness, and Raven 23 continued to fire on it, killing the passenger (the driver's mother); eventually, the Kia was struck by a grenade and was incinerated. [19] A Blackwater spokeswoman responded to the findings by saying Blackwater "supports the stringent accountability of the industry. courts. There was also an incident on December 24, 2006, when Andrew Moonen, a Blackwater guard, murdered Raheem Khalaf Saadoon, a security guard for Adel Abdul Mahdi, the Iraqi vice president. ft. Then, add the three values together to get the total square footage you'll need: 120 sq. So your 1 board example is 1.133 sq foot. 3:28. 13 of the Iraqi witnesses were people who had been injured in the massacre and several others were relatives of people who had been murdered. On that day, a bombing took place a few miles from a busy traffic circle called Al Nisour Square, which is used by Iraqis to access major roadways across Baghdad. How did the Casio F91W Become a Terrorist Icon? The square footage of a room measuring 20 feet wide by 20 feet long is 400 square feet. No!" [6][85][86] Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. Footage was nowhere to be found and many other things that would have justified the actions of Raven 23 after they were being fired upon by enemy forces. Five Blackwater security guards are getting ready to turn themselves in, after being indicted on manslaughter and gun charges in connection with a 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisour Square. 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