Falsehoods in Iraq shooting unpunished

The top security official at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq refused to punish Blackwater security guards for making false statements about an unjustified 2005 shooting in Baghdad because he didn't want to lower the morale of those contracted to work security, according to newly released State Department records. Investigators from the department's Diplomatic Security Service concluded that four guards were not justified in spraying an Iraqi's car with more than 70 bullets, according to reports released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by USA TODAY. The fate of the car's driver was unknown because the security convoy left after the shooting. The previously unreported Feb. 16, 2005, shooting occurred more than two years before a highly publicized incident in which Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in September 2007. The incident provides another example of lax State Department oversight that an independent federal panel cited after the 2007 shootings, which resulted in manslaughter charges against six Blackwater guards. One pleaded guilty and five pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. State Department spokeswoman Grace Moe said in an e-mail that she could not comment on the 2005 incident because it was one of "fewer than 10" in Iraq the department has discussed with Justice Department officials. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd also declined to comment. The State Department told Blackwater to refer all questions to the department, said Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for the firm's parent company, which in February changed its name to Xe Services. The 2005 shooting occurred when a four-vehicle convoy was returning to the U.S. Embassy from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. Four guards told investigators they felt threatened by an approaching car on a parallel road that ignored orders to stop. The investigators' final memo in June 2005 said several guards "failed to justify their actions" and "provided false statements," including a claim that bullet holes in a Blackwater vehicle were from a passenger in the Iraqi car. The evidence showed a guard accidentally shot his vehicle, investigators concluded. When the investigators presented their findings to John Frese, the embassy's top security official, he said he would not punish anyone because "any disciplinary actions would be deemed as lowering the morale" security guards contracted by the State Department, Special Agent Matthew McCormack wrote. Frese "considers this investigation closed," he said. Frese, who is retired, declined to comment when reached at his Wisconsin home because he thought it was "not appropriate" to talk about a 4-year-old incident. Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., chair of the House Oversight Committee's foreign affairs panel, said "there's blame to go around everywhere" in this and other incidents reviewed by his subcommittee. "The State Department certainly needed better resources and training to do their job," he said. "Blackwater obviously made mistakes and needed better training as well." The State Department, which has paid Xe Services more than $1.2 billion since 2004 for security in Iraq, said in January it would not renew the firm's contract when it expires in May. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said Wednesday that Virginia-based Triple Canopy would take over Xe Services' operations in Baghdad and central Iraq. Blackwater, which was founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, began working in Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion. It has been protecting State Department diplomats and visiting dignitaries, such as members of Congress, in and around the Iraqi capital since then. The firm won praise from the State Department for successfully preventing any diplomats under its protection from being killed. But the 2007 shootings strained U.S. relations with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who called the incident an affront to Iraq's sovereignty. Since the shootings, the department sent 45 more diplomatic security agents to Iraq to oversee security guards' work, installed video cameras in the guards' vehicles and tightened its rules for the use of deadly force, the State Department's inspector general reported in December. The use of deadly force by all State Department private security guards plummeted, from 89 incidents in 2007 to just one in the first 10 months of 2008, the report said.