BAGHDAD — On Feb. 7, a sniper employed by Blackwater USA, the private security company, opened fire from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old guard for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network, who was standing on a balcony across an open traffic circle. Another guard rushed to his colleague’s side and was fatally shot in the neck. A third guard was found dead more than an hour later on the same balcony.
Eight people who responded to the shootings – including media network and Justice Ministry guards and an Iraqi army commander – and five network officials in the compound said none of the slain guards had fired on the Justice Ministry, where a U.S. diplomat was in a meeting. An Iraqi police report described the shootings as “an act of terrorism” and said Blackwater “caused the incident.” The media network concluded that the guards were killed “without any provocation.”
The U.S. government reached a different conclusion. Based on information from the Blackwater guards, who said they were fired upon, the State Department determined that the security team’s actions “fell within approved rules governing the use of force,” according to an official from the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
Neither U.S. Embassy officials nor Blackwater representatives interviewed witnesses or returned to the network, less than a quarter-mile from Baghdad’s Green Zone, to investigate.
The incident shows how American officials responsible for overseeing Blackwater conducted only a cursory investigation when Blackwater guards opened fire. The shooting occurred more than seven months before the Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 civilians at another Baghdad traffic circle.
The Feb. 7 shootings convulsed the Iraqi Media Network, one of the prominent symbols of the new Iraq, in anger and recrimination.
U.S. officials and the security company, now known as Blackwater Worldwide, offered no compensation or apology to the victims’ families, according to officials of the network, whose programming reaches 22 million Iraqis, and relatives of the guards.
A Blackwater spokeswoman, Anne Tyrrell, said the company’s guards came under “precision small-arms fire” and fired back with “well- aimed shots.”
U.S. officials were “overwhelmingly convinced” that the Blackwater guards acted appropriately, based on information they had provided, according to the diplomatic security official.
