WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2007
Blackwater Probed For Weapons Smuggling
Feds Investigate Suspicions Security Firm Employees Sold Weapons On Black Market, Arming Terrorists
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Members of a private security company pose on the rooftop of a house in Baghdad, Sept. 18, 2007. (AFP/Getty)
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
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The U.S. Attorney's Office in North Carolina, where Blackwater is based, is handling the investigation with help from auditors of the Defense and State departments who have concluded enough evidence exists to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press on Friday.
George Holding, the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, has declined to comment, as have Pentagon and State Department spokesmen.
Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.
The officials could not say whether the investigation would result in indictments, how many Blackwater employees are involved or if the company itself, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in government security contracts since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is under scrutiny.
Blackwater USA denied Saturday any involvement in illegal weapons smuggling through Iraq to Kurdish insurgents in Turkey, responding to reports the private security contractor is a target of federal prosecutors.
"Allegations that Blackwater was in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless," the company said in a statement. "The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons."
In Saturday's editions, The News & Observer newspaper in Raleigh, North Carolina, reported that two former Blackwater employees - Kenneth Wayne Cashwell and William Ellsworth "Max" Grumiaux - are cooperating with federal investigators.
Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty in early 2007 to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, and aided and abetted another in doing so, according to court papers viewed by The Associated Press. In their plea agreements, which call for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the men agreed to testify in any future proceedings.
Calls to defense attorneys were not immediately returned Friday evening, and calls to the telephone listings for both men also were not returned.
The News and Observer, citing unidentified sources, reported that the probe was looking at whether Blackwater had shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq.
The paper's report that the company itself was under investigation could not be confirmed by AP.
In a related story earlier this week, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reported that, according to an intelligence source, a shipment of artillery intended for U.S.-backed forces in Iraq was lost - and later found in the hands of the enemy.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a review of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq following a deadly incident involving Blackwater USA guards protecting an embassy convoy.
Rice's announcement came as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad resumed limited diplomatic convoys under the protection of Blackwater outside the heavily fortified Green Zone after a suspension because of the weekend incident in that city.
Meanwhile, Interior Ministry spokesman spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in an incident Sept. 20 in Baghdad, from which 11 people died. He said they are expanding their investigation to include several other incidents involving Blackwater in which civilians have been killed or wounded.
In the United States, officials in Washington said the smuggling investigation grew from internal Pentagon and State Department inquiries into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq. It gained steam after Turkish authorities protested to the U.S. in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels.
The Turks provided serial numbers of the weapons to U.S. investigators, said a Turkish official.
The Pentagon said in late July it was looking into the Turkish complaints and a U.S. official said FBI agents had traveled to Turkey in recent months to look into cases of U.S. weapons that have gone missing in Iraq.
Investigators are determining whether the alleged Blackwater weapons match those taken from the PKK.
It was not clear whether Blackwater employees suspected of selling to the black market knew the weapons they allegedly sold to middlemen might wind up with the PKK. If they did, possible charges against them could be more serious than theft or illegal weapons sales, officials said.
The PKK, which is fighting for an independent Kurdistan, is banned in Turkey, which has a restive Kurdish population, and is considered a "foreign terror organization" by the State Department. That designation bars U.S. citizens or those in U.S. jurisdictions from supporting the group in any way.
The North Carolina investigation was first brought to light by State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard who mentioned it, perhaps inadvertently, this week while denying he had improperly blocked fraud and corruption probes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Krongard was accused in a letter by Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the House of Representatives, of politically motivated malfeasance, including refusing to cooperate with an investigation into alleged weapons smuggling by a large, unidentified State Department contractor.
In response, Krongard said in a written statement that he "made one of my best investigators available to help Assistant U.S. Attorneys in North Carolina in their investigation into alleged smuggling of weapons into Iraq by a contractor."
His statement went further than Waxman's letter because it identified the state in which the investigation was taking place. Blackwater, based in North Carolina, is the biggest of the State Department's three private security contractors.
The other two, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, are based in northern Virginia's suburbs of Washington, D.C, outside the jurisdiction of the North Carolina's attorneys.
Associated Press Writers Matthew Lee, Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C., and Desmond Butler and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 133 Commentslike you know how to tell the truth bush,you and cheney and most of your crony have been telling americans lies for over 6 years now...
so f-you
He has never voted:
* to raise taxes
* for an unbalanced budget
* to raise congressional pay
* for a federal restriction on gun ownership
* to increase the power of the executive branch
He HAS voted:
* against the Iraq war
* against the inappropriately named USA PATRIOT act
* against regulating the internet
* against the Military Commissions Act
He will eliminate the IRS, Wasteful Government Spending & Stop The Iraq War Immediately!
Most importantly, he vote NO on anything in Congress that is not allowed by the Constitution.
Shouldn''t ALL members of Congress uphold the Constitution? Aren''t they SWORN to uphold it? You can bet Paul won''t call the Constitution "just a G**D***ed piece of paper" like George Bush is reported to have.
If you want a candidate you can TRUST due to a proven track record, visit ronpaul2008.com and get busy spreading the word. The Mainstream Media is a lagging indicator!!
Ron Paul Revolution: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ron+paul
Get Active join a meetup.com group today!
Still trying to find a rhyme with "betray us".
NEVER FORGET THE RAPES OF BESLAN GIRLS!
Terror at Beslan
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1316935651894423094
RAPES IN BESLAN: IN MUHAMMAD%u2019S FOOTSTEPS
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic04/NewsST091304.html
Forget Not the Children of Beslan
http://kenlydell.typepad.com/islamic_evil/forget_not_the_children_of_beslan/index.html
Religion of Peace??? More like a cult of death.
http://www.terrorists-suck.org/why_suck/beslan.html
Radical Islamists must be stopped:
comments on the Beslan child slaughter.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/list.htm
dnc are like john adams and want to give the jihadist their lunch money hoping they will leave us alone,,,
gop are like thomas jefferson and want to spend their lunch money on weapons and go kick the jihadists in their arses,,,
What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad,,,
Thomas Jefferson knew about fascist nazi islam,,, he killed plenty of them,,,
In 1786 Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli''s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:
The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
muslim justifies slavery and piracy%u2026
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?6bdec278-6a71-4436-bc4d-29d1c54b0ad7
MUSLIM PIRATES STRIKE AGAIN
http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2005/06/muslim-pirates-strike-again.html
the resumption of hostilities was only a matter of time since iraq broke the ceasefire agreement.....
blame saddam for iraq%u2026%u2026. Even clintoon and the dems wanted the resumption of hostilities back in 1998
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq''s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint. - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/gore/gore092302sp.html
Posted by crzmeat at 10:55 PM : Sep 22, 2007
However war 101 also says that all wars are fought for greed or religion and most for both. This war is first and foremost a war about greed and secondarily a war about religion. The people who started this war (Richard Cheney, etc) did it for one reason and one reason alone, war is profitable and they don''t care how many have to die for them to make money.
Posted by SharnCedar at 07:25 PM : Sep 22, 2007
Good point! Therefore, all Christians should support gay marriage!
Posted by patriotic9 at 06:42 PM : Sep 22, 2007
Little gay dude, when did Jesus prohibit gay marriage? I thought Jesus was pretty explicit in explaining that the kingdom of heaven doesn''t involve things like gayness or any kind of animal body funtions such as sexx. Those are bodily functions, not unlike going to the bathroom, which are not easy to perform without a body.
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