BAGHDAD, Oct. 9, 2007
Security Firm Kills 2 Women In Iraq
Authorities Say Guards For Australian-Owned Firm Opened Fire On Car At Baghdad Intersection
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An Iraqi woman looks inside a blood stained car of two women, allegedly shot dead by private security guards in central Baghdad on Oct. 9, 2007. (ALI YUSSEF/AFP/Getty Images)
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Iraqi pedestrians run moments after a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's central al-Khulani square during the hours of intense car traffic on Oct. 9, 2007. (ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images)
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Plainclothes contractors working for Blackwater USA take part in a firefight as Iraqi demonstrators loyal to Muqtada Al Sadr attempt to advance on a facility being defended by U.S. and Spanish soldiers in Najaf on April 4, 2004. (AP Photo/Gervasio Sanchez)
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(AP Photo/Adil al-Khazali)
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Play CBS Video Video Insider's View Of Blackwater "Only On The Web": Kelly Capeheart is a former employee of Blackwater, a private security firm in Iraq. Capeheart says he's standing by the firm, because it has been unfairly portrayed in the media.
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Video What's Behind Blackwater Blackwater seems irreplaceable in Iraq, and it's costly too. Bob Orr reports on how the company got to Iraq in the first place.
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Video Blackwater Closely Monitored Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice ordered that Blackwater, a private security firm in Iraq, be closely monitored by cameras and audio recordings. David Martin reports.
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
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In The Spotlight Under Fire A look at Blackwater USA, the State Department's top private security contractor.
The deaths of the two Iraqi Christians - including one who used the white sedan as an unofficial taxi to raise money for her family - came a day after an Iraqi government report called on the U.S. to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater and to pay a total of $136 million in compensation to the families of those killed in the Sept. 16 incident. CBS News has found the Iraqi witness accounts of the shootings are remarkably consistent.
The deaths Tuesday at a Baghdad intersection may sharpen demands to curb the expanding array of security firms in Iraq watching over diplomats, aid groups and others.
“We deeply regret this incident,” said a statement from Michael Priddin, the chief operating officer of Unity Resources Group, a security company owned by Australian partners but with headquarters in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Priddin said the company would disclose more details of the shooting after “the facts have been verified and the necessary people and authorities notified.” Priddin would not comment on whether his guards killed the women.
But initial accounts - from company statements, witnesses and others - suggested the guards opened fire as the car failed to heed warnings to stop and drifted closer to the convoy near a Unity facility in central Baghdad's Karrahah district.
It was not immediately clear whether the guards were protecting a client at the time, but a group that uses its security agents said its personnel were not at the scene.
Four armored SUVs - three white and one gray - were about 100 yards from a main intersection in the Shiite-controlled district. As the car, a white Oldsmobile, moved into the crossroads, the Unity guards threw a smoke bomb in an apparent bid to warn the car not to come closer, said Riyadh Majid, an Iraqi policeman who saw the shooting.
Two of the Unity guards then opened fire. The woman driving the car tried to stop, but was killed along with her passenger. Two of three people in the back seat were wounded.
Priddin's statement offers a similar account: “The first information that we have is that our security team was approached at speed by a vehicle which failed to stop despite an escalation of warnings which included hand signals and a signal flare. Finally shots were fired at the vehicle and it stopped.”
Iraqi police investigators said they collected 19 spent 5.56mm shell casings, ammunition commonly used by U.S. and NATO forces and most Western security organizations. The pavement was stained with blood and covered with shattered glass from the car windows.
In other developments:
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Add a Comment See all 172 Comments
- Hey skyk you are one screwed up pup. What in the hell are you bellering about? Why don''t you just say, moo moo dogface in the banana patch flying spangors at noon floating cola nuts in space. It would make much more sense. LOL You haven%u2019t said anything about what anyone was talking about. Hell, you haven%u2019t said anything that is part of this universe. I made no comments about what I wanted to see happen in Iraq, or what I thought about the current attacks on civilians or anything else you accused me of in your dribble. I spoke about morons like you. Do you just make up everything as you go? Yee gad, you are the poster boy for DUH! This reminds me of the attack on Limbaugh by some moron democrats like George Soros, Senator Reid and Media Matters. It makes me want to be a republican! Heavens, just shoot me!
- Reply to this comment
- THEY ARE LOSING
Last letter from doomed Al Qaida chief: "We are so desperate for your help"
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ss_iraq_09_30.asp
Iraq insurgency: People rise against al-Qa''eda
Damien McElroy spent a week in the heart of the insurgency in Anbar province in Iraq. In the second of seven exclusive reports he describes how peace and prosperity have returned to a town formerly riven by sectarian killings.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/08/wanbar308.xml - Reply to this comment
- When will the madness end!
- Reply to this comment
- RE: "Americans used to be brave and not too smart."
We can get back to those good old days by electing Fred Thompson as President. He''s the guy who couldn''t remember who Terri Schiavo was, and who suggested that drilling for oil in the Florida Everglades might be a good idea.
I don''t know about the "brave" part, but the "not too smart" part would be there. - Reply to this comment
- trillion1, come on, get some balls. Look at your message. You have a strength, use it. But please look at the facts, all of them.
Posted by pswolcott at 01:33 AM : Oct 10, 2007
+ report abuse
The strength of this nation today as it has always been is it''s PEOPLE! It was those PEOPLE who defeated the King in 1776 and those same PEOPLE who defeated Hitler in 1941. When you have a leader who is there not because of the Unity of those people but because of divisions exploited within those people, the results is a dictatorship and a nation shivering in fear...giving up rights to an enemy that is using those same leaders to grow stronger EVERY day. - Reply to this comment
- RE: "Americans used to be brave and not too smart."
I missed the "Era of Stupidity" in American history class. I must have been out sick that week. - Reply to this comment
- The General Petraeus "bounce" for support of the Iraq war, is over. It was never going to last long.
"Support Growing for Iraq Troop Withdrawal
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 64% of Americans would like to see U.S. troops brought home from Iraq within a year. That%u2019s the third straight weekly increase in support for troop withdrawal and a 6-point increase from mid-September.
Those figures include 28% who want the troops brought home immediately. That%u2019s up from 20% four weeks ago following Congressional testimony by General David Petraeus."
Source:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/iraq_troop_withdrawal - Reply to this comment
- Americans used to be brave and not too smart. Now they are smart and not too brave.
Respect and honor your freedom. Many people gave their blood for it.
Posted by pswolcott at 12:53 AM : Oct 10, 2007
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Would you mean the freedom to have a court review any invasion of your privacy? The right to Habas Corpus? The fact that America does Torture? Maybe you should review what you SAY we have with reality!! - Reply to this comment
- It%u2019s so easy to sit back and do nothing but flap your lips. What a great contribution, your kids will be so proud, if you can figure out how to propagate. God have mercy on us if they ever figure it out!
Posted by badmoonryzn at 02:24 AM : Oct 10, 2007
+ report abuse
You attack other citizens LYING about them and saying things that you can not possibably know to be true and why? Because they refuse to just follow the leader off the bridge? Bush and the Neocon''s have done what? IF we do not expect our leaders to at LEAST capture and bring to justice the person responsible for planning and ordering an attack on us, what can we expect? I guess we could all be like you people and go around repeating all the lies about how we''re winning in Iraq and how the insurgency is on it''s last legs but what good has that done? If not for those like the poster we''d STILL be hearing "Stay the Course" from you losers. Before you attack OTHER American''s, attempting to make them look inferior, maybe you should check your OWN reasons for doing that. - Reply to this comment
- pswolcott and mh4cbs1 just like to set back, smoke their pot and **** and moan about what they can''t get with their welfare checks. Oh, that%u2019s them hippies, oh well, if the shoe fits. These boobs have never done an honest days work in their lives nor have they ever contributed anything to society but their twisted paranoia. It''s a good thing they live in the USA or someone would put them out of our misery. If they spent some time helping others with their cause they might learn a tiny bit about what%u2019s really going on. Oh Yea, Cheney and Bush are all by themselves responsible for all our woes. Get a brain yourself. I would love to get you boneheads running security beside an Iraqi vehicle that refused to stop. By the time you finished filling your pants all of your ammo, grenades and air strikes would be unloaded into every car within a mile of your stupid behind. It%u2019s so easy to sit back and do nothing but flap your lips. What a great contribution, your kids will be so proud, if you can figure out how to propagate. God have mercy on us if they ever figure it out!
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- trillion1, come on, get some balls. Look at your message. You have a strength, use it. But please look at the facts, all of them.
- Reply to this comment
- I think most Americans have woken up to the fact that our biggest threat in the last 7 years is our own goverment. Our Constitution and Bill Of Rights have been under minded to give this "president" dictatorial control. Our ports, borders and food suppy are totally open to forgien corruption. Our 4th.ammendment right to privacy is ignored for "national security". The ones who still support this are either foos or idiots.
- Reply to this comment
- http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/gull_island_oil.html
Check this out all of you. We''re not fighting for oil for cryin out loud.
Alaska%u2019s Gull Island Oil Fields Could Power U.S. for 200 Years
By Mark Anderson
%u201CCrude oil is the real %u2018currency%u2019 of the world,%u201D said Lindsey Williams at a gathering of the Midwest Concerned Citizens group in Kansas City on July 22. But Americans will never hear about huge oil and gas reserves in the United States, which, if ever tapped, would bring today%u2019s fuel prices at least as low as $1.50 per gallon and make America more energy independent. Check out the link if you have a brain.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/gull_island_oil.html - Reply to this comment
- Guess what!!! Brazil has been producing gas (E85) since 1985!!!!!! HELLLOOO. What is wrong with the USA? "We can''t afford it, no crops, no processing plants... blah blah blah..." We are supposed to be a superior nation. Do you know that Brazil pays about 17 cents per gallon generated from sugar cane now in 2007, and ALL their cars run off this fuel? Why can''t we? Guess what, our government has quelched the lifetime battery, light bulb and fuel systems. We are being sacrificed. When Pres. Bush decided to sell our Eastern shores to Japan without our knowledge it was a hands down that the (OUR) government was against us. Check it out. It is up to each individual to do their own research and strive to do the right thing!
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- Oil prices have doubled since the beginning of the war not because the US taxpayer is stealing oil, but because the oil companies are. This was never a war to get cheap oil for Westerners. It''s a war for oil companies to gouge Western consumers to the tune of the largest profits in the history of the world. Mission accomplished.
- Reply to this comment
- Americans used to be brave and not too smart. Now they are smart and not too brave.
Respect and honor your freedom. Many people gave their blood for it. - Reply to this comment
- I love insane people who talk about us "stealing oil". *** are you talking about? One, we haven''t stolen a single drop and there is NO evidence anyone has. Two, if we were stealing oil, then WHY have oil prices DOUBLED since the war started? If we were stealing oil, that would mean we''d have more oil, but we DON''T, you idiots! We have less, and that is why prices have gone UP UP UP! Face it, in the long run, of course one of the strategic reasons Iraq was important was because they have oil. But, the US has no intention of "stealing" it. Never has, never will. Ideally, the country will get back on it%u2019s feet again and ramp up production, so they%u2019re able to SELL everyone more oil. So, cut out the "stealing oil" nonsense. It''s a vicious and 100% false rumor.
- Reply to this comment
- Tool manager...
True we don''t hide behind women and children.. We don''t need too! We have $500 BILLION to spend to ''Shock and Awe'' them. We can just drop cluster bombs from airplanes.
Face the facts: We will kill however many it takes to secure permanent military bases in Iraq and steal their Oil. We don''t care if it means endless War. Endless War is good for business -- just ask Haliburton, Blackwater, or any defense industry company.
Face the facts: when it comes to killing civilians, Blackwater has shown they are every bit as good at terrorism as the Iraqis. Bush has far surpassed Osama Bin Forgotten in causing civilian dead, or in causing the destruction of cities. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by radiob at 12:13 AM : Oct 10, 2007
What''s the old cliche, "War is hell". Well, it''s true. That''s why we shouldn''t go gallivanting around attacking any old country who doesn''t agree with us. In WWII it was necessary. We were attacked. Hitler and the Japanese were committing horrible atrocities. They had to be stopped. Most of the other wars we''ve fought in recent history, however, have been pretty pointless. - Reply to this comment
- More "Coalition" terrorism.
We need to stop funding the Blackwater civilian-killing terrorists with our tax dollars.
Bush and Cheney deliberately LIED us into this needless War of Agression, a War that had nothing to do with terrorism, WMDs, Osama Bin Forgotten or 9/11.
Cheney/Bush have caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Osama is a two-bit murderer compared to our very own murderous thug leaders.
JAIL CHENEY JAIL BUSH for their War Crimes - Reply to this comment
