Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater
Source: By DAVID STOUT and JOHN M. BRODER, New York Times, October 1, 2007
Guards working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State Department, a report to a Congressional committee said today.
The report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, depicts the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets. In one incident, the State Department and Blackwater agreed to pay $15,000 to the family of a man killed by "a drunken Blackwater contractor," the report said.