An American prosecutor working on the case against five Blackwater security guards indicted in connection with a 2007 shooting in Baghdad has arrived in Iraq and will be meeting with victims’ families this week, Iraqi officials said.
The above is from Katherine Zopef and Atheer Kakan's "U.S. Prosecutor Goes to Iraq to Work on Blackwater Case" in this morning's New York Times. The article also informs FBI agents are on the ground in Iraq conducting interviews. This regarding the September 16th Baghdad slaughter. Abdulwahab Abduklkader is one of the surviors (17 people were not so fortunate) and he explains seeing a man and a woman die in a car Blackwater Worldwide shot up and attempting to head to his home in his own car and being pursued by Blackwater, rammed by their car and shot. He reveals that not only did FBI agents ask him questions (and show "him satellite images of the circle") but he also was in the US back in May testify to a grand jury.
Now it's time to laugh. The Los Angeles Times offers "Blackwater guards' lawyers gird for a fight" today. Why are we laughing? Because it's a domestic story and because LAT is so damn cheap (and has been for the last several years) that they don't need domestic reporters. They waste everyone's time going gunning for Gavin Newsom (San Francisco's mayor, not L.A.'s) with a bunch of garbage and they regularly miss every event going on in the LA area. But those idiots stay on the payroll. Those unproductive, non-reporters remain. They thin out the DC staff (with more reported to be coming soon) and decide they don't even need to cover the UN (when at the start of this decade, the paper covered that beat better than anyone). Now there's a domestic story that they should be covering and what are they doing? Repeating the Washington Post's wire story. How very pathetic it must be to say, "I work for the Los Angeles Times." (Foreign and DC correspondents excepted.)
AP's Matt Apuzzo and Lara Jakes Jordan report the five Blackwater employees indicted (a six is reportedly in the midst of a plea bargain) intend to turn themselves today in Utah and the reporters observe: "The case already is shaping up to be a series of contentious legal battles before the guards can even go to trial. By surrendering in Utah, the home state of one of the guards, the men could argue the case should be heard in a far more conservative, pro-gun venue than Washington, some 2,000 miles away." Meanwhile AP's Erica Werner and Kimberly Hefling report that the family of Roger Suarez-Gonzalez faces new questions and heartache after video surfaced of his death while serving in Iraq, video which suggests he may not have been killed by enemy forces but by so-called "friendly fire."
As Bonnie notes, Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Princess Brat" went up yesterday.
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iraq
the new york times
katherine zoepf
atheer kakan
matt apuzzo
lara jakes jordan
erica werner
kimberly hefling
