After the Blackwater incident the State Department wanted to take better control of such companies and sent people to Iraq to monitor the guards. In addition, on account of all the private contractors in Iraq, the House of Representatives passed a bill to bring the contractors under the penalties of American Law. The F.B.I. would be able to investigate the companies and the companies may be susceptible to criminal charges. The bill was approved by a whopping 389 to 39, although the White house strongly opposed the bill. The New York Times wrote that the White House states that such a bill would "overburden the F.B.I. and the Defense Department and interfere with crucial 'national security activities and operations.'"
The State Department has been investigating the Blackwater shooting, although it is probable that they will not have the authority to file charges on past occurences. The State Deparetment has not raised any charges on this despite Iraqi officials' concern.
There are both pros and cons to bringing more F.B.I agents to Iraq for investigation and are discussed here. Do you believe that it is worth it to send in more agents to Iraq?
5 comments:
Personally, I think that it is O.K. for these private organizations, like Blackwater, to try and help America with different problems, like the War in Iraq. If these former SEALS feel like helping out the American military in Iraq, then they should be allowed to. I think it is worth sending more F.B.I. agents to Iraq because first of all, it's not like the F.B.I. has a limited amount of agents. Second of all, if Blackwater is acting like troublesome vigilantes, they should be stopped. Their criminal activity will just create more chaos in Iraq's already chaos-ridden country.
Sending F.B.I. agents to Iraq would be like sending more troops to the war. We just got a bill passed to have most of the troops brought home. Putting F.B.I. agents in Iraq would basically be supplying more manpower to the U.S. army. Its extremely possible that the agents would be used for more than investigation. The agents might be sent to do their investigation, then assigned a different job because the government might use the excuse that since they are already there, they might as well do this or that.
To William's comment about the F.B.I. agents being sent to war is inconsistent with the bill trying to bring troops home: an interesting thing to point out is that the majority of the people that supported the F.B.I. were Democrats, and similarly the bill to bring troops home has been advocated mostly by Democrats.
I read this from an NYtimes article, "In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims’ family members who complained, and sought to cover up other episodes, the Congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet.” The article also says on September 16 Blackwater employees were involved in a shooting that left 8 innocent Iraqis dead. “The shooting set off outrage among Iraqi officials, who branded them “cold-blooded murder” and demanded that the company be removed from the country.” Even though these Blackwater troops are supposed to be helping us win the war they are causing more unnecessary deaths and are a bad testimony for what America is supposed to stand for. We are supposed to be brining liberty and democracy to Iraq, but the Iraqis will have a tainted image of us if we keep killing innocent civilians. Elaina said the US gov is sending more people to Iraq to monitor the guards, I think this is a waste and its embarrassing that we have to send guards to keep our own troops from killing innocent people. The Blackwater people should just tame themselves so we don't need to send out more people to make sure they are following orders.
Sigh. More money spent on this craz "war."
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