Feds Investigating Blackwater USA for Selling Weapons to Iraqi Insurgency
September 23rd, 2007Imagine my shock. But keep in mind, Blackwater is a CIA cutout that got so big that it just happened to become a household name. They’re just doing what Uncle tells them to do.
Remember these?
Pentagon Arms its Enemy’s Enemies in Iraq
U.S. “Loses” 190,000 Weapons in Iraq
If They need to roll that thing up, They’ll do what They always do with cutouts: Kill a couple of key players who know too much and maybe throw a flunkie or two in jail to give the press some distraction to write about.
Sorry if my use of the term “cutout” seems outdated. When I was a boy, firms like Blackwater existed, they just didn’t let it all hang out like this. 9/11 was a coming out party for the cutout industrial complex. Hell, the spooks even set up a venture capital firm to fund more cutouts. So, private military contractors? No, they’ll always be cutouts to me.
And whores of war.
Via: AP:
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, declined to comment, as did 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.
In Saturday’s editions, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that two former Blackwater employees — Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth “Max” Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C. — 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 & Observer, citing unidentified sources, reported that the probe was looking at whether Blackwater had shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq without a license.
I guess we’ll find these “caught” Blackwater folks dead sometime soon. Surely, the Carlyle group and the headless persons of state in the U.S. are heavily invested in the murky waters of Blackwater. Gee cheese whiz, do you think Blackwater is also protecting the opium crop in Afghanistan? Just asking.