Contractors In Afghanistan Shooting Say They're Scapegoats For Blackwater

CNN:

Two U.S. security contractors involved in the shooting death of an Afghan civilian said they were pressured to say they had been drinking in order to protect the company's contract.

"There was no question as to, 'Were you drinking?' It was, 'I know you were drinking, I know this happened,' and then pretty much trying to force us into making a statement on that," Steven McClain told CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" in a story to air on Wednesday.

Read the whole story: CNN

Comments

[Ryoki]

I have a feeling that in the near future you can expect to see Backwa... I mean Xe,in the good old USA.
As uemployment rises and people are forced out on the streets they'll be used to subdue any popular uprising. Make no mistake,this whole "contractor army" was setup to side step the law as well as make a massive profit.
So just think. The guy who was kicked out of the regular army because he was uncontrolable may be pointing a gun at you as you protest for food,shelter and medicine. For your own safety of course.

[Birdman]

Lets see they claim that they were forced to say they were drinking..­. Or what? loose your job? Guess what admit to drinking on the job loose it anyway. So I fail to see how these people were FORCED into lying about drinking. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't pass the smell test, cetainly sounds like a pile of caca to me.

[CitizenT]

They were being held in Afghanistan until they "cooperated". I do not doubt they were pressured to protect Blackwater­...err...X­e's extremely lucrative contracts. It beats the hell out of me why we are paying these guys way more to do the same job our service personnell are expected to do for their standard (low) pay.

[1differentdrummer]

And all of this was brought to us by the Cheeny/Bush/neocon administration. Makes you proud, doesn't it?

[NedroidPrime]

I'm calling BS.

If you are asked to lie for your company, you don't do it (especially for something like this, and for a company that has had many problems like this in the past). This is Blackwater for crying out loud....

Sounds like their standard operating procedure. We really need to outlaw companies like this, as they do no good, and it is likely cheaper to just use our own troops.

[ICorpsDoc]

The issue is not contractors. The issue is the wars we are fighting. We do not have nearly enough troops to support the wars we have.

So we have a few choices. Less wars. Less war deployments. More troops. Anyone here off to the recruiter this morning? Your kids? And if not where do these troops we need to support our wars come from? LOL....a draft?

And yes these contractors cost a boat load of money. But taking a wannabe here on this forum and sending them to boot camp and then SOI and then some more training and then some more before they are deployed costs a lot of money also. At least with contractors they come out of the box ready to be deployed. And deployed in some really dangerous work.

Right now our military cannot function without these guys. Not at the rate of the war deployments we have.

The problem is not totally THEM. We let this happen. It happened on our watch.

[Birdman]

well in case you are not aware there, some of the contractors you are defendng here were actaully kicked out of the military for various reasons, none of which are good. To get kicked out of the military takes some doing.

[ICorpsDoc]

I am defending no one. I am trying to explain the situation on the ground as I see it.

I am in fact not a supporter of contractor­s....not the infantry kind that we now have. A bad model for a democracy if you ask me.

I know quite a few guys (and one tough but drop dead beautiful gal) who have gone to iraq as contractors.

For the most part they are full on professionals. Some I admit are adventure junkies that missed a shooting war when they were in. But even these types are professionals the ones I know first hand.

I know of no one first hand that was bounced out of the military and then got a contractor gig. Not saying they do not exist. Just that in all the folks I know who have gone none of them fit that description. Maybe you know some from first hand experience?

Its the model that is bad. Not the individual contractors per se. Although there may be bad contractors. Just as there are bad teachers and bad car mechanics.

[flossophy]

They're tro||ing for some pr0gressive cashola...

[take10]

Gee whiz! The asylum opened early this morning!

[RRG64]

"Blackwater's contract was less than a month old when four of its security operatives were ambushed and killed, some of their bodies mutilated and hung from a bridge in an incident that changed the course of the Iraq war.

Blackwater was at the bottom of a four-tiered chain of contractors. The Moyock, N.C.-based company says it billed the next company up the chain $2.3 million. At the top of the chain was KBR, a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton Co.

Now the Pentagon has calculated that by the time KBR got around to billing the government, the tab to the taxpayers for private security work had reached $19.6 million. The government is moving to take that money back, charging that it was improperly spent.

Last week, federal investigators identified $10 billion they said has been squandered in the war because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses. More than a quarter of that amount, $2.7 billion, was charged by Halliburton.

Until recently, not even the Pentagon had been able to sort out the players. Last year, the Army told Waxman it could find no indication that Blackwater had been hired to provide security under KBR's multibillion-dollar contract to support the U.S. military operation in Iraq.

the Army said extensive research had revealed that Blackwater had in fact been hired through two intermediary companies.
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http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f54/blackwater-fraud-uncovered-515722/

[RRG64]

How many Military Contractors are currently employed by the US Government?

Are their more contractors than soldiers?

Do they have access to the same weapons or better?

Just asking.

[JZ735]

Obama has not curtailed their presence..­.he needs to...IMMED­IATELY.

[lynettema]

These so called security contractors need to be the first people to leave Iraq. They are as huge a detriment as Gitmo and AbuGhraib.

[weatherwaxx]

Instant karma's gonna get you...

"Contracto­rs..." Google the reports of how female employees of Blackwater have been treated. Raped and threatened with murder if they reported it -- I have NO sympathy for these killers.

But prosecution should NOT stop with the hired goons - it should go all the way to the top.

[Tiggy]

Big business and big government helping each other while fleecing the pockets of the American Citizen. It will only get worse as both become more and more greedy. I say that slavery was not so much abolished as it was equally distributed! We work to pay these guys to fleece us. Gov't votes to allow health care insurance to raise their rates, to allow power companies to raise their rates, to allow banks and cc companies to raise their rates and the list is endless. What I don't see is gov't helping the average joe...oh that's because joe doesn't have the money...bu­t joe does have a son or daughter who can be saddled with the debt. Democracy was sold for the almighty dollar!

[jalowe1957]

You chose to lie down with the moral equivalent of a comfort woman. Now expect to contract a social disease.

[groucho]

When you lie with dogs......­sad day for you. Shouldn't have involved yourself with mercenaries.

[Budokan]

I don't have much sympathy for these guys. They're mercenaries anyway. So, what, I'm supposed to cry a river over them just because they got hosed by their own company? Get real. You run with dogs you're going to get bitten.

Yeah, sometimes it really is that simple.

[lovethesinner]

I still can't believe that all Blackwater had to do to bypass congress was change their name to "Xe".

Next we'll be singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" to open baseball games.

[harriettubman]

People have been paid huge bucks to go to Iraq. I know a guy who has been over there several times as a civilian contractor. He said he makes so much money that he goes and comes back to renovate his home. Bush & Cheney started this financial trough.