It always amazes me how dumb and naive our government--State Department and Defense--can be. They turned control of the Green Zone over to Iraq. Now we can't go in and out of there without getting abused by Iraqi troops, who are little more than thugs with uniforms. We either need to get out of there altogether or get control, because sooner or later there will be an incident in which a lot of people get killed. How the State Department expects security contractors to work under these conditions baffles me. ******************************************* Scuffle With Security Contractors Highlights Iraqis' New Clout in Green Zone By Anthony Shadid Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, October 7, 2009 BAGHDAD, Oct. 6 -- In a dramatic illustration of shifting authority in the Green Zone, once an American preserve here, Iraqi soldiers confronted a security detail contracted by the U.S. government, detained four of the guards and beat them in a standoff last week that lasted at least two hours, according to Iraqi officials, the company and the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. military negotiated the guards' release several hours later, the U.S. Embassy said, and the four men were flown out of Iraq, for fear that charges might be filed against them. Philip Frayne, an embassy spokesman, confirmed that an incident occurred at one of the fortified entrances to the Green Zone but said no American diplomats were in the convoy. "Information is still in the process of being gathered and evaluated," he said. Douglas Ebner, a spokesman for Falls Church-based DynCorp International, said the men involved in the Sept. 28 incident were employed by the company. He said that they were mistreated and that the company "has strongly voiced our deep concerns regarding this incident both with the State Department and with Iraqi authorities." A senior Iraqi officer with the Baghdad Brigade, the Iraqi army unit charged with guarding the Green Zone, also confirmed the incident but denied that the men were beaten. He said the confrontation escalated because no interpreter was available. "The problem is that the PSDs," an abbreviation that has entered Iraqi slang as a catchall term for contractors' convoys, "don't understand that sovereignty is in the hands of Iraqis now," the officer said. "These groups still consider themselves above the law." Before a U.S.-Iraqi agreement took effect Jan. 1, regulating the U.S. presence here and outlining an eventual American withdrawal, contractors were immune from the Iraqi legal process under an order signed by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, in June 2004. At the time, it was unclear whether contractors were covered under U.S. military or civilian law. The result was that not a single private security contractor was charged with a crime despite dozens of suspicious shootings involving Iraqi civilians. The legacy has made contractors one of the most loathed groups in today's Iraq. In one of the worst incidents, heavily armed guards for the North Carolina-based firm then known as Blackwater opened fire on Iraqis in a crowded street on Sept. 16, 2007, killing 17 civilians, after the guards' convoy reportedly came under fire. Under the agreement, some U.S. contractors retain their immunity, but the Iraqi government, as it did in the case of Blackwater, can revoke or refuse to renew operating licenses. An account of last week's incident that appeared to be written by a DynCorp employee was forwarded by e-mail to The Washington Post. Several people said the details of the account seemed accurate, but Ebner said he could not confirm who authored it. According to the account, the last vehicle of a convoy was stopped at an entrance to the Green Zone. Iraqi guards tried to get the private security guards to turn over smoke grenades. One of the private guards tried to find out who was in charge and started shouting at an Iraqi captain. A member of the contractor team then tried to photograph the captain, who grabbed the camera. The Iraqi officer with the Baghdad Brigade said the security contractor hit the captain, although the account denied that. The incident quickly escalated, according to the account and the Iraqi officer. "This is where the wheels fell off," the account said. "Our opinion is that they were being aggressive against us 100 percent," the senior Iraqi officer said in the interview. "That's not me as an Iraqi talking. That's me as a professional soldier." The captain then fired two shots in the air, the account said. An Iraqi colonel arrived, along with at least five vehicles of Iraqi army personnel, eventually numbering about 80 soldiers. The security contractors refused to get out of their Suburban, and the colonel ordered a tank to run over the vehicle. When asked whether a tank was ordered to crush the Suburban, the senior Iraqi officer replied, "No comment." Before the tank did so, the account said, the contractors got out, one of them at gunpoint. The men were cuffed and beaten, according to the Iraqi officer and the account. "The Iraqis loaded them into their vehicles, putting one in the trunk/boot of the vehicle. They then drove away to an Iraqi base with an Iraqi sitting on the hood waving his arms up and down, screaming a victory cry," the account said. At the base, the account said, the men were beaten, some of them with a bar used for weights in a gym. One of their assailants was an Iraqi general, who repeatedly punched one of the men, then took part in the negotiations over their release, it said. One "was beaten so bad that he was covered in blood and began projectile vomiting from the head injuries he was receiving," the account said. The Iraqi official denied that the contractors were hurt in custody. "Trust me," he said, "we didn't beat them up." The account ended with a warning. "In the past, people could shoot and not worry about the ramifications. Now, people must think, analyze the situation and make appropriate decisions," it read. "Unfortunately, not all people are capable of doing that and many of them still see bad guys behind every bush, which just isn't the case anymore." Special correspondent Qais Mizher contributed to this report.
We should leave that shithole too. Both the Iraqis and the Afgans as a whole are stupid people and YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID.
If in fact the neo-cons had control of Bush during the Iraq decision then it was up to the Democrat Senators to vote against authorization and funding of this action. But they voted to affirm the resolutions.
JeBus H-hell. Tell me you're smarter than this? (I know you don't know the difference between "then" and "than," but maybe you can consult a book or something) Neo-cons are Demo's converted with dual-loyalty. Why else in fuck-sakes would you image that the PNAC signatory looks like the local Likud chapter
And what did you expect? More than 1 millions Iraqis are dead as a result of this invasion. Did you think there would be no attemempt to reciprocate?
We should beat feet now and avoid the humiliatation of being driven out later.. We came, we saw, we royally screwed up your country.. see 'ya, wouldn't wanna be 'ya.. let them go back to killing each other but this time, wow, the minority Sunnis are going to take it up the wazoo after all the punishment that Saddam dished out, it's going to be a mess... They'll probably emigrate to California like the Vietnamese did after the Nam...
They are not stupid. They are Muslims. Muslims will always have an enmity against non-Muslims unless they abandon their religion, and that will never happen for the Muslim People (ummah) as a whole unless they suffer total defeat in war as the Germans did when they gave up Nazism. "War has never solved anything except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism and communism."