BAGHDAD – Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge's decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.

The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge's decision as proof of what they'd long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.

"There is no justice," said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. "I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square."

What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution. The shootings also highlighted the degree to which the U.S. relied on private contractors during the Iraq conflict.

Blackwater had been hired by the State Department to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq. The guards said they were ambushed at a busy intersection in western Baghdad, but U.S. prosecutors and many Iraqis said the Blackwater guards let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

"Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement Friday.

He did not elaborate on what steps the government planned to take to pursue the case.

The shootings led the Iraqi government to strip the North Carolina-based company of its license to work in the country, and Blackwater replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.

Five guards from the company were charged in the case with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried mandatory 30-year prison terms, but a federal judge Friday dismissed all the charges.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina cited repeated government missteps in the investigation, saying that prosecutors built their case on sworn statements that the guards had given with the idea that they would be immune from prosecution.

That explanation held little sway with Iraqis outraged over the case.

Dr. Haitham Ahmed's wife and son were both killed in their car during the shooting.

"The rights of our victims and the rights of the innocent people should not be wasted," he said.

Iraqis have followed the case closely and said the judge's decision demonstrated that the Americans were considered above the law.

"I was not astonished by the verdict because the trial was unreal. They are using double standards and talking about human rights, but they are the first to violate these rights. They are killing innocents deliberately," said Ahmed Jassim, a civil engineer in the southern city of Najaf.

Dozens of Iraqis have filed a separate lawsuit alleging that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings and beatings. That civil case was not affected by Urbina's decision and is still before a Virginia court.

Mohammed al-Kinani, whose son was killed, said he had been invited once to the U.S. by the Justice Department as a witness but said he went two more times after that to follow the case.

"I will not despair," he said.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the commanding general in Iraq, said he understood that people would be upset with the decision.

"Of course people are not going to like it, because they believe that these individuals conducted some violence and should be punished for it, but the bottom line is, using the rule of law, the evidence is not there," he said. "I worry about it because clearly there were innocent people killed in this attack."

Of all the private security companies that mushroomed in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion, Blackwater was the most well-known and vilified.

Their employees were at the center of what is considered one of the key moments of the war. A vehicle with four Blackwater employees driving through the western city of Fallujah, a center of the Sunni insurgency, was hit by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in March 2004. Their charred, mutilated bodies were dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates river.

The bloody incident was one of the key reasons the U.S. military attacked Fallujah in April 2004.

Another Blackwater guard, Andrew Moonen, was accused by the family of a guard for an Iraqi vice president of shooting and killing the guard without provocation on Christmas Eve of 2006 after Moonen got drunk at a party in the Green Zone and then got lost. Moonen's lawyer has described the incident as self-defense.

An October 2007 report by a House of Representatives committee called Blackwater an out-of-control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties. Blackwater chairman Erik Prince told the committee that the company acted appropriately at all times.

Were the incident to happen again today, the legal outcome might be much different. The U.S.-Iraqi security pact that took effect Jan. 1, 2009, lifted the immunity that foreign contractors had in Iraq. A British security contractor accused of shooting two colleagues is currently being held in Iraq and could be the first Westerner to face an Iraqi court since the immunity was lifted.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100101/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_iraq_blackwater

This is a remaining stie in America's eye left over from the Bush Admin..

Last time I checked it was Obama and Holder's Justice Department.

Trolls live in the past.
When the argument fails, blame Bush.

There was a deal made during the Bush Admin that was responsible for the evidence not being admitted as evidence.

That is why the Judge dismissed the case.



All other evidence from the scene of the shooting had been cleaned up before investigators arrived.

Urbina's ruling does not resolve whether the shooting was proper. Rather, the 90-page opinion underscores some of the conflicting evidence in the case. Some Blackwater guards told prosecutors they were concerned about the shooting and offered to cooperate. Others said the convoy had been attacked. By the time the FBI began investigating, Nisoor Square had been picked clean of bullets that might have proven whether there had been a firefight or a massacre.

In my opinion it appears the Bush Admin covered these men's arse.

They were indicted in December 08.. If they knew the case wasn't solid then why pursue it? This was a federal prosecution, was it not? Under the auspices of Holder's Justice Department.. 8 months wasn't enough time for someone in the new administration to say "hey, this case is going to get tossed".

I mean come on..

They pretty much had to go through with it.

The fact that failure pissed the Iraqis off would have been even worse had they not attempted.

It still remains however, that the investigation for evidence and the manner in which the testimonies were gained, all lie within the reign of Bush.

I will tell you that I'm not very happy with Obama's Admin either right now.
Upon researching Black water I found they have merely changed their name.
They are now Xe Services and the Obama Admin, through the CIA, are using them in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And, Once again the complaints about their unlawful acts are rolling in.

Our gov using mercenary security forces is unexcusable to me.

If the police bust in a door, entering and gathering evidence without a warrant. Is it the DA's fault when the evidence and the case is dismissed?

Blackwater...pfft..we all need to be keeping an eye on them.

They have changed their name to Xe Services.

The CIA is using them in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

DESPITE repeated denials, the CIA has now confirmed that US security contractor Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, has been operating in Pakistan. CIA spokesman George Little said that agency Director Leon Panetta has terminated a contract with Xe Services that allowed the company’s employees to load bombs on CIA drones at secret airfields in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Although the spokesman denied that Blackwater was currently involved in CIA operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, his comments, contradicted past US assertions that the company does not operate in Pakistan, reported Press TV on Saturday.
Other than the US administration, the Pakistani government and Xe itself had denied that the company was operating in Pakistan.
Little did say, however, that the contractor still provides so-called security or support assistance to the US intelligence agency in the two countries. He did not elaborate further on exactly what that role involves.
While the New York Times published CIA’s claim that Blackwater employees no longer have an operational role in the agency’s covert programmes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the British newspaper Guardian posted a quite different article.
Citing comments from an unnamed former US official, the British daily reported that Blackwater was still operating in Pakistan at a secret CIA airfield used for launching drone attacks.


http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/13-Dec-2009/CIA-admits-Xe-Services-presence-in-Pakistan

Yeah, I know

No.
You've got that wrong.
It's those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

I aim to insure the last 8 years are never forgotten.

Actually you got that wrong.

It is those who do not LEARN from the past that are doomed to repeat it.

Last 8 had good and bad... So!

my answer to the blackwater problem... Send three navy seals back to regular duty... Send their accuser back to where he came from... all these things were committed during a 'war' situation... and therefore forgivness all around should be...

After all how can you call something a 'war crime'...

War is of itself a CRIME.

Because even in war there are rules. They're called The Rules Of Engagement. sounds obsurd, but it's better than nothing

doesn't surprise me, ppl never learn that it doesn't matter what party is a majority, imperialism will always be exported....and ppl actually wonder why there's a rise in terrorism.

Good point. But given what we've got, one of the most influential countries in the world, at least we think for ourselves, speak for ourselves, and do what we can to expose attrocities like this...even if it's about our own people. I like that about America.