From Denny: And yet another reason why you don't create a shadow army without legal sanction or Congressional oversight just because you feel like it on a whim like Vice President Cheney and President Bush thought they could do without consequence.
Our American tax dollars went to a mercenary army - built up as large in number as the 160,000 troops we had in Iraq which is why we were spending over a $1 billion a month for the Iraq War - upon which our government and law had absolutely no control or law to restrain, contain or task them appropriately. In short, these guys were junkyard dogs off the leash doing whatever they felt like without risk of prosecution or seeing any jail time.
Yet Bush and Cheney set up the CIA to hire Blackwater back in 2004 anyway as assassins to go after the bad guys in the Iraq War, the top al-Qaeda leaders. Bush and Cheney also ordered these assassins to go after these bad guys not just in Iraq but also in friendly countries where if their presence were detected it would bring considerable "blowback" from those governments with whom America is allied. No reasonable country likes it when they find out spies and assassins are operating in their country: duh!
Read that as the CIA's own para-military knew what Bush and Cheney were doing was one thing: breaking established law - as it must be by Presidential directive each time for each situation to use lethal force abroad - and not at the contractor's (assassin's) discretion or whim. They also knew if they participated they could easily end up as Bush and Cheney's cannon fodder, so they refused to be party to it, hence, the outsourcing of Blackwater to do the dirty work for which government employees like the CIA were bound by the law not to do. Basically, what really happened here under the Bush administration is that the CIA employees told their Air Force boss turned director still in uniform - a real turn-off of the military holding control of what is supposed to be a civilian agency - is they refused the order to break the law. So, Bush and Cheney turned to the illegal mercenaries to break the law for them.
The Bush administration needs to be investigated from top to bottom. There is so much corruption that has yet to see the light of day there on so many fronts. Obama and Holder need to get serious and quit wimping out on the prosecution. Be a one-term President if you must but get some justice for a whole lot of people who were wronged during the Bush years of arrogance and trampling of just sheer decency as well as the "rule of law" as the hypocritical Republicans are so fond of screaming yet never feel applies to them equally.
Blackwater has since changed its name to Xe (sounds like Z) and is also under grand jury indictment. The CEO of Blackwater has stepped down. Most of its contractors have been rehired by our government in other positions like protecting diplomats abroad. There are 5 other contractors on trial for killing Iraqi civilians back in 2007 and a sixth has pleaded guilty. What a legacy of war for hire.
