Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Blackwater and Private Military contractors

Yesterday the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on "Private Security Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan." This is the hearing where the owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince, testified on his companies work in Iraq. The testimony and the documents discussed are all available at the hearing link, but the discussion was brought about in large part by a memo from Congressional staff on Blackwater activities in Iraq. If you want more history on the discussions (this is not the first hearing on this topic) of Congress in regards to Blackwater, check out the sidebar on the committee's home page.

The hearing did not discuss the September 19th incident which resulted in the deaths of sixteen citizens in Iraq, due to an ongoing investigation by the FBI. All you will find on this investigation is this really brief press release. There has been no reports from the State Department released yet, but if you want to read some of their responses to questioning, I recommend checking out the daily press briefings, which you can watch or read online.

Still want to read more? Check out the Washington Post's "Blackwater Chariman Defends His Company."

Need more resources on Iraq? Check out the library's guide.

No comments:

Post a Comment