Foro de Inteligencia, Espionaje y Servicios Secretos

Implementation of Recommendations from the Secretary of State's Report on Personal Protective Service Details

Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy on the Report of the Secretary of State's Panel on Personal Protective Services in Iraq

The following recommendations from the Report of the Secretary of State's Panel on Personal Protective Services (PPS) in Iraq will be implemented beginning today.

The items in bold are interim recommendations, whose implementation began on October 5th, per the direction of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

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The Regional Security Office should be provided with additional Department of State Special Agents so that an Assistant Regional Security Officer (A/RSO) can accompany PPS movements. The State Department should ensure that each additional A/RSO should complete an Iraq-specific orientation program.

The Worldwide Personal Protective Service contract should be amended to require the contractor to provide a limited number of Arabic language staff for use as needed.

Additional training modules should be added under the Worldwide Personal Protective Service contract to enhance the cultural awareness of assigned personnel, acquaint them with diplomatic structures and procedures, and familiarize them with Multi-National Force-I tactics, techniques and procedures.

To tighten the ground rules for the use of deadly force, and to ensure greater parallelism with USCENTCOM rules on the use of force by contracted security in Iraq, the U.S. Mission Firearms Policy should be revised to specify, without limiting the inherent right to take action necessary for self-defense, if an authorized employee must fire his/her weapon, he/she must fire only aimed shots; fire with due regard for the safety of innocent bystanders; and make every effort to avoid civilian casualties.

The Regional Security Office (RSO) should be provided video and audio recording equipment for each security vehicle, audio recording equipment in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) to record all radio transmissions and computer enhancements to record all Blue Force Tracking data.

The Regional Security Office should place a readable number (like a license plate) on the right rear door of each vehicle utilized, to enable anyone wishing to question its mode of operation to identify the unit to the Regional Security Office, which can then review the matter and take appropriate action.

The Regional Security Office should establish a "Go Team" that would proceed as soon as possible to the scene of any weapons discharge to gather information and material and provide and analysis of what happened and why, and prepare a report. The Team would work with representatives of the appropriate Government of Iraq offices and the U.S. military unit responsible for the location.

An Embassy Joint Incident Review Board should be established to review all incidents involving the use of deadly force which are known or asserted to have caused injury or death or other serious consequences. The Board should be chaired by the Deputy Chief of Mission and other members should be the Regional Security Officer, another civilian embassy officer with a law enforcement background from an agency other than State or Justice, and a military officer designated by MNF-I. The Board would hear from the Assistant Regional Security Officer (A/RSO) who was in the motorcade, review the statements provided by the security personnel involved, as well as any protectee(s), plus the Go Team report, and then make a recommendation to the Ambassador on whether or not the use of force appears justified. If it does not feel that it was justified, the Department should be informed to notify the Department of Justice.

The Regional Security Office and MNF-I should establish a permanent working group to develop commonly agreed operational procedures; establish a robust liaison element; exchange information; ensure optimal situational awareness; and ensure that any issues are discussed and quickly resolved. In addition to the above, three specific items should be on the agenda for the first meeting:

· Ensuring that the planning, coordinating and routing information which currently flows from the Regional Security Office's Tactical Operations Center (TOC) to Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-1) liaison elements located in the TOC and posted to the U.S. Military's Command Post of the Future (COPF) system, is available electronically to all operating elements under MNF-I;

· Providing TOC Spot Reporting electronically to any subordinate military element that wishes to receive it directly;

· Coordinating the provision of frequencies for the military radios and the RSO has ordered to enhance coordination. Coordination with MNF-I elements could be further enhanced if the pending order for Harris Corporation Model PRC-110 radios were received. The Department of State should intervene, including with DOD as necessary, to obtain these units.

When the "Go Team" is not involved in investigating incidents, it should be employed in pattern analysis. The Diplomatic Security service in Washington should provide the RSO with a relational database to be used to review incidents and determine potential patterns. Such a database would include:

1. Date and Time of incident
2. Destination and GPS coordinates
3. GPS coordinates of incident
4. Mission identifier
5. Vehicle identification numbers
6. Incident type
7. Names of all security personnel involved and their assignments in the motorcade.
8. Such other details as would be useful.

Data on each event would be input promptly after it occurs. Weekly reports should be generated to look for potential patterns that would call for systemic or individual changes.

The Regional Security Officer should establish direct channels to senior Iraqi police and security officials in Baghdad and in any other city where Provincial Reconstruction Teams are located. This should be a major step towards providing information on incidents in a timely way so that they can be appropriately investigated.

In order to be more responsive to Iraqi customs, the Embassy must actively seek out the families of those innocent Iraqi civilians killed or seriously injured, or those whose property has been damaged by Personal Protective Services personnel. The Regional Security Office "Go Team", assisted by the U.S. military unit responsible for the area in which an incident has occurred, should work with counterparts designated by the Government of Iraq to promptly offer appropriate condolences and compensation.
2007/918

Released on October 23, 2007

Bill Sizemore para The Virginian-Pilot escribió:The California wildfires have come within a quarter-mile of the property where Blackwater wants to build a West Coast training facility, but the company's on-site manager isn't worried. He says the fires won't deter Blackwater from moving ahead with its controversial plans.

Meanwhile, the company is helping deliver food and other supplies to burned-out residents of the rural community. Opponents of the Blackwater West project say they're grateful for the help, but it won't deter them from the fight.

Brian Bonfiglio, project manager for Blackwater West, said Friday the devastating fires haven't touched the site of the proposed project, and he doesn't expect that to happen.

"It's all grazed grassland," he said. "There are no trees or buildings. It won't burn."

Bonfiglio said the Moyock, N.C.-based security company remains on track to build a training center for military and law enforcement personnel on the 800-acre chicken and cattle ranch near Potrero, a hamlet 45 miles east of San Diego near the Mexican border.

The project has drawn vocal opposition from a coalition of rural residents, environmentalists and peace activists. Some have suggested that the proposed facility - which would include firing ranges with live ammunition - would pose an increased fire risk.

Not so, said Bonfiglio: "There will be no explosives training and no tracer ammunition. Lead bullets don't start fires."

On the contrary, he said, the proposed facility would benefit the community if it is threatened by fire again. He said it could be used as a "command center" with bunkhouses for evacuees and water tanks with a 35,000-gallon capacity.

Bonfiglio said Blackwater has made three deliveries of food, water, personal hygiene products and generator fuel to 300 area residents, many of whom have been trapped for days without supplies.

The fires came within 30 feet of Jan Hedlun's back door, flattening a chaparral forest. She said her property looks like a "moonscape."

Hedlun, a leading Blackwater opponent, said she still believes the proposed training facility poses an increased fire risk.

"It didn't take anything to set this one off," she said. "It only took one spark."

Nevertheless, she said, she is grateful for the company's relief efforts.

"We're in survival mode now," she said. "We'll get back to the political arena later."


In other Blackwater-related developments:

n Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who pledged this week to strengthen oversight of Blackwater and other private security providers in Iraq, says she didn't act earlier because she didn't want to "second-guess" State Department personnel on the ground in Iraq.

But newly revealed e-mails show that top officials were warned more than two years ago about repeated incidents of Blackwater guards killing Iraqi civilians.

"Do you think you made a mistake by taking so long to recognize that the oversight of Blackwater was woefully inadequate?" Rep. William Clay, D-Mo., asked Rice during a congressional committee hearing Thursday.

"These are decisions that were made on the ground by people who were reviewing the circumstances and I'm not going to second-guess them here on the spot," Rice replied.

Later Thursday, ABC News revealed State Department e-mails detailing a series of shootings by Blackwater convoys in May and June 2005 in which three Iraqis were killed.

In an e-mail to his superiors in Baghdad, Michael Bishop, a State Department security officer in Al Hillah, warned that failure to address the issue would come back to haunt the United States.

"Not resolving these situations in a quick and decisive manner is counterproductive in regards to accomplishing our foreign policy objectives, ensuring our safety (and)... maintaining the continued good will of the Iraqi people," he wrote.

n Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., called Friday for an expanded investigation into alleged tax evasion by Blackwater.

Earlier in the week, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., alleged that Blackwater has avoided paying millions of dollars in taxes by misclassifying its workers as independent contractors rather than employees.

In a response, Blackwater said it had relied on a ruling by the Small Business Administration. Kerry chairs a Senate committee that oversees the SBA.

In letters to Senate colleagues and Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, Kerry said SBA rulings have no applicability to questions of tax liability.

Immunity deal hampers Blackwater inquiry By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer




The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that immunity had been granted. One official — who refused to be quoted by name_ said: "If, in fact, such a decision was made, it was done without any input or authorization from any senior State Department official in Washington."

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd and FBI spokesman Rich Kolko declined comment.

FBI agents were returning to Washington late Monday from Baghdad, where they have been trying to collect evidence in the Sept. 16 embassy convoy shooting without using statements from Blackwater employees who were given immunity.

Three senior law enforcement officials said all the Blackwater bodyguards involved — both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above — were given the legal protection as investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security sought to find out what happened. The bureau is an arm of the State Department.

The law enforcement and State Department officials agreed to speak only if they could remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the inquiry into the incident.

The investigative misstep comes in the wake of already-strained relations between the United States and Iraq, which is demanding the right to launch its own prosecution of the Blackwater bodyguards.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell declined comment about the U.S. investigation. Based in Moyock, N.C., Blackwater USA is the largest private security firm protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.

The company has said its Sept. 16 convoy was under attack before it opened fire in west Baghdad's Nisoor Square, killing 17 Iraqis. A follow-up investigation by the Iraqi government, however, concluded that Blackwater's men were unprovoked. No witnesses have been found to contradict that finding.

An initial incident report by U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq, also indicated "no enemy activity involved" in the Sept. 16 incident. The report says Blackwater guards were traveling against the flow of traffic through a traffic circle when they "engaged five civilian vehicles with small arms fire" at a distance of 50 meters.

The FBI took over the case early this month, officials said, after prosecutors in the Justice Department's criminal division realized it could not bring charges against Blackwater guards based on their statements to the Diplomatic Security investigators.

Officials said the Blackwater bodyguards spoke only after receiving so-called "Garrity" protections, requiring that their statements only be used internally — and not for criminal prosecutions.

At that point, the Justice Department shifted the investigation to prosecutors in its national security division, sealing the guards' statements and attempting to build a case based on other evidence from a crime scene that was then already two weeks old.

The FBI has re-interviewed some of the Blackwater employees, and one official said Monday that at least several of them have refused to answer questions, citing their constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. Any statements that the guards give to the FBI could be used to bring criminal charges.

A second official, however, said that not all the guards have cited their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination — leaving open the possibility for future charges. The official declined to elaborate.

Prosecutors will have to prove that any evidence they use in bringing charges against Blackwater employees was uncovered without using the guards' statements to State Department investigators. They "have to show we got the information independently," one official said.

Garrity protections generally are given to police or other public law enforcement officers, and were extended to the Blackwater guards because they were working on behalf of the U.S. government, one official said. Experts said it's rare for them to be given to all or even most witnesses — particularly before a suspect is identified.

"You have to be careful," said Michael Horowitz, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and senior Justice Department official. "You have to understand early on who your serious subjects are in the investigation, and avoid giving these people the protections."

It's not clear why the Diplomatic Security investigators agreed to give immunity to the bodyguards, or who authorized doing so.

Bureau of Diplomatic Security chief Richard Griffin last week announced his resignation, effective Thursday. Senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said his departure was directly related to his oversight of Blackwater contractors.

Tyrrell, the Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company was alerted Oct. 2 that FBI would be taking over the investigation from the State Department. She declined further comment.

On Oct. 3, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the FBI had been called in to assist Diplomatic Security investigators. A day later, he said the FBI had taken over the probe.

"We, internally and in talking with the FBI, had been thinking about the idea of the FBI leading the investigation for a number of different reasons," McCormack told reporters during an Oct. 4 briefing.

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a series of measures to boost government oversight of the private guards who protect American diplomats in Iraq. They include increased monitoring and explicit rules on when and how they can use deadly force.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wrote a letter to Rice on Monday expressing his dismay over the immunity offers. The presidential candidate, who has introduced Senate legislation that would make private security contractors in Iraq subject to federal law, asked Rice if she was aware of the offers before they were made; if the FBI and Justice Department were consulted; and if Rice agreed with the decision. Obama's spokeswoman said he intended to send the letter Tuesday.

Blackwater's contract with the State Department expires in May and there are questions whether it will remain as the primary contractor for diplomatic bodyguards. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his Cabinet is drafting legislation that would force the State Department to replace Blackwater with another security company.

Congress also is expected to investigate the shootings, but a House watchdog committee said it has so far held off, based on a Justice Department request that lawmakers wait until the FBI concludes its inquiry.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this story.