Nisoor Square shooting (Baghdad)

Summary

On September 16, 2007, private guards hired by the State Department to protect its diplomats in Baghdad opened fire on Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square, killing at least 14 people and injuring as many as 24, all of them Iraqis. The guards, working as contractors for Blackwater Worldwide, said they had come under fire and were defending themselves while trying to leave the area. Iraqis on the scene and US investigators said the Blackwater guards fired without provocation and were the only ones firing weapons.

The incident sparked outrage from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who tried to end all Blackwater contracts in Iraq and have the guards put on trial in Baghdad. However, the security contractors had immunity from Iraqi law. Moreover, they could not be tried under military law because they were civilians. In December 2008, using an unusual application of a law that governs contractors working for the US military, the Justice Department filed charges against five Blackwater guards. In addition to the guards' ambiguous legal status, the Nisoor Square incident raised questions about whether the use of private security contractors undermined the military's "hearts and minds" mission in Iraq.

Key Events

  • September 2007--Blackwater convoy opens fire in Nisoor Square.
  • December 2008--Six guards are indicted. Five plead innocent. One pleads guilty and agrees to testify.
  • December 2009--Charges are dismissed when the trial judge excludes statements made by defendants when they believed they had immunity.
  • September 2011--Charges are reinstated on appeal. Prosecutors drop their case against one defendant.
  • October 2014--One guard is found guilty of murder, three others of manslaughter.

Status

The four Blackwater guards were expected to appeal the convictions on the ground that the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) only covers civilians working for the Department of Defense. The Blackwater guards were under contract to the State Department.

Legislation to clarify the status of security contractors overseas was proposed in July 2014 by Senator Patrick Leahy, then chairman of the judiciary committee, but the bill did not advance to a vote of the full Senate.

In-Depth Description

A few minutes before noon on Sunday, September 16, 2007, a bomb exploded near a guarded compound in Baghdad where employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were meeting. To evacuate the diplomats from the compound, their Blackwater Worldwide security guards requested help clearing traffic on the way back to an American compound in the Green Zone. An advance convoy of four vehicles drove ahead to Nisoor Square (sometimes rendered in English as Nisour Square), a major intersection in the center of Baghdad, to clear traffic for the returning diplomats. In the square, shooting broke out.

Details varied in eyewitness accounts of what happened in Nisoor Square. Blackwater said its contractors in the lead convoy thought they had come under fire in the square and opened fire in return. Iraqi authorities and civilians said the Blackwater guards started shooting without provocation. According to court testimony, Iraqi police had blocked traffic to clear the area when a white Kia drove past them and then stopped in the square. A Blackwater guard in the lead vehicle fired his sniper's rifle, killing the driver. A second guard fired an incendiary grenade into the white Kia, killing the driver's mother in the passenger seat. The machine gunner in the lead Blackwater vehicle shot into the crowd. Other guards opened fire, and the convoy shot its way out of Nisoor Square. Altogether 14 Iraqis were killed and 17 wounded; some accounts put the number of wounded at 24.

The USAID officials being escorted back to the Green Zone were never involved in the shooting incident.

Immediate Aftermath

The Nisoor Square shootings cast a harsh light on the role and activities of Blackwater and other private security contractors. Instead of supporting the US goal of establishing a stable democracy in Iraq, the incident seemed to demonstrate a lawless disregard for civilian lives. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Blackwater threatened Iraq's sovereignty. Within a day of the shooting, his government moved to revoke Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. That decision was blocked a week later, on grounds that removing all Blackwater guards would cause an unacceptable shortage of guards to protect American sites. The US State Department released a preliminary report clearing the Blackwater guards of blame. That report, it was later revealed, was written by a Blackwater employee.

The State Department and Defense Department both recognized inadequate supervision of private security contractors as a critical problem after the Nisoor Square incident. On September 25, 2007, the military issued new guidelines making geographic commanders specifically responsible for the discipline of its security contractors. The Pentagon also ordered that contractors undergo training in rules of engagement and use of force. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on October 5, 2007, ordered that a State Department security officer accompany all Blackwater convoys and that convoys begin using video cameras in security vehicles.

The lack of supervision over security contractors--with some military officials saying that Blackwater agents in particular were out of control--was due to a grant of immunity from Iraqi law (Order 17, issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority) and a lack of any clear US jurisdiction. Within three weeks of the Nisoor incident, the House of Representatives passed a bill to bring security guards working for agencies assisting the military under American legal jurisdiction. However, the Senate took no action, so the House measure did not become law. Ultimately, the indictments of Blackwater guards in 2008 were brought under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA). This law, passed in 2000, was intended to cover civilian contractors directly connected with the Defense Department. In addition, it was intended to cover criminal acts by civilians, rather than actions that could be interpreted as supporting the military mission or as war crimes. Some legal analysts viewed the reliance on MEJA as a major hurdle for the prosecution in the case against the Blackwater guards.

In December 2008, the US Attorney's office for Washington, DC, brought charges against five Blackwater guards, alleging that "at least 34 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were killed or injured without justification or provocation by these security guards in the shooting at Nisour Square." A sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter the week before. The five defendants, all described as decorated US military veterans, were Paul Slough, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten, and Donald Ball. They surrendered in Salt Lake City, Utah, the day the indictments were announced, evidently intending to cause their trial to be held there. Later, however, a federal judge ordered them to stand trial in the capital.

The prosecution suffered a setback in December 2009 when the trial judge, Ricardo M. Urbina, dismissed the charges, ruling that the prosecution, in building its case, relied on self-incriminating statements made by the guards soon after the shooting. At that time, investigators told the guards their statements would not be used against them in court. The charges were reinstated in an April 2011 ruling by an appellate court, which said each of the cases should be reevaluated individually, taking account of the extent to which the evidence was compromised by the self-incriminating statements. The charges against Donald Ball were dropped, and the cases resumed against the other defendants.

The trial, beginning in August 2014, lasted 11 weeks. The jury heard from 75 witnesses, with 71 presented by the prosecution, including 30 Iraqis. The details recalled by prosecution witnesses differed from one another. On the whole, they supported a view of events that had the other guards opening fire after Slatten shot Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubiay, the driver of the white Kia. The defense argued that the first shot was fired by Ridgeway, the guard who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and appeared as a prosecution witness. The prosecution admitted that Ridgeway suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had "lost it" during the shooting. Witnesses also testified that Slatten and Liberty held hostile views toward Iraqi civilians.

On October 22, 2014, after 28 days of deliberation, the jury found Slatten guilty of first-degree murder, which carried a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. The other three were convicted of voluntary manslaughter and a firearms charge, which required a minimum 30-year sentence because of the use of machine guns in a crime. The verdict was hailed as a vindication of the US justice system, particularly in the eyes of Iraqis who doubted the Blackwater guards would ever be punished. Defense attorneys called the outcome "incomprehensible" and vowed to appeal.

Bibliography

Welch, Michael. "Fragmented power and state-corporate killings: a critique of Blackwater in Iraq." Crime, Law & Social Change 51:3/4 (April 2009) p. 351-364. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=36793499&site=ehost-live

Hedahl, Marcus. "Blood and Blackwaters: A Call to Arms for the Profession of Arms." Journal of Military Ethics 8:1 (2009) p. 19-33. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=37184934&site=ehost-live

Thurnher, Jeffrey S. "Drowning in Blackwater: How Weak Accountability over Private Security Contractors Significantly Undermines Counterinsurgency Efforts." Army Lawyer 422 (July 2008) p. 64-90. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=34410576&site=ehost-live

Scahill, Jeremy. "Making a Killing." Nation 285:11 (October 15, 2007) p. 21-24. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=26773464&site=ehost-live