Hi there,

If you think Democracy Now!’s reporting is a critical line of defense against war, climate catastrophe and authoritarianism, please make your donation of $10 or more right now. Today, a generous donor will TRIPLE your donation, which means it’ll go 3x as far to support our independent journalism. Democracy Now! is funded by you, and that’s why we’re counting on your donation to keep us going strong. Please give today. Every dollar makes a difference—in fact, gets tripled! Thank you so much.
-Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Soldier Report Finds Blackwater Fired Unprovoked

HeadlineOct 12, 2007

Evidence continues to mount that last month’s killing of at least 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards was unprovoked. According to The Washington Post, a newly disclosed report compiled by the first U.S. soldiers on the scene found no evidence Iraqis had fired on the Blackwater convoy. The soldiers also concluded Blackwater guards continued to shoot at Iraqi civilians as they tried to flee the scene. Two civilian vehicles had their back windshields shot out but had no damage to their front windshields, indicating they were shot while driving away. In another new detail, a vehicle carrying a doctor and her son had not even entered the Nisoor Square traffic circle from where the Blackwater guards opened fire. The soldiers concluded there was “no enemy activity involved” in what they called a “criminal event.” The report came as a survivor of the shooting and relatives of three of the dead filed a suit against Blackwater in U.S. court.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top