CT Blue

Today I just want to highlight a couple of things that could be easily overlooked.

Via Talking Points Memo, this tidbit from an article about the recent ambush of the Polish Ambassador, in which several people were killed and even more wounded:

U.S. authorities confiscated an AP Television News videotape that contained scenes of the wounded being evacuated. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl told the AP the government of Iraq had made it illegal to photograph or videotape the aftermath of bombings or other attacks.

Pity the poor Defense Department, forced against its will to curtail the freedom of the press because of the act of another sovereign state. Some might say that the actions of the Iraqi “government” provide a convenient pretext for our government to restrict press freedom, but how could that be when the whole point of being in Iraq is to spread freedom around the globe, or at least those parts of the globe were oil is abundant (contra, see Burma).

The linked article mentions Blackwater’s possible involvement in providing “security” for the Ambassador. It turns out that in fact Blackwater provides all kinds of services in Iraq. This is free enterprise after all. If you can pay, you get the very best mercenaries in the business:

Blackwater security guards who protect top U.S. diplomats in Iraq have been involved in at least seven serious incidents, some of which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said Wednesday.

…

… Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al Askari told McClatchy Newspapers that one of the incidents was former Iraqi Electricity Minister Ahyam al Samarrai’s escape from a Green Zone jail in December. Samarrai had been awaiting sentencing on charges that he had embezzled $2.5 billion that was intended to rebuild Iraq’s decrepit electricity grid.

…

Askari didn’t detail each of the seven incidents Maliki mentioned. But his inclusion of the Samarrai escape raised new questions about a strange and little-publicized incident of the war.

Until now, Iraqi officials hadn’t named the private security company that they believe helped Samarrai, the only Iraqi cabinet official convicted of corruption, to escape from a jail that was overseen jointly by U.S. and Iraqi guards. He subsequently was spirited out of the country and is believed to be living in the United States.

The U.S. State Department made note of his escape in its December report on developments in Iraq, saying that “Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) said they believed he fled with the help of members of a private security company.”

But the accusation that Blackwater, which earned at least $240 million in 2005 from contracts to provide security to U.S. officials in Baghdad, assisted in his escape raises questions about what American officials might have known about the breakout.

A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman couldn’t be reached for comment.

Somehow I doubt that spokeswoman will ever be reached.

There’s a great diary post on Daily Kos about the mercenary issue.

I may be doing light posting over the next few days. My brother in law is arriving tomorrow from France, where he lives, and we’ll be going to upstate New York to visit relatives over the weekend.