A look at Verification through the Blackwater Shooting Case

CNL News Lesson

October 25, 2013 Added by Michael A. Spikes

Lesson Outline

October 25, 2013
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A deadly firefight erupted in Baghdad, Iraq on September 16, 2007. After twenty minutes of heavy shooting, seventeen Iraqi civilians -- including women and children -- lay dead. Who killed them is not in doubt: they died at the hands of private security contractors from a company called Blackwater. But why they died, and under what circumstances, remains murky and provisional to this day.

The deadly shooting inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq at the time. The Iraqi government called the shootings “deliberate murder.” A US Army report labeled it “a criminal event.” Blackwater executives, however, said the shootings were an “appropriate response” by guards under attack “acting in self-defense.” The US State Department agreed.

The Blackwater security forces, hired to guard American diplomats, were among more than 10,000 private security contractors in Iraq, all immune to criminal prosecution. Eyewitness accounts say the Blackwater personnel began shooting without provocation and later shot some of the Iraqis as they were fleeing.

The guards were charged with manslaughter and weapons violations in 2008, but a federal judge dismissed the case in 2009, ruling that the Justice Department withheld evidence and violated the guards’ constitutional rights. An appeals court reinstated the case in 2011, saying that the judge had wrongly interpreted the law. On October 17, 2013 – more than six years after the incident took place - the Justice Department brought fresh charges against the four former contractors. Defense lawyers say they were ambushed by Iraqi insurgents.

Video

This video from the New York Times gives an overview of the 2007 shooting.

Questions:

  • What makes the truth “provisional” in the story of the shootings in Iraq?
  • What do you think are the best ways to verify what actually happened?
  • What is the difference between how journalists sought the truth in this story and how the justice system is still seeking it?
  • Will we ever truly know what happened in this incident? Why?

 

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