Founder of Blackwater-Xe Accused Of Murder, Gun Running To Iraq

By Steve Hynd

Sworn statements to a Virginia federal court accuse Blackwater founder Eric Prince of using murder to silence witnesses to criminal acts by Blackwater, of smuggling weapons into Iraq to sell for profit, of destroying evidence of criminal acts and lying to federal agencies.

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct.

Read the whole remarkable, and shocking, story by Jeremy Scahill at The Nation.

If all that Scahill writes is true, I wonder if the Crusader Prince will use the C Street King David defense for his actions? Anything someone "chosen by God" does, no matter how criminal, is justified.

And if all the statements contain is true, it's still only the tip of the iceberg.

General Petraeus "lost" over 170,000 weapons in Iraq. His close aide, Lt. Col. Lavonda Selph pled guilty to accepting bribes in connection with another gun smuggling operation. At around the same time, his subordinate Col. Theodore Westhusing was found dead in Iraq, apparently a suicide. A note found by him said he could not "support a [mission] that leads to corruption, human rights abuses and liars," and that he didn't know who to trust among his superiors any more.

There are 154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging and theft in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. Jonathan Landay of McLatchy newspapers said in a March 2009 interview that he believes U.S. officials -- not U.S. contractors, but officials -- are complicit and involved in the widespread corruption there.

Meanwhile, whatever happened to the gagging orders preventing investigation of the wrongdoings of 70 major companies involved in Iraq, the orders Bush imposed and that Henry Waxman complained about last June, calling Iraq "the largest war profiteering in history"? Are those orders still in place? Does anyone know?

I'm going to say it again - I find it difficult to believe that senior administration and military figures have not themselves been enriched by some of these missing biliions. Are we really to believe that corruption, graft and bribery - some of which involved missing weaponry which was sold on the black market and used to kill US soldiers - was widespread up to the level of Lt. Colonel, but no further?

Update: Via MoJo, the two sworn statement filings are here and here.