Blackwater likely to be fined millions in Iraq weapons case
By Warren Strobel, McClachy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The State Department is preparing to slap a multi-million dollar fine on private military contractor Blackwater USA for shipping hundreds of automatic weapons to Iraq without the necessary permits.
Some of the weapons are believed to have ended up on the country’s black market, department officials told McClatchy, but no criminal charges have been filed in the case.
The expected fine is the result of a long-running federal investigation into whether employees of the firm shipped weapons hidden in shrink-wrapped pallets from its Moyock, N.C. headquarters to Iraq, where Blackwater is the State Department’s largest personal security contractor.
Since the arms shipment allegations first became public 14 months ago, Blackwater, which has received $1.2 billion in federal contracts, according to the Web site fedspending.org, has consistently denied involvement in illicit arms trafficking.
However, the State Department found that Blackwater shipped 900 weapons to Iraq without the paperwork required by arms export control regulations, one department official said. Of that number, 119 were “particularly … erroneous,” he said. He and the other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision hasn’t been announced…
Blackwater employees are also the subjects of a Justice Department probe into the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007. That incident sparked outrage over the actions of private military contractors and forced the State Department to impose tighter rules on the contractors. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/55790.html
relevant ps…
Prince’s father co-founded the Family Research Council with Gary Bauer. Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos, a former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party and wife of former Alticor (Amway) president and Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, son of Richard DeVos, Sr. (listed by Forbes in 2007 as one of the world’s richest men, with a net worth of $2.4 billion).
Prince serves as vice president of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. Salon reports that “between July 2003 and July 2006, the foundation gave at least $670,000 to the Family Research Council and $531,000 to Focus on the Family“[16] headed by James Dobson. The foundation is also a major donor to Calvin College[17], a Christian institution in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prince also serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a non-profit group with a mission of helping “Christians who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ.”
Since 1998, Prince has personally donated over $200,000 to Republican causes.Prince is a donor, along with beverage company Bolthouse Farms through the Bolthouse foundation, to the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal group. Prince had also contributed money to the Green Party of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, though this has been interpreted as an unsuccessful attempt to help Republican candidate Rick Santorum in his race against Democratic challenger Bob Casey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
And mommie, Elsa Broekhuizen, is, along with this horrid human http://www.alternet.org/blogs/democracy/106102/the_man_behind_proposition_8/?comments=view&cID=1050665&pID=1050352 one of the big funders behind the California’s Prop 8.
