2 Iraqi Women Killed in Shooting by Security Convoy
BAGHDAD - Two women died here on Tuesday when their white Oldsmobile was riddled by automatic gunfire from guards for a private security company, just weeks after a shooting by another company strained relations between the United States and Iraq.
The guards involved in the Tuesday shooting were working for an Australian-run security company. But the people they were assigned to protect work under the same United States government agency whose security guards sprayed bullets across a crowded Baghdad square on Sept. 16, an episode that caused an uproar among Iraqi officials and is still being investigated by the United States.
In the Tuesday shooting, as many as 40 bullets struck the car, killing the driver and the woman in the front seat on the passenger side. A woman and a boy in the back seat survived, according to witnesses and local police officials in the Karada neighborhood, where the shooting took place on a boulevard lined with appliance stores, tea shops and money changers.
American government officials said the guards had been hired to protect financial and policy experts working for an organization under contract with the United States Agency for International Development, a quasi-independent State Department agency that does extensive aid work in Iraq.
The organization, RTI International, is in Iraq to carry out what is ultimately a State Department effort to improve local government and democratic institutions. But a Bush administration official said the State Department bore no responsibility for overseeing RTI’s security operations.
“A.I.D. does not direct the security arrangements of its contractors,” the official said. “These groups are contractually responsible for the safety and security of their employees. That responsibility falls entirely on the contractor.”
A priest and relatives near the scene said that all of the people in the car were Armenian Christians, who make up a small minority group in Iraq. The Oldsmobile was shot once in the radiator, witnesses said, in front of a plumbing supply store as it approached a convoy of white sport utility vehicles 50 yards away.
As the car kept rolling, a barrage of gunfire suddenly tore through its hood, roof and windshield, as well as the passenger side.
The guards who were in the convoy work for Unity Resources Group, an Australian-run company that has its headquarters in Dubai and is registered in Singapore, according to a statement by the company. Unity Resources was hired by RTI to provide security in Iraq.
In its statement, Unity Resources said that according to its initial information, the car had approached the convoy “at speed” and failed to stop in response to hand signals and a warning flare.
“Finally shots were fired at the vehicle and it stopped,” the company said.
The episode’s connection with the United States Agency for International Development is one of several parallels to the Sept. 16 shootings, in which the Iraqi government says 17 Iraqis died and 27 were wounded.
The Sept. 16 episode began when a convoy operated by Blackwater USA, an American private security company hired to protect the aid agency’s officials, entered Nisour Square in central Baghdad and fired several bullets toward a car the guards apparently considered a threat.
In the Tuesday shooting, like the one on Sept. 16, the car drifted forward after the initial burst, prompting guards to unleash a barrage of gunfire. And there were no government officials or policy experts in either of the convoys: the Nisour Square convoy was controlling traffic as part of a larger operation, and the convoy in Karada was on a routine movement that involved only security guards, according to American officials.
Although the United States Embassy in Baghdad has said almost nothing about the Nisour Square episode while an American investigation grinds on, the Iraqi government has said its own investigation concluded that the shootings were an act of “deliberate murder” and called on the Blackwater guards to be prosecuted.
Ali Jafar, a traffic policeman posted near the Karada shooting, said he thought the similarities between the cases were undeniable.
“They are killing the people just like what happened in Nisour Square,” Mr. Jafar said. “They are butchering the Iraqis.”
The new shootings happened at an extremely difficult time for the State Department, which relies heavily on Blackwater to protect its diplomats whenever they work outside the fortified Green Zone. As a result of new restrictions placed on Blackwater after the Nisour Square shootings, the State Department’s numerous programs for rebuilding Iraqi government and technical institutions have been seriously hampered.
Embassy officials have vowed to continue their operations even as they increase oversight of Blackwater operations. But Tuesday’s episode appears to show that the new oversight comes with many loopholes: Unity Resources is not working directly for the State Department, but for RTI International, which has been contracted by the aid agency to provide experts on local governing.
In fact, an American Embassy spokesman said, the State Department has no say in the operations of security companies employed by government contractors. “Their contract might be with A.I.D., but that doesn’t shed any light on their choice of security contractor,” he said.
A spokesman for Unity Resources, Martin Simich, said Tuesday that he was unsure whether the guards involved in the shooting had been interviewed by American authorities.
On Tuesday, the convoy of white S.U.V.’s was stopped in the eastbound lane of Karada Street at an intersection with an alley lined with low concrete homes, witnesses said. A man who works at the plumbing shop, who gave his name only as Muhammad, said the Oldsmobile was approaching the convoy from behind.
He said he heard no warnings. “They shot from the back door,” he said. “The door opened and they fired.”
Two witnesses said they heard a single shot first, which apparently punctured the Oldsmobile’s radiator, spilling coolant onto the street about 50 yards from where the convoy was parked. As the car continued rolling, the guards opened up with a barrage of sustained automatic fire. The car finally came to a stop about 10 yards from the convoy at a point that, three hours later, was marked by blood stains, broken glass and tufts of brown hair.
The plumbing shop employee said the convoy moved out right away, without checking to see what damage had been done or to offer medical help.
The Oldsmobile was towed to a nearby police station.
The priest and relatives near the scene identified the driver as Maruni Uhanees, 59, and the dead passenger as Jeniva Jalal, 30.
As twilight set in, family members gathered beside the car in a dirt alley outside the police station, staring at the blood and hair on the inside of the windshield.
A brother-in-law of the driver, Hrair Vartanian, said Ms. Uhanees was the mother of three grown daughters. As he spoke, one daughter arrived and looked at the blood stains, crying softly.
Reporting was contributed by Richard A. Oppel Jr., Qais Mizher and Ahmad Fadam from Baghdad, John M. Broder from Washington, and Graham Bowley from New York.
© 2007 The New York Times
Land of the Unfree, Home of the Police state. We could imagine, considering the amount of money we’ve put into our own Homelund security, that less important people in the 3rd world would simply be shot dead in the name of safety. One need only visit any Federal Building these days to see a bizarre bunker like mentality, with agitated contractor guards ready to seriously undermine any notion of convenience to visitors. We’re all guilty, that’s why billions in concrete, steel, networked sensors, databases, survelliance, spy and firearms are bought and paid for with our money. Metaphorically speaking, iron bars and gates really are preventing you from getting in to a better quality of life, they are being built to keep you out in more ways then you can imagine.
It’s a matter of time before we see some ugly incident in the US - get to close to something sensitive and you could be shot.
hmm… let’s see…
an Australian-run company headquartered in Dubai registered in Singapore protecting international company officials working for the US State Department…
how do you spell Accountability?
‘how do you spell Accountability?’
no such word in the American dictionary (Government edition).
i was reading about their funerals,this morning..i felt sick to my stomach..I went and threw-up.this bushdebaucle has always looked more like a killingspree of women and children,and other civilians,than a battle against’terrorists’.i know how americans would respond under and in the event of an unwarranted and unsolicited siege.i am not an advocate of revenge..revenge is a ancient israeli idea adopted by islam,so vehemently it could now be called their own invention.the american people elected pelosi,thinking she would be the one ‘hero’ that would at least really try to impeach..since she immediately shelved the wishes of the american people,she is responsible for every life-lost,that might have been spared had she picked up the gauntlet for the will of the people and the reason for her promotion..she should at the very least,resign her appointment.i do not believe in killing but sometimes things must be done for the sake of the greater good(in this case all of humanity)bush,cheney,rice should be tried for their crimes(impeachment is now off the table for them)and they should be hung or whatever the courts decide..but definitely not pardoned,since it is for the benefit of the greater good and since they had their chance to impeach.as much as i may personally hate them,i do not relish retribution or being forced to stoop to their level,IN FACT,i resent it ! the mercenaries are the bastard children of bush and his further contribution to populating the world with’legitimate’terrorists..they need to be put on a very short leash and have all their’toys’confiscated.i sincerely hope iraq is able to expell the terroristS-US…..
The future Republic America!
As i write, a Cessna 210 (with a 2 foot hole in its belly) has been circleng overhead for more than two hours, at perhaps 3500 ft.
The Beach KingAir made a photopass yesterday at ~2:pm, it flys it’s distinct overlapping squares at ~1000ft, almost twice a week for the last 15 years. This is restricted airspace, in the LAX pattern. NO personal flying.
Two hired costumed enforcers just drove away from my curb, harassing a local about her car for 40 minutes, using gun threats and confiscating money to inforce car tax laws that pay for more car tax laws to run the Corporation (incorporated April 4 1849) that owns the houses we vermine live in, demanding “permits” to paint the outside walls, restricting our color choices, restricting external and internal use of “Property” in such a way as to limit life to a distant “Job” (see Job in white man’s “Bible”). Automatic Video license-plate dragnets intimidate every person into begging for “privliges”.
Corporate paid mercenary’s live in distant towns we never see and enforce their “quality of life laws” that are described behind closed doors. “Public Input” in this “Governance” is restricted to 1 minute per person per week, at the point of a gun.
Last month 5 “Office-ers”, 15 copcars, stood in this drivway, guns pointing, forcing two children to lay face down on 140f asphalt in the #two lane, FINDING NOTHING IN 70 minutes of junk car theator. Third time in two years.
Want to have an angry scared rentacop from a distant land hold her gun 30 inches from your face screeming at you because it’s your driveway? Come to LA.
The Cessna still circles.
Happy post-Columbian america.
If these “diplomats, financial and policy experts” cannot leave the Green Zone without hired killers to protect them, they obviously should not be there! This is so shamefully despicable that I don’t blame them if they hate us for the rest of time.
Hand signals? Like what, an upraised finger?
LAquaker,
Inspired writing. Gonzo Journalism or fact? These events, minus the colorful names given the enforcement goons, really happened or are you writing some high impact possible future? Because if that shit is going down in LA already things are further along in the Grand Social Experiment than a paranoid mind like mine could have imagined. I mean the unspoken truth is that the US government and the rich white people who run it have always terrorized “people of color” starting the w/ the Native Americans, then the Blacks, running up through the SE Asians and now the Arabs, etc. of the greater Middle East. What part of LA and WTF is anyone doing to get this out in front of people? Sincerely interested.
Have you all read 1984 - George Orwell? Better do it and then we’ll talk about handcuffs!
God have mercy on that family.
No mercenaries should be in Iraq at all. The occupation would end immediately if Congress passed a bill cancelling all their contracts. They result in this kind of death and destruction, make it appear that the US is accomplishing everything with its official armed forces, and have more than doubled the defense budget. As individuals, mercenaries receive salaries far in excess of US troops, all paid for by American taxpayers.
No contractors, no presence in Iraq. Not enough military to do the job…
We are sponsoring the use of hired guns for the protection of State Department functionaries at all costs… all costs. The blood pouring down the side of that white car says it all.
god help us.
I have eighty pages of noted dates, times, flight direction and tail numbers on overflights i’ve watched in San Bernardino, Topanga, South Central et.al.
I attend County meetings, have served elected office, sit in Courts more hours than lawyers. I found and attended the “Public hearings” (12 other citizens found their way) that “de-regulated” electricity in California, allowing SDGE, PGE, SCE, and Enron to steal $40 billion+ from the citys.
A serve on the Boards of Justice non-profits.
My father has patents on airborne photography, illegally BUILT ON OUR BACK PORCH. I designed and built special film cameras for Lucasfilm, illegally BUILT IN THE GARAGE.
I’ve been locked in the back of copcars dozens of times.
My writing is thick with back stories, but is
accurate with the unfolding events it describes.
“Richwhitepeople” is one word in this town.
Mostly i eat by dumpserdiving. I’m white as the King of England.
” Oceania is not at war with East or Eurasia. Oceania is at war with you ” –Orwell
LAq,
What do you hypothesize is/are the purpose(s) of these overflights? And what the hell is going on in the City of Angels? Are the cops that freaking out of control?
I am in Seattle and saw firsthand the treachery of the Police State during the WTO riots (I was gassed and chased and watched w/ horror as people were shot point blank w/ “rubber” bullets–which are actually hard plastic and do serious damage @ close range–and beaten w/ specially made riot sticks). The cops and the National Guard were the cause of most of the chaos, not the small contingent of “anarchists”, whom I followed on my mountain bike and am almost convinced were planted agitators not legitimate protesters.
I don’t know what to say other than your story is intriguing and my heart goes out to you and your “brothers and sisters” of LA. The richwhitepeople seem to be succeeding in pushing their agenda down our throats and I am also as white as the King of England.
I would like to continue this discussion off the CommonDreams forum. My e-mail is nvolkov@hotmail.com. Please send me an e-mail detailing some of what you have experienced and written. I have a nascent idea for a book regarding the State of the Union vis a vis the impending implosion of (in)humanity as we know it and find your story appallingly fascinating. Take care and please e-mail me when you get a chance.
Dumpster diving for food? What is up w/ this f%$#ed up world when a person of obvious intelligence and substance is forced to survive in such a manner?
felix,i dont believe laquaker,if it is true..be sure to let us know…
It is a not a question if the first dissenters start to disappear but when.
If the enabling party does not start impeachment proceedings soon and become the opposition party, events such as this will become as common as the daily death toll from IEDs.
NPR did a piece today on contractors in Iraq - mostly, service people: food service, laundry, and other support, including guards. How most of them were making much more money than they would at home. Made it sound like a worker’s paradise.
How can we not begrudge them a living at the expense of a war?
Shame, NPR!
The abuse at Abu Ghraib, by Blackwater, etc, the handing out of millions in cash to anybody with a wheelbarrow, disapearing arms and munition are not a mistake.
This is all designed to keep this war going and spread it further.
What was it that Fat Mike and El Hefe(NOFX) said ? oh yeah! KILL ALL THE WHITE MAN
Have a lovily day American Errorists.
Thanks LAquaker for saying it all. we can bitch about the Bush administration but thats just one facet of the current face of colonialism. The historical reality is that none of this stuff is new. The United States is occupied territory. There is an old sickness, maybe it started in Europe and spread, because my people (i am Eurochristian American) were brutalizing and being brutalized by our own people long before any of us came here and did the same and worse. But if you see this as a new thing, or something that’s just about George Bush, you’ll miss the point that this is a very old problem. We have today, as generations before us have had, a chance to shift these patterns, to create something that is new and to spare the lives of families - maybe our own families - that will be broken or killed if we do not succeed. I think we have to start here, by de-colonizing this land, then U.S. colonialism abroad will be impossible.
I have to say i keep looking at that boy in the photo, thinking about my son, and the violation it is that any child should have to experience this. Shame on all of us who have even a shred of political voice or power that this is still happening. Can we please have the collective vision and courage to fundamentally change things so that no child has to have this kind of thing burned into their dreams?
jcollins-excellent observations. Freeing the mind of colonization myths is very important.
After the first million dead you kind of lose count. There is no accident involved in this situation. The mercenaries and brilliant leadership they ‘protect’ can have no other possible result.
RTI’s website says its goal is “The overall aim of the project is to assist Iraqi efforts to establish local government that is transparent, accountable and responsive to constituents.” I guess responsive to constituents means murdering them if they somehow get in the way.
When will the hypocrisy of all this begin to sink in. I guess america’s idea of a democracy is actually a police state where the enforcers can do as they please. It is sick, sick, sick.
these gun happy SWINE, are looking for any reason to get their rocks off. they were probably giggleing like little school girls after it was over. put any one of them, one on one with a real man, they would fold like a cheap suit. fxxking cowards!
A note to the NYT on contemporary usage: When you spread democracy through armed mercenaries, you refer to the victims as “liberated” rather than “dead”.
Death…the amerikan way of life….business as usual in Freeiraq!
One more nail in the Bush Cheney blood for oil scam.
In my 65 years of life I never thought I would hear myself say this I am ashamed of being an American! In 7 short years Bush has succeeded in bringing down a democracy that has stood tall for 250 years. I don’t think we have lived through such turbulent days as the ones we are experiencing now. Not even when we had a Civil War going on or when we were engaged in 2 world wars. It seems like every new day brings with it some new horror that lunatic is inflicting upon innocent people in the name of this country. I never thought I would live to see the day when such behavior was tolerated in the US. When so many people no longer believed in our long standing traditions of fair play, moral uprightness and were backing a man who has literally no respect for the law. It should be obvious to most by now that what happened in Germany in the 30’s can and is happening in our country today. We are in crisis as a nation. That we will only survive if people start demanding better from our government before it is too late.
The republican party has taken America down a long, dark, and twisted road. What American citizens have accepted-in this country-on behalf of a political party and a president is inconceivable. America is “in name only.” In name only.
I don’t remember the details and my figures may not be correct, but I believe I’m close.
A few years back a passenger plane was brought down allegedly by two Libyan terrorists. The Libyan Government was sued and settled to pay $2 billion to the families of the victims.
Now why the relatives of those people who have died as a result of our illegal war don’t get their butt to Europe to sue the US government? Don’t they realize that they can do that? Aren’t there some humane attorneys who can give them initial consultation as to how they can do it?
Even the German of Arabic ancestry who was kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured & held for
5 months has not been able to lodge a lawsuit against the USA.
Remember the man who was shot on a domestic
flight in Florida I believe, he was having
a manic episode or panic attack and the air guards shot him down like a dog.
There are so many ways of containing a person who is a possible threat, short of murder but the USA’s m.o. is always shoot to kill and ask questions later.
This is the main US characteristic that needs to be brainwashed out of the government. They should never be allowed to take what they are incapable of returning.
There is no war in Iraq. There was an illegal invasion of a country weakened by 12 years of sanctions that quickly moved into a bloody occupation.
Under Geneva Conventions it is the right of each & every citizen under occupation to resist in every possible way including killing their tormenters.
Like the poster Peace Maker above I am stunned at the blatant imperialistic criminal acts here in US and in occupied Iraq.
The scorn of congress for the 3 million members of of Moveon.org that they proved with their resolution to condemn insulting
Petrayus - then they turn to swiftboating a little 12 year old boy who had a car accident & had the nerve to use SCHIP insurance. The hypocracy & ugliness portray a country with no humanity and no scrap of Christianity.
Sorry about the ramble; the murder of the Iraqi women is so commonplace I wonder how it ever made the news?
Have no doubt the wheels of justice may grind exceedly slow, but they grind exceedingly fine.
Karma is one of the supreme laws of nature.
Catch this;
When ANOTHER Republican swine fired air controllers, I had a near miss, (one of many hidden from the sheeple by the corporate toadies), I quit flying. I was taking a bus back to Colo. from AZ a few months ago, I was let on with NO search or security, got off in Las Vegas N.M. for a switch, about 2 A.M. some little “security” contractors, (armed btw), ordered us all into a line and began a search prior to letting us board the bus to Denver. I felt the blood rising, but shut up like a good little drone and when they told me to empty my pockets onto the table, I did. I had an old pocket knife my now dead father gave me years before. They told me no dice, I had to either throw it away or pay $5.00 to mail it ahead to my destination. I flipped….Hear I am, middle of no where. middle of the night and this bought and paid for son-of-a-bitch with his glock 9 is telling me to PAY to mail my pocket knife. There was no prior warning, no, “sorry,..WE’LL pay to mail it cuz you weren’t given an option”. Deaf ears….yeah, right,…blah blah blah old man,…pay up or throw it in here. I was shaking,…I screamed at him “You little nazis,…I throw it in your little “trash” bag and you fish it out after I board!!?? not this time! I snapped the blade off, said “here,..tell YOUR spawn Merry Christmas!” My blood rises still, months later. You can take your wonderful country and BURY it deeply in your anal cavity. Were I a bit younger or wealthier I’d head home to the land of my grandparents. Like the elite said during the New York draft riots in 1863…..Don’t worry about the poor….we’ll hire half to kill the other half. My my…..don’t they have you all pegged?