Blackwater employees investigated for illegal arms shipments

CNN:

Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that employees of Blackwater ... illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq, according to U.S. government sources.

...

A U.S. government official said the U.S. attorney's office in Raleigh, North Carolina, is investigating individual Blackwater employees -- not the company -- for illegal weapons deals.

A company source acknowledged to CNN that two Blackwater employees were fired for buying guns with Blackwater money and selling them without the consent or knowledge of the company. It was not clear where the arms were bought and sold.

According to the source, the company caught the two employees and turned them over to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The two, described as having military and law enforcement backgrounds, were fired in 2005, the company source said.

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The flow of illegal weapons in Iraq has been a major concern in recent months.

The State Department and Pentagon launched their own investigation following complaints from the Turkish government in July that they had seized American-made weapons from the PKK, a Kurdish group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S.

CNN has received no confirmation that the probe of PKK weapons and the investigation of Blackwater employees are connected.

...

CNN's news peg is the recent event in Iraq where Blackwater employees defending a convoy shot some people that are claimed to be civilians. Those kind of claims are always open to question in Iraq because the enemy camouflages himself as civilians and uses civilians as human shields. Because of this the enemy is always putting civilians at risk when it attacks US operations including those by Blackwater. The US media, including CNN very rarely point out these enemy war crimes when they describe this kind of incident.

In this particular case in the Baghdad convoy, there is some evidence that men dressed as Iraqi police fired on the convoy. The enemy often dresses as Iraqi police to conceal his identity when attacking both Iraqis and US operations. There is an investigation of what actually happened. This event suggest the need for the availability of the non lethal burn ray developed by US companies that disburses crowds without causing any permanent injury.

As for the weapons smuggling it appears to have been a rogue operation that occurred a couple of years ago, but was a handy hook for beating up on Blackwater again.