One of the horrible legacies of the criminal Bush regime is its privatizing of the Iraq invasion and occuption with mecernary war profiteers.

 

These corporate mercenary armies, who have been indiscrimately killing innocent Iraqis, earning the scorn of the regular US military, and stealing American taxpayers monies courtesy of their Bushite bosses and protectors, are a stain on America's recent history, just like the other corporate contractors who have defrauded this nation with the help of this corrupt Bush administration to profit from a five year plus Iraq occupation based on lies.

 

Warren Strobel reports at McClatchy: "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.

"The amount of the planned fine couldn't be learned, but one State Department official said it was "way in the millions." The official said the fine could be announced as early as this week. A second official, however, cautioned that it's not imminent.

"Jay Greer, a spokesman for the State Department Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, which implements defense export controls, declined comment.

"Iraq has a brisk black market for weapons. Pentagon probes have found that Defense Department-supplied weapons intended for Iraq's security forces were diverted. The Turkish government has complained that some ended up in the hands of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which Washington and Ankara consider a terrorist group.

"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.

"A federal grand jury is weighing whether to indict the Blackwater guards who were involved in the killings."