Personal Responsibility
Oct 29th, 2007 at 9:57 pm by Susie
They’re so good at getting people to deal with the consequences of their actions, aren’t they?
WASHINGTON - The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.
The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.
“Once you give immunity, you can’t take it away,” said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.
State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that immunity had been granted. One official — who refused to be quoted by name_ said: “If, in fact, such a decision was made, it was done without any input or authorization from any senior State Department official in Washington.”
The Times says the State Department didn’t have the authority:
The State Department investigators from the agency’s investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, they added.
“If, in fact, such a decision was made, it was done without any input or authorization from any senior State Department official in Washington.”
No? Where was she, then?
What a culture of corruption.