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Blackwater's Prince Digs In For Tough Hearing
Welcome to the Rayburn House Office Building, where Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater, and a clutch of State Department officials are getting grilled by the House oversight committee about proper procedure -- and potential wrongdoing -- for Blackwater and other private security companies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The thin, baby-faced Prince walked in wearing a crisp blue suit, a starched white shirt, and his shoulders square. He gave a quick smile before sitting at the witness table. An associate in a black suit behind him clapped him on the back for support during what's sure to be an uncomfortable hearing.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) started the hearing by paying Prince a backhanded compliment. So many of the scions of the nation's "wealthy and politically connected families" don't join the military, Waxman said, before thanking Prince, who was a Navy SEAL before founding Blackwater, for his service.
Waxman said that at the request of the FBI, which has just announced the opening of an investigation into the September 16 shootings by Blackwater at Baghdad's Nisour Square, the hearing will not take public testimony from Prince or from State Department officials on that incident. However, Waxman said he wanted to assure the families of those Blackwater guards killed in Fallujah in 2004 that "Blackwater will be accountable today."
Comments (6)
drew wrote on October 2, 2007 10:44 AM:I sense a sternly worded letter in Prince's future.
Candyce wrote on October 2, 2007 10:51 AM:There you have it, from Issa: It's MoveOn.org's fault.
MN USA wrote on October 2, 2007 11:16 AM:The Republicans could just as well stay home for all the oversight they're providing. Time to clean a few out of the House.
Bill Talkington Jr wrote on October 2, 2007 11:26 AM:Darryl Issa is the asshole who personally financed the recall of CA Gov. Gray Davis and opened the door for the Governator to ruin California politics for years to come. I'm hoping his loyalty to the Bush crowd will bring him down in '08. He's just as crooked as Cunningham.
Glenn Milstead wrote on October 2, 2007 11:46 AM:Issa is a partisan skidmark of the worst, most filthy sort. That said, Gray Davis was an absolutely incompetent bore--the Pataki of CA--and the voters of California did all of us a great service by kicking his ass to the curb.
Tom wrote on October 2, 2007 2:09 PM:They should have asked him about his so called "professionals" firing at a big red US Fire truck - in the Green Zone Baghdad - For getting "too close". They are widely known in Baghdad as the worst of the worst