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The article you link to seems to be taken from the washington post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...702751_pf.html
Slightly different emphasis hmm.
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U.S. officials were "overwhelmingly convinced" that the Blackwater guards acted appropriately, based on information they had provided, according to the diplomatic security official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because a joint U.S.-Iraqi commission is investigating private security matters, including previous Blackwater shootings. Shortly after the Feb. 7 incident, the official said, the U.S. Embassy briefed an Iraqi government official and invited him to discuss the matter further, but the embassy never heard from him again.
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Change the dates, and this report is pretty much a standard form letter for these guys.
Its always the same "They were cleared, but they shouldn't have been."
It's like a speech my DI gave our cadet class on the first day of Academy: [ QUOTE ]
"This line of work is the only job in the world where everyone who has never stood in your shoes can make better judgements, conduct better investigations, write better reports, and stop threats with less force than you can. However, they'll still call you for assistance, rather than attempt to make judgement calls, conduct investigations, write reports, or neutralize threats. Then when you do it, you'll do it 'wrong' about 90% of the time. Welcome to my world, ladies and gentlemen."
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That's pretty much the mentality the public seems to have here with Blackwater, and with those put in a position to investigate Blackwater.