1115.org

Two Americans, Shane Schmidt and Chuck Shepard, both ex-soldiers who worked for a private security contractor in Iraq, blew the whistle on a former supervisor who apparently decided to go on a murderous rampage just as he was finishing up his “tour of duty” and returning home.

The two were working together on July 8, 2006, when they claim they witnessed what they believe was a crime. They say another American fired, unprovoked, into two Iraqi civilian vehicles. They say it started during a mission to Baghdad International Airport, when their supervisor, who was leaving Iraq the next day and was in the vehicle with them, made a troubling remark.

“He’d made a comment that he was going to kill somebody today,” says Schmidt. “Kill someone.” The two men say they thought he was joking.

They claim the man first fired seven or eight rounds into a white truck positioned about 100 yards behind them.

“He cracked his door,” alleges Schmidt, “put a foot out, and fired seven or eight rounds into a parked, white moving truck that was to our rear.”

Later on that day, on the next leg of the mission, according to Shepard, the shift leader then said: “I’ve never shot anybody with my pistol before.”

Shepard says the shift leader “immediately turns, opens the door, and fires seven to eight rounds into a taxi cab that we’re overtaking, that we’re passing.”

The men claim the taxi rolled off the road, but that they are not sure if anyone was killed.

“I know that he shot at innocent civilians,” says Shepard. “I know that we’re trained very well on our marksmanship.”

We’ve all heard this song before. It always ends the same way. Whistleblower blows whistle. Whistleblower gets fired. Whistleblower claims he was fired for whistling. Whistleblower’s employers claim he was fired for (fill-in-the-blank) instead:

But Shepard and Schmidt acknowledge they waited almost two days, by which time their supervisor left Iraq, to report the incidents to their company, Triple Canopy.

The men were fired, along with their supervisor, who has denied wrongdoing, according to the company.

Shepard and Schmidt are now suing Triple Canopy. Their lawsuit alleges they were fired “in retaliation for their reporting criminal activity which they had witnessed.”

“I believe we were fired,” says Shepard, “because they wanted this whole incident to go away.”

Triple Canopy does not deny that shootings occurred, though it says the facts are in dispute, including what provoked the shooting. … The company insists the two men were fired for a “failure to immediately report” the shootings, not for retaliation.

“They did not follow our policies,” says CEO Lee Van Arsdale. “We require immediate notification if there is any weapons incident.”

Triple Canopy says all its employees must report shootings immediately, and says that Shepard and Schmidt reported the incident more than 48 hours after it happened…

There’s nothing like holding others to different standards from those you hold yourself to. Shepard and Schmidt, poor sods, were fired for reporting the incident 48 hours after it occurred. So when did Triple Canopy report the incident to the “local authorities”?

Triple Canopy says it filed a report with Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), the prime contractor for whom it was working. It reported the incident to the U.S. military three days after it was told of the shootings. KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, said it would not comment on the issue because of the ongoing litigation.

That’s not even the best part of the story.

A U.S. military spokesman in Iraq tells NBC News that, as of now, officials can’t find a copy of the company’s report and have no details about the shootings.

You might expect that a report of an American civilian using Iraqis for target practice would make an impression on whoever in the American military these reports are submitted to.

So if no one in the military knows anything about the incident, could it possibly be because Triple Canopy never actually got around to reporting it to anyone other than KBR?

MSNBC adds this post-script to their story:

And its not just this incident. Despite similar allegations involving other companies, not a single security contractor in Iraq has yet faced charges for attacking civilians.

Imagine that! Goodness gracious us!