1115.org

It shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point, but all they got is lies:

A State Department official asked why the military is shifting the question to State “since the DOD has more Blackwater contractors than we do, including people doing PSD [personal security detail] for them. . . . They’ve [Blackwater] basically got contracts with DOD that are larger than the contracts with State.”

According to federal spending data compiled by the independent Web site FedSpending.org, however, the State Department’s Blackwater contracts vastly exceed those of the Pentagon. Since 2004, State has paid Blackwater $833,673,316, compared with Defense Department contracts of $101,219,261.

That’s pretty pathetic, actually — going on the record to tell lies that are so easily proved to be such big whoppers. You’d expect better from Condi Rice’s department, wouldn’t you?

The interesting thing you would have gleaned between the lines, though, is that there is now open warfare between DoD and State over Blackwater USA:

A confrontation between the U.S. military and the State Department is unfolding over the involvement of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square Sept. 16, bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions between the military and private security companies in Iraq, according to U.S. military and government officials.

In high-level meetings over the past several days, U.S. military officials have pressed State Department officials to assert more control over Blackwater, which operates under the department’s authority, said a U.S. government official with knowledge of the discussions. “The military is very sensitive to its relationship that they’ve built with the Iraqis being altered or even severely degraded by actions such as this event,” the official said.

“This is a nightmare,” said a senior U.S. military official. “We had guys who saw the aftermath and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib…

Yes, it’s not just the Iraqis who dispute and contemptuously dismiss the version of events put out by Blackwater USA with the active connivance of the State Department:

In interviews involving a dozen U.S. military and government officials, many expressed anger and concern over the shootings in Nisoor Square, in Baghdad’s Mansour neighborhood.
[…]
Referring to the Sept. 16 shootings, (an Army lieutenant colonel serving in Iraq) added: “None of us believe they were engaged, but we are all carrying their black eyes.”