How Convienent

The State Department sure has hired a crack investigation team to look into a massive public relations black-eye, namely the shooting of civilians in central Baghdad by its hired Blackwater guards. First, the initial State Department report was sent out clearing Blackwater of all responsibility as it claimed that the convoy was under heavy attack. Then it leaked out that the writer of the initial report was also a Blackwater employee.

Now today the New York Times is reporting that the State Department investigation of Blackwater screwed up royally by granting immunity:

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.

Most of the guards who took part in the Sept. 16 shooting were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, which means that they were promised that they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in their interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true.

It almost seems like there is no interest in holding anyone accountable... but I am sure that this is all just an honest mistake, and when the voice of Dana Carvey as the Church Lady whines in my head "How Convienent" I am seeing deliberate action when sheer incompentence is the simpler explanation....