The leader of the Blackwater mercenary company’s operations in Iraq threatened to murder a State Department investigator in 2007, the New York Times reports. The incident occurred during a meeting between Jean Richter, a State Department security official, and Daniel Carroll, Blackwater’s “project manager” in Iraq. Blackwater had been hired by the U.S. government to provide security for diplomats, and Richter was looking into various allegations of unauthorized and inappropriate behavior by the company’s employees. Richter and Carroll’s meeting to discuss the investigation quickly went south after a heated exchange about conditions in a company cafeteria (?):
Mr. Carroll said “that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” Mr. Richter wrote in a memo to senior State Department officials in Washington. He noted that Mr. Carroll had formerly served with Navy SEAL Team 6, an elite unit.
“Mr. Carroll’s statement was made in a low, even tone of voice, his head was slightly lowered; his eyes were fixed on mine,” Mr. Richter stated in his memo.
Another State Department employee who was present corroborated the account, the Times says. A few weeks later, Blackwater employees killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square; four former guards are currently facing trial in Washington D.C. for the incident, which prosecutors say was an unprovoked attack on innocent civilians.
Blackwater was subsequently sold and renamed, and later merged into a new company called Constellis Holdings. By the Times’ account, no action was ever taken against Carroll.
