The Blackwater mercenary who shot dead a bodyguard of Iraq's vice-president and was then whisked out of the country by Blackwater and the State Department was hired weeks later by a Defense Department contractor and reported for work in Kuwait.
As that news emerged on Saturday, C.I. asked the question how?
The New York Times 'reported' Saturday:
The company apparently did not know that Mr. Moonen had lost his job because of the December episode in Baghdad. Mr. Moonen's lawyer said that his dismissal was for handling a weapon while drunk, not for shooting the guard.
As C.I. pointed out, in Tuesday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearings, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince made a great to do over the fact that he had pulled the man's security clearance. Did Prince? If so, when? If so, how is the Defense Department unaware of a pulled security clearance.