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September 5, 2008 12:21:50 PM CDT

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Blackwater's Legal, PR Counterstrike

Posted Nov 1, 07 2:08 PM CDT in Business,  US 

(Newser) – As Blackwater reels from the threat of criminal prosecution in Iraq, civil suits in the US, and bad press everywhere, the New York Times looks at the private security firm's counterstrike. Blackwater has hired a clutch of Washington lawyers and damage-control experts, including a former Clinton White House counsel, to spin the perception of the company, and has tried to gag grieving families.

Blackwater's message is that it has done only what the State Department asked, and that it hasn't lost a single official under its protection, while 30 contractors have been killed. The firm is even seeking a gag order against the families of its most famous casualties, the four Blackwater employees strung up in Fallujah. Their reasoning? The private soldiers signed contracts that forbade them from talking about Blackwater—and that prohibition should extend beyond the grave.

Source New York Times

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Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as charred and mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in this March 31, 2004 file photo.   (Associated Press)
Plainclothes contractors working for Blackwater USA take part in a firefight as Iraqi demonstrators loyal to Muqtada Al Sadr attempt to advance on a facility being defended by U.S. and Spanish soldiers,...   (Associated Press)
A private military contractor gestures to colleagues flying ovehead in a helicopter as they secure the scene of a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad, Iraq in this Tuesday, July 5, 2005 file photo. Blackwater...   (Associated Press)
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