All Haythem and the family know about the final moments of their loved ones is what two Iraqi police officers who witnessed the shootings have told them -- that Ahmed was shot as he was driving his car in Nusoor Square and his mother clutched him tight as he was bleeding.
"Those who witnessed the incident say that my son's head was scattered and my wife held him and hugged him," Haythem said. "She was screaming, 'My son, my son! Help me! Help me!'"
The car slowly rolled forward until Blackwater guards unleashed more shots that turned the vehicle into a fireball, according to the witnesses.
"They understood the call for help. They sprayed her with bullets," he said.
It's that much more frustrating for those of us who follow Iraq closely because so many of these aspects of private security contractors have been known for years. The reputation of military contractors within the military and intelligence communities is *terrible* and there were plenty of awful stories floating around when I was in Iraq. I mean, there was a damn documentary made about contractor abuses over a year ago. From financial issues to indiscriminate killings, the mercenary situation is out of control. One can only imagine that this incident is the tip of the iceberg, rather than an outlying exception.
