Some stories in the media this week

US Businessman: Blackwater Paid Me to Buy Steroids and Weapons on Black Market

The Nation reports (September 23^rd): A Texas businessman who has worked extensively in Iraq claims that Blackwater paid him to purchase steroids and other drugs for its operatives in Baghdad, as well as more than 100 AK47s and massive amounts of ammunition on Baghdad's black market. Howard Lowry, who worked in Iraq from 2003-2009, also claims that he personally attended Blackwater parties where company personnel had large amounts of cocaine and blocks of hashish and would run around naked. At some of these parties, Lowry alleges, Blackwater operatives would randomly fire automatic weapons from their balconies into buildings full of Iraqi civilians. Lowry described the events as a "frat party gone wild" where "drug use was rampant."

Lowry made his statements in a deposition on September 10 as part of a whistleblower lawsuit brought by two former Blackwater employees. The suit was filed in 2008 by former employees Brad and Melan Davis. They allege that Blackwater tried to bill the US government for a prostitute for its men in Afghanistan and for strippers in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/154977/us-businessman-blackwater-paid-me-buy-steroids-and-weapons-black-market-its-shooters

Abuse and torture rife in Iraqi prisons

The Guardian reports (September 23^rd): Up to 30,000 prisoners, including many veterans of the US detention system, remain detained without rights in Iraq and are frequently tortured, or abused, according to a report by Amnesty International.

The study has found that the human rights situation remains dire in Iraq, with arbitrary arrests and secret detention common, as well as a lack of accountability throughout the security forces.

The abuses are systemic, the report claims, with alleged victims having little redress or access to trial — in many cases for longer than two years.

The allegations were released on Monday in a report titled New Order, Same Abuses; Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/23/iraq-prisons-and-probation

Iraqi journalists face daily threat

The National reports (September 25^th): After the Iraqi journalist Riyad Assariyeh was assassinated this month, his family advised other reporters to stay away from the traditional three-day funeral wake, fearing the gathering would present an easy target for militants.

It is a sign of just how vulnerable Iraqi journalists now feel that many of them took the advice, paying respect to their fallen colleague on the first day of mourning and not returning.

Assariyeh’s murder in Baghdad on September 7, and the killing one day later in Mosul of another reporter are part of an increasingly dangerous battle for control over information, that has seen insurgents and government institutions working to suppress the media, journalists and analysts say.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100926/FOREIGN/100929728/1002