BREAKING NEWS: New Lawsuit Filed against Blackwater Today

Susan Burke files a lawsuit today on behalf of an Iraqi citizen, Dr. Jawad, against Blackwater for an attack that happened on Sept 16 at Nisoor Square in Bagdad. Dr Jawad's wife and son were killed in the Blackwater attack.

Three witnesses related their stories to Burke and her team. The witnesses' accounts appear on Democracy Now! which aired this morning.

Keith Romenard was chief investigator.

Said the witness: "The cars were in a semi-circle. The man in 3rd car started firing 3-4 shots randomly. The man was big with mustache, strong, white, military haircut. He was facing the convoy when he started shooting. "

The witness thought that the man was shooting above the car level, but when he heard a woman screaming "my son, my son!" he went in that direction, The man who was shot was a medical studunt. The woman was holding tight to her son.

The man who had been shot raised his hand not to shoot.

A man in the fourth car in the convoy line shot the mother, dead, using a machine gun. When he started shooting. the cars in front of the civilian cars spread to the sides, he thinks, because they were scared. There was a big red bus and two mini-busses in the convoy.

One car stopped moving . . the driver had been shot. Heavy shooting ensued.

The witness, an Iraqi traffic policeman, hid behind a booth, and was shot at three times. He ran from the booth, crossing the street, and hid behind a small hill. He saw that the first car was shooting at a another car. People got out of the bus and started running, hiding behind the same hill as the policeman. Ali Kalef Salman (SP?) He advised people to run in a specific direction to get away from the shooting. People were running, crying, and injured.

There was also shooting from a helicopter. They threw smoke bombs, shot at civilians and at cars.

The whole incident lasted 10-20 minutes.

Sixteen bodies resulted from the attack.

Bill O'Neill interviewed another witness, also a victim:

The man is a bank employee who was on his way to buy a gift for a new baby. He was driving toward the intersection when heard the sound of a bullet.He got out of the car to see what was going on. He saw two small blue unmarked helicopters and observed one man sitting in the open doorway with his weapon. Both helicopters began circling, one armed man in each helicopter.

He saw a white car start burning, he could see it in the distance. He called his mother on a cell phone to tell her about the burning white car incident; she urged him to come home.

He told the people behind his car to turn around so that they could escape. An armored car began coming towards them. He felt his arm (sic: his hand) and his left leg get hit. He opened the door, because he felt they wanted to kill him. The armored car hit his car, and continued on.

This attack was completely unprovoked.

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Rep.Danny Davis questioned Erick Prince with regard to Blackwater personnel killing innocent citizens; Prince denied that any of his employees were involved in murder, saying only that an accidental ricochet could have occurred.

When questioned about this attack, Prince's account differed from the witnesses' testimony, especially the fact that helicopters were firing upon the cars. Large holes were left in vehicles that could not have been caused by ground fire.