Blackwater Charges Prepared

The Justice Department is preparing indictments for the Blackwater security contractors who, in 2007, killed 17 civilians in Iraq. They have a difficult case ahead of them. Prosecutors are thinking of bringing charges under an anti-drug law that requires a mandatory 30-year sentence for any violence committed with a machine gun. The prosecutors will argue that the law can be applied to non-drug-related crimes. They also have to prove that the contractors can be charged in the US for crimes committed overseas by arguing that military law applied to them in Iraq. Problem is, the contractors worked for the State Department, not the military. The government recently lost a similar case against a contractor who killed four Iraqi detainees.