Case brings fog of war into S.L. courtroom

On a snowy Monday afternoon, the conundrum that is the Iraqi war found its way this week into a courthouse in Salt Lake City, of all places.

Maybe all the angst, hope, misery, confusion, controversy, contention, profiteering, freedom fighting and questions without answers attendant to what might be described as America's most conflicted conflict didn't collide inside Magistrate Judge Paul Warner's courtroom, but it sure seemed like it.

At issue was whether five young American men, all clean-cut, all steely-eyed and all in their 20s, committed manslaughter on the streets of Baghdad in September 2007, when they worked as security guards for Blackwater Worldwide, a private company contracted by the U.S. State Department to provide protection for higher-ups in Iraq.

The five, including 26-year-old Donald Ball of West Valley City, are alleged to have ended the lives of 14 Iraqi citizens and injured another 20 when they used their assault rifles, machine guns and grenades indiscriminately in a place called Nisoor Square in downtown Baghdad. A sixth Blackwater employee has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, while another 13 Blackwater guards who were on the scene have not been charged.

Lift up the curtain of the case and prickly questions ooze out: Why are private firms doing the job of the U.S. military? When employees of these firms stir up a mess of trouble overseas, who has jurisdiction to sort it out? And just how much ground does the fog of war cover, anyway?

The accused contend that their shootings were justified in a land where insurgents — aka "people who can blow you up" — are disguised as everyday citizens. Those they shot would beg, if they could, to disagree.

The Iraqi government, weary of perceived bullying by American occupiers, aggressively lobbied for their day in court. The U.S. government, tired of being perceived as bullies in Iraq, responded with an FBI investigation that resulted in charges not only of manslaughter but also illegal use of firearms.

Overseeing the first legal round of this by-definition international incident was Judge Warner, a man who once defended men similar to the Blackwater Five when he was a JAG for the U.S. Navy and later, as U.S. Attorney for Utah, made his living as a prosecutor for the federal government.

It would be hard to find anyone who could better see both sides. It would also be hard to find anyone who could better see the hot potato passing through his courtroom.