Iraqi Witness of Blackwater Shooting: "He was big, had a mustache and was white."

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Iraq Victims, Witness Recount Blackwater Shooting

All Things Considered, December 17, 2007 · By now, most Americans are familiar with Blackwater USA's controversial shooting in Baghdad last September. Seventeen Iraqis died in the shooting. The FBI is investigating. A grand jury is deciding whether to bring charges against the Blackwater employees who were there. What follows are the more seldom heard voices — those of the Iraqi people who were there that day or lost loved ones there. Quite by accident, they find themselves in the middle of an international controversy.

Ali Kahlaf Salman

Ali Kahlaf Salman has been the officer in charge of keeping traffic moving at Mansoor Square in Western Baghdad since 2004. That day, he says, he wore the white button-down shirt, blue pants and hat that all of the traffic officers wore, and he carried a gun. Even out of uniform, Salman looks like a cop. He has short brush-cut hair, broad square shoulders, and big square hands.

On Sep. 16, 2007, he knew a security convoy was heading for his traffic circle because the parade of armored vehicles was always announced by the same thing: the thumping blades of helicopters. The security companies always send the choppers ahead to ensure that the roads are clear. Salman had found that the easiest way to deal with the phalanx of trucks was simply to clear a path for them, to stop civilian traffic and let the security cars rumble through. So he had started to do just that when the four Blackwater SUVs entered the square and stopped in a semicircle. As soon as they arrived, the Blackwater employees started throwing water bottles at the cars and pedestrians around them to make sure people kept their distance. Their guns were out. Almost immediately, according to Salman's version of events, a Blackwater guard opened fire.

"The man in the third car started firing his gun, and he fired three or four shots randomly," Salman told American lawyers who provided a videotape of his account to NPR. Through an interpreter, he provided a description of the first shooter: "He was big, had a mustache and was white."

When the shots first rang out, Salman thought the security contractors were firing over the traffic. But when he turned toward the line of civilian cars in front of him, he realized he was mistaken. From a small white sedan in the square, he could hear a woman beginning to wail, "My son, my son ..."

Salman started moving in the direction of the cries. The woman inside the white sedan was rocking a young man in her arms, wailing his name. He was covered in blood. "I tried to help him out of the car," Salman said, "but the mother inside was holding her son too tightly. She wouldn't let go."

Salman started waving at the Blackwater guards, trying to signal that they ought to stop shooting, that the car wasn't a threat, that someone was hurt. "He was telling them, 'Don't shoot, please,' " the interpreter said. "He raised his hand, and trying to tell them a young man was dying, but this time the man in the fourth car shot the mother dead."