But leave aside the State Department’s own questionable judgment for a moment. Now we have some inkling of why the Iraqis allowed the firm to stay:

Four former Blackwater executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson, who was then the company’s president, had approved the bribes, and the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where Blackwater maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of the potential recipients.

Watch this become a major accusation in the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections. Jeremy Scahill, the company’s chief journalistic pursuer, comments:

While the Bush administration certainly protected Blackwater after Nisour Square, part of the reason for the alleged or attempted bribes may be this: As the US and Iraq negotiated the Status of Forces Agreement and the Iraqi government attempted to impose more authority over private military companies, the stakes got higher for Blackwater. An official license to operate in Iraq, which Blackwater did not have and long believed was an unnecessary formality, became crucial for Blackwater in order to continue on as the State Department’s prime contractor. To many Iraqis, Blackwater’s continued presence was a stark symbol of the country’s lack of sovereignty. It is an incredible fact that Blackwater has remained as long as it has in the country given the severity and extent of its alleged crimes and the rhetoric from Iraqi political figures about the company. It was not until March 2009 that the Iraqi government announced it would not extend Blackwater an operating license. In May 2009, Blackwater’s prime contract was awarded to competitor Triple Canopy. What is undeniable is that Blackwater has remained in Iraq much longer than most analysts predicted. The Times story may provide hints as to why this was the case.

I also love this section of the Times piece:

Reached by phone, Mr. Jackson, who resigned as president of Blackwater early this year, criticized The New York Times and said, “I don’t care what you write.”

Blackwater: so persecuted by the media! Don’t it turn your brown eyes blue?

Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.

Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Of course, bribing foreign officials is against U.S. law. Blackwater (which changed its name to Xe earlier this year) has repeatedly found itself at the center of controversies, in addition to the massacre at Nisour Square. The most recent came to light in August, when The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill reported that two former employees alleged in sworn statements that Blackwater owner Erik Prince “may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.”

Five Blackwater employees are awaiting trial, scheduled to begin next year in federal court, for manslaughter related to the Nisour Square shooting. In 2007, the Iraqi government revoked the contractor’s license to operate in the country. According to The Times, a company spokeswoman dismissed the payoff allegations as “baseless.”

Former Democratic Congressman William Jefferson was found guilty of 11 of 16 corruption charges today by a federal jury. [...]

Jefferson was charged with soliciting bribes and other crimes for a series of schemes in which he helped American businesses broker deals in West African in exchange for payments or financial considerations to companies controlled by members of his family, including his brother Mose, his wife, Andrea, their five daughters and a son-in-law.

Jefferson, who represented the New Orleans-based 2nd Congressional District for nine terms, will now face sentencing by Judge T.S. Ellis III, who earlier meted out stiff sentences for lesser figures in the case. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Jefferson faced 235 years in prison if convicted on all counts, and will still face substantial prison time.

The verdict comes four years after the Aug. 3, 2005 raids of Jefferson’s homes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., in which the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in the freezer of his D.C. home, money the government said Jefferson was going to deliver as a bribe to Atiku Abubakar, then vice president of Nigeria, to gain his help with a telecommunications deal in Nigeria being pursued by Lori Mody, a Northern Virginia businesswoman.

City Councilwoman Monica Conyers has been identified in an FBI bribery probe as “Council Member A,” the city official investigators say received more than $6,000 in cash bribes in exchange for a deciding vote that approved a $1.2 billion sewage disposal contract with the waste management company Synagro Technologies.

According to a report from The Associated Press early Wednesday morning, Conyers is now the target of the FBI probe that lead two Synagro representatives to plead guilty this year. James Rosendall, the former Synagro Technologies vice president in Michigan and consultant Rayford Jackson have both pleaded guilty to counts of bribing the city official, now identified as Conyers.

In 2007, Monica Conyers, who is married to Congressman John Conyers Jr., was the deciding vote in the $1.2 billion contract with Synagro. She had been opposed to the contract early on but changed her vote to approve the deal.

The councilwoman has been offered a plea deal which she has yet to accept to avoid federal prosecution.

The FBI has offered Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers a plea deal involving her apparent connection to the Synagro Technologies sludge scandal according to published reports Tuesday afternoon. Conyers, who is married to U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., is suspected of being “Council member A,” a figure investigators say accepted money for a vote to approve the $1.2 billion sewage disposal contract between Synagro and the city.

In 2007, the city council voted 5-4 to approve the contract with Texas-based Synagro. Conyers, who was initially opposed to the contract, changed her vote last minute and was the deciding vote in approving the contract. Earlier this year, Synagro’s Michigan vice president, James R. Rosendall Jr., pleaded guilty to counts of bribery connected with the contract. On Monday, Synagro consultant Rayford Jackson pleaded guilty of giving a Detroit city council member money in exchange for a favorable vote.

Conyers has insisted that she is not involved in the scandal but did not immediately refuse a plea deal Tuesday afternoon. Her lawyer has declined to comment on the plea bargain.

Forty-six months after federal agents found $90,000 of aluminum-wrapped cash in his freezer, and thirty-seven months after FBI agents raided his office on Capitol Hill, former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) begins trial today in Virginia on charges that he sought cash in exchange for promoting U.S. business deals in Africa.

There’s plenty of intrigue here, as even the most casual observers of this saga have been curious how Jefferson intends to explain the choice of safety-deposit box that earned him the nickname “Cold Cash.” Meanwhile, The Hill yesterday briefly summarized the line of defense his lawyers plan to peddle:

The attorneys argue that the $100,000 Jefferson allegedly received in exchange for promoting donors’ business interests in the U.S. and Africa, including $90,000 found in his freezer, was not illegal because his dealings were related to private business and were not “official” in nature.

Good luck with that.