Today’s WaPo has a followup on the ongoing Blackwater flustercuck that the State Department has created. Karen DeYoung gets into her waders and tries to deal with a basket of snakes.

The State Department said yesterday that it had provided "limited protections" to Blackwater Worldwide security guards under investigation in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians but insisted that its actions would not preclude successful prosecution of the contractors.

Signed statements the guards provided to State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 16 shooting deaths included what law enforcement officials said was a standard disclaimer used in "official administrative inquiries" involving government employees. It said that the statements were being offered with the understanding that nothing in them could be used "in a criminal proceeding."

These “protections” were first described as “immunity.” Knowledeable observers of the Bu$h malAdministration know by now that when they’re caught in one of their almost countless screw ups, the first reaction is either denial, or the first desperate lie that comes to mind. That explains the immunity story. That fable got flushed down the crapper fairly quickly and then State fell back on the story that it was a “partial immunity,” and thus the contractors are, unfortunately not indictable. After all, State did have to get to the truth, didn’t it?

As has now been acknowledged by a State Department spokesman, the Department has absolutely no authority to immunize anyone from any legal proceedings.

The decision to offer Blackwater guards protection from any use of their statements was made by State Department personnel in Baghdad without approval from Washington, sources said. Department lawyers subsequently determined that decades-old federal court rulings required such guarantees against self-incrimination for all government employees during internal investigations; the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that the protections also applied to federal contractors.

As some might guess, if there is to be criminal action on the Nissoor Square slaughter, among other atrocities, it won’t be happening in Iraq, and if the political decision is made to try the BW guards in order to stop the Democratic push, these “partial immunities” will crop up again in the courtroom and despite their patent non-applicability, they will be sagely argued for days.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that State has no power to immunize anyone from federal criminal prosecution. "We would not have asked the FBI and the Department of Justice to get involved in a case that we did not think that they could potentially prosecute."

I believe the company owned by Erik Prince, a deep pockets Republican campaign donor and rock hard Fundamentalist will be prosecuted.

Don’t you?