Raven 23: Presumption of Guilt

In our final episode, Gina visits with Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nick Slatten and Paul Slough three months after President Donald J. Trump issued unconditional pardons to free them from prison. They talk about hearing the news that they were coming home to their families for Christmas, and about their hopes and dreams.

Just two days after Judge Ricardo Urbina threw out the government’s case against Raven 23, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her legal advisors were scheming on ways to revive it.The news of the dismissal reverberated across Iraq, with religious and political leaders demanding that the US Justice Department bring new charges against Dustin Heard, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Nick Slatten. State Department cables from the time show that the Iraqi government was threatening to withdraw from the Status of Forces Agreement and lucrative oil contracts.Obama sent Vice President Joseph Biden to Iraq to assure the Iraqi people publicly that they would have “justice” in the Raven 23 case

We pick up TWO YEARS after the investigation into the Nisour Square Incident and Blackwaters alleged misconduct US District Judge Ricardo Urbina throws out the case against Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Paul Slough and Nick Slatten, blasting prosecutors for pervasive misconduct and vindictive prosecution. The Raven 23 men pick up their lives cautiously after Urbina’s New Year’s Eve 2009 ruling, trying to resurrect their dreams for themselves and their families. Meanwhile, the Bush and succeeding Obama administrations grapple with shifting politics in Iraq, including the country’s first presidential election and negotiation of the status of forces agreement that will determine how long US troops may remain in Iraq.

Just hours after being attacked, the men of Raven 23 discover that the truth of what happened in Nisour Square will immediately come under attack as well. They are about to discover that their own government are willing to prosecute innocent men in a criminal court for political purposes.

Several eyewitnesses directly contradict the US government's two primary charges against "The Nisour Four." First, they prove that these wrongly accused military veterans faced major enemy fire in the battle at Nisour Square. Second, they show that the US government's star witness - Jimmy Watson - was a major catalyst in the debacle. In fact, the incident originated with a rogue decision by Watson to disobey a direct order to stand down. Instead, he commanded his men directly into the eye of the storm. And Watson's disobedience on the battlefield would soon lead to dishonesty about what really happened that day in Nisour Square.

The U.S. government’s mistakes in its occupation of Iraq coalesce in a deadly firefight on Sept. 16, 2007 in Nisour Square, in the heart of violence-ravaged Baghdad. The gun battle between Blackwater’s Tactical Support Team and armed insurgents echoes the struggle of U.S. Armed Forces to distinguish friend from foe in a country teetering on the brink of civil war. Innocent lives are tragically lost in the crossfire.

As the civil war in Iraq grows, the United States looks to private contractors to provide critical security services. Blackwater emerges as the poster child of Private Military Contractors (PMCs). They are willing to take on any mission, regardless of the danger it presents both to their contractors' safety and the company's portrayal in the media.

The decision of a notoriously vindictive judge destroys the career of a promising FBI agent and creates a chilling effect among every branch of law enforcement. As a result, several known terrorists travel freely in the United States before murdering 3,000 people on 9/11. As American soldiers risk their lives overseas, different law enforcement employees reveal how that decision prevented them from sharing information about the Hijackers with the FAA and other law enforcement agencies.

What would you do if nearly every institution we are supposed to trust - the government, the media, and the judiciary - conspired to lie about you? That is exactly what happened to four Blackwater contractors who now sit behind bars for crimes that they did not commit. George Orwell famously stated that “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” After years of interviews and research, the revolution officially begins with this episode.

On September 10, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld presented his vision for a new type of military that relies heavily on privatization.  Rumsfeld claims that he is not trying to destroy the Pentagon but “save it from itself.”  At the exact time that he is giving his speech, four radical Jihadists are checking into the Marriott Hotel in Herndon, VA - a mere 22 miles away. Less than 24 hours after giving his speech, these four men would board an airplane and hijack it, crashing directly into the Pentagon. Donald Rumsfeld would no longer be talking about war in the figurative sense.  He would be involved in it literally, as he bravely rushed into the embers of the West Wall of the Pentagon to save lives.