ADVIS0RY ALERT: Best-Selling author on 'Blackwater' private army in Iraq in Sacramento May 3rd

URGENT NEWS ADVISORY
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Contact: Mary Brassell 916-803-3909

ATTENTION: News Editors


Author of top-selling book on ‘Blackwater,'
a 100,000-strong U.S. private army in Iraq, will
make a round of visits in Sacramento on Thursday

SACRAMENTO – The author of a best-selling, controversial book that exposes
a private, U.S. government-funded 100,000-strong militia in Iraq will make
a round of visits in the Sacramento area Thursday.

A news conference featuring Jeremy Scahill, author of "BLACKWATER: The Rise
of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," will be held THURSDAY at 10
a.m. at 3501 Dutch Way in Carmichael.

Scahill, a Polk Award-winning investigative journalist and frequent
contributor to "The Nation" magazine, will also speak at 12 Noon at
Sacramento City College (Lillard Hall 101) and Thursday evening at 7 p.m.
at United Methodist Church, 2100 J St.

Scahill, who has reported extensively from Iraq, the former Yugoslavia and
Nigeria, was recently quoted in the LA Times:

"Private contractors constitute the second-largest ‘force' in Iraq. At last
count, there were about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work
as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office
report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective
legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the
occupation...these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths
go uncounted in the official toll."

MEDIA AVAILABILITY: Please contact Mary Brassell above for an interview
other than at the designated speaking engagements already listed.