US Government Audit Finds Blackwater Cannot Account for… One Deep Fat Fryer in Iraq

By Jeremy Scahill

I just finished reading the newly-released Joint Audit of Blackwater Contract and Task Orders for Worldwide Personal Protective Services in Iraq [PDF here]. The report, compiled by the State Department and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, is overwhelmingly positive in its portrayal of Blackwater. But it does seem that US government investigators are hot on the trail of one crucial missing item that Blackwater cannot seem to account for:

we could not account for 14 items (9 percent):  four handheld radios, four body armor vests, two pairs of binoculars, one satellite phone, one body armor plate, one Global Positioning System, and one deep fat fryer.

The missing deep fat fryer is, according to the US government report, made by the Australian company Fagor. There are some very crucial questions raised by this missing equipment: Was Blackwater making french freedom fries for US diplomats? Was it Erik Prince’s version of George Bluth’s banned Cornballer? Is Blackwater currently using the missing deep fryer for some new, secretive ploy to clog the arteries of Iraqi civilians?

Stay tuned…