Iraq Reviewing Security Firms After Blackwater Shooting

Fox News ^ | 18 Sep 07 | AP

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BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government said Tuesday it would review the status of private security companies as anger over the alleged involvement of Blackwater USA in a fatal shooting of civilians threatened to spread to other firms providing protection for dignitaries and Westerners on Iraq's chaotic streets.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for all contracts of foreign securities firms to be annulled and blamed the government for failing to protect Iraqis, noting the shootings occurred on a busy square filled with Iraqi troops.

"This aggression wouldn't have happened had it not been for the presence of the occupiers who brought these companies," al-Sadr's political committee said in a statement issued by his office in the holy city of Najaf.

It also called for a speedy investigation, the referral of those involved to the Iraqi justice system and compensation for families of the victims.

A series of bombings, meanwhile, ripped through Baghdad, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens, police said.

The developments came a day after the government announced it was ordering Blackwater, the North Carolina-based security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to leave the country after what it said was the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

Amid allegations that the foreign security contractors operate with impunity, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Cabinet held a meeting Tuesday and confirmed that "it is necessary to review the status of local and foreign private security companies working in Iraq according to what is suitable with Iraqi laws."

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Just a guess but I think Al Sadr is guilty of killing FAR MORE innocent Iraqis than all the security contractors combined. We should have killed that fat pig when we had the chance a long time ago.

[Lexington Green]

‘’The Iraqi government said Tuesday it would review the status of private security companies..’’

... i.e., money will exchange hands and evrything will be cool.

[BroncosFan]

There was a near-miss by an IED followed by the sudden appearance of a GOI National Police (read: Mahdi Army) convoy. Combine those two events with the recent uptick in intel reports about the bad guys' desire to nab Americans and I don't blame them for shooting first and asking questions later. While some of BW's reputation for being trigger-happy is warranted, very rarely do they shoot to kill. They'll squeeze off rounds at the drop of a hat to expedite movement through a traffic circle and think nothing of putting three in the engine block of a bongo truck, but the sheer uniqueness of this event testifies to BW's relative restraint considering they do several runs a day.

If BW was really as bad as the media is making them out to be, this would be a routine occurrence . . . and they would've lost their DOS contact to Triple Canopy or Aegis a long time ago. That said, I strongly suspect the PSD team in question is under lockdown in the USA right now getting seriously lawyered-up.

[DickieFlatts]

This contractor thing doesn’t make sense to me.

We pay someone like Blackwater 2,500 a day for a troop that we’d be paying a couple of hundred a day.

But WORSE than that we strain our forces, especially our special forces, by encourage then to retire from the serive and make a dash for the big private contractor cash.

[stm]

It makes perfect sense. The Army does not have near the manpower to perform their mission AND the functions that Blackwater and the rest of the security firms do and. And no one I ever met over there got anywhere NEAR $2500 a day. Most got around $5-600.