Guards’ Shots Not Provoked, Iraq Concludes

[cal04]

Source: NYTimes

Iraq’s Ministry of Interior has concluded that employees of a private American security firm fired an unprovoked barrage in the shooting last Sunday in which at least eight Iraqis were killed and is proposing a radical reshaping of the way American diplomats and contractors here are protected.


In the first comprehensive account of the day’s events, the ministry said that security guards for Blackwater USA, a company that guards all senior American diplomats here, fired on Iraqis in their cars in midday traffic.

The document concludes that the dozens of foreign security companies here should be replaced by Iraqi companies, and that a law that has given the companies immunity for years be scrapped.

Four days after the shooting, American officials said they were still preparing their own forensic analysis of what happened in Nisour Square. They have repeatedly declined to give any details before their work is finished.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/world/middleeast/21blackwater.html?hp

[bemildred]

1. Hey, there was a bomb, they freaked out. Who knows what they were on? nt

[Nite Owl]

2. And if the * administration

won't agree they should throw us out. That would end the war.

[uppityperson]

3. k&r

[Rageneau]

4. Iraqis policing Iraqis? What a concept.

But how can they possibly believe that Iraqis can provide security nearly as well as us macho, double-barred, two-fisted Americans -- who don't have to worry about who we kill?

[cal04]

5. Iraq aims to end immunity of security firms

Iraq wants to tighten control over security contractors after a deadly shooting incident involving the U.S. firm Blackwater, ending their long immunity from Iraqi prosecution, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

Spokesman Major-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said the ministry had drafted legislation giving it wider powers over the contractors and calling for "severe punishment for those who fail to adhere to the ... guidelines on how they should operate".

Iraq has said it would review the status of all security firms after what it called a flagrant assault by Blackwater contractors in which 11 people were killed while the firm was escorting a U.S. embassy convoy through Baghdad on Sunday.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested the U.S. embassy should stop using Blackwater and said he would not allow Iraqis to be killed "in cold blood".


http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2007-09-21T095913Z_01_L21368451_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ.xml

[Klukie]

6. Kick

Sorry about the dupe.

[Romulox]

7. LOL! "The document concludes that the dozens of foreign security companies here should be replaced"

"...by Iraqi companies."

Iraqi mercenaries are the BEST. Time for the US to fund a private, for-profit army made up of Iraqis! Things are bound to get better.

:sarcasm:

[goodhue]

8. Why shouldn't Iraqis provide security?

[Romulox]

9. Read it again. Not "Iraqis", "Iraqi COMPANIES"--i.e. more private armies...nt

[goodhue]

10. I don't have a big problem with private security companies per se

Only with those composed of clueless, jingoistic, trigger-happy, racist American occupiers.

[Romulox]

11. LOL. I guess "jingoistic, trigger-happy, racist" Russians, Syrians, Chinese, or even Iraqis

would be fine?

The Iraq conflict has devolved into a sectarian struggle.

Funding private, ethnic/religious based armies with US $$$ would be idiocy on par with invading Iraq in the first place.

[cyberpj]

12. Too bad - Georgie & pals have more money to make: US resumes Blackwater convoys in Iraq AP:

US will simply throw a little money at those who lost family...

US resumes Blackwater convoys in Iraq
Source: Associated Press

<snip>

"American convoys under the protection of Blackwater USA resumed on Friday, four days after the U.S. Embassy suspended all land travel by its diplomats and other civilian officials in response to the alleged killing of civilians by the security firm.

A top aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had earlier conceded it may prove difficult for the Iraqi government to follow through on threats to expel Blackwater and other Western security contractors.

The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation into Sunday's shooting was ongoing, said a way out of the Blackwater crisis could be the payment of compensation to victims' families and an agreement from all sides on a new set of rules for their operations in Iraq.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said the decision to resume land travel outside the heavily fortified Green Zone was made after consultations with the Iraqi governments. She said the convoys will be limited to essential missions."


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq

[truthisfreedom]

13. If the Iraqi government is unable to remove Blackwater, et al from their country the Iraqi people

will see the government as absolute puppets and it will hasten the government's demise.