Newspapers in Iraq Trumpet Government Ban on Blackwater

[babylonsister]

Newspapers in Iraq Trumpet Government Ban on U.S. Fecurity Firm



Published: September 18, 2007 10:00 AM ET

BAGHDAD Newspapers in Iraq on Tuesday trumpeted the government's decision to order Blackwater USA to leave the country after a fatal shooting involving civilians as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki looked to gain political capital from the move against unpopular foreign security contractors.

A series of bombings, meanwhile, ripped through Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding nearly 40, police said.

The Iraqi government announced Monday 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.

If carried out, the order would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection and the decision by al-Maliki's government was widely welcomed by Iraqis and likely to give the Shiite leader a political boost.

"We see the security firms ... doing whatever they want in the streets. They (the security firms' personnel) beat citizens and scorn them," Baghdad resident Halim Mashkoor told AP Television News. "I ask one question: If such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it?"

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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003642239

[Karenina]

1. Very good question...

and as both the U.K. and U.S.A. have donned the jackboots-on-steroids the answer is YES.

[spanone]

2. we not only accept it, we ignore it, as a nation.

:mad:

[Disturbed]

3. The US Military doesn't have qualified Troops to take

Blackwater's place?

[tekisui]

4. yeah we do, it's called the *surge*. the 30,000 won't be coming home.