McClatchy: Iraq considers new steps against security companies

[babylonsister]

Iraq considers new steps against security companies
By Leila Fadel and Laith Hammoudi | McClatchy Newspapers



BAGHDAD — Two survivors of Sunday's shooting at a busy Baghdad traffic roundabout said Tuesday that security guards for a State Department convoy opened fire without provocation, contradicting assertions by the guards' U.S.-based employer, Blackwater USA, that they were responding to enemy fire.

Hassan Jaber Salma, 50, a lawyer who suffered eight gunshot wounds in the incident, said he and other motorists were attempting to clear a path for the convoy when the Blackwater guards suddenly strafed the line of traffic with gunfire.

Sami Hawas Karim, 42, a taxi driver who was shot in the hip and side, said he, too, had stopped for the convoy when he saw the guards suddenly open fire on a car bearing a man, a woman and a small child. The guards then opened fire on maintenance workers in the square, the car in front of him, the car behind him and a minibus full of girls.

When he felt the pain of his two wounds, he opened the door of his car and fell to the ground; his 13-year-old son in the car with him wasn't harmed.

"I thought about my family and my five kids," he said. "I remembered my two brothers who were killed, and I said to myself, 'I'm going to be the third.'"

Their accounts came as Iraqi government officials vowed to introduce legislation next week that would revoke a 2003 U.S. decree exempting private security firms from Iraqi laws.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19821.html

[scarface2004]

1. blackwater is the amerikan ss!!!

putting innocent citizens face down in the middle of the street and shooting them in the back of the head to show the world how tough they are......sadistic bastards need to tried tomorrow and hung thursday morning!!!

[madokie]

5. If not sooner

this is bullshit what the bushitler is doing in Iraq. No its criminal

[Selatius]

2. Iraq has almost no say in what mercenary armies do regardless of what parliament wants.

The fact is they as well as many other merc groups are contracted with the DoD. Their contract with the DoD trumps what the Iraqi government could do because it is the US government that props them up.

[spanone]

3. this is a freaking scary line

Their accounts came as Iraqi government officials vowed to introduce legislation next week that would revoke a 2003 U.S. decree exempting private security firms from Iraqi laws.

so mercenaries don't have to obey the nations laws...how convenient. why would any nation allow this?

[babylonsister]

4. Amazing, isn't it. They have absolutely no one policing them. nt

[question everything]

6. You know, they certainly are not the boy scounts

and someone told them that they can act as they want there.

However for the Iraqis to cry at the death of 8 civilians by Blackwater, while thousands of civilians get killed by other Iraqis...

Is it all a matter of who is doing the shooting (or the bombing)?