[NYTr] Iraq Runs Blackwater out of Town

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

CNN - Sep 17, 207
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/17/iraq.main/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Blackwater security firm banned from Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license
of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are
blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians
dead. The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it
calls a "terrible incident."

 In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them
civilians, an Iraqi official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed regret for the
weekend killings, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office said late
Monday.

Sunday's firefight took place near Nusoor Square, an area that
straddles the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Mansour and
Yarmouk.

The ministry said the incident began around midday, when a convoy of
sport utility vehicles came under fire from unidentified gunmen in the
square. The men in the SUVs, described by witnesses as Westerners,
returned fire, the ministry said.

One witness told The Associated Press that he heard an explosion before
the gunfire began.

"We saw a convoy of SUVs passing in the street nearby," Hussein
Abdul-Abbas, owner of a mobile phone store in the area, told the AP.
"One minute later, we heard the sound of a bomb explosion followed by
gunfire that lasted for 20 minutes between gunmen and the convoy people
who were foreigners and dressed in civilian clothes. Everybody in the
street started to flee immediately."

A team from another security company passed through the area a few
minutes afterward.

"Our people saw a couple of cars destroyed," Carter Andress, CEO of
American-Iraqi Solutions Groups, told CNN on Monday. "Dead bodies,
wounded people being evacuated. The U.S. military had moved in and
secured the area. It was not a good scene."

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said,
"We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. As of now
they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq. The
investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday's
killing will be referred to Iraqi justice." 

 Rice called al-Maliki to offer "her personal and the U.S.
administration's regrets" for the shootings. They agreed to conduct "a
fair and transparent investigation into this incident" and punish those
responsible, the prime minister's office said.

The Diplomatic Security Service has launched an official investigation,
a review that will be supported by the Multi-National Forces-Iraq,
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"The secretary wants to make sure we do everything we possibly can to
avoid innocent loss of life," he said.

McCormack said that while the United States tries to avoid innocent
casualties, "we are fighting people who don't play by any rules" and
have no problem killing innocent civilians.

There has been no official notice from the Iraqi government on revoking
Blackwater's license, McCormack said, so he couldn't confirm it and
declined to speculate on how it would affect protection of U.S.
personnel.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad confirmed a State
Department convoy was in the area.

"We are taking it very seriously. We are cooperating with the Iraqi
government on several different levels and will continue this
cooperation with Iraqi officials," the embassy official said.

Blackwater, founded in 1997 and based in Moyock, North Carolina, is one
of many security firms contracted by the U.S. government during the
Iraq war. An estimated 25,000 employees of private security firms are
working in Iraq, guarding diplomats, reconstruction workers and
government officials. As many as 200 are believed to have been killed
on the job, according to U.S. congressional reports.

Some Blackwater personnel died in a grisly attack in Iraq more than
three years ago that sparked shock and outrage in the United States.

Four Americans working as private security personnel for Blackwater,
all of whom were military veterans, were ambushed, killed and mutilated
in March 2004 in Falluja, west of Baghdad.

People close to the company estimate it has lost about 30 employees
during the war.

Iraqi authorities have issued previous complaints about shootings by
private military contractors, the Congressional Research Service
reported in July.

"Most recently, a news article discussing an incident in which a
Blackwater guard shot dead an Iraqi driver in May 2007 quoted an Iraqi
official's statement that the Iraqi Interior Ministry had received four
previous complaints of shootings involving Blackwater employees," the
congressional service report said.

The Congressional Research Service report cited other concerns, such as
"the apparent lack of a practical means to hold contractors accountable
under U.S. law for abuses and other transgressions and the possibility
that they could be prosecuted by foreign courts."

The reported added, "Iraqi courts do not have jurisdiction to prosecute
contractors without the permission of the relevant member country of
the Multi-National Forces in Iraq."

Contractors fall under Justice Department and FBI jurisdiction for
alleged crimes, said a Pentagon official, who confirmed the accuracy of
the congressional report.

Other developments

# Seven people were killed and 31 others were detained Monday in
U.S.-led coalition raids across Iraq, the U.S. military said. The
fatalities occurred west of Yusufiya, southwest of the capital, as
coalition forces targeted two buildings used by al Qaeda in Iraq
militants, who organize suicide attacks. Troops arrested other suspects
in regions north of the capital -- north of Taji, near Balad, in Baiji
and near the Syrian border.

# Three people were killed and 11 others were wounded Monday in Baghdad
when a parked car detonated near a Shiite mosque on the edge of a
densely populated Shiite neighborhood, an Interior Ministry official
said.