Blackwater Ban "Inevitable"

[goodhue]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/09/blackwater-back.html

Blackwater Ban "Inevitable"
By Noah Shachtman September 17, 2007 | 2:16:29 PM
Categories: Mercs

"It was inevitable," That's P.W. Singer's reaction to the Iraqi government " banning" military contractor Blackwater from the country. For years, no one has followed the rise of these privatized soldiers more closely than Singer, a Brookings Institution Senior Fellow and author of the ground-breaking Corporate Warriors. Companies like Blackwater have been roaming Iraq without oversight or management for years. Of course the Iraqi government was going to lose patience. Here is Singer’s take:

Details are still fuzzy on the incident that lead the Iraqi government to act against Blackwater. But it may be almost irrelevant to the results. Initial reports from the U.S. embassy are that a Blackwater USA convoy that was guarding State Department employees came under fire in the Mansour district in Baghdad. A vehicle was disabled and a lengthy gun battle broke out. Witnesses are reporting that it lasted at least 20 minutes. The Iraqi Interior Ministry is reporting that 8 Iraqi civilians were killed and 13 wounded in the crossfire. There will likely be lots of claims back and forth about whether the shootings were justified or not, whether who was killed were primarily insurgents or civilians, etc. and likely everyone will have their own spin. It will be interesting to see whether any video finds its way out.

The only thing we do know is that the Iraqi Government is not happy it all, with the Iraqi Prime Minister (who is Shia, so no pre-disposed to covering up for a Sunni attack) blaming the killings on the company’s employees and describing it as a “crime.” The Iraqi Interior Ministry says it is pulling the license of the company to operate in Iraq and will try to prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday shooting.

Still, even before all the details come to light, a few things are clear:

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http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/09/blackwater-back.html