US officials have little control over contractors

Baghdad: American officials scrambled to head off a potential crisis on Monday after irate Iraqi authorities cancelled the licence of controversial US security company Blackwater USA, whose guards were accused of shooting to death 10 people while guarding a US State Department motorcade.

The swift response to Sunday's deaths marked Iraq's boldest step to assert itself against foreign security contractors who have long been accused of racing through Baghdad's streets and firing without restraint at anyone they see as a threat. It also cast a focus on the continued lack of control by American officials over heavily armed private security contractors, at least 20,000 of whom supplement the US-led military forces that invaded Iraq in March 2003.

The ouster of all Blackwater guards here could severely cripple security arrangements for US diplomats and other workers who rely on private guards to protect them. But several contractors predicted on Monday it was doubtful that the Iraqi government would carry through on the threat to expel Blackwater.

"For all intents and purposes they belong to the [US] Department of State," one contractor said of Blackwater, whose employees themselves often have been the victims of violence, including a 2004 incident in Fallujah when four guards were killed and mutilated.

While many details of Sunday's incident remain in dispute, the gravity of the situation was apparent in the reaction of top-level officials in Washington, DC, and Baghdad. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki on Monday night to express regret over the shootings involving the North Carolina-based company that provides most of the security for US embassy personnel travelling in Iraq.

A US embassy spokeswoman stressed that officials wanted to get to the bottom of the incident. "We take this very seriously and we are launching a full investigation in cooperation with the Iraqi authorities," spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said.

Overhaul

Iraq's national security adviser, Mouwafak Al Rubaie, said the Iraqi government should use the incident to look into overhauling private security guards' immunity from Iraqi courts that was granted by Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer in 2003 and later extended ahead of Iraq's return to sovereignty.

"This is a golden opportunity for the government of Iraq to radically review the CPA Order 17 and make the review part of the investigation process," Rubaie said. Iraqi Brigadier Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the interior ministry, accused Blackwater of breaking the law Sunday.