One Utah

If you read today’s headlines, there was another deadly incident in Baghdad involving the mercenary security firm Blackwater USA. At least 11 Iraqi civilians were reported killed and 13 wounded.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry says it has suspended Blackwater’s license to operate around the country. But Blackwater doesn’t have a license, and doesn’t need one either. Over on Talking Points Memo, Larry Johnson points out:

The Iraqi government has zero power to enforce a decision to oust a firm like Blackwater. For starters, Blackwater has a bigger air force and more armored vehicles then the Iraqi Army and police put together…

This incident will enrage Iraqis and their subsequent realization that they are impotent to do anything about it will do little to support the fantasy that the surge is working. There are some Iraqis who genuinely want to run their own country. But we are not about to give them the keys to the car. Blackwater is staying.

More information on Danger Room:
Blackwater: Banned in Iraq? (Updated Yet Again)
Blackwater Ban “Inevitable”

UPDATE: Blackwater makes no apologies. A spokesperson told the New York Times, “The ‘civilians’ reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies, and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire.” Today’s Washington Post has a good article with more details on the Baghdad ambush, which capped a really bad week during which one of Blackwater’s helicopters had been shot down and at least two other attacks on convoys had taken place.

UPDATE: According to the New York Times, the Iraqi report on the incident says Blackwater fired the first shots. The convoy was not under attack, the report says, but a nearby explosion caused confusion. Then the Blackwater guards opened fire on a small car with a couple and a child inside, apparently thinking it was a suicide car bomb. The State Department has suspended all ground travel in Iraq outside the Green Zone.

UPDATE: From Robert Scheer on HuffPo, who points out that we now have 50,000 mercenaries in Iraq:

All of this was designed by the neocon hawks in the Pentagon to pursue their dreams of empire while avoiding a conscripted army, which would have millions howling in the street by now in protest…

Despite the fact that Blackwater USA gets almost all of its revenue from the U.S. government–much of it in no-bid contracts aided, no doubt, by the lavish contributions to the Republican Party made by company founder Erik Prince and his billionaire parents–its operations remain largely beyond public scrutiny.

UPDATE: Over at DailyKos, kos has a post that includes a full statement of Blackwater’s version of what happened. He also makes the interesting point that if the so-called “surge” is going so well, why are there so many ambushes on the streets of Baghdad?

Related One Utah posts:

War for Profit on a Vast Scale (July 5, 2007)
Blackwater’s KBR Subcontract May Be Illegal (February 8, 2007)
“My brother is and was a HERO” (January 25, 2007)

This entry was posted Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Disaster, Iraq, War, War Crimes. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.