BAGHDAD, 20 September 2007 — Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki suggested yesterday the US Embassy stop using American security firm Blackwater after a deadly shooting, saying he would not allow Iraqis to be killed in “cold blood.”
US civilian officials have been barred from road travel in Iraq outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone because of possible attacks. Iraq has said it would review the status of all security firms after what it called a “flagrant assault” by Blackwater contractors in which 11 people were killed while the firm was escorting a US Embassy convoy through Baghdad on Sunday.
“We will not allow Iraqis to be killed in cold blood... What happened was a crime. It has left a deep grudge and anger, both inside the government and among the Iraqi people,” Maliki told a news conference. The Interior Ministry has said Sunday’s incident was sparked when Blackwater guards opened fire indiscriminately after mortar rounds landed near their convoy in western Baghdad.
Blackwater, one of the biggest private security operators in Iraq and which protects the US Embassy, said its guards reacted “lawfully and appropriately” to a hostile attack. Maliki said that account was “not accurate.”
Maliki also proposed forming a Cabinet of technocrats to replace his splintering national unity government and called for greater powers to push through his nominations. Maliki’s 16-month-old government, which included Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Kurds, Islamists and secularists, has unraveled since a dozen Sunni and Shiite ministers quit.
“Instead of the current number of cabinet ministers we could form a technocratic, smaller government,” Maliki told a news conference. “To form such a government the prime minister should be given the full authority to nominate the minister he chooses.”
Meanwhile, Iraq’s humanitarian crisis is getting worse and more Iraqis are fleeing their homes despite the recent surge of US troops, aid workers say, with donors reluctant to fund support for millions of displaced. Last week, US President George W. Bush presented a relatively upbeat picture of conditions in Iraq and said forces could be cut by around 20,000 by next July. He linked the reduction to improvements on the ground particularly in Baghdad where the surge was centered and the volatile Anbar governorate.
The United Nations estimates 4.2 million Iraqis have fled fighting and other violence, roughly half of them fleeing to neighboring countries and half remaining displaced within Iraq. Most stay with host families and in inadequate accommodation such as schools or abandoned buildings but with increasing numbers in tented camps.
