BAGHDAD: Iraq said yesterday it will bar Blackwater Worldwide from providing security protection for US diplomats because its contractors used excessive force, sanctioning a company whose image was irrevocably tarnished by the September 2007 killings of 17 Iraqi civilians.
The move will deprive American diplomats of their main protection force in Iraq.
The decision not to issue Blackwater an operating license was due to “improper conduct and excessive use of force,” said Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf.
Iraqis are bitter over the killing in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. Five former Blackwater guards pleaded not guilty Jan. 6 in federal court in Washington to manslaughter and gun charges in that shooting. A sixth is cooperating with the government.
The Iraqi government has labeled the guards “criminals” and is closely watching the case.
But even before the shooting, Blackwater had a reputation for aggressive operations and using excessive force in protecting American officials, an allegation the company has disputed.
Neither Khalaf nor a US Embassy official gave a date for Blackwater personnel to leave the country and neither said whether they would be allowed to continue guarding US diplomats during the interim.
Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina-based company, said the company had not yet been notified of the Iraqi decision but intended to continue providing security to US officials until instructed otherwise.
The Iraq decision came just months after a US-Iraqi security agreement approved in November gave the government the authority to determine which Western security companies operate in Iraq.
A joint US-Iraqi committee is drawing up procedures for licensing and regulating security companies under the security agreement and it is unclear when it will finish the process.
“We have followed the procedures to apply for and secure operating licenses in Iraq,” said Tyrrell. “Any further questions about the licensing process should be directed to our customer.”
Khalaf said Blackwater employees who have not been implicated in the 2007 shooting have the right to work in Iraq but must find a different employer.
“We sent our decision to the US Embassy last Friday,” Khalaf said in a phone interview. “They have to find a new security company.”
Farid Walid Hassoun, who was shot in the back as he cowered behind a concrete barrier during the Blackwater shooting, said he had heard the news but did not understand why the company is still operating in Iraq. “I saw children die in front of me,” he recounted about that fateful day, speaking to the Associated Press Television News yesterday. “I am asking my government: ‘You have decided, but where is the action’?”
When President Barack Obama was campaigning in 2007, he announced a plan to force Iraq war contractors to follow federal law. “We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors,” he said at the time.
The State Department relies heavily on Blackwater because it is the largest and best-equipped security company in Iraq. The US extended Blackwater’s contract for a year last spring, despite widespread calls for the company to be expelled because of the Nisoor Square shooting.
But the company has become a lightning rod for Iraqi complaints about the behavior of Western security companies, whose employees were immune from prosecution under Iraqi law until the security agreement took effect this month.
The Sept. 16 shooting took place around noon in a crowded traffic circle in west Baghdad where US prosecutors said civilians were running errands, getting lunch and otherwise going about their lives. Prosecutors said the guards unleashed a gruesome attack on unarmed Iraqis, with the dead including young children, women, people fleeing in cars and a man whose arms were raised in surrender as he was shot in the chest.
