Blackwater's Licence in Iraq is Terminated
 

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Iraq will not renew the licence of US security firm Blackwater, which was involved in an 2007 incident in which at least 14 civilians were killed.

An interior ministry spokesman said the US embassy had been told it will have to use another security company.

Five former Blackwater guards have gone on trial in the United States over the killings in Baghdad.

They have pleaded not guilty to killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others by gunfire and grenades.

"The contract is finished and will be not be renewed by order of the minister of the interior," said interior ministry spokesman Maj Gen Abdel Karim Khalaf.

He said the decision had been sent to the US embassy in Baghdad and "they have to find a new security company".

He added that the decision had been prompted by the incident on 16 September 2007.

Thats too bad.

Are you kidding? The US Embassy should not be hiring independent firms to provide security anyways, since it has been the duty of the Marine Security Guards since 1948.

Yep.

We have a military precisely so we don't have to pay mercenaries. The only rationale I can think of for employing these folks is to move DoD money into private, well-connected hands.

Maybe there's a good reason for private contractors. I don't claim to be an expert in the area. Someone feel free to educate me.

There's something about that statement that is really disturbing to me.

And I agree with Kevin.

So long to the dog of wars, mercs, death dealers and all around bad guys

I disagree that they are bad guys.

Many of them are some of the most highly trained and lethal soldiers produced by the US Military. Due to the...wackiness of our ROE they as a private security force can do things that the reg. army cannot.

The contractors I worked with were some of the hardest working and most professional men and women I met over there.

This is just another example of the media gunning for someone and finding one bad example among hundreds/thousands of good reasons to have them there. In the end, they will hire a new firm which will be made of up the EXACT same people in Blackwater. If it's not done quickly though, more US Soldiers will probably die.

Blackwater is a mercenary outfit. Nothing more, nothing less. Many of their employees are former South AFrican special ops during the apartheid era. Crazy mofos.

Last I checked, the U.S. Special Ops folks were pretty good at what they did. If it's not a lack of ability keeping our armed forces from doing something, I'm guessing that you mean by 'cannot' that our military cannot violate international law at will, but it can hire others to do it? Is that what you're driving at?

No, not at all.

SF and Blackwater generally have different missions. In no way am I privy to any type of secret information. Just observations I made because my missions brought me in proximity of them once in a while.

What sort of missions can't the U.S. military do though?

Perhaps missions that would be better off with less oversight. Things that happen during times of war aren't pretty sometimes.

Why do we need less oversight and why does "things aren't pretty" justify anything? I dunno.. call me an idealist (that should make some people chuckle) but isn't hiring someone to violate international law/human rights the same thing as doing it yourself? If the purpose of hiring these guys is to do things we can't do on our own, isn't that essentially an admission that we know we're violating international law by proxy?

Those Blackwater guys better be careful, hope they remember what happened to Treadstone...

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