By DPA
Washington : Reports by the US military from the scene of a shooting last month in Baghdad corroborate the Iraqi government’s stand that private security guards overreacted, the Washington Post reported, citing an anonymous source.
A senior US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper that guards from the private security contractor Blackwater USA, escorting a US State Department official, were apparently unprovoked when they opened fire on Iraqi civilians and motorists while driving through a busy intersection.
The number of Iraqis killed in the incident was at least 11 and perhaps as high as 17 or more, based on widely varying US and Iraqi accounts. Multiple investigations are underway into the incident.
“It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong,” the anonymous official told the Post. “The civilians that were fired upon, they didn’t have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the Iraqi police or any of the local security forces fired back at them.”
Blackwater executives insist that their staff were fired on and responded appropriately.