By DPA
Washington : The deadly fire fight that took place in Baghdad after a US diplomatic convoy was ambushed this week has brought into the spotlight the role of American security firms hired to protect US government and contractor personnel.
At the centre of the scrutiny is Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based company whose guards opened fire after the diplomatic convoy they were escorting came under attack in a dangerous Baghdad neighbourhood Sunday.
At least eight people in the area were killed and allegations have arisen that the Blackwater team indiscriminately fired their weapons and shot civilians. A Blackwater spokeswoman denied the accusations, saying the convoy came under attack by armed enemies and the security forces responded appropriately.
The Iraqi and US government have begun an investigation into the incident, and the Iraqi Interior Ministry said it would launch a review of all foreign security firms licensed to operate to ensure they are complying with Iraqi laws.
The US government and private companies hire the firms to guard diplomats, contractors, reconstruction worksites and even cash. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US government has awarded contracts totalling “tens of millions of dollars” to Blackwater and two of the other big firms, DynCorp and Triple Canopy, based in Virginia.
The companies employ former US military special operations soldiers to carry out the contracts. They are specifically trained to guard convoys and handle small rapid-fire situations, and possess skills regular soldiers usually do not, said John Pike, an analyst at Globalsecurity.org, a think tank outside Washington.
The US government in part uses the firms because it does not have the ability to pay the forces the hundreds of thousands of dollars they earn working for the private firms, and the military needs to keep its active special operations force focussed on fighting Al Qaeda and the insurgency, Pike said.
“There is only a finite number of them that you can train and equip and keep and they are out hunting bad guys,” Pike said.
The security firms are not used exclusively by the US government or businesses. They receive contracts from companies around the world to protect their employees in oil fields or on other projects in hazardous countries like Afghanistan, Colombia or Nigeria.
But now the Iraqi government wants to take a look at whether the firms should still have a role in providing security in the country or if laws need to be rewritten to better regulate their use. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has condemned the shootings on Sunday as a “criminal act”.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned al-Maliki “to express her regret over the death of innocent civilians,” the State Department said.
“You want to establish the facts,” McCormack said. “And you want to take a look at the laws and regulations and see if there was any contravention of them, see if there was anybody who stepped over the line.”
The spokeswoman for Blackwater, Anne Tyrrell, said the company’s contractors acted lawfully in response to a hostile attack and that the security guards returned defensive fire.
“Blackwater regrets any loss of life but this convoy was violently attacked by armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job to defend human life,” she said in a statement.