By NNN-KUNA
Baghdad : The US State Department has begun three separate reviews related to its use of private contractors for diplomatic security in Iraq, after the shooting this month involving Blackwater USA guards that has damaged the American image in Iraq.
Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s director of management policy, is leaving for Iraq this weekend to lead a team to conduct a broad review of the use of private security contractors, US embassy in Iraq said on Saturday.
He would be joined by a panel of outside experts to try to judge whether the department had the right security procedures in Baghdad, and whether they were being put in practice correctly by Blackwater and the other two private companies that provide diplomatic security in the country.
His review was ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and his panel would provide an interim report for her by Friday.
The Kennedy review would be in addition to a joint American-Iraqi investigation of the September 16 shooting in Baghdad involving Blackwater security personnel guarding a diplomatic convoy, which left at least 11 Iraqis dead. The Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the American embassy were handling that inquiry.
Another investigation of the September 16 episode was underway by the regional security officer in the embassy in Baghdad, to determine exactly what happened.
Kennedy said the regional security officer, through the State Department’s Diplomatic Security service, had the ability to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department if the investigation found evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Blackwater contractors.
One was the killing last December of an Iraqi guard for an Iraqi vice president by a Blackwater contractor who was drunk. After the killing, Blackwater flew the contractor out of Iraq, angering the Iraqi government.
That killing is now under investigation by the United States Justice Department, but it remains unclear what laws may be applied in the case, because it occurred overseas.
Although the State Department has been criticized for appearing to protect Blackwater when the Iraqi government wanted to evict the company, Kennedy said the department had not moved too slowly.