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WORLD / Middle East
Iraqis to review security companies
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-18 23:05
"There are reports that they were subjected to fire but this does not
give them the right to kill innocent civilians," he said.
Blackwater said the company had not been formally notified of any
expulsion.
"Blackwater's independent contractors acted lawfully and appropriately in
response to a hostile attack in Baghdad on Sunday," spokeswoman Anne E.
Tyrrell said in a statement late Monday.
"The 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were
in fact armed enemies and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire,"
she said. "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."
But Sunday's shooting has touched a nerve among Iraqis already angered
over the presence of so many visible, aggressive Western security
contractors, whom many consider part of a mercenary force that runs
roughshod over people in their own country.
It was the latest in a series of incidents in which Blackwater and other
foreign contractors have been accused of shooting to death Iraqi
citizens. None has faced charges or prosecution.
The events in Mansour also illustrate the challenge of trying to protect
US officials in a city where car bombs can explode at any time, and where
gunmen blend in with the civilian population.
In one of the most horrific attacks of the war, four Blackwater employees
were ambushed and killed in Fallujah in 2004 and their charred bodies
hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned al-Maliki late Monday and
the two agreed to conduct a fair and transparent investigation.
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