End the Shadow War

When mercenaries employed by Blackwater USA killed at least eleven Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square on September 16, the news provoked tremendous outrage,

but little surprise, in Iraq. Blackwater's heavily armed soldiers, with their black helicopters and SUVs, have been menacing the population ever since the company won the $27 million no-bid contract to guard the first US occupation chief, L. Paul Bremer, in 2003. Iraqi officials charge that there were at least six prior incidents involving Blackwater, resulting in ten Iraqi deaths in the past year alone, as Jeremy Scahill reports in his latest article, "Making a Killing," on page 21. That these mercenaries operate with complete impunity--unaccountable under either US or Iraqi law--was widely known and resented among Iraqis. It was Bremer who issued the infamous Order 17, which insulated his protectors from any form of prosecution for crimes committed in Iraq. A policy of greater arrogance and contempt for Iraq's sovereignty can scarcely be imagined.

When Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for Blackwater's expulsion in the wake of the Nisour Square shooting, for once he spoke for the people of Iraq. He was supported by the country's Interior, National Security and Defense ministries and the Supreme Judiciary Council. If the United States truly cared about the "political progress" of Iraq's "nascent democracy," as George W. Bush recently claimed, that demand would have been the end of the story. Order 17 would be rescinded; the Nisour Square shooters would stand trial in an Iraqi court; Blackwater would be given the boot. Instead, State Department convoys guarded by Blackwater resumed within a week of the Nisour incident. Maliki, under intense US pressure, agreed to put his demand on hold pending a joint US-Iraqi investigation.

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