CONTRACT JUSTICE: The Washington Post recently won a Pulitzer Prize for its series on private security contractors in Iraq--a story The Nation's Jeremy Scahill has been covering for four years. Jeremy's latest report on Blackwater follows:

For the first time since 1968, the Pentagon has charged a civilian contractor under military law, after a March 10 memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted greater military authority to prosecute contractors for crimes committed abroad. Alaa Mohammad Ali, a dual Canadian-Iraqi citizen who worked for the US corporation Titan as a military translator, stands accused of stabbing a fellow contractor on February 23.

Yet six months after the Nisour Square shootings, no charges have been brought against the Blackwater personnel responsible for the incident, despite a US military investigation that labeled it a "criminal event." While lawyers, military officials and legislators debate the particulars of Ali's case, the gorilla in the room is the stunning lack of accountability of the shadow army of 180,000 contractors in Iraq. Not a single armed contractor has faced charges for actions in Iraq. Instead of holding these forces to the same standard as active-duty soldiers--at least sixty-four US soldiers have been court-martialed on murder-related charges alone--the Bush Administration continues to reward Blackwater for its lethal conduct with new contracts and de facto legal immunity.

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