BBC News Links: Blackwater Security Expelled From Iraq By Iraqi Government

[Donald Rilea]

Hadn't heard about this story over the week-end, and only just read about it a few minutes ago on the BBC's site.

Apparently, several Blackwater Security personnel, who were escorting a convoy of State Department officials in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday, were involved in a fire-fight, during which several bystanders, including an Iraqi policeman, were shot to death, allegedly by the Blackwater guards.

Am enclosing two links, the first to the story about Blackwater's personnel being expelled from Iraq by the Iraqi government at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6998788.stm, and the second about the State Department's pledge to conduct an "open and fair investigation" into the incident at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7000018.stm.

The first story was actually posted about around some six hours after the first, and contains a rather interesting additional story about how figures done by a UK-based survey group may indicate that some 1.2 million Iraqis may have died as a result of this war, rather than the between 60,000 to 100,000 generally agreed upon in Western circles.

Hope these prove to be of some interest out there.

[Buster Friendly]

from what i've heard from some other 'independent military contractors' blackwater are a bunch of incompetent cowboys. they basically get their contracts through their ultra rightwing political connections. it will be interestng to see if the iraqis can actually kick them out. jermey schehilll ( that's not how you spell his name dammit) wrote a book about them, and other mercenaries... and dammit the title eludes me as well.

by some estimates we have as many mercenaries in iraq as we do actual military personel.... not a good thing.

[Donald Rilea]

from what i've heard from some other 'independent military contractors' blackwater are a bunch of incompetent cowboys. they basically get their contracts through their ultra rightwing political connections. it will be interestng to see if the iraqis can actually kick them out. jermey schehilll ( that's not how you spell his name dammit) wrote a book about them, and other mercenaries... and dammit the title eludes me as well.

by some estimates we have as many mercenaries in iraq as we do actual military personel.... not a good thing.

Have heard the same allegation, though a fair number of these contractors also include truck drivers, and various other sorts of service and maintenance personnel, many of the latter being from places like India, Nepal and so on(am talking about the people employed by KBR-Halliburton in Iraq), as well as security and other armed ops folks.

Apparently, this is an extension, albeit one writ hugely, of a pattern of outsourcing of various sorts of security, repair, maintenance, and other functions that the US military used to do "in house", so to speak, that began back in the early '90's, 'round the time of the Persian Gulf War, but that accelerated with a vengeance during this present war.

The US(haven't heard about any troubles the British and other Coalition members may have had with Blackwater and other security contractors, but, who knows?)military has had various sorts of troubles in Iraq with these companies, because, since they're classified as private civilian outfits, rather than as arms of the US and other Coalition militaries, co-ordination of strategies and tactics, areas of responsibility, and accountability of those contractors is a pretty murky area, at best.

Add on to those, the effects of some security contractors being paid far more than many US officers and grunts on the ground there, with the associated tensions between the two, over that issue, and the reputation that some contractors have got for riding roughshod over the locals, and being more than a bit quick on the draw, and, well, it ain't a happy picture that one gets of merc work in Iraq.

Not at all, I think.

[Morning Glory]

well, if they are technically ciivlians, then the iraqi government can kick them out. it should be interesting to see how this plays out, but I doubt it will have much of an effect on anything. I've never even heard of these guys before this, so they are probably a dime a dozen, and if not them then someone else just like them.

I don't know if it was reported on the major media. I don't watch the major media. my news comes from the net, and mostly from people that dig. I did see it on Democracy Now. but I didn't know if it was on yahoo or anything like that.

[Morning Glory]

I guess it was just now, like an hour ago, put up on yahoo..