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Baghdad: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki yesterday called on the US authorities to replace private security operator Blackwater after a deadly shootout involving the firm's guards in Baghdad.
"This crime has generated a lot of hatred in the government and the people against Blackwater," Al Maliki told reporters. "For their own interests, the Americans should hire a new company to protect their people so they can move freely."
The US embassy in Baghdad has barred its officials from travelling by land outside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone amid fears of attacks after Sunday's incident in which Blackwater guards escorting US personnel opened fire in a Baghdad neighbourhood, killing 10 people and wounding 13.
Joint panel
Iraqi and US officials have also set up a joint panel to defuse the crisis. The White House said it deeply regretted any loss of innocent life in Iraq but stressed that US officials there needed to be protected.
Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffaq Al Rubaie told a news conference the review of security firms in Iraq would examine their rules of engagement and also an earlier regulation that gave such firms immunity from Iraqi law.
He said there were more than 180 security companies in Iraq. Estimates of the number of security contractors employed by mainly US and European firms range from 25,000 to 48,000.
"This gives us an opportunity to review the methods and work of these companies, especially what rules of engagement these companies work by," Rubaie said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking to reporters before landing in Shannon, Ireland, for a refuelling stop en route to Israel, said she discussed the incident with Al Maliki by telephone on Monday.
'Private armies'
"I committed to him that we were as interested as the Iraqi government in having a full investigation into what happened, a transparent investigation into what happened and to working with the Iraqi government to make certain that this sort of thing doesn't happen," she said.
Many Iraqis see the contractors, who have worked in Iraq since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussain in 2003, as private armies that have acted for too long with impunity.
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