BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq rowed back on Monday on its demand that the US replace security firm Blackwater, saying it would await the findings of a probe into the shooting involving the company before deciding what action to take.
"The government will take the required legal measures against Blackwater after the investigation is complete," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
"The future of Blackwater is linked to the joint US and Iraqi investigation. But we will put the lives and dignity of Iraqis above all considerations," said Dabbagh, who is in New York with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for meetings with US officials.
The statement contrasts sharply with strident calls by Maliki last week for Washington to immediately replace Blackwater after a deadly shootout involving the firm's guards in Baghdad.
At least 10 Iraqis died when Blackwater guards opened fire as they protected a convoy of American diplomats in west Baghdad.
Blackwater, the biggest private security firm operating in Iraq, said its guards fired in response to a car bomb, but a senior police officer said the shooting was unprovoked.
"This crime has generated a lot of hatred in the government and the people against Blackwater," Maliki told reporters on September 19, three days after the incident.
"For their own interests, the Americans should hire a new company to protect their people so they can move freely."
More generally, Baghdad appeared to have decided to act against the security companies which have proliferated since the March 2003 US-led invasion, often acting with total impunity.
Maliki turned the shooting into an issue of national sovereignty, adding: "We are not going to allow them to kill Iraqis in cold blood."
But within days of Maliki's call, and the interior ministry's insistence that its licence be suspended, Blackwater was back operating on the streets of Baghdad, and none of its staff had been detained or deported.
The embassy said meanwhile it had received no official request from the Iraqi government seeking Blackwater's departure.
"The embassy has received no official information on this point," spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo told AFP.
The government appears to have adopted a more conciliatory tone in recent statements, suggesting that Baghdad is finding it difficult to impose its authority on the security companies which are an integral part of the American war effort in Iraq.
"The withdrawal of these companies would create a security void," admitted Baghdad's civilian security spokesman Tashin al-Sheikhli.
Security companies operating in Iraq represent a veritable private army of between 30,000 and 50,000 men, the second biggest foreign contingent in Iraq after US forces. They are tasked with security duties of all types, from convoy escorts to interrogation of prisoners.
As part of the joint US and Iraqi investigation into the September 16 shooting, Iraqi investigators claim to have already accumulated proof and witness accounts incriminating Blackwater.
Iraq's interior ministry has examined at least one video taken by police immediately after the shooting, and expects to recover further footage of the scene recorded by passers-by on their mobile phones.
Witnesses who have come forward so far appear to back Iraqi claims that the firing by Blackwater employees was unprovoked.
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