BAGHDAD (AFP) — US diplomats and military chiefs in Baghdad were preparing Friday for a formal meeting with angry Iraqi officials over the operations of private security companies, including Blackwater USA.
The meeting comes amid mounting pressure on Blackwater over its Iraq operations with a damning US Congress report and further allegations of its supposedly gung-ho attitude splashed across newspapers.
Almost a fortnight after the American firm was accused of killing 10 Iraqis in a Baghdad shootout, a joint inquiry with the Iraqi government into the US government's use of protective security details is about to hold its first session, the embassy said in a statement.
It did not say when the two sides would meet but announced the US team would comprise eight members, three of them military officials.
The US failure to clamp down on the activities of Blackwater and a skein of other operators making huge profits out of the terrible security situation in Iraq is fuelling frustration.
"The Americans are embarrassed," said Jalal Al-Din Al-Saghir, a member of parliament from the ruling Shiite majority. "What happened ... is a crime."
"To deter the company it is not enough to accuse it, it should first be condemned then closed down," he added.
The furore over the shooting refuses to die down and further question marks now hang over its hired guns.
Blackwater maintains its men were legitimately responding to an ambush while protecting a US State Department convoy during the September 16 incident, but a new US Congress report portrayed the company in a worse light.
The Congressional committee in Washington said that Blackwater had sent personnel to Fallujah in 2004 without proper support on a mission that ended in their deaths and sparked a brutal US military assault on the Iraqi city.
The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that Blackwater guards were ordered to "stop shooting" by a colleague during the latest Baghdad clash, which provoked a call from Iraq's prime minister for them to leave the country.
A US official close to the investigation into the incident in Baghdad's busy Nisoor Square told the newspaper that at least one Blackwater employee had continued to shoot at civilians even after calls for a ceasefire.
"Stop shooting -- those are the words that we're hearing were used," said the official, who was not named.
Washington has launched two separate probes into the Blackwater actions, one ordered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a second by the US defence department.
The Baghdad government has threatened to try the Blackwater guards under Iraqi law and is preparing legislation to bring the supervision of private contractors under its control.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki initially said Washington should immediately replace Blackwater but later backed down and agreed to await the outcome of investigations.
Iraqi investigators have told AFP that Blackwater personnel opened fire without provocation.
In the Fallujah incident, four Blackwater employees were killed by an angry mob which mutilated their bodies and hung them from a bridge on March 31, 2004.
The shocking images were broadcast worldwide and helped trigger a month-long US assault on Fallujah, a Sunni insurgent stronghold, that left 36 US soldiers, 200 insurgents and 600 Iraqi civilians dead.
The House panel said Blackwater took on the Fallujah mission before its contract had officially started and ignored warnings about the risks of entering a known insurgent stronghold.
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