Blackwater License Being Pulled in Iraq

Source: ap

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The Interior Ministry said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad.

The ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday incident.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight people were killed and 13 were wounded when security contractors working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

''We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,'' Khalaf said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html

That was part of the effort to create a corporatist's utopia in the new Iraq.

Blackwater is there making tons of money. While our guys make pennies.

...and stay right where they're at. Too many bucks not to.

I'd put money on that one!

Another reason why individuals in Corporations should be held accountable for all of their actions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6998458.st...

That doesn't mention the licence being pulled ?

remember what the late, great, Sir Douglas Adams said about Belgium.

In Belgium the French speakers and the Dutch speakers are not getting on too well. The government has been suspended for nearly half a year. No threat of war mind you, but perhaps a split.

my thought exactly

what will they do to justify their paychecks?

Can we sent them to Gitmo?

they were (are?) already in New Orleans...since Katrina...

from the numbers I've heard. Of course, these "troops" make about 5 to 10 times what the official troops make.

That's a pretty ballsy move. I wonder how this will play out.

Goes to show what I think of the sovereignty of the Iraqi government. It will be interesting to see if they can make this stick, and improve their rep, or if fails and provides another evidence of their government's impotence.

Not often, but there was this one time.

I thought you meant, can BLACKWATER do that... They can change their name, make someone else "in charge" and surface as a 'new' corporation. This is why corporations SHOULD NOT have the same rights as people!

"Blackwater has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq". Must be the same person who estimates the number of people in the anti-war demonstrations in Washington.

I was under the impression that there many thousands of Blackwater mercs in Iraq?

See the April, 2007 interview of Jeremy Scahill on The Daily Show, here: http://currentera.com/blog/?p=1619


But what is even more egregious, is the lack of oversight provided to Blackwater via BushCo, and the abuse of OUR money to fund them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2138917,00.html

A very private war


<snip>
Iraqi officials have consistently complained about the conduct of Blackwater and other contractors - and the legal barriers to their attempts to investigate or prosecute alleged wrongdoing. Four years into the occupation, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations. They have not been subjected to military justice, and only two cases have ever reached US civilian courts, under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers some contractors working abroad. (One man was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, in a case that has yet to go to trial, while the other was sentenced to three years for possession of child-pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison.) No matter what their acts in Iraq, contractors cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts, thanks to US-imposed edicts dating back to Paul Bremer's post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority.

The internet is alive with videos of contractors seemingly using Iraqi vehicles for target practice, much to the embarrassment of the firms involved. Yet, despite these incidents, and although 64 US soldiers have been court-martialled on murder-related charges, not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for any crime, let alone a crime against an Iraqi. US contractors in Iraq reportedly have a motto: "What happens here today, stays here today."

<snip>
Blackwater is far from being the biggest mercenary firm operating in Iraq, nor is it the most profitable. But it has the closest proximity to the throne in Washington and to radical rightwing causes, leading some critics to label it a "Republican guard". Blackwater offers the services of some of the most elite forces in the world and is tasked with some of the occupation's most "mission-critical" activities, namely keeping alive the most hated men in Baghdad - a fact it has deftly used as a marketing tool. Since the Iraq invasion began four years ago, Blackwater has emerged out of its compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina as the trendsetter of the mercenary industry, leading the way toward a legitimisation of one of the world's dirtiest professions. And it owes its meteoric rise to the policies of the Bush administration.

Since the launch of the "war on terror", the administration has funnelled billions of dollars in public funds to US war corporations such as Blackwater USA, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. These companies have used the money to build up private armies that rival or outgun many of the world's national militaries.

A decade ago, Blackwater barely existed; and yet its "diplomatic security" contracts since mid-2004, with the State Department alone, total more than $750m (£370m). It protects the US ambassador and other senior officials in Iraq as well as visiting Congressional delegations; it trains Afghan security forces, and was deployed in the oil-rich Caspian Sea region, setting up a "command and control" centre just miles from the Iranian border. The company was also hired to protect emergency operations and facilities in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where it raked in $240,000 (£120,000) a day from the American taxpayer, billing $950 (£470) a day per Blackwater contractor.

Almost as many of them as there are soldiers.

There's somewhere between scores and hundreds of companies in the region; Blackwater could only have a thousand people there and still possibly be one of the larger single forces in the area. They're definitely not the bulk of the mercs/contractors/whatever they're called this week, though.

I'm pretty sure Blackwater "only" has about 10-20,000 personnel, including the ones Stateside.

It was a State Dept convoy...

Shooting from helicopters, gun battle lasted twenty minutes...

From the article:

"Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki late Sunday condemned the shooting by a ''foreign security company'' and called it a ''crime.''Tens of thousands of private security contractors operate in Iraq -- some with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles.

The contractors, including many Americans and Britons, provide protection for Westerners and dignitaries in Iraq as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war. Many have been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys, but none has faced charges or prosecution."

Anarchy? Civil War? I thought the "Surge" was working???



K&R!!!

...oh wait a minute

Before anyone can connect any dots and prove what they've really been up to?

Blackwater's main purpose in Iraq was to keep shit stirred up so
the war could continue. The longer the war, the more money to be
made by defense contractors, the more oil that is pumped out of the
wells with no metering devices, the longer the US funds the war so
more money can be 'unaccounted for' - stolen....the list is long.

so the Iraqi government is starting to do some good!

I think there would be a very noticeable reduction in the
sectarian violence if Blackwater was out of Iraq. I think
they move from area to area, from faction to faction, helping
different groups until they are killed are their numbers cut
low enough, the rest disperse into other factions. It also
would not surprise me to find out that Blackwater was solely
responsible for some attacks that are blamed on insurgents.

about whether violence is being maintained in order to prevent exploitation of some of the larger oil fields. The argument is that this keeps the price of oil high for OPEC and the N. Iraqi Kirkuk oil fields, which are now in a deal with Hunt Oil. It also works to keep the central government fragmented so that they cannot pass legislation counter to the wishes of BushCo.

Replacing one Republican Guard with yet another, the Iraqis must really love us.

and their Government will start standing up for themselves
and kick the Americans out of their Country for good!

men--those four mercenaries who were shot, and their bodies burned and hung from the bridge, that was the 'cause celebre' for the U.S. military assault on Fallujah, during election week 2004. And I wonder, too, about the beheading of Nicholas Berg on video--lot of weird stuff around that incident--which was used to get freepers' blood up, and to justify hatred and killing of Iraqis, when the Abu Graib torture scandal was breaking in May 2004. I think these totally unaccountable mercenaries are, indeed, used to stir shit up, wherever the Bushites want to kill a lot of people, and/or need a newsstream "talking point" to cover something up or drown some unfavorable news. There is also a Colombian connection. Blackwater (and others?) are recruiting in Colombia (for Iraq). A huge scandal has broken out in Colombia, involving close ties between the Uribe government (Bush's pals) and rightwing paramilitaries that have been chainsawing union leaders and dumping their body parts in mass graves, and slaying whole peasant villages, to further major drug trafficking and enhance the ungodly profits of corporations like Chiquita. A plot to assassinate President Hugo Chavez and destabilize Venezuela and the other Andes democracies was also revealed--hatched among these high-placed rightwing hit squads. Colombia is a hotbed of fascist training, and also provides cheaper mercenaries (willing to work for less).

What a menace these private military corporations are! I think we need a UN commission on it--a new section in the Geneva Conventions. I don't see the Democrats curtailing them. They haven't curtailed anything else. Naked fear and blackmail are at work, I think--as well as some outright collusion. The U.S. government has become an absolute pigsty of corruption--unprecedented in our history and maybe in human history (as to its scale). And these corporate militaries are right at the heart of it. So I doubt our ability, as a democracy, to deal with them. But perhaps a UN commission could spread the target, and dilute some of the fear, and create some new international agreements that countries could then endorse. I think they should be made into international pariahs, and banned, just like any other terrorist group. And since it is very much a sovereignty issue, it could conceivably achieve widespread support among the countries of the world. Civilian control of military forces is an essential component of sovereignty. Private corporate militaries are a result of global corporate predator policy, which is assaulting the sovereignty of nation-states everywhere, on many vital issues--labor rights, environmental protection, use of natural resources, even--in this country--our voting system, with direct control of the vote counting, fully privatized between 2002 and 2004, and "trade secret," proprietary programming code in all the new electronic voting machines, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations. What could be more of an attack on our sovereignty than THAT?

Hijacking the U.S. military for a corporate resource war is another--with our soldiers getting treated like slave labor--and hijacking billions of our tax dollars for the development of PRIVATE armies is an obvious one. Nations need to start acting to protect themselves from these unaccountable global corporate predators--and some already are. There is a huge anti-globalisation movement that we don't hear much about in this country, of course. But this movement has virtually paralyzed the World Trade Organization, and is pushing the World Bank/IMF loan sharks out of South America, as well as arm-wrestling corps like Exxon for bigger national shares of resource profits, and banding together in new trade organizations and regional development projects that favor local self-determination and social justice. I think an international treaty banning private militaries may be an idea whose time has come--or could soon come--parallel with other efforts to regain national (and popular) control over trade, labor conditions and resources.

Another contractor:

"My friend who has been a private contractor with Bearing Point almost since the day we invaded is coming home. Their entire project has been cancelled. They really freaked out when those contractors were kidnapped in the green zone. I don't think those guys have been heard from since, have they?"

Looks like it's going to be just us.

Just asking...I don't remember that.

Re: the OP. This is going to get good. I hope they kick them all out . Lawless bunch of thugs!


edit> typo

but they tend to keep quiet about it, and I am sure that BW deaths are higher than they have admitted.
Of course, the families won't/can't say anything because they lose their death bennies if they squeal.

I read some time ago that the private security companies' deaths were a high as the military's. MSM just doesn't mention it.

Blackwater has immunity. What army is Iraq going to enforce it with? What an expensive joke.

...I think the Iraq government is taking actions now to get all U.S. military contractors out

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-i...
Blackwater License Being Pulled in Iraq -- chicagotribune.com

this offers even more information

Everybody rate it up. You can also comment about the article.

There haven't been any "turns" that I'm aware of. There have been a few gentle course corrections (VERY gentle) but for the most part it's been "STAY THE COURSE". Turning points? Not that I or anyone else can with an IQ higher than room temperature can detect.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/14/politics/anim...



Numbers could be inflated, and I don't know how many officially puts one into the coveted "fascist" category, but six figures has to do for most people...

I don't expect the Iraqi government to stand its ground on this.
Mercenaries play too significant a role in Iraq for the U.S. to let
them get kicked out.

Even if Blackwater loses it license, expect Blackwater personnel
to work there under a new sub-sub-subcontract and under a
nominally different authority. That's the way Bush & Co. operate.

If anything I could see them with a permanent presence in Iraq, guarding the pipelines and whatnot. There still will be permanent US military bases there won't there? The wingnut running Blackwater is not just going to fade off into the sunset.

"We don't need no license. I don't have to show you any stinking license."

Same as it ever was.

Don't know if the Iraqis have enough clout to enforce the matter of getting these swine yahoos out of the country. However it is always a good sign to see them taking charge of security and addressing the terrorists inside Blackwater.

When the Iraqis stand up, we can stand down....

I love that guys face!

What's to keep them from recreating themselves as a different entity? As far as I know, nothing.

and Blackwater or their people will keep right on working in Iraq. Be a b*tch if our govt hacks have to be guarded by the US military or our own security people.

Iraq shootout firm loses licence

As many as 20,000 private security contractors are working in Iraq
Iraq has cancelled the licence of the private security firm, Blackwater USA, after it was involved in a gunfight in which at least eight civilians died.
The Iraqi interior ministry said the contractor, based in North Carolina, was now banned from operating in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6998788.st...

Din't confirm the ban earlier. Now the ban is in place I suppose it could turn into a turkey shoot.

have been sent to or hired there by Blackwater to due there bidding in Iraq.

available for duty in Venezuela, Bolivia, and here - in good 'ol USA. Christians - ready to kill.

Sorry for being blunt, the truth hurts.

Even if they are expelled, they'll be there under another guise.

Wonder if violence will escalate against US contractors in general now?

I have a feeling things are going to get even worse in Iraq now.

We need to get the fuck out.

Failing to broker cooperation and peace between tribal groups is one thing, but inhibiting the ability of Republican Party contributors to continue their war-for-profit activities in the deepest trough in the world is absolutely offensive to the Bush Administration. Maliki will definitely be forced out for this if nothing else.

we won't stand for that.

Look for them to step up their campaign bigtime.

This may be the excuse Bush was looking for to replace his puppet gov't with a puppet dictator. How dare his puppet PM try to expel the Praetorian Guard!!!

Until people like the Iraqis and Palestinians elect someone he doesn't like.

He likes the appearance of free elections...the difference between him and his previous occupiers of the WH is that he doesn't pretend not to be tampering in the results when the rigging doesn't work correctly.

Sad to say, but he just does openly what most previous presidents did through stealth and subversion.

The iraqi government is supposed to be sovereign-right,George?

When are they going to get around to doing the same to Halliburton..and fining them as well??????????

near San Diego? Waiting for the administration's next Reichstag fire to hit, probably a west coast nuke?

TOPOFF and Martial Law exercises starting October 15th. TOPOFF a simulated WMD attack in North Portland, and NORTHCOM, who is already involved at some level in TOPOFF is conducting a martial law exercise the same week.

to bribe the minister to change his mind? Perhaps the problem is that Blackwater did not pay enough. What is a reasonable bribe? 5 percent of the total take? Big bucks to the minister, small change to Blackwater?

On the other hand there are cheaper ways for Blackwater to change his mind. Like changing it into something else, somewhere other than where it is now.

I am sure that Blackwater will make an offer he cannot refuse: Back of the head or front?

Also look for a call from Uncle Dick to sort things out. Wonder if this will hold.

the State Department personnel.

Geezus, have we privatized everything.

I wish I had a chunk of that contract.

They may be working off of a contract, but they're not fixing toilets or installing drywall. There's been a word for Blackwater since the beginning of civilization: "mercenaries". That's what they are and it's not a vulgar or unmodern term...no more than prostitute or merchant.

It's not a war either. It's an occupation.

We need to stop letting the RW define what terms are to be used in order to sugar coat it and obscure the true meaning of what's going on. Unfortunately, the M$M goes right along with it. I wish we wouldn't though.

merchant...less so but still, some are honorable...

mercenaries...never honorable!

Like *ucking Praetorians!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
*Breaking BBC!* Iraq Cancels Blackwater License after Shoot Out on Iraqi Citizens!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
Blackwater banned from operating in Iraq

...when he said some "troops" could come home.

These guys were running around New Orleans during Katrina, griping how the pay wasn't as good as it was while on Iraq duty. I remember images of 'contractors' racing past the crowd at the Convention Center in their SUVs, not stopping to help anyone. N.O. police just stayed out of their way. This company is scary.

But, I am afraid all they have to do is switch everything on paper to another sister company of Blackwater, and everything continues as usual.

I would bet, that with the way that our military and blackwater are tied together that the Bush admin will not let Blackwater leave in reality, but will just issue them a new name, tax id and business will continue as usual, and those involved with the incident will be removed to another country.


If, Blackwater really has to leave - then Bush would have to put our forces. Blackwater does many ops for our military, and I don't think the Bush admin will let it happen. IMO.

It would really be nice if this made him have to pull out of Iraq completely!

From CNN:

NEW: Condoleezza Rice set to call Iraqi prime minister to discuss gunbattle

saying that the civilian deaths were false and only insurgents were killed.

This is the best news I've heard in a while I hope to god the Iraqi gov can pull it off! They need to be banned from everywhere including the US and this needs to go on to the UN. They are nothing but a rich band of christofacist serial killers. K&R

  God help us. I fucking hate mercenaries. They used to call us Yankee Doodles but we bumpkins turned that insult into a badge.

  Going to be hard if they bring their chain guns back home, though.

PB

they're like get the F out of our country....

After Rummy's Privatization we have Mercenaries doing the work...guarding our own Military and if Blackwater is gone...the others can take up the slack. Sounds like Iraq is now in a Mercenary Occupation where our American Troops are just pawns to be moved around to cover up the money these mercenaries are making. Can Congress ever get control over this when the Corporates are making so much money off of it? The British group Aegis and the others mentioned. Our Taxpayer dollars are funding them? Are we pouring money into the British treasury, too...by giving money to these groups?

the Pentagon's ability to run secret operations without Congressional oversight, and I really do not understand how any one can assume to know what is going on in that country.

Yet they spend more than god on military, spying, stealing oil. Infrastructure is forgotten to death in the U.S., afterall, only the little people need those things and they can tax locally and fix roads, railroad, power lines and plants, etc..

People are living in a dream world where they don't read or consider what this new govt. is doing. It is truly shocking.

I think this blackwater is nothing but a company of murders. It should be illegal for these un-American douches to be in our country. Shut them down and kick them out.

I was quite surprised to see this on the noon news here. Blackwater is pulling it people out of Iraq.

Who does this guy think he is, telling Blackwater what to do?

Think of the efficiency of the Pentagon without regulations

A private army for California?


Blackwater USA, a private army that promises "the most comprehensive professional security, peacekeeping and stability operations" in the world, is planning to build a major training center in San Diego County and, according to one company executive, has met with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger providing its services following a major California disaster.

Never heard of Blackwater?

As Time magazine reported, Blackwater has become the embodiment of the outsourcing of the Iraq war and its grisly results. In March 2004, four Blackwater employees were ambushed in Fallujah, dragged from their cars and mutilated. Two of the men were hanged from the bridge at the edge of town. "In Fallujah, it's still known as Blackwater Bridge," Time writes.

The company also was hired to assist with disaster security following Hurricane Katrina.

The North Carolina company is the subject of a new book by Jeremy Scahill, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army." In a recent interview with Terry Gross on "Fresh Air," Scahill said Blackwater has met with Schwarzenegger about providing disaster assistance for California. Scahill said the company "was founded with the idea of anticipating increased government outsourcing of military training, and so Blackwater is really positioning itself to cash in for many, many years to come."

"The company has applied for operating licenses in all of the coastal states of the United States and, as I said, they're opening military and law enforcement training facilities in Illinois and California. They're sort of building a triangle around the country," he said.

Did Schwarzenegger really talk to a private mercenary army about providing security assistance after a major California disaster? Scahill has repeated the information in numerous interviews.

The Schwarzenegger administration said it has no records of Blackwater ever meeting with the Republican governor. Chris Bertelli, deputy director of the California Office of Homeland Security, once did consulting work for Blackwater, but Homeland Security and the Office of Emergency Services both said they had no record of a meeting with the company. I emailed Scahill about his information, and he said he heard about a Schwarzenegger- Blackwater meeting from two reporters at the Virginian-Pilot, which has done extensive and meticulous research into Blackwater.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/politicalmuscle/2007/04...

I'd like to get them on tape trying to wave automatic weopon around citizens' faces. I won't be surprised when they start shooting. I won't shed one tear when we start shooting back.

Taking a page right out of the Fascist Feds playbook ...

How many F***ING times are we going to hear our government's tacit denial of horrible doings (that we know to be true) using THIS EXACT KIND of BULLSHIT ...

"Well, we HAVE NO RECORD of ... such and such" as if THAT answers the F***ING QUESTION?!? And then our MSM whores just treat that answer as though "Hey, well, that settles it then, people, move along, nothing to see here!"

F*** I swear I'm get so PISSED about this crap happening OVER AND OVER and nobody (but us, of course) catching on or questioning these kind of 'say nothing' answers to serious questions...

Blackwater has caused much suffering among the Iraqi people.

If Blackwater's not fighting them over there, then they'll be fighting us over here.

Otherwise Bush will continue paying them to sit on their ass until he needs them to murder Americans in America.

.....The secretive company, run by a former Navy SEAL, has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq and at least $800 million in government contracts. It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of "Little Bird" helicopters and armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond.

Phone messages left early Monday at the company's office in North Carolina and with a spokeswoman were not immediately returned.

The U.S. Embassy said a State Department motorcade came under small-arms fire that disabled one of the vehicles, which had to be towed from the scene near Nisoor Square in the Mansour district.

"There was a convoy of State Department personnel and a car bomb went off in proximity to them and there was an exchange of fire as the personnel were returning to the International Zone," embassy spokesman Johann Schmonsees said, referring to the heavily fortified U.S.-protected area in central Baghdad also known as the Green Zone.

Officials provided no information about Iraqi casualties but said no State Department personnel were wounded or killed.

The embassy also refused to answer any questions on Blackwater's status or legal issues, saying it was seeking clarification on the issue as part of the investigation.

I wonder how long the Bush Jr. administration will let that go on?

Now if only we could. Evil SOB's.

Hmmm... wonder why it says "service unavailable"

I would like to see the license supposedly issued for this creepy company to operate in Iraq.


''We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,'' Khalaf said.

These Blackwater punks just happened to be there from the start. I bet they're not going anywhere.

This Khalaf guy should audition for the Tonight Show. I'm sure the mercs that did this are shaking in their boots right about now. I bet there hasn't been a single merc brought up on criminal charges.

so we can get the fuck out of there....

Fred Fielding
Was: Blackwater's Lawyer. Now: White House Counsel (replaced Harriet Miers).

Ken Starr
Was: Special Prosecutor who pursued Bill Clinton. Now: Blackwater's Lawyer

Joseph Schmitz
Was: Pentagon's Inspector general who policed contractors. Now: Blackwater vice-counsel

Cofer Black
Was: CIA Head of Counter-terrorism on 9/11 Now: Vice Chairman, Blackwater

Erik Prince
Founder of Blackwater. Right-wing Christian fundamentalist, major benefactor of Focus on Family and Bush 2. Sister is married to head of Amway.

Blackwater is suing the estates of 4 contractors who died on-the-job in Iraq, they were brutally killed in Fallujah in 2004. Blackwater had refused to share information with families about why the contractors were killed; they now sue those families to shut them up and intimidate them so they won't pursue this information in court.

and a blog full of stories:

http://iraqforsale.org/blackwater.php

-----

It was not immediately clear whether Iraq or the United States holds the authority to regulate Blackwater's operations. A regulation known as Order 17 established under the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority headed by L. Paul Bremer effectively granted immunity to American private security contractors from being prosecuted in Iraqi courts.

Another CPA memorandum requires private security companies to register with the Interior Ministry, but some of the companies in Iraq operate without doing so.

Lawrence T. Peter, director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, said Blackwater was licensed by the Interior Ministry. But Blackwater acknowledged as recently as two months ago that a license it obtained in 2005 had lapsed, and the company was having trouble getting the license renewed.

"Many Iraqis have come to me and complained bitterly to me about CPA Order 17, I understand that," said Peter. "But the fact that you complain bitterly doesn't mean you can wave a magic wand and change it."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

More:

Is there even a license to revoke? Buzz on the contractor street is that it isn't clear how this development will affect Blackwater. Allegedly, Blackwater doesn't have a "license" to revoke, and its contracts with the State Department and CIA may not be immediately affected. This could play out in an interesting (albeit depressing) powerplay between the al-Maliki, Iraq's Ministry of Interior, and the U.S. Government.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rob_kall_070917...

corporate america owns the place, you know.

MERCENARIES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqM4tKPDlR8

The total merc/contractor/etc count is in the six-digit range - 120,000, 160,000, something in that area? I don't know the specific, just that it's around that range. A BBC article on this says that there's only about a thousand Blackwater people in Iraq; I had thought that there were many, many more of them, even if I didn't necessarily think they were a plurality or majority of the total figure.

I dunno, just thought the numbers were interesting. Clearly I need to get a better grasp on how many people the various companies are sending there.

There are A LOT of those people there - many of them from lots of different countries. During my husband's tour most of that stuff was done by Iraqis - but they were paid by KBR.