CBS EXCLUSIVE: Letter From Iraq Ministry-"ALL IMMUNITIES SHALL BE CANCELLED"

[kpete]

New Law May Spell End To Iraq Contractors
CBS News: Documents Show Iraqi Parliament Considering Ending Immunity For Private Firms
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2007

The Iraqi government is attempting to rein in out-of-control U.S. security contractors with new legislation that would end their legal immunity.

(CBS) The government of Iraq has notified private security firms their immunity from Iraqi law is about to end, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

The title of a letter sent by the interior ministry - and obtained exclusively CBS News - says it all: “Removing the legal immunity.” Until now, security firms like Blackwater have operated under a grant of immunity issued in 2004 by the then-top American in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer.

But the draft of a new law says “all immunities … shall be cancelled."

That law still must be ratified by the Iraqi parliament, and if and when it is, private security firms would almost certainly pull out of Iraq.

“There’s no question it’s a disaster if this got passed,” said Carter Andress, one of an estimated 8,500 private security contractors guarding diplomats, convoys and reconstruction sites for the U.S. He is not willing to let his employees be subject to arrest by an Iraqi police force he believes is riddled with corruption and infiltrated by enemy fighters.

more at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/09/eveningnews/main3482676.shtml