US-Iraq Pact Ends Contractor Immunity

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US-Iraq Pact Ends Contractor Immunity
November 21, 2008
Knight Ridder

WASHINGTON - Contractors working for the United States in Iraq, including armed security outfits such as Blackwater Inc., will be subject to Iraqi law under the new U.S.-Iraq security pact. Not only that, they could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Nov. 20.

A new U.S.-Iraq security agreement doesn't specifically prevent Iraqi officials from bringing criminal charges retroactively in cases such as the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians by contractors protecting a State Department convoy, officials told security company officials during meetings in Washington Thursday.

The news caught company officials by surprise.

"We are still trying to make sense of it," said Anne E. Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Blackwater Inc., whose security guards have been involved in some of the most controversial incidents in Iraq, including the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting at al Nisoor Square in Baghdad.

An order signed in 2003 by L. Paul Bremer, then head of the Coalition Provisional Authority that governed Iraq, granted private security guards immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law. In the ensuing years, private security contractors became critical to U.S. operations in Iraq, guarding State Department convoys and undertaking other critical military missions.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/us-iraq-pact-ends-contractor-immunity.html?col=1186032310810