Blackwater’s License to Operate in Iraq Has Been Cancelled Following Atrocity
September 17th, 2007Via: AFP:
Iraq has ordered the cancellation of the operating licence of US security firm Blackwater after it was involved in a shootout in Baghdad that killed eight people, a senior official told AFP on Monday.
Blackwater offers personal security to US officials working in Iraq.
“The interior minister (Jawad al-Bolani) has issued an order to cancel Blackwater’s licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq,” interior ministry director of operations Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.
“We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime.”
On Sunday, a US diplomatic convoy was involved in a shootout in Baghdad’s Al-Yarmukh neighbourhood which killed at least eight people and wounded 13 others.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned what he called the “criminal” response of the contractors guarding the convoy which Washington’s mission in Baghdad said had come under attack from insurgents.
“Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemns and strongly denounces the criminal operation committed by one of the foreign security companies in Al-Nissur Square,” said a statement from Maliki’s office quoted by state television.
The US convoy came under attack on Sunday while it was travelling past Al-Nissur Square in the Al-Yarmukh neighbourhood of west Baghdad, Iraqi security officials said.
The private security contractors accompanying the convoy returned fire.
According to the security officials, nine people were killed and 15 wounded. Khalaf confirmed eight people dead, including a policeman, and 13 wounded.
Most of the dead and wounded were bystanders, the officials said.
I didn’t know where to post my comment – here – or on the link with over 1 million Iraqi’s dead. I saw a picture today of an Iraqi woman holding her dead 6 year old son in her arms today, and well, I think I pretty well lost it because I felt the pain of that mother’s loss. I cried so hard inside because ya know, I’ve got to keep my chin up at the office while my tax dollars are at work making war on a country WAAY across the globe for oil with an American flag waving over it.
And here I am, worried about my freakiin money. What a strange,freaking and sometimes self centered circus I find myself living in.
Back on topic (I digressed) Blackwater once again, lives up to its namesake. There is a certain slime in this world that even chlorox bleach cannot kill.
Even as the talking heads are discussing whether or NOT Blackwater even needs A LICENSE TO KILL, the fact that this story even made it into the MSM gives me hope. The soap-on-the-rope money machine into Iraq is coming into the light of day. Maybe even one more person will wake the freakin up and figure, oh, that’s why I feel so full of shit as a person…I’m sitting here in front of the TV while my country commits mass murder in my country’s name for freakin oil. Yea I know what a dream.
Ever the optimist, I do believe the BOWELS of the USA are in a major constipation mode, and hoo boy, many poop shoots (even of the mental kind) are going to feel the urge to purge really soon. But I am an eternal optimist.
Hang ten. Give someone like Blackwater enough rope, and eventually, they WILL hang themselves.
This might be the deal that does it.
Yet Blackwater is still allowed to operate in New Orleans…
Reminding myself of that lethal fact helps me get through the days when I am tearing my hair out in frustration over the stupidity and corruption of the Kiwi welfare state.
My understanding is that the mercenaries operate under an exemption from Iraqi law passed by Bremer before the handover of “sovereignty”. Does anyone believe that the Iraqi govt can truly bar Blackwater? If so they could throw US out as well.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/iraq-blackwater-death-probe-widens/2007/09/22/1189881835061.html
“…but the Government has backed away from its attempt to expel the company.”