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State Department renews Blackwater license for a year

The US State Department said it would renew Blackwater USA’s license to protect diplomats in Baghdad for one year, but a final decision was pending whether the private security company would keep the job.

A top State Department official said on Friday that because the FBI was investigating last year’s fatal shooting of civilians in Baghdad, there was no justification now to pull the contract when it comes due next month. Blackwater has a five-year deal to provide personal protection for diplomats, which is reauthorized each year.

The State Department uses Blackwater to guard diplomats in Baghdad, where the sprawling US embassy is headquartered. The private guards act as bodyguards and armed drivers, escorting government officials when they go outside the fortified Green Zone.

OUTRAGE

Iraqis were outraged over a Sept. 16 shooting in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed in a Baghdad square. Blackwater said its guards were protecting diplomats under attack when they opened fire.

Iraqi investigators concluded the shooting was unprovoked.

An FBI probe began in November. Prosecutors want to know whether Blackwater contractors used excessive force or violated any laws during the shooting.

Prosecutors have questioned more than 30 witnesses in the US and in Iraq, but have announced no conclusions. One possibility is that individual contractors could be indicted; another is that the company could be indicted; or the FBI could conclude that no crime was committed.

The company is also the target of an unrelated investigation into whether its contractors smuggled weapons into Iraq. And lawmakers have asked for an investigation into whether Blackwater violated tax laws by classifying employees as independent contractors. The company says the claim is groundless.

The State Department’s top security officer, Greg Starr, told reporters that Blackwater’s contract eventually could be pulled, depending on what the FBI and an internal State Department inquiry conclude.

He would not predict whether that is likely and said he had no information about when the FBI might end its investigation.

RESIGNATION

Starr’s predecessor, Richard Griffin, resigned just one day after a State Department study found serious lapses in the department’s oversight of private guards.

The State Department’s decision announced on Friday extends Blackwater’s contract for the third year in the multiyear deal.

After the September deaths, US commanders in Iraq complained that they often do not know security firms are moving through their areas of responsibility until after some hostile incident has taken place.

In a meeting at the end of October, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and reached a general understanding that more military control was needed over security firms operating in the war zone.

In December, the Pentagon and the State Department completed a new agreement giving the military in Iraq more control over Blackwater Worldwide and other private security contractors.
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