The US State Department may phase out or limit the use of private security guards in Iraq. That could mean canceling Blackwater USA's contract or letting it lapse and awarding it to another company within months in line with an Iraqi government demand.
Such steps would be difficult given US reliance on Blackwater and other contractors, but they are among options being studied during a comprehensive review of security in Iraq, two senior officials said.
The review was ordered after a Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards protecting a US embassy convoy in Baghdad were accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians.
The shooting has enraged the Iraqi government, which is demanding millions of dollars in compensation for the victims and removal of Blackwater in six months. It also has put a focus on the nebulous rules governing private guards and added to the Bush administration's problems in managing the war in Iraq.
It also prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to order the top-to-bottom review from a commission headed by Patrick Kennedy, one of the State Department's most experienced management officials.
Kennedy has been told to concentrate on several key issues, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the review is under way. Among them:
Changes to the rules of engagement under which State Department security contractors operate, particularly for approaching suspicious vehicles, which is at the crux of the Sept. 16 incident. Blackwater insists its guards were fired upon, although Iraqi witnesses and the Iraqi government maintain the guards opened fire with no provocation when a vehicle got too close.
Whether Blackwater's secretive corporate culture, reputed to have encouraged a "cowboy-like mentality," has led to its employees' being more likely to violate or stretch the existing rules than those of the two other private security firms, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, that the State Department uses in Iraq.
Whether it is feasible to eliminate or drastically curtail the use of private foreign contractors to protect US diplomats in Iraq. If so, how to replace them.
The officials cautioned that no decisions have been made on what the review panel will recommend. They also said that each recommendation involves complex variables that could depend on interpretations of Iraqi and US laws, as well as US government regulations for vendors.
They noted that Rice is eager for changes and already has accepted and implemented initial steps Kennedy urged in a preliminary report last week.
They included improving government oversight of Blackwater by having federal agents accompany convoys and installing video cameras in their vehicles.
The officials said it was highly unlikely that Kennedy's team would recommend eliminating all private contractors because it would have a profound impact on how US diplomats work in Iraq. The State Department's own Bureau of Diplomatic Security lacks both the manpower and equipment, notably helicopters, to do the job, they said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion