Blackwater business leaves Iraq
reeling By Sumedha Senanayake
The killing of 11 Iraqis in al-Nusur
Square in western Baghdad on September 16,
allegedly by Blackwater USA security contractors,
has enraged Iraqis on several fronts.
Details of the incident remain unclear,
but Iraqi officials and witnesses at the scene
contend that the contractors opened fire on
unarmed civilians without provocation. This
contradicts claims by the company and US officials
that a US State Department convoy guarded by
Blackwater contractors came under fire, and
the
contractors reacted in a defensive manner by
returning fire.
The incident has touched a
nerve with Iraqis. Blackwater contractors have
long been accused of running roughshod with their
aggressive tactics without regard for the
well-being of Iraqis. In the aftermath of the
Nusur killings, the Interior Ministry noted that
Blackwater contractors have been linked to six
other violent incidents, including the killing of
three Iraqi security guards at a television
station in Baghdad on February 7.
However,
it is the issue of not holding Blackwater and
other private security firms accountable for their
actions that has truly roiled Iraqis and created
the impression that Iraq's sovereignty is being
undermined.
Iraqis feel sovereignty
challenged The initial reaction by the
Iraqi government after the Nusur Square incident
was to revoke Blackwater's license, expel the
company from Iraq, and have the contractors
involved in the shootings brought to justice in
Iraq. However, it seems that none of this may
occur.
Even as Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki described the incident as a "crime" and
many Iraqi lawmakers called for Blackwater to
suspend all activities, the company continued to
operate after a brief hiatus. While officials at
the US Embassy in Baghdad indicated that
Blackwater was carrying out only vital missions,
this underscores the frustration expressed by many
Iraqis that they do not have control over what
goes on in their own country.
Moreover,
according to Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)
Order No 17, private contractors "shall be immune
from the Iraqi legal process", in essence meaning
there is no chance of the contractors allegedly
involved in the Nusur incident being prosecuted
under Iraqi law. Iraqi officials have indicated
that the recent shootings may prompt them to
revoke CPA Order 17 and create new guidelines for
dealing with foreign contractors.
Al-Jazeera satellite television reported
last Sunday that prior to the Nusur incident,
Iraqi officials had repeatedly complained to US
officials about Blackwater's overly aggressive
methods and how they were operating without
regulation. Deputy Interior Minister Husayn Kamal
said, "Our complaints went nowhere."
Furthermore, the issue of Iraq's
sovereignty continues to be raised after the
arrest of an Iranian national, Mahmud Farhadi, by
US forces in the northern Iraqi city of
al-Sulaymaniyah on September 20. The United States
accused Farhadi of being an officer of the Quds
Force, a secret military wing of Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was trying to
smuggle weapons into Iraq.
However, Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani insisted Farhadi was a
member of an Iranian trade delegation that was in
the region "with the knowledge of the federal
government in Baghdad and the government of
Kurdistan". Both Talabani and Maliki condemned the
arrest and demanded Farhadi's immediate release.
The arrest prompted Iran to close its border with
Iraq's Kurdish region in protest, and Kurdish
officials have warned that the local economy will
suffer as a result of the United States'
unilateral actions.
A further blow to
Maliki As the Blackwater incident continues
to play out, it remains to be seen how it will
impact Maliki's political standing. The country is
still in the midst of a political crisis, with the
major Sunni political bloc, the Iraqi Accordance
Front, continuing to boycott the government by
refusing to allow its ministers to rejoin Maliki's
cabinet. The absence of Sunni lawmakers has been a
blow to Maliki's efforts at fostering national
reconciliation.
Even within his
Shi'ite-dominated coalition, the United Iraqi
Alliance (UIA), Maliki is facing defections and
withdrawals that threaten his government. On
September 15, the political bloc of radical
Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, with 32 seats in
Parliament, withdrew from the UIA, claiming that
it was being sidelined from the political process.
Abd al-Karim al-Anzi, the head of the
Da'wa Party-Iraq Organization, later announced
that his party too might consider pulling out of
the UIA if the Shi'ite rift was not healed. This
fueled speculation that opponents of Maliki were
trying to bring a no-confidence vote against him
and bring down the government.
There have
also been murmurings in the Iraqi media that
former prime minister and Islamic Da'wa Party
member Ibrahim al-Jaafari is set to announce the
formation of a new political coalition, the
National Reform Grouping, that would counter the
moderates' front established by the UIA and the
Kurdish Alliance in mid-August. If it is formed,
the new coalition is expected to be the largest in
parliament and Jaafari may seek to replace Maliki
as prime minister.
Is Maliki powerless
to act? Based on the current political
landscape, those who oppose Maliki may use the
Blackwater incident to erode his already tenuous
political position further. If the joint US-Iraqi
commission set up to investigate the Nusur
incident finds that some of the Blackwater
contractors opened fire without provocation, but
are not punished or do not end up standing trial
in Iraq, then Maliki could be seen as a US puppet
and lose any political credibility.
Indeed, Maliki's vociferous condemnation
of the shootings and calls for those accused to
face justice, despite his understanding that CPA
Order 17 will make it virtually impossible to do
so, is arguably an attempt to assuage public anger
and shore up his political standing.
However, the reality is that nothing
substantial may change regarding the Blackwater
incident. The Iraqi government has already quickly
backtracked from suspending the company's
activities in Iraq outright, claiming it might
lead to greater problems in the long run.
Tashin al-Shiekhly, a spokesman for the
Iraqi security forces, said at a news conference
on Monday that forcing Blackwater to freeze its
operations would create a security vacuum in
Baghdad that might have to be filled by
redeploying US forces from other parts of Iraq.
Those redeployments could make less secure areas
even more vulnerable, an apparent acknowledgement
that the presence of Blackwater needs to be
tolerated for the benefit of Iraq's overall
security.
Copyright 2007 RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
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