Blackwater Contract Renewal Not Approved by Iraq: Maliki

Published on Monday, April 7, 2008 by Agence France Presse

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the the US State Department had renewed the contract of private security company Blackwater USA without the approval of the Baghdad government.

Blackwater is the most controversial of several private security firms tasked with protecting high-profile US officials and foreign diplomats in Iraq.

The company’s guards shot dead 17 Iraqi civilians while escorting an American diplomat through Baghdad in September 2007 in an incident denounced as a crime by the Iraqi government.

Blackwater says its guards reacted in self-defence.

“As far as Iraqi government is involved, this issue is still under consideration and we are still discussing principles upon which foreign security companies must operate, especially this company because they committed a massacre against Iraqis and until now this matter has not been resolved,” Maliki said on Monday in an interview with US television network CNN.

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