The Iraqi government said Monday that it was revoking the license of an American security firm accused of involvement in the deaths of eight civilians in a firefight that followed a car bomb explosion near a State Department motorcade.
The Interior Ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday shooting. It was the latest accusation against the U.S.-contracted firms that operate with little or no supervision and are widely disliked by Iraqis who resent their speeding motorcades and forceful behavior.
If you win the battle to keep the troops in Iraq, but then get forced to withdraw your pet security firm, have you actually won the battle to keep troops in Iraq?
The Iraqi government said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad…"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities," Khalaf said. The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the shooting was still under investigation. It was not immediately clear if the measure against Blackwater was intended to be temporary or permanent.
I suspect this is not the last we’ll hear of this. The US would have a tough time replacing Blackwater immediately for a number of reasons–the contracts have gotten so huge, it’ll be hard to ramp up that quickly (though I suppose someone could just sub-contract Blackwater). So this really does endanger the US’ ability to run an empire in Iraq. Furthermore, Blackwater is about as wired in as corrupt Republican companies come–the Prince and DeVos families are important money bags for the GOP and I’m sure they will object to losing their big gravy train. Which is why, I suspect, Blackwater isn’t commenting on this yet:
Phone messages left early Monday at the company’s office in North Carolina and with a spokeswoman were not immediately returned.
I suspect they’re going to launch a large-scale lobbying effort tomorrow to stay in Iraq. Which means this may well turn into an issue between Maliki’s government and Bush. Kicking out Blackwater is one way for Maliki’s government to assert sovereignty in ways that do not require the Democratic party to have a spine. It seems the Iraqi government–and not just Congress and the President–get to have some say over the US empire in Iraq.
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are – an army of occupation – and force our withdrawal.
Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.
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