CPA Order 17: Blackwater’s License To Kill

Excerpt:- Unless provided otherwise herein, the MNF, the CPA, Foreign Liaison Missions, their Personnel, property, funds and assets, and all International Consultants shall be immune from Iraqi legal process.

Read it all here. This is what gives Blackwater the license to kill and is why Iraqis want them out and why the US is rushing to do ‘investigations’ to smooth things over and maintain the mercenary presence. Sadr is demanding all mercenaries are thrown out-

“We say the Iraqi government should cancel the licence of this company and all other criminal companies,” Sadr said in a statement issued from his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf.

“Most of (Blackwater’s) members are criminals and those who have left American jails,” the statement said.A top Iraqi judge said Tuesday that Blackwater could be tried in an Iraqi court over the shootout.

This is Iraq trying to assert some kind of law over the corporate killers, but-

…there was doubt on Tuesday that Baghdad will go ahead with its threat to evict the 1,000 or so Blackwater guards providing personal security for US civilian officials working in Iraq after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attempted to smooth tempers with a diplomatic phone call.

Political analyst Peter Singer, in an article posted on the Brookings Institution website, said the US military in Iraq is stretched thin and the US government’s diplomatic security force “has been hollowed out.”

This means that in the short term, he said, Washington will have to “ignore the Iraqis’ wishes and just keep on using Blackwater contractors as before; find another company to step in and quick-fill take on these roles in lieu of the firm; or negotiate with the Iraqis to find terms under which (Blackwater) might continue to carry out the operation.”