AlterNet: War on Iraq: Will Blackwater Be Kicked Out of Iraq ...

It first took on this role in the summer of 2003, after receiving a $27 million no-bid contract to provide security for Ambassador Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

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Now that Blackwater's name is known (and hated) throughout Iraq, the bodyguards themselves are likely to become targets of resistance attacks, perhaps even more so than the officials they are tasked with keeping alive. This will make their work much more difficult. But beyond such security issues are more substantive political ones, as Blackwater's continued presence on Iraqi streets days after Maliki called for its expulsion serves as a potent symbol of the utter lack of Iraqi sovereignty.

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Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, characterizes Order 17 as a clear violation of Iraqi sovereignty but points out that it contains a provision that allows the United States to waive the immunity with regard to individuals.

"A possible first step for Iraq is to ask the US to waive the immunity of those involved in the killing," says Ratner, who concedes that this is an unlikely move from Washington, "as it would frighten other private contractors." He also said the immunity is a part of the US strategy for using private companies like Blackwater to deter resistance attacks on occupation personnel.

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Former CIA case officer Robert Baer says that the cleanest solution would be for the United States to rescind Order 17.

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Representative Dennis Kucinich, a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has suggested that "there's a question that could actually make [Blackwater's] corporate officers accessories here in helping to create a flight from justice for someone who's committed a murder."

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According to the Government Accountability Office, there are as many as 180 mercenary firms in Iraq, with tens of thousands of employees. Without the occupation and continued funding for the war, these companies would not be in Iraq.

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While it has no shortage of US and British competitors in Iraq, no other private force's actions have had more of an impact on events in Iraq than those of the North Carolina-based company. Blackwater's primary purpose in Iraq, at which it has been very effective, is to keep the most hated US occupation officials alive by any means necessary. This has encouraged conduct that places American lives at an infinitely higher premium than those of Iraqi civilians, even in cases where the only Iraqi crime is driving too close to a VIP convoy protected by Blackwater guards.

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"they were doing their job, exactly what they were paid to do in the way they were paid to do it, and they were making enemies on every single pass out of town." Hammes concluded they were "hurting our counterinsurgency effort."

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