‘Virtual Immunity’ for Private Guards in Iraq

Military Law

‘Virtual Immunity’ for Private Guards in Iraq

Posted Sep 20, 2007, 10:30 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Private contractors who provide security in Iraq “operate with virtual immunity from Iraqi and American law,” the New York Times reports.

Congress directed the Defense Department last year to develop rules that would put military contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but it has not yet complied, the newspaper says. The bill did not apply to State Department contractors, such as Blackwater USA, but one of the sponsors of the bill says he wants to expand its reach to all contractors in war zones.

Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki says Blackwater employees have been involved in seven lethal shootings. The latest is the shooting on Sunday that killed eight Iraqis.

Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution told the Times that one Blackwater employee reportedly shot a bodyguard for Iraq’s vice president last December. The gunman was spirited out of the country and never charged, he said.

Blackwater maintains its employees respond appropriately to attacks by armed insurgents.

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