During a telephone conversation on Monday night, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed that U.S. diplomats must be free to travel around Iraq, but how they will do that is now a point of contention. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad relies heavily on Blackwater security to guard its personnel as they visit government ministries and other sites around Iraq. American diplomats have not been able to travel outside the Green Zone since Iraq suspended Blackwater's license following a firefight Sunday that resulted in the deaths of at least eight Iraqi civilians. "We're there to strengthen the capacity of the Iraqi Government. We're not able to do that all in the Green Zone," Rice said she told Maliki in the conversation. And, she said, he agreed. Rice told the press traveling with her on a Mideast mission that the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad met with Maliki's office on Tuesday and the two governments are negotiating a way for the embassy to operate safely and allay Iraq's concerns about what it says is a pattern of excessive use of force by Blackwater. The State Department confirmed Wednesday that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has stopped all ground movement of American diplomats throughout Iraq outside the Green Zone. "They are working toward mechanisms that might allow us to address these issues together," Rice said during an overnight flight to Jerusalem where she is meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the run-up to a possible November summit.
But Maliki offered his own solution on Wednesday, recommending that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad change the company it uses to provide security. "This crime has generated a lot of hatred in the government and the people against Blackwater," Maliki told reporters. "For their own interests, the Americans should hire a new company to protect their people so they can move freely." The Iraqi premier also ordered a full investigation into Sunday's fire fight. Yesterday, Iraq's Ministry of the Interior released an account of the incident that differed substantially from the official U.S. report. The ministry said that Blackwater initiated the firefight, killing as many as 20 civilians.
Furthermore, Maliki told senior aides that he wants to look at ways to change Order 17, a law from early in the post-war occupation of Iraq that some believe provides expatriate contractors immunity from Iraqi prosecution.
Since Sept. 11, the State Department has issued hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to security companies like Blackwater to augment its own, internal Diplomatic Security office that protects U.S. diplomats overseas. What was viewed as a short-term need has extended into a six-year investment. When asked if the State Department should reconsider its reliance on such companies to secure U.S. personnel, Rice said not yet. "It's very early to try to do that kind of analysis, I think."