From The Pgh Post Gazette
Editorial

Attracted like flies to a garbage heap, various contractors have gone to the Iraq war zone to make a buck in a country where there’s plenty of money but not nearly enough accountability. Side by side with American servicemen who have disciplined rules of engagement and a military code of honor, there are also mercenaries at work.

One outfit has become especially notorious: Blackwater Worldwide.

It was security guards employed by Blackwater who were involved in a shoot-out in September that killed at least 17 Iraqis in Baghdad. No one has been charged in these deaths, but the killings outraged the Iraqi government, which demanded that the company leave Iraq.

If Iraq were truly a sovereign country these angry words might have been translated into action, but, of course, that is mostly a fiction. The reality is that the United States calls the tune and Blackwater is still very much in business.

As James Risen of The New York Times reported Saturday, the U.S. State Department has renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least one more year — as outrageous a piece of news as has come out of the war zone recently.

State Department officials told the reporter that the chief reason for the renewal was that the agency saw no alternative to using Blackwater, which employs about 800 guards to provide security for diplomats in Baghdad. The company has been lobbying hard to stay on the job, and the agency did not even bother to interview other firms that might provide the same service.

Read more Blackwater