AP - Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.



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Loopholes for contractors need to be closed, and they need to come under someones jurisdiction.

Having said that. I'll wait until the video is released before passing judgement.

From what I know though, contractors (including those of other companies) have never faced any sort of trial before (at least of 2006) for cases of shooting civilians.
Their effectivenes so far has been due to the fact that they are not restrained as heavily as the military is but with alleged incidents like these (and several possible actual ones before) I think that's going to come to an end.
And like I said, I think this is only the beginning. Once the war in Iraq is over and there isn't going to be a major contract for several years, they are going to turn to dirty contracts to stay alive.

^^^This is the very good reason why private armies are banned in most civilised countries.

A bad idea, right from the start.

Agreed.
This whole contractor thing is gonna backfire big time some day.
It's not because those involved are evil or anything either.
A carriage maker hopes that people will get wealthy.
A coffin maker hopes that someone will die.
This doesn't make the carriage maker any more benevolent than the coffin maker. Their motivation is identical but their means to that end are different.
A professional soldier without an Army will require one and when contracts run dry, his freedom to choose will be highly limited. There will be plenty of those who will, for the right price, sell their expertise to entities hostile or potentially hostile to the US.