Blackwater USA in the black hats

Iraqi calls to expel private U.S. security forces are grounded in national pride as well as understandable outrage over civilian shooting deaths at the hands of hired gunslingers. Sovereignty is as much in play as retribution.

All of the fury is focused on Blackwater USA, which is blamed for killing 10 civilians and wounding 10 others in the aftermath of a perceived attack on a State Department convoy. The North Carolina firm has an $800 million contract to protect U.S. diplomats and dignitaries. The tragedy and the anger reopen another window on the contractor community that supports the U.S. war in Iraq. Recent debate focused on the official count of American troops in country. One question resonated: How soon might the surge of forces to 165,000 be reduced back to 130,000?

Not included in those calculations is the presence of contractors whose numbers are estimated as high as 126,000 and include every occupation from cooks and mechanics to engineers and bodyguards. The New York Times puts the figure for hired security personnel at 30,000.

Jobs that might have been filled in the past by military personnel or other federal employees are now hired out to the private sector. The quip is that the war of the willing has become the war of the billing. Hiring civilians reduces the more visible and emotional military head count.

The central government in Baghdad, much maligned as impotent and ineffectual, has found a cause to exert its authority. Likewise, the U.S. government, which has labored to enhance the credibility of the national government, has to tread softly on any refusal to comply with an expulsion order.

Who, indeed, is in charge — the elected government or the employers of foreign security contractors?

By last spring, 770 civilian contractors working for U.S. companies had been killed since the 2003 invasion, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The shootings at the heart of this controversy also cast light on the muddle of Iraqi security. Last month, the Government Accountability Office reported the Pentagon lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. American taxpayers have provided $19.2 billion to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO reported.

Iraqi officials have proven helpless against militias, tribes, sectarian cops and soldiers, and plain old criminals. They might well decide that Blackwater USA represents a group of heavily armed trigger-pullers they can do something about. Sensibly or not.