Blackwater Committed A Crime, Iraqi Panel Says

BAGHDAD — An official Iraqi investigation into a deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA security guards concluded 17 Iraqis were killed and found the gunfire was unwarranted, the government said yesterday. It also said the shootings amounted to a deliberate crime and recommended those involved face trial.

The Blackwater guards are accused of opening fire on Iraqi civilians in a main square in Baghdad on September 16. They claimed they came under fire first.

The Iraqi investigative committee, which was ordered by Prime Minister al-Maliki, found that convoys from the Moyock, N.C.-based security company did not come under direct or indirect fire before the men shot up the intersection. "It was not hit even by a stone," a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said in a statement.

The incident has outraged Iraqis and brought calls for the rules governing those protecting American diplomats to be overhauled.

The three-member Iraqi panel led by Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi put the casualty toll at 17 killed and 23 wounded, giving a higher number than other estimates. It determined that Blackwater guards sprayed western Baghdad's Nisoor Square with gunfire without provocation.

Mr. Dabbagh said the Cabinet would weigh the Iraqi findings with those of a joint American-Iraqi commission "and subsequently adopt the legal procedures to hold this company accountable."

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the Iraqi panel's recommendations also would include that the company compensate the victims.

The Iraqi panel is one of at least three investigations involving Americans. The joint American-Iraqi commission also met for the first time yesterday to review American security operations after the shooting.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also dispatched a team to Baghdad, and retired veteran diplomat Stapleton Roy is leading a diplomatic review, along with a former State Department and intelligence official, Eric Boswell. The panel, led by Patrick Kennedy, one of the most senior management experts in the U.S. Foreign Service, was to present an interim report early this month.

The September 16 incident was one of at least six involving deaths allegedly caused by Blackwater that authorities here have brought to the attention of the Americans. The joint commission exchanged opinions about the shootings and agreed on a need to establish a direct mechanism for sharing information and to review several issues related to American security operations, an embassy spokeswoman, Mirembe Nantongo, said.

The panel chaired by the Iraqi defense minister and U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission, Patricia Butenis, also expressed "mutual commitment of the Iraqi government and the U.S. government to work together to evaluate issues of safety and security related to personal security detail operations in Iraq," according to a brief statement.