Blackwater USA’s chairman said employees of the security contractor acted appropriately in a September 16 shooting in Baghdad that left at least eight people dead, dismissing “baseless allegations of wrongdoing.”

In written testimony submitted yesterday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Erik Prince defended the company’s overall record in Iraq and said that in the September 16 incident his employees returned fire only after being ambushed by suicide car bombers and men shooting AK–47 military rifles.

The press has “wrongly pronounced Blackwater’s guilt” for civilian deaths in the incident, Mr. Prince testified.

Mr. Prince’s statement is Blackwater’s first detailed defense of its actions in the September shooting that prompted Iraq to call for the security contractor’s ouster. The company is under investigation by the Iraqi and American governments. The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday said it would send agents to Iraq to probe last month’s incident.

In his written remarks, Mr. Prince said a Blackwater team was escorting an American government official through the Mansour district of Baghdad at about noon when a car bomb exploded. As it responded to the convoy’s call for help, a second Blackwater team about a mile away also came under gunfire.

The first group, trying to flee, shot at Iraqis carrying military rifles and at approaching vehicles “that appeared to be suicide car bombers,” Mr. Prince said. Five of the 25 Blackwater employees involved in the incident returned fire, he said.

At the request of the Justice Department, which Monday said it had begun a criminal investigation into the September 16 incident, the Oversight committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat of California, agreed that event would not be discussed at yesterday’s hearing. Opening the hearing, he asked Mr. Prince and others “not to discuss” the incident. Still, lawmakers had questions about other incidents involving Blackwater.

Mr. Waxman yesterday released a report detailing other alleged violence by Blackwater employees, saying they shot innocent Iraqis and paid off one victim’s family at the urging of the State Department.

The State Department has paid Blackwater more than $832 million to provide security between 2004 and 2006, about half of the money under a no-bid contract awarded in June 2004.

The question, Mr. Waxman said, is, “Are we paying more and getting less?”

Blackwater employees have been involved in at least 195 shooting incidents since 2005, firing the first shot more than 80% of the time, according to the report. The company’s contract with the State Department permits Blackwater personnel to use force only when in “imminent and grave danger.”

In the past three years, Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater has fired 122 employees, about one-seventh of its workforce in Iraq, for alcohol and drug abuse, misusing weapons, violent behavior, and other inappropriate conduct, according to the House committee report.

In one killing on December 24, a drunken Blackwater employee returning from a party killed a guard of Vice President Adil Abdal-Mahdi of Iraq, the report said. Blackwater eventually paid $15,000 to the guard’s family, according to Mr. Waxman’s report. Democrats questioned whether Blackwater is being held accountable for its actions.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat of New York, said that if the December 24 shooting had taken place in America, the Blackwater employee would have been charged with a crime, and if the shooter had been an American soldier, he would have been court-martialed.