Iraq PM Maliki questions future of Blackwater

By Aseel Kami

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki questioned on Wednesday whether U.S. private security firm Blackwater had any future role in Iraq because of the high number of shooting incidents in which it had been involved.

Maliki appeared to toughen his stand again against Blackwater over a September 16 shooting in Baghdad in which 11 Iraqis died, an incident that sparked outrage among Iraqis who see the firm as a private army which acts with impunity.

In Washington, a House of Representatives committee heard in testy hearings on Tuesday that Blackwater guards had been involved in 195 shooting incidents in Iraq from the start of 2005 until September 12 this year, an average of 1.4 a week.

In those shootings there were 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 cases of property damage. Blackwater fired first in 84 percent of the incidents, said a report given to the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"I believe the big numbers of accusations directed against (Blackwater) do not make it valid to stay in Iraq," Maliki told a news conference in Baghdad.

Blackwater, which has received U.S. government contracts worth more than a billion dollars, is one of the biggest security contractors in Iraq. It employs about 1,000 people in Iraq, where it guards the U.S. embassy and its staff.

The North Carolina-based company has said its guards reacted lawfully to an attack on a convoy they were protecting during the September 16 incident in western Baghdad.

Maliki's government was harshly critical of Blackwater immediately after the incident, which it called a crime, and vowed to freeze its work and prosecute those involved.