Foreign guards in Iraq work in legal grey area

By Lin Noueihed

DUBAI (Reuters) - Foreign private security companies in Iraq are operating in a legal grey area that means their victims have little recourse to justice despite U.S. steps to increase supervision, contractors and lawyers say.

Dozens of U.S. and British-run military companies are running lucrative businesses with immunity from prosecution in Iraq, but are also very difficult to bring to account abroad.

The Pentagon and State Department agreed in December to improve supervision of private security contractors following a review sparked by a September shooting in Iraq in which guards from U.S. firm Blackwater are accused of killing 17 Iraqis.

Foreign contractors at an Iraqi security conference in Dubai said they welcomed tighter rules on the use of deadly force, but expressed doubt over whether Iraqi laws would be enforced fairly.

"There is no other country in the world today where PSCs operate immune from local laws ... I'm certain that will change," said Timothy Mills, head of the American Chamber of Commerce of Iraq and a lawyer representing private security companies (PSCs) and the Iraqi government.

"There have been no criminal prosecutions of ... a PSC employee or company in the United States ... It does speak to the need for reform in this area."

A 2000 law brought military contractors working with U.S. troops abroad under U.S. criminal law.

And U.S. lawmakers passed a bill in October that seeks to expand that to all government contractors in Iraq, but it is hard to investigate cases in Iraq and bring the evidence required to prosecute under criminal law.

In most countries, private foreign security contractors are subject to local laws, Mills said, but the U.S. administration that governed Iraq immediately after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion gave them immunity in Iraq.

U.S. firms are subject to civil suits in the United States for breaking Iraqi law, but civil suits by victims are complex, expensive and beyond the reach of most Iraqis, he said.

Rules are also unclear if, for instance, a firm based offshore or in a free zone is accused of killing Iraqis.

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Firms said they were tightening their own rules of conduct, recruitment and training to avoid deadly incidents.

"We'll do what we can but if you have the best laws in the world that is no good if you can't implement them," said Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a group of private security and logistics firms.

Brooks added that the new U.S. bill would help make the judicial process operate more transparently and smoothly.