WASHINGTON — The State Department overlooked repeated warnings from U.S. diplomats in the field that private security guards were endangering Iraqi civilians and undermining U.S. efforts to win local support, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Ever since the contractors were granted immunity from Iraqi courts in June 2004 by the U.S.-led occupation authority, diplomats have cautioned that the decision to do so was "a bomb that could go off at any time," said one former U.S. official.
But State Department leadership, unable to field U.S. troops or in-house personnel to guard its team, has clung to an approach that kept the contractors from criminal liability, in the hope of ensuring continued protection to operate in the violent countryside.
The procedures have come under scrutiny since the Sept. 16 shooting involving contractors for Blackwater USA, the State Department's main security contractor, killed several Iraqis and set off a series of American and Iraqi investigations.
On Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered drastic increases in supervision of the security contractors. Meanwhile, the House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved legislation that for the first time would subject contractors to U.S. criminal law.
The developments - and the heightened attention to violence involving security contractors - have not surprised current and former officials who have served in Iraq and seen incidents that injured Iraqis and destroyed their property.
"It's about time," said Janessa Gans, who was a U.S. official in Iraq for nearly two years, describing her reaction to news that the Iraqi government was threatening to expel Blackwater.
Gans said she had seen heavily armed contract guards frighten Iraqi civilians and destroy their property, and she was shocked that they appeared to have so little accountability and that the Iraqis often found it difficult to obtain justice or compensation.
Several other officials formerly assigned to duty in Iraq agreed to discuss concerns about security procedures but insisted on anonymity because they still are employed by the government and are not authorized to express their views. Some officials who have had similar experiences while at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to describe them out of concern that they could be identified through the details of their accounts.
However, their views of Blackwater and other security contractors are at odds with the descriptions in recent weeks by Rice and other top State Department officials, who have praised the guards as providing effective service under dangerous conditions. Blackwater's chief executive noted last week that no U.S. official has been killed under Blackwater.
Nonetheless, concerns have been voiced even by the most senior U.S. officials in Iraq. The former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, now the deputy secretary of State, had been overheard urging contractors to slow down and take more care as they careened through the streets.
"He was frequently exasperated," Gans said. "He would say, 'Is that necessary?'"
Gans said she complained to high-level embassy officials. Other current and former officials said that the concerns frequently were discussed among embassy staff and were acknowledged by some members of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security office, which oversees contractors for the State Department.
But the complaints and concerns received little high-level attention, for several reasons, said diplomats who served in Iraq. In that crisis atmosphere, the security problems seemed less urgent than other issues. In addition, even staff members who were uneasy with the arrangement were ambivalent because they wanted aggressive protection when they felt personally endangered.
When leaving the gates of the Green Zone, "you want the biggest, meanest guys in the world protecting you," said a U.S. official who served in Baghdad and has been moved to another post in the region.
The private security contractors working for the State Department have operated under murky legal guidelines. While U.S. laws apply to contractors working for the Pentagon, those who work for the State Department do not fall clearly under American or Iraqi law, allowing some to escape punishment for wrongdoing.
In May 2005, an Iraqi cab driver with two passengers in the back seat was traveling down a broadthoroughfare when a five-car convoy carrying U.S. officials heading back to the Green Zone approached from a side street. The driver, Mohammed Nouri Hattab, 34, stopped about 50 feet from the convoy, but bullets ripped into his Opel, killing one passenger and striking his shoulder.
"There was no warning," Hattab, who suffered lasting damage to his arm, later told a reporter. "It was a sudden attack."
Hattab was forced to go on disability leave from his Oil Ministry job at half pay and received no compensation.
Two Blackwater employees were fired for failing to follow proper procedures. They were flown back to the United States after an investigation by embassy security personnel but faced no subsequent prosecution or other penalty.
The procedure was the same ina well-known incident on Christmas Eve, when a Blackwater employee left a party and shot and killed a bodyguard of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. Within 36 hours, security officials investigated the case and whisked the gunman back to the United States.
In the wake of new concerns over the Sept. 16 shootings, Justice Department officials are looking into the Christmas Eve case to seeif any further action is warranted.
"There are so many things going on in Iraq that seemed unfair," said Gans, now a visiting professor at Principia College in Illinois.
State Department leaders, appearing last week before a House committee investigating the issue, said that practical considerations led to their decision to rely on private contractors for diplomatic security. While contractors are expensive, it also costs nearly$500,000 a year for a single Bureau of Diplomatic Security agent, said Richard Griffin, assistant secretary of State for diplomatic security.
Information for this article was contributed from Beirut by Borzou Daragahi; from Santa Rosa, Calif., by T. Christian Miller; from the United Nations, by Maggie Farley; from Baghdad, by Tina Susman and from Islamabad, by Laura King of the Los Angeles Times.
Front Section, Pages 18 on 10/07/2007