House expands law for prosecuting contractors (Roundup)

Oct 4, 2007, 19:26 GMT

Washington - The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly backed legislation Thursday that allows the prosecution of security personnel contracted by the US government for work in Iraq and other hostile places.

The 389-30 vote in favour of the bill came less than three weeks after a security team from the Blackwater USA firm was involved in a deadly firefight in Baghdad that left 11 people dead.

The bill closes a loophole in the current law that provides for the prosecution of only Defence Department contractors by expanding it to the entire US government. Blackwater was hired by the State Department to guard diplomatic convoys and facilities.

'There is no clear chain of command for contractors, little in the way of standards for training and vetting personnel, and no legal accountability for misconduct,' Representative David Price, who introduced the law, said.

The Senate has yet to take up the measure but is expected to in the coming days.

The Blackwater personnel were guarding a convoy on September 16 when the shooting started. The firm said the convoy came under attack, but the Iraqi government said the dead were innocent civilians.

The Iraqi government has launched an investigation and a review of the use of private security firms, who employ thousands of hired guns in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is taking over the US probe into the killings.

The head of Blackwater, former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, defended the firm, saying it acts 'appropriately at all times' during congressional testimony on Tuesday but also said that without a law to prosecute there is little he can do to punish employees for bad behaviour other than firing them and docking their pay.

Prince referred to the dismissal of a Blackwater employee who, while drunk, shot and killed a bodyguard of an Iraqi vice president. He was quickly allowed to leave Iraq.

'We fired him. We fined him. But we, as a private organization, can't do any more,' Prince said. 'We can't flog him. We can't incarcerate him. That's up to the Justice Department.'