WASHINGTON — The State Department has just renewed its contract with Blackwater Worldwide to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year.
Guards for the security company were involved in a shooting in September that left at least 17 Iraqis dead at a Baghdad intersection. Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater's ouster from the country, a criminal investigation by the FBI, a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile congressional hearings.
The chief reason for the company's survival? State Department officials said Friday they did not believe they had any alternative to Blackwater, which supplies about 800 guards to the department to guard diplomats in Baghdad.
No charges have yet been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guards in the September shooting, and the FBI agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.
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