WASHINGTON — An internal State Department report says Blackwater Worldwide may lose its license to work in Iraq and recommends the agency prepare alternative ways to protect its diplomats there.
The 42-page report by the State Department’s inspector general says the department faces “numerous challenges” in dealing with the security situation in Iraq, including the prospect that Blackwater may be barred from the country.
The report is labeled “sensitive but unclassified.” An official familiar with the report said initially that it would recommend that department not renew Blackwater’s contract when it expires next year. But that specific language is not included in the document, a copy of which The Associated Press obtained.
The official said later that such a recommendation would not be made until after an investigation of the September 2007 incident in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqis is complete. Five guards have been indicted on manslaughter and other charges stemming from that incident. The company was not implicated.
The State Department had no immediate comment on the report itself.
It is not clear how the department would replace Blackwater. It relies heavily on private contractors to protect its diplomats in Iraq, as its own security service does not have the manpower or equipment to do so. The report suggests one way to fill the void would be for the department’s Diplomatic Security Service to bolster its presence in Iraq.
Terminating the North Carolina-based company’s Iraq contract will be difficult for President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state-designate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, because no other private security contractor has its range of resources, particularly its fleet of helicopters and planes.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell declined to comment, saying the company has not yet seen the report.
Blackwater has won more than $1 billion in government contracts under the Bush administration.
