Warnings went unheeded Congressman calls situation “reminiscent of the Old West days.”

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Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007 | midnight

For two years military and legal experts sent letters and memos to U.S. officials warning them that Blackwater Worldwide and other private security contractors were operating with little or no oversight in Iraq.

Despite these reports, The Washington Post reported this week, federal officials expanded the use of such companies and took few, if any, steps to control them until September, when Blackwater guards opened fire in Baghdad and killed 17 Iraqi civilians. FBI officials have found 14 of the deaths unjustified.

Private security companies were hired and sent to Iraq soon after the March 2003 U.S. invasion to protect diplomats, supply convoys and military installations. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, says the number of private guards working in Iraq grew to 48,000 last year -- a period marked by numerous fatal shootings of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards.

Iraqi officials protested these actions to U.S. military officials, who said the State Department, not the U.S. military, had authority over the private security contractors. Retired U.S. Marine Col. T.X. Hammes, assigned to advise the Iraqi army in 2004, told the Post he routinely complained to senior military officials about the tactics and aggression of the private forces, but to no avail.

Last week members of a House subcommittee heard testimony regarding a KBR Inc. employee's allegations that she was raped by co-workers in Iraq two years ago -- a crime that KBR officials deny ever happened and that still has not been investigated.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, blasted the federal government's failure to impose adequate oversight on contractors, saying the situation in Iraq “seems reminiscent of the Old West days.”

Congress passed legislation last year designed to give the military authority over all U.S. contractors in Iraq. But so far the Pentagon hasn't enforced the measure, the Post reports.

This is not acceptable. These private companies must not be hired by the United States and then allowed to act as mercenaries, attacking people indiscriminately without having to answer for their violent actions.