Editorial: Making matters worse

Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007 | 7:24 a.m.

Efforts to prosecute Blackwater USA security guards who were involved in fatal shootings in Baghdad in September might be hampered because State Department investigators offered the guards immunity during an inquiry into the incident.

The investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the State Department's investigative arm, promised the guards they would not be prosecuted for any information they gave during investigators' interviews as long as the information was true.

But the investigators who made that promise had neither the authority nor the permission to do so. This reckless action has added more uncertainty to a situation in which it already is unclear how these Blackwater employees can be held accountable, under law, for their actions.

U.S. criminal laws typically do not apply to acts committed by Americans in a foreign war zone, and a 2003 directive by the United States occupation authority exempted U.S. private security companies from Iraqi law.

In addition, as civilians working for a department other than the Defense Department, the guards cannot be tried in a military court. In response, the House passed legislation this month that would hold non-Defense Department civilian contractors liable for their actions under military law, and the Senate is considering a similar measure.

Meanwhile, Justice Department investigators are to interview the Blackwater guards independently , without promises of immunity, in an effort to acquire information .

This convoluted situation stems from an incident in which a group of Blackwater guards was assigned to control traffic for a convoy carrying American diplomats though a public square in Baghdad. The guards opened fire on the crowd, killing 17 people and injuring 24 others. Iraqi witnesses to the shooting and U.S. soldiers who visited the scene after said the shootings were not precipitated by a "hostile attack" on the convoy , as the Blackwater guards claimed.

It is bad enough that Blackwater employees have acted as mercenaries beholden to no one's laws but their own. But in offering these guards immunity while investigating the allegations lodged against them, the State Department has made it even more difficult to hold them accountable.