"Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked the U.S. State Department to "pull Blackwater out of Iraq," after an Iraqi probe concluded that the private contractors committed unprovoked and random killings in a September 16 shooting, an adviser to al-Maliki told CNN." - http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/16/iraq.blackwater/index.html

But the US State Department says "We need to let the joint commission do its work," and indicated that once the joint commission has finished, it will make policy recommendations.

So just exactly who is the government in Iraq? Is Iraq a sovereign nation or an occupied one? If the US wants the Iraq government to start taking control of its own country, why does the US ignore what that government wants? By what moral or ethical right can the US keep Blackwater in Iraq when the Iraqi government wants Blackwater out? It's bad enough for Iraqis that Blackwater, and all the other "contractors" (read mercenaries) are legally above the law in Iraq, and can murder with impunity if they so chose (courtesy Bremmer's laws, which still are in effect in Iraq, another indication that the US really doesn't want Iraqis in charge of Iraq), but Iraq can't even decide which foreigners are allowed in their own country.

How can the US claim that it is just waiting for Iraq to be able to take care of itself if the US refuses to let Iraq make its own decisions?

How can they "murder with impunity", DG? Doesn't US law mean that an American who murders someone abroad is liable to prosecuted in the US? After all, an American soldier who murdered a captured enemy made prisoner would be liable to prosecution, whatever the circumstances and whatever the local practice, in the place where the killing took place, would he not?.

"]Doesn't US law mean that an American who murders someone abroad is liable to prosecuted in the US?"

No, I don't think so. L. Paul Bremmer, Supreme Ruler of Iraq for the US, declared laws that made "contractors" in Iraq immune to Iraqi laws, and, I think, bush by executive order gave them immunity in the US for crimes committed in Iraq.

If all they're made to do is leave, then they've gotten off easy! When most people commit murder in another country, they're put on trial and made to pay the penalties. If all they're asked to do is please leave, isn't that justice denied, and getting away with murder? Whatever happened to the whole song and dance about how "the U.S. must remain in Iraq to teach them about democracy"? Is that what they call this?

Just wait until such an American employee kills another American in Iraq The courts and public opinion may cause the man to be prosecuted, whatever Bremer said or whatever quasi contractual exemptions may have been declared