Unexploded rounds update

Yeah, right.

Iraq battle was self-defense, security firm says
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi officials Monday condemned the weekend killings of eight civilians during a Baghdad street battle involving American security contractors and said they would shut down Blackwater, the company involved.

Blackwater said its employees acted in self-defense. The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a "terrible incident."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to express regret for the weekend killings, both governments said.

In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians, an Iraqi official said.

National Public Radio and journalist Jeremy Scahill have been following Blackwater’s rise to prominence as a favored contractor of the Bush Administration. Is it any surprise the company is owned by a "right-wing Christian multimillionaire"?

Via Matthew Yglesias, Mark Kleimann notes:

Blackwater's fighters-for-hire aren't subject to military discipline, which excludes them from the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They're exempt from prosecution in Iraq under rules left over from CPA days. And recklessly killing people in Iraq violates no U.S. domestic law.

With 160,000 soldiers and Marines in Iraq, why does the State Department have to rely on overpriced hired help for the security of its staff there?

Yet let us not forget our main challenge in Iraq: Old Iraqi women spreading propaganda.