Contractors Under U.S. Laws

A bill has been approved by a vote of 389 to 30 in the House of Representatives to make overseas contractors, supporting the mission of the Department of Defense, be subjected to Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. This allows American courts to prosecute crimes committed in a war zone overseas. The contractors in Iraq have been unaccountable to American military or civilian laws and outside the reach of Iraqi judicial system. Blackwater, a well-known security contractor, has had a few incidents which a contractor has not acted correctly in different situations. In September Blackwater contractors fired hazardously at civilians killing at least 20. There are also reports of them firing first, before being fired at. Another ex-Blackwater employee drunkenly shot and killed a bodyguard to Iraqi Vice President, Adel Abdul Mahdi. The only thing that happened to the employee was he was fired and fined. This new bill will require the FBI to investigate any allegation of wrongdoing by a contractor. There are currently around 180,000 contractors in Iraq and it would require the FBI to investigate all criminal accusations against any one of them. It is believed by approving this bill a loophole has been closed and Blackwater employees can no longer argue their work was unrelated to the war effort because the company had a contract to protect State Department diplomats around the world.

I feel this is a very important bill which was passed by the House of Representatives. I do not think contractors should get a get out of jail free card. There have been many military personnel who have been prosecuted for doing the same thing as contractors. Contractors, like the military, are supposed to be showing Iraqis how great a democracy can work for them. However, how can we tell them how great it works when they are seeing first hand that wrong-doers are not be prosecuted. I think we are at a crucial point in the war where we need all the support and help of the Iraqi government. I think it is very important for the Iraqi people to know that Americans doing the wrong thing to their people will be punished. We do not need to lose face with them. They need to know we care about what we are doing and we want them to build a strong government. If the people of Iraq do not know we are punishing those who do them wrong, how are they going to trust America?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/washington/05cong.html?ex=1349236800&en=bf9c617d52c894d2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss