US security firm Blackwater ends Iraq operation

A key contract for US security firm Blackwater ended in Iraq on Thursday, a US embassy official said, closing a controversial era for the company whose guards shot dead 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
"The task order for security protection operations held by Blackwater comes to an end today in Baghdad," American embassy spokesman Susan Ziadeh said, adding that security firm Triple Canopy would replace it.
Triple Canopy, a Virginia-based firm, was appointed at the end of March by the US State Department to take over the multi-million-dollar government contract to protect US government personnel working in Iraq.
"Triple Canopy will replace them," confirmed Ziadeh.
Other agreements such as that for Presidential Airways, part of Blackwater that operates helicopter escorts throughout the country for secure air travel, will expire soon, said Ziadeh.
The State Department refused to renew annual contracts for Blackwater, which renamed itself Xe after the Iraq government banned it in January over the killings in Baghdad's Nisur Square on September 16, 2007.
An Iraqi investigation found that 17 civilians died and 20 were wounded when Blackwater guards opened fire with automatic weapons while escorting an American diplomatic convoy through the square.
US prosecutors say 14 civilians were killed in the incident. Five former Blackwater guards pleaded not guilty at a federal court in Washington in January to manslaughter charges.
The shooting focused a spotlight on the shadowy and highly lucrative operations of private security operations. Blackwater guards were reported to earn as much as 1,000 dollars a day each in Iraq.
Iraqi residents and critics have repeatedly accused Blackwater of a cowboy mentality when carrying out security duties -- all too often shooting first and asking questions later.
Foreign security teams in Iraq have long operated in a legal grey area, but under a military accord signed with Washington last November, Iraq won a concession to lift the immunity to prosecution previously extended to US security contractors.
Blackwater first came under scrutiny on March 31, 2004, when four of its employees were killed by an angry mob in Fallujah, then a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold.
The crowd mutilated their bodies and strung them from a bridge, shocking images that were broadcast worldwide and led to a month-long assault on Fallujah that left 36 US soldiers, 200 insurgents and 600 civilians dead.
Headquartered in North Carolina, Blackwater is one of the largest security firms operating in violence-wracked Iraq with about 1,000 staff, and has been employed to protect US government personnel since the 2003 invasion.
In the wake of the scandal over civilian deaths in Iraq its founder Erik Prince announced in March that he was stepping down as Blackwater chief executive, but would stay on as chairman.
Prince, 39, a flamboyant former Navy Seal and backer of Republican causes, founded the company as Blackwater USA in 1997 and flourished on government contracts providing protection services and training security personnel.