The Iraqi government wants US security firm Blackwater to pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed in a shooting, a senior government source said yesterday.
The source said the figure was roughly in line with compensation paid by the Libyan government to the families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing over Scotland.
"We want them to pay $8 million for each family," the source said. "The same level as the compensation for the Lockerbie victims."
Blackwater had been told of the demand, the source said. It was unclear what the private American firm's response was.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Sunday an investigation set up by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had found Blackwater "deliberately killed" the 17 people in the September 16 shooting in western Baghdad.
Blackwater has said its guards responded lawfully to a hostile threat against a US State Department convoy it was guarding, but Dabbagh said the investigation had also found there was no evidence they had come under fire.
The incident caused outraged among Iraqis who see security contractors like Blackwater as private armies which act with impunity. Blackwater employs about 1,000 people in Iraq. Its founder, former US Navy SEAL Erik Prince, told a Congressional hearing last week that his men had come under small-arms fire and "returned fire at threatening targets".
US and Iraqi officials working on a joint committee have also begun investigating the shooting. A larger US inquiry into the operations of private contractors in Iraq is also under way, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ordered tighter controls on Blackwater.
The State Department will also send diplomatic security agents to accompany each convoy protected by Blackwater guards.
Turkey could enter Iraq
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan gave the go-ahead yesterday for all necessary measures to be taken against Kurdish rebels, including a possible incursion into northern Iraq where many are hiding.
The decision follows a series of rebel attacks on security forces which have claimed the lives of 15 soldiers since Sunday. But parliament would still have to authorize any full-scale cross-border operation, a move analysts say is still unlikely.
"To put an end to the terrorist organization operating in the neighboring country (Iraq), the order has been given to take every kind of measure, legal, economic, political, including also a cross-border operation if necessary," Erdogan's office said in a statement after a meeting of senior officials.
Source: China Daily/agencies
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