United States Defense Secretary Robert Gate urged on Thursday security contractors in Iraq to coordinated their activities with U.S.-led forces in the country.
"There have been instances where, to put it mildly, the Iraqis have been offended and not treated properly," Gates told a press conference at the Pentagon. "Those kinds of activities work at cross purposes to our larger mission in Iraq."
He criticized security contractors in Iraq, whose work was sometimes run against the overall U.S. mission there.
The Pentagon made the most critical remarks against the security contractors as Iraqi government called for withdrawal of the U.S. security contractor Blackwater from the country.
The company was blamed for a shooting incident in Baghdad on Sept. 16 leaving at least 17 Iraqi civilians dead.
Gates said he would soon discuss with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice how to better coordinate the work of private security contractors with the U.S.-led forces to accomplish U.S. mission in Iraq.
The mission, he said, is to "get the security situation under control in Iraq, train and equip the Iraqi forces and in the process bring stability to Iraq by bringing more and more Iraqis onto the side of the Iraqi government and more and more Iraqis who see the coalition forces as their friends and their allies, with whom they want to cooperate."
However, Gates acknowledged that the private contractors are indispensable to the United States for allowing thousands of US troops to focus on their duties.
According to the Pentagon, Gates is considering to put all security contractors under a central authority to exert more control over them. But who should have what legal rules to control them is still unresolved.
Currently, the Defense Department and the State Department each hire their own security contractors so military commanders can have little visibility or control over movements and activities of those who work for the State Department.
Source: Xinhua
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