While American legislators, State Department representatives, and Justice Department officials debate whether Blackwater employees should be immune from prosecution for errant shooting of Iraqi citizens, the government of Iraq is looking to make the whole question moot.

The Defense Department is taking over supervision of private security companies in Iraq, according to John Broder and David Johnston in the New York Times.  In the meantime, Congress and the State Department are disputing immunity "granted" by the State Department to Blackwater employees involved in the disputed September 2007 shooting on Nassour Square in Baghdad.  The Iraqi government has not been idle either.

Now, as August Cole reports in the Wall Street Journal, the Iraqi parliament is moving to abolish immunity for foreign citizens employed by private contractors in Iraq.   Cole notes that this legislation could greatly complicate the U.S. role in Iraq and "have a chilling effect on security companies operating in Iraq, where business opportunities would need to be weighed against legal jeopardy."

How long has the Iraq parliament been working on this draft law, which clearly will cause problems for U.S. policiy in Iraq?  Was the legislation accelerated by news that the State Department had granted some sort of immunity to Blackwater employees involved in errant shooting deaths in Iraq? It appears that in our efforts to solve the conflict between bureaucracies in the U.S., we may have ignored the plans of the very Iraqi government we are trying to establish.

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