KEY POINTS:
Senior officials in Iraq and the United States ignored multiple warnings about the operations of some of the biggest private military corporations dating back to at least 2004, new evidence shows.
A series of congressional reports, testimony to congressional committees, lawsuits in the US, and leaked documents from
the past two years have painted a picture of a lack of transparency and accountability of security firms working for the State Department and Department of Defence, including allegations of frequent shooting of civilians.
The sheer scale of the failure to rein in the private military corporations comes in the wake of last week's killing of at least eight, and possibly as many as 28, civilians by Blackwater USA, a contractor working for the State Department, in what Iraq's Interior Ministry has said was an unprovoked attack.
Ironically the need for regulation was first raised in March 2004 by the Private Security Working Group in Baghdad, representing the biggest operators in the country. The minutes of the meeting were later leaked.
What was discussed that day contained a grim prediction of the controversies that would dog the companies in the years to come.
The group warned of the need for self-regulation. Most urgently, in the light of hostile media coverage, it warned that the industry should be aware of an influx of "criminals and cowboys". The meeting's chairman, Lawrence Peter, described it as a gold rush for security guards in which he said the group's members were "creating a private army on an unprecedented scale".
Peter boasted that the companies in Iraq were the "best the industry has to offer". Those trying to muscle in, he cautioned, would be the scrapings of the barrel - "Tier Bubba".
"[We] need to ensure the cowboys and criminals are identified early on." Otherwise, he warned, Tier Bubba would reflect badly on the entire industry.
Three and a half years on, it has not been Tier Bubba that has brought the operations of the private military corporations in Iraq into disgrace. It has been one of its prominent members.
Over the years Iraqis have become weary of foreigners in bandanas firing weapons to force drivers off the road as they speed by in their armoured cars.
They have questioned the signs on their vehicles warning locals they will be killed if they approach too close, wondering what laws permit them to shoot dead civilians on suspicion. And they have become angry that those who have killed in error have not been brought to justice.
One of the most damning reports, prepared by the Congressional Research Service, disclosed claims that in the year that Lawrence Peter made his warning about "cowboys and criminals" Blackwater was reported to have trained former Chilean commandos - some of whom had served during the Pinochet years.
Another, a team leader this reporter encountered several times in Baghdad, had been with the notorious Serbian war criminal Arkan in the Bosnian war.
-Observer
