Joint commission to examine personal security details in Iraq

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A joint U.S.-Iraq commission will focus on security contractors in Iraq after an uproar over a Baghdad firefight involving Blackwater USA, the U.S. State Department announced Wednesday.

The panel -- to be co-chaired by an American and an Iraqi with equal representation from both countries -- will receive the results of a State Department investigation and a separate Iraqi inquiry, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

"We are committed to working together," Casey said at the regular State Department briefing.

"This specific incident raises questions about the larger issues of safety and security involving the operations of these contractors, these personal security details."

Iraqi officials have expressed outrage at eyewitness accounts that Blackwater contractors "initiated random and indiscriminate shooting at civilians" Sunday in Baghdad's Mansour area, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf. Watch why Iraq's Interior Ministry wants to suspend Blackwater's license »

The ministry said Wednesday at least 10 Iraqis were killed and 10 wounded -- all civilians except for a traffic policeman killed while rushing to the aid of a family caught in the crossfire.

U.S. officials have not disclosed any casualty figures. The Blackwater USA contractors were guarding a State Department convoy.

Blackwater has denied the Iraqi government's account of events, saying its contractors "acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack."

The North Carolina-based company added that "the 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies, and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire."

The joint commission will look at the Sunday incident and the broader issue of "personal security details" and the use of private contractors to provide security in Iraq, Casey said.

The commission "is not an investigative body doing field forensics on this particular matter," he said.

"The focus of this is to look not only at that incident but at the broader question ... and help us come up with joint recommendations."

Earlier Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on the U.S. government to end its contract with Blackwater USA after the lethal shooting incident.

Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats in Baghdad are banned from leaving the Iraqi capital's Green Zone for a second day after the U.S. government halted all civilian ground movements outside the heavily fortified section.

Blackwater employees are part of an estimated 25,000-strong corps of private military contractors who protect diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials in Iraq.

"We see the security firms ... doing whatever they want in the streets. They beat citizens and scorn them," one Baghdad resident, Halim Mashkoor, told AP Television News.

"If such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it?"

The State Department and U.S. Embassy officials refused to offer details on the incident, citing the ongoing investigation. But an initial State Department report said the convoy came under fire from eight to 10 people "from multiple nearby locations, with some aggressors dressed in civilian apparel and others in Iraqi police uniforms."

The guards held off the attackers and called for backup, at one point finding their escape route blocked by an Iraqi quick-reaction force that pointed heavy machine guns at one vehicle in the convoy.

A U.S. Army force, backed by air cover, arrived about half an hour later to escort the convoy back to the Green Zone, the report said.

At a Wednesday news conference, an Iraqi military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta, blamed Blackwater for "a number of violations" over the past month, citing reported incidents in two squares in central Baghdad.

On Monday, the Interior Ministry announced it was suspending Blackwater's license and halting the security contractor's operations in Iraq.

On Tuesday, the State Department issued a warden's message advising that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad "has suspended official U.S. government civilian ground movements outside the International Zone" -- the formal name of the central Baghdad district that houses the embassy -- "and throughout Iraq."

Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said Wednesday it is not clear if the ban on civilian ground movement applies to the entire country or just Baghdad.

En route to the Middle East for talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described her Monday conversation with al-Maliki regarding the Blackwater episode as cordial.

Rice said she expressed Washington's regret over the loss of life and "committed to him that we were as interested as the Iraqi government in having a full investigation, a transparent investigation."

She also said the United States was working with the Iraqi government to make sure nothing such as this happens again.

A U.S. congressional report estimates that 200 private security guards have been killed in Iraq.

In one of the more highly publicized incidents, four American Blackwater contractors were mutilated and killed in March 2004 in Falluja, west of Baghdad. Two of their bodies were hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates River, setting off two battles to reclaim the city from insurgents. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Caroline Faraj, Jomana Karadsheh and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

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