Blackwater immunity deal condemned

DEMOCRATS criticised the Bush administration yesterday for giving immunity to Blackwater USA bodyguards, calling the move a failure to hold the security contractors responsible for the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians.

The State Department, whose investigators initially promised to shield the bodyguards’ statements in the criminal inquiry of the September 16 shootings, maintained any lawbreakers “must be held to account” as a result of the inquiry taken over by the Justice Department and FBI.

Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy, who sits on two Senate panels that oversee the State Department and the Justice Department, called the immunity deal an example of “the amnesty administration”.