Blackwater ouster a big deal

Update: I see that I'm wrong about the number of Blackwater people in Iraq. The 100,000 is an upper estimate of the total number of private security guards in Iraq, not just those employed by Blackwater. Still, I very much doubt the number of Blackwater employees is only 1,000, which is the number I've seen in press reports.

Iraq has thrown Blackwater out of the country.

Iraq ordered the cancellation on Monday of the operating licence of US security firm Blackwater after it was involved in a shootout in Baghdad that killed eight people, a senior official told AFP.

Blackwater offers personal security to US civilian officials working in Iraq.

"The interior minister (Jawad al-Bolani) has issued an order to cancel Blackwater's licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq," interior ministry director of operations Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.

I read this earlier today and have been thinking about it a bit ever since. It is rumored that Blackwater may have as many as 100,000 security personnel working in Iraq protecting U.S. troops and projects. If so, throwing them all out could very, very seriously impinge on the U.S. effort there. Look, that's in the same order of magnitude as the number of troops we have over there. It could force the U.S. to re-deploy huge numbers of troops to take over the work that Blackwater has been doing. In fact, it would seem to me this would be the virtual equivalent of Iraq throwing us out of the country.

This looks to me like a very, very big deal that's not getting much press attention.

I'd say the odds are that this decision won't hold. The U.S. won't allow it to.