U.S. guards want more ‘firepower’

BAGHDAD — American bodyguards in Iraq want to arm themselves with hand grenades and high-powered machine guns after the grisly deaths of four private security consultants in Fallujah last week.

Only coalition soldiers are allowed to carry explosives under existing regulations, leaving up to 20,000 private guards outgunned by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades and belt-fed machine guns.

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) is horrified by the Americans’ plans to flout the rules, thinking such action could lead to a serious escalation in violence as the June deadline approaches for power to be transferred to the Iraqis.

In Fallujah, meanwhile, Iraqi police defended their failure to protect the four American contractors who were gunned down Wednesday before their bodies were burned, torn apart and hanged from a bridge.

Sgt. Ahmed Samir said members of the fledgling force had stayed behind the walls of their heavily fortified police station during the rampage for fear they would be killed by “friendly fire” if American forces turned up at the scene.

He cited an incident last year in which nine uniformed Iraqi policemen were killed by U.S. troops in Fallujah when they tried to chase robbers toward a U.S. Army checkpoint.

“If we help the U.S. when they are under attack, we usually end up getting shot at as well — they don’t trust us any more than the rest of the people here.”

Malcolm Nance, a former adviser to the CIA and the National Security Agency who has spent 10 months in Iraq supervising security for businesses and charities, said this weekend that private security firms will “go heavy” to prevent a repeat of last week’s events.

He said that his personnel would now be using “massive firepower.”

“People are going into battle now. In military terms, we describe a hand grenade as a ’break contact’ device used as a final option to stop any contact in an enemy attack.

“Nobody I have employed out here uses them, but I would imagine that break-contact devices will get used a lot more as a result of the incident in Fallujah.

“Security escorts will continue to be discreet, but everybody here is waiting to get hit. My own escorts will be increasing their manpower in each vehicle.”

British security firms, which tend to adopt a lower-key approach, are alarmed by the prospect of American guards increasing their weaponry.

“The last thing we need is loads of Americans running around grenading people,” said one company manager. “But I fear that a few may end up carrying grenades, and God knows what other weapons, too.”

Most private guards in Iraq have relied until now on Kalashnikovs or MP5 machine pistols and sidearms, thinking that their superior military training made them a match for attackers. Last week’s deaths have forced them to review their tactics.

Mr. Nance, who ran a hostage survival school and a U.S. counterterrorism center to simulate al Qaeda tactics, said: “The guys in Fallujah were nearly all ex-special forces and from one of the best security companies going.

“People might be wearing body armor, and carrying helmets and high-velocity weapons, but that won’t protect you against a rocket-propelled grenade, which can just obliterate your car.”