[Charlatan]

Why hire a seperate comapny to deal with the security of Iraq? How many mercenaries are there? Surely they cost more to keep there than soldiers, so the government is wasting more money again. In killing a civilian it would weigh on the conscious of someone trying to do the right thing, like a soldier, but for someone hired to secure the place, and seeing there be none of the said security as people are against you and still plan to bomb the place, maybe killing a few civilians shows they are doing something, keeping there jobs maybe. If there was no killing of anyone then they wouldn't be doing anything by the eyes of their bosses, so rather do the wrong thing and keep your job? Doesn't sound logical, but having a bit of commotion going on shows you are doing something, so that might be a trick to keep getting paid?

Let's look at their alternatives, if they just didn't shoot anyone then there would be complete calm regarding their stay, and that would mean they are not needed, but when you stir up the situation people complain, and get more anti american, protesting, and that means that the government sees a lot of probable commotion, and so keeps the gaurds on, to deal with the commotion they caused! What else do they do there, stop a few trucks with inspection things and stuff, nothing newsworthy, and you never hear about them otherwise, so they must be doing minimal work there - all the more reason to get a bit trigger happy as they must be on gaurd against terrorists all the time.

I think that it is just a stunt to keep their jobs, I doubt there is any dire need for them to be there.