Biden’s Appeal

Vice President Biden told Iraqi officials during a visit that the U.S. will appeal the dismissal of charges against the Blackwater agents who killed 17 Iraqis in 2007. “Mr. Biden, tasked by the Obama administration to oversee policy inIraq, made the statement after a day of meetings with Iraqi leaders that dealt, in part, with a political crisis that has erupted over the March 7 parliamentary elections. American officials view the vote, a barometer of the durability of Iraq’s political system, as a crucial date in American plans to withdraw tens of thousands of combat troops from Iraq by the end of August. The vice president expressed his ‘personal regret’ for the Blackwater shooting in 2007, in which contractors guarding American diplomats opened fire in a crowded Baghdad traffic circle, killing 17 people, including women and children. ‘A dismissal is not an acquittal,’ he said after meeting President Jalal Talabani. Investigators had concluded that the guards fired indiscriminately on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified attack. The guards contended that they had been ambushed by insurgents and fired in self-defense.”