September 17, 2007 (LPAC)--The private, U.S. government-funded force Blackwater has had its license to operate in Iraq revoked by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The immediate cause was an incident in which Iraqi officials charge that eight civilians were shot by the mercenaries Sept. 16, as Blackwater operatives were accompanying a U.S. State Department convoy in Baghdad. But it is only the latest accusation against U.S.-contracted private armies, which operate with little or no supervision, and for which Iraqis have no love. "It has been revoked," Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the ministry, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times. "They committed a crime. The judicial system will take action."

Blackwater has about 1,000 soldiers in Iraq with an arsenal of helicopters, turreted armored vehicles, and automatic weapons.

Asked whether Blackwater had stopped working in Baghdad, a State Department spokesman said, "Discussions are going on between us and the Iraqi authorities."

U.S.-hired mercenaries are technically granted immunity under an order issued in 2004 by L. Paul Bremer III, then-U.S. administrator of Iraq. The U.S. government has the right to waive the immunity for contractors, allowing them to be prosecuted in Iraqi courts.