"Blackwater, security experts said, is among the most professional of the dozens of multinational security firms in Iraq, most of them there to protect U.S. government employees, private firms, Iraqi facilities and oil pipelines."
What do you expect them to do, let the reconstruction, food, water, negotiations, etc. go without protection? I have been against the war in Iraq from the beginning, but now that our National Guard and Army Reserve (who are called bullet magnets because they are so vulnerable) are in combat, whatever expert security aid they can get I think they should have. The whole thing is a mess, but these veterans were there to provide security. The nineteen and twenty year old kids who are there without the experience these older veterans have need all the help they can get.