mercenaries are in nine countries?

The incident in question regarding Blackwater needs to be put in a proper context. It's just one company out of 181 other private military companies operating in that space in Iraq and around the world. The incidents involving abuses of private military contractors go back to the starting of the war.

This includes the incidents at Abu Ghraib (Torture Scandal) and the private contractor Aegis Trophy's infamous video of 2005 (Aegis employees posted a video online showing them shooting at Iraqi civilians.) You also had the Triple Canopy shootings lawsuit in '06. Blackwater is just one of the companies in the game.

The United States government aspect of it is - that the unfortunate truth that the overall effect of use has of mercenary contractors actually has been the undermining rather than assisting U.S. operations and goals. It extends all the way to tactical levels on the field to the grand strategic world.

The Blackwater "Nisoor Square" shooting incident resonated negatively not only inside Iraq but throughout the Muslim world. A variety of major media out there in the Middle East like Al Jazeera reported on the Blackwater contractors as "an army that seeks fame, fortune and thrills away from all considerations and ethics of military honor. The employees are known for their roughness, they are known for shooting indiscriminately at vehicles or pedestrians."

Your research has borne many egregious example of private contractors' reckless conduct in Iraq--including the Blackwater shootings, CACI and Titan firms responsible for the notorious Abu Ghraib interrogations, and Aegis Company's "trophy video" in which they posted a video of them shooting at civilians to an Elvis song on the net. What I and others want to know is what legal repercussions do they face, if any, under international law and U.S. law?

The questions that should be asked:

"We understand that you fired the person that got into a drunken argument on Christmas Eve and killed the Iraqi Vice President's security guard. Our question is who flew him out of the country? Which entity made the decision to get that individual out of the country 36 hours after they potentially committed a murder, which in effect assured prosecution would be difficult and impede the investigation? Was Blackwater operating under its own discretion? Or, were they ordered to do so by its clients and the State Department? Who was it?"

Another one is "Why do your helicopters in Iraq not carry any identifying insignia, such as the numbers painted on U.S. Army vehicles? Is there something that sets the company aside from standard U.S. tactics?