"In their contracts, it says they are supposed to report, but whether they do or not is up to them"
Guards in Iraq Cite Frequent Shootings Companies Seldom Report Incidents, U.S. Officials Say
By Steve Fainaru Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, October 3, 2007; A01
Most of the more than 100 private security companies in Iraq open fire far more frequently than has been publicly acknowledged and rarely report such incidents to U.S. or Iraqi authorities, according to U.S. officials and current and former private security company employees.
. . . However, two former Blackwater security guards said they believed employees fired more often than the company has disclosed. One, a former Blackwater guard who spent nearly three years in Iraq, said his 20-man team averaged "four or five" shootings a week, or several times the rate of 1.4 incidents a week reported by the company. The underreporting of shooting incidents was routine in Iraq, according to this former guard. . . . Lightner said responsibility for investigating shooting incidents involving companies under Defense Department co…