Guards in Iraq Cite Frequent Shootings

"From the State Department perspective, they're looking at it as a liability thing: What happens to that round when it goes downrange," said one of the former Blackwater security guards. "I was like: 'Look, give them a chance. Not every Iraqi in a car that's near you is a bad guy.' The guy whose car you shoot up today is also the guy who could be planting an IED [improvised explosive device] tomorrow. And the only reason he changed sides now is the car that took him 10 years of life savings to buy, now you've destroyed it."

Of the 195 incidents cited by Prince and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 162 resulted in property damage, according to a memo released Monday by the committee.

Procedures for reporting shooting incidents also often varied, according to current and former guards. "It's almost like a case of cover your ass," the former Blackwater guard said. "It's like, 'These guys did this, they filled out this report, we have documentation on it, and unless anybody else says anything, it's in this file here.' "

Lightner, the Army major who monitors shooting incidents, said he thought the number of reported incidents was in some ways insignificant. "Other than entertainment value, I don't see why I need to be all that worried about the number of incidents, as long as they were legitimate," he said. "If they were incidents of wrongdoing, then that's a different story."

Lightner said he usually accepted the company's version of events. "If they're reporting firing a weapon, and there's no wrongdoing, and they operated according to the law, then God bless 'em, drive on," he said. "If Aegis sends me a report and says, 'Bad guys shot at us, we shot back and dropped two of them,' I'm not going to investigate. I'm not going to worry about it, unless somebody comes back and says, 'Yeah, they dropped two children, or they dropped a woman.' "

Staff writer Alec Klein and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.