Under orders issued by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, video cameras will be mounted in Blackwater vehicles and federal agents will ride with the security contractors who escort diplomatic convoys.
The reforms announced Friday are aimed at "putting in place more robust assets to make sure that the management, reporting and accountability function works as best as it possibly can," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
The State Department will also deploy dozens of additional in-house Diplomatic Security agents to accompany Blackwater guards.
The measures, which also include recording radio traffic between the embassy and diplomatic convoys and improving communications between those vehicles and U.S. military units in the vicinity, were implemented amid intense criticism of the department's security practices in Iraq and Blackwater's role. Security forces employed by the company are accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians in a violent incident in central Baghdad last month.
The changes also come as Iraqis and U.S. lawmakers are clamoring for clarification of the now nebulous jurisdiction and authority under which the State Department's private security guards work.
On Thursday, the House passed legislation that would place all private government contractors in Iraq under U.S. criminal statutes. The Bush administration has expressed concerns about the proposed amendments but has pledged to work with Congress on improvements before the Senate takes up the bill in coming weeks.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. David Price, D-N.C., said Friday that Rice's move was welcome but overdue.
"It goes without saying that contract personnel who are armed and authorized to use deadly force ought to be closely monitored," he said in a statement. "The secretary still needs to address the essential question of accountability: How will rogue individuals who commit criminal acts be brought to justice?"
In ordering changes, Rice accepted preliminary recommendations from an internal review board she created after the Sept. 16 incident in which Blackwater guards are accused of opening fire on Iraqi civilians in a main square in Baghdad.
Blackwater contends its employees came under fire first, but the Iraqi government and witnesses have disputed that, saying the guards opened fire without provocation.
McCormack did not say that previous practices lacked proper safeguards to ensure accountability, but said the practices could be enhanced for all the department's private security contractors, including Blackwater. The company, with about 1,000 employees in Iraq, is the largest of three private firms that guard U.S. diplomats in the country.
The new rules initially will apply only to Blackwater details because the initial recommendations cover just Baghdad, where the company operates. This could be expanded to include the other two firms, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, which work in the north and south of Iraq, McCormack said.
