More examples of contractor headaches at a glance

By The Associated Press

-- Documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act describe previously undisclosed offenses committed by more than 200 contract employees of the State Department in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries between 2004 and 2008. They were working under a broad security services contract shared by DynCorp of Falls Church, Va.; Triple Canopy of Reston, Va.; and the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide - Xe Services of Moyock, N.C.

Some examples of the offenses:

-In March 2006, two guards working for Triple Canopy were involved a gunfight outside a club called the Soft Lady in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, according to a report of the incident.

They went to the bar to meet friends. In keeping with the club's policy, they locked their weapons inside their vehicle. Once inside, an unknown man with a gun confronted one of the Triple Canopy guards and shot him at least twice before running from the club. The uninjured guard helped his partner to their vehicle outside, where they came under fire "from an unknown number of assailants shooting from behind two parked cars," the report said. The guards now had access to their own weapons and they returned fire. Once they did, the attackers took off.

The injured Triple Canopy guard was taken to the hospital, where he survived, according to the report. Both men were ordered out of the country and barred from working on the security contract for unprofessional conduct and lack of judgment.

-An unidentified weapon was "test fired" by a Blackwater aircraft in January 2005 near the home of an Iraqi official, who is not named in the records describing the incident. U.S. officials in Baghdad ordered the pilot and the aircraft's gunner dismissed. Several months later, however, Fred Piry, then a senior State Department official, reinstated both contractors "after a careful review of the incident." The records don't say what information caused Piry to reverse the earlier decision.

-In March 2008, three DynCorp employees in Iraq were fired after a flare was shot from their vehicle at a truck being driven by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. An inquiry by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad found that the use of the flare was justified in stopping the truck, which was being driven erratically. But the employees were sacked because they initially lied to investigators, claiming they hadn't shot the flare or witnessed anyone else doing so