Biden Says U.S. Will Appeal Judge's Ruling in Blackwater Trial

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2010— -- Vice President Joe Biden today expressed personal regret over the 2007 shooting in which Blackwater guards working for the U.S. government in Baghdad, shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians, and he said the United States would appeal a recent court decision to dismiss the charges against the men implicated in the killings.

On Sept. 16, 2007, Blackwater guards who were protecting a motorcade of U.S. embassy officials in Baghdad, opened fire in Nisour Square.

Iraqi government officials claim the Blackwater guards were shooting indiscriminately at civilians. Blackwater contends that the guards were fired on first and were acting in self-defense and to protect their State Department charges.

The event unleased a furor of anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world.

Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Burke Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the Nisour Square shooting has been used as a rallying cry for jihadists and has been a powerful recruiting tool.

"There are American men and women in uniform that were sent home in body bags because of the anger and hatred this created," he said.

Five Blackwater guards were ultimately charged with manslaughter and a sixth pleaded guilty. But last month, a U.S. court dismissed the entire case on a technicality.

Speaking in Baghdad today, Biden said that was unacceptable.

"A dismissal, I want to make clear, is not an acquittal and today I'm announcing that the U.S. will appeal this decision," he said.

The shooting and the lawsuits it triggered have debilitated Blackwater to some extent. The company was kicked out of Iraq and had its license to work there revoked and now the company is operating under a new name -- Xe -- to try to wipe the slate clean and undo some of the public relations damage it has suffered.

The company still maintains that its employees acted lawfully that day, but Iraqi leaders call it a massacre.