Mental Stress on Employees May Be Factor in Blackwater Killings

Along with congressional hearings on allegations of recklessness against Blackwater USA security forces in Iraq, questions are also being raised about the way military contractors deal with traumatic stress while overseas and upon returning home.

The House began hearings Tuesday on the military contractor Blackwater following reports about the company's employees in Iraq who were linked to the killings of 11 Iraqi civilians in September and the murder last year of a vice president's bodyguard by a drunken employee.

Critics of Blackwater say the security firm's mistakes in Iraq while protecting U.S. nationals are evidence that the company cannot continue to operate in a shadowy world of lax regulations and little official oversight. But despite the public criticism of Blackwater, its main mission has been an overwhelming success. Not a single American official under Blackwater's protection has been killed, U.S. authorities maintain...

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3679866&page=1