Iraq has ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations, the interior minister said Wednesday. The order comes in the wake of a US judge dismissing criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were accused in the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad. It applies to about 250 security contractors who worked for Blackwater in Iraq at the time of the incident, Interior Minister Jawad Al-Bolani told the AP. Some of the guards now work for other security firms in Iraq, while others work for a Blackwater subsidiary, Al-Bolani said. He said all “concerned parties” were notified of the order three days ago and now have four days left before they must leave. Blackwater security contractors were protecting US diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a crowded Baghdad intersection, on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq. Oil attack halves production Attackers bombed an oil pipeline north of Baghdad, cutting production in half at a refinery in the capital, the Oil Ministry said Wednesday. There were no injuries in Tuesday night's bombing in Rashidiya, just north of Baghdad. Production at the Baghdad refinery was cut from 140,000 barrels per day to 70,000 following the attack, said Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad. AP __
