clipped from: www.mail.com   
By ANNE GEARAN

A State Department review of private security guards for diplomats in Iraq is unlikely to recommend firing Blackwater USA over the deaths of 17 Iraqis last month, but the company probably is on the way out of that job, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Blackwater's work escorting U.S. diplomats outside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad expires in May, one official said, and other officials told The Associated Press they expect the North Carolina company will not continue to work for the embassy after that.

It is likely that Blackwater does not compete to keep the job, one official said. Blackwater probably will not be fired outright
or even "eased out," the official added, but there is a mutual feeling that the Sept. 16 shooting deaths mean the company cannot continue in its current role.

They gave admiring appraisals of Blackwater's work overall, noting that no diplomats have died while riding in Blackwater's heavily armed convoys.