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Posted: 1:23 PM- WASHINGTON - Rep. Chris Cannon opposed a bill that would apply U.S. criminal law to private security contractors working in Iraq and questioned where it could lead the nation.

"What's next? Supplying Moqtada al-Sadr with a taxpayer-funded trial lawyer?" Cannon, a Republican from Utah, wrote in piece published last week in the conservative newsletter Human Events. Sadr is a Shite cleric with significant influence over many of Iraq's militias.

But four years into a war in which private profiteers have replaced soldiers in numbers unprecedented in military history, Cannon's view isn't shared by many. The same day Cannon wrote his Human Events op-ed, the House voted 389 to 30 to pass the bill, with 122 Republicans joining the Democrats.

Utah's other House members, Republican Rob Bishop and Democrat Jim Matheson, voted in favor of the act, which allows for criminal trials in the U.S. if the suspected crime would result in a prison term of at least one year.

The Senate could take up the proposal as early as this week. Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett have taken no public position.

The bill comes in the wake of the shooting deaths of 17 reportedly unarmed civilians on Sept. 16, among other allegations of deadly conduct by employees of Blackwater, a security outfit hired by the State Department to protect diplomats. The shootings outraged Iraqi leaders who want those involved to be tried in an Iraqi court.

Contractors have been involved in a number of shootings, some beyond the scope of their government agreements. In one case, a drunk Blackwater employee killed a security guard of one of Iraq's vice presidents. Within days, he had been spirited away from Iraq by Blackwater officials.

Under current U.S. and Iraqi laws, contractors have what amounts to immunity.

And Cannon thinks they should. He says success in Iraq hinges on diplomatic efforts. No diplomat has died under Blackwater protection, but if those contractors had to worry about being prosecuted for their actions, they may hesitate.

"If diplomats start being killed because of it, then we are set back," he said.

Others question Cannon's logic.

"He is flat-out wrong," said Michael O'Hanlon, who has tracked data on Iraq's violence and economy for the Brookings Institute since the war began.

O'Hanlon said "egregious" actions like the shootings on Sept. 16 foster resentment among the Iraqi people and actually fuels the insurgency. Not punishing those involved also goes against our desire to win "the hearts and minds" of Iraqis.

"The way you treat civilians is critical in these situations," he said.

O'Hanlon does agree that a debate could take place about what is the proper venue to try private contractors. He said the most obvious options being U.S. courts, military courts or trials in Iraq.

Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq War veteran who is now the executive director of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America, said he doesn't care who has oversight of the roughly 100,000 contractors in Iraq, just so long as "they are accountable to somebody."

No contractor has been prosecuted for any crime during the war.

"Either they are perfect or we are missing something here," Rieckhoff said.

Blackwater and the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group for contractors, support the House bill.

Doug Brooks, the association's president, said they can only fire problem employees. They don't have the ability to prosecute anyone.

"We think it is entirely appropriate for the government to be able to hold its U.S. contractors accountable under U.S. laws," said Brooks. "From the industry's perspective, it makes a lot of sense."

Matheson used similar reasoning to explain his vote in favor of the bill. He also pointed out that federal civilian employees and contractors with the Department of Defense are subject to U.S. laws. Bishop said he voted for the proposal to "even the field" with other workers.

The White House, like Cannon, opposes the bill, but for different reasons. In a statement, administration officials say the bill depends on "vague notions of proximity" to war zones and places a burden on the military to help the FBI investigate possible crimes. President Bush has not threatened to veto the bill.

Cannon believes penalties should be developed solely by the State Department, the White House and the military - even if that precludes prosecution.

"There are other things that happen to the bad actors that is also really bad," he said in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. "Like they never get to work again, or they go someplace else in an environment where they can be prosecuted, do other bad acts."

But in at least once case, a Blackwater employee who killed an Iraqi security worker was fired and then hired by another company two months later.

The controversy over the private contractors aside, Cannon also asserted in his Human Events op-ed piece that: "I personally believe the war is well on its way to being won.'

But, he says, he doesn't have any inside information on which that premise is based. Cannon told The Tribune that he doesn't attend classified briefings, because he tries "to avoid having classified information that I have to protect," Instead, he said, his opinion is informed by the "dozens of little contacts with people involved" in the war, including those who have cited improvements in relationships with tribal leaders in certain provinces.

Cannon later defined success in just two words - "fewer troops." But that troop reduction can't be artificial; rather it must come from a more stable Iraq, he said.

He expects greater troop reductions early next year, about the time General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, will once again give a status report to Congress.

But he also said: "I believe actual victory is a long way away." That, Cannon defines as "a stable government and a lot of high individual incomes and people engaged in the world market, who are not promoting ideas that would destroy the world."

O'Hanlon, who has visited Iraq recently, called Cannon "too optimistic" and instead he should be talking about "sustainable security."

"We are all better off not using the word 'win' or 'victory'" because any outcome in Iraq will fall far short of what the U.S. should consider a victory, instead the situation will fall "somewhere between mediocre and acceptable, if we are lucky."

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