Attracted like flies to a garbage heap, various contractors have gone to the Iraq war zone to make a buck in a country where there's plenty of money but not nearly enough accountability. Side by side with American servicemen who have disciplined rules of engagement and a military code of honor, there are also mercenaries at work.

One outfit has become especially notorious: Blackwater Worldwide.

It was security guards employed by Blackwater who were involved in a shoot-out in September that killed at least 17 Iraqis in Baghdad. No one has been charged in these deaths, but the killings outraged the Iraqi government, which demanded that the company leave Iraq.

If Iraq were truly a sovereign country these angry words might have been translated into action, but, of course, that is mostly a fiction. The reality is that the United States calls the tune and Blackwater is still very much in business.

As James Risen of The New York Times reported Saturday, the U.S. State Department has renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least one more year -- as outrageous a piece of news as has come out of the war zone recently.

State Department officials told the reporter that the chief reason for the renewal was that the agency saw no alternative to using Blackwater, which employs about 800 guards to provide security for diplomats in Baghdad. The company has been lobbying hard to stay on the job, and the agency did not even bother to interview other firms that might provide the same service.

This is not the first controversy involving Blackwater. Even if one accepts that September's shooting was justifiable self-defense and not indiscriminate mayhem, as Iraqis allege, it is hard to have much confidence in the search for justice when -- as the Times reported -- FBI agents investigating Blackwater in Baghdad have sometimes been protected by Blackwater guards.

There is no good reason that military policemen or other specialist units could not protect diplomats. After all, the skills Blackwater personnel have were often learned in military service (its founder is an ex-Navy SEAL).

Yet it is clear that the Iraq war has become a gravy train for private contractors. And with the war having gone on longer than U.S. involvement in World War II, the military is strained enough without taking on a new job.

Sen. John Kerry, the Democrat from Massachusetts who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Middle East subcommittee, has called for hearings on how Blackwater, which is under grand jury investigation, should be given this no-bid security contract. It's a worthy call, but in a sense we already know the answer: Because this is how the Bush administration's arrogance and incompetency feed the Iraq fiasco.