I guess the argument could be made that with one of Blackwater's primary tasks being protection of foriegn service personnel that they are quite the diplomatic liability. Hmmm. Hadn't thought of it that way, but it certainly makes sense.

I did a quick stat that suggests life in Iraq is pretty close to as survivable as life in the USA for foriegn service.

3/2000 (approximately 2000) foriegn service workers over 5.5 years of war have died. That's about 28 per 100,000 per year.

According to CDC http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_19.pdf (scroll down to death rates by age and sex) the 35-44 year old age group has a 400 deaths per 100,000 rate from all causes. If you look at table 18, you see that 56 deaths per 100,000 are to be expected from all causes of injury. (Using the lower age adjusted figure rounded down to be conservative.)

That indicates that foriegn service personnel are probably significantly safer in Iraq than at home.