The head of an embattled security company says his men are American heroes, not trigger-happy mercenaries who kill innocent Iraqi civilians.

Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince defended his company and offered a peek inside the profitable "army within an army" blamed for killing 17 Iraqis last month.

"I'm an American working for America," Prince, a retired Navy SEAL, told CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday night. "Anything we do is to support U.S. policy."

Prince defiantly rejected allegations his workers are Rambo-like soldiers of fortune - and insisted they never intentionally hurt anyone.

Iraq said on Sunday security guards from the U.S. firm Blackwater "deliberately killed" 17 Iraqis in last month's shooting incident in Baghdad and that it would take legal steps against them.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said an investigation set up by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki found no evidence that the U.S. security firm had come under fire during the incident.

"What they committed is considered a crime of deliberate killing and they must be held accountable according to the law," Dabbagh said, adding the company itself could face legal action.

Since founding Blackwater USA a decade ago, Erik Prince has gone to great lengths to avoid attention, trying to prevent photographers from taking his picture and demanding that his contractors never speak with reporters.

The veil of secrecy was lifted Tuesday as the former Navy Seal was called to Congress to defend his security company against allegations it covered up the killings of Iraqi civilians.

Oct 2 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's request for nearly $200 billion more to fund the Iraq war will not be approved unless it is linked to a plan to bring home U.S. combat troops by January 2009, the head of the House appropriations committee said on Tuesday.

Rep. David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, told a news conference his panel would not even consider the war funding request until early 2008, by which time he estimates funding for military operations will have run out. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently outlined the request to Congress.

Blackwater, the embattled U.S. security contractor, defended itself in Congress on Tuesday over "escalation of force" incidents in Iraq that a congressional report said equal 1.4 shootings per week.

The report prepared by Democratic staff of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Blackwater has been involved in 195 shooting incidents since 2005 and shot first 84 percent of the time despite a contract agreement to use force only in defense.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is seeking nearly 190 billion dollars to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008, the largest war funding request ever in the six-year-old "war on terror," the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Gates was scheduled to testify later before a Senate committee on the request, which was 42.3 billion dollars greater than the administration's estimate when it presented its 2008 budget request in February.

President Bush contended on Thursday night that his plan to begin withdrawing some troops from Iraq gradually was based on a principle he called “return on success,” saying that progress made so far could be squandered by the deeper and speedier reductions that the war’s opponents have demanded.

President Bush is expected to endorse recommendations by the top U.S. commander in Iraq tonight when he speaks in a televised address to a nation weary of the war, now in its fourth year.

Following two days of congressional testimony by Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Bush is specifically expected to adopt Petraeus' suggestion to gradually withdraw 30,000 U.S. troops by next summer, effectively ending the troop buildup that he ordered in January to help quell sectarian violence in the war-torn country.

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush’s assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly. Madison described Congress’s control over spending as “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”

But that was not the fault of You Tube or CNN, but that of the candidates. The debate even started not with a question, but with a request , for the candidates to please try to answer the question. As usual, the candidates did their best to twist the answers to the questions into what they wanted to say, into the usual sound bite they always spew.