US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today she has ordered a detailed evaluation of security policies for US diplomats in Iraq after a deadly shooting involving the firm Blackwater.
The State Department would unveil shortly "directives that I've given to the department for a full and complete review of how we are conducting our security details," Ms Rice told a news conference in Washington.
"I take very seriously, and called up Prime Minister Maliki to regret, the loss of life," she told reporters in Washington.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested the US embassy should stop using Blackwater after what Iraq called a flagrant assault by the firm's contractors in which 11 people were killed while the firm was escorting a US embassy convoy through Baghdad last Sunday.
Blackwater employs about 1,000 contractors to protect the US mission and its diplomats.
Blackwater guards were back on the streets of Baghdad on Friday after the US embassy eased a three-day ban on road travel by US officials outside the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone.