Blackwater security guards involved in a Baghdad shootout last month that left up to 17 Iraqi civilians dead were "obviously wrong," a senior US military official told Friday's edition of the Washington Post newspaper.

The unnamed official said the US military reports from the scene of the September 16 incident suggested the US private security firm was to blame for the deaths, and that its employees in Iraq were trigger-happy.

"It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong," the official told the newspaper.

"The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them," he said.

In reports after the incident, Blackwater executives insisted their teams had come under fire in Baghdad's Nisour Square.

But according to US military officials cited in the Congress report, Blackwater's teams, contracted to protect US State Department diplomats and other officials in Iraq, behaved like impervious "cowboys" in Iraq.

"They tend to overreact to a lot of things," the US military official told the Washington Post. "When it comes to shooting and firing, they tend to shoot quicker than others," he said.

The official added that Blackwater has resisted sharing information with the US military on the incident, and prevented military officials from contacting company managers in Baghdad.

AMSI Net- Midlle East Online