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The outcry over Iraqi casualties led the Pentagon to order a stop to the fighting. The Marines thought they were days from finishing the job, but they lowered their guns and pulled back to bases outside the city.

This was a legacy of the Blackwater ambush: The Marines first were forced into a bloody fight they didn't want and then ordered to call a cease-fire they didn't condone. Hundreds of people died, and the city, already the most dangerous in Iraq, became an even bigger problem for the U.S. military and, later, for the new Iraqi government.

Fallujah has become an incubator for terrorists and insurgents, who have turned it into a base for staging attacks elsewhere in Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist, is thought to be based there.

In early July, someone sent a copy of a videotape to Michael Ware, a Time magazine reporter who had spent time with insurgents in Fallujah.

The Islamic terrorists had turned the ambush into a recruiting tool -- a slick propaganda film featuring a soundtrack, a narrator and Arabic titles that fade out by flying off the screen like birds.

The tape opens with a hooded man giving details of the attack, and then there are the scenes filmed seconds after the shooting. Then, snippets from other attacks are shown, including a night ambush apparently against U.S. troops, the aftermath of an attack on a convoy transporting armored vehicles by truck, and a roadside bomb erupting as a U.S. military Humvee passes.

As the Blackwater segment fades to black, voices chant:

"Kick him out

"Make him flee

"Make life tight on him

"These are the brothers of the pig and the monkey

"Suppress them."

Horrific images

In the days after the Fallujah killings, the scenes of the mob abusing the contractors' bodies drew worldwide outrage. For many, it was an introduction to the growing role of private military contractors.

Further revelations that civilian contractors were involved in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and that contractors pocketed millions by overcharging for meals and fuel prompted Congress to order a study of new regulations to control the private security industry. Some called for the military to rethink its reliance on contractors.

There has been much talk among U.S. lawmakers of tighter regulation -- and perhaps using fewer contractors in war zones.

Critics in Congress and elsewhere said it was unclear to whom the contractors answered. They said that their work should be coordinated with the military and that they needed better information about the threats to their safety, perhaps military intelligence.

So far, things haven't changed much for the contractors. Amendments proposing new regulations reached the Senate floor June 16. They would have held contractors more accountable for billing fraud and banned the government from letting them interrogate prisoners.

The members voted them down.

As the issue advanced to the forefront in Congress, Blackwater took action. The day after the attack, Blackwater owner Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, an influential Beltway firm with strong Republican ties.

During the following week, Prince had two private meetings with the Republicans who run Capitol Hill.

First he met with Rep. Tom DeLay, the House majority leader; Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; Rep. Porter Goss, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and Rep. Bill Young, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Later, Prince met with Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the Appropriations Committee chairman; Sen. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Sen. George Allen of Virginia; and Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

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