“I want you to feel that Iraqi life is precious,” he said he told them.

Physician Haitham Rubaie doesn’t want money either. What he wants above all is justice for his wife, a doctor, and his son, a medical student, who died.

If North Carolina-based Blackwater wanted to negotiate, it would have to apologize, publicly and loudly, he said.

“Let them apologize by saying those were innocent people,” Rubaie said. “Then we will be ready for understanding.”

Rubaie couldn’t believe that with the investigation still going on, the State Department would renew the Blackwater contract.

Two months ago, an intermediary on behalf of Blackwater again offered him money as a goodwill gesture, he said. Again he refused.

“If you write out an apology for me and confess your crime,” he recalled saying, “I will give you a similar paper with my signature promising not to press charges.”