Effort to undermine US-Iraqi joint probe?

As if to steal the headlines away from news of the first meeting of the joint US-Iraqi committee investigating the September 16 Blackwater incident, the Iraqi Prime Minister's office releases its own verdict, calling the company guilty of "deliberate murder."

Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim (pictured) admits in the International Herald Tribune that his government's investigation is one-sided, and that Iraqi investigators took little if any information from the Americans involved.

No Iraqi official in the article explained how the probe concluded "deliberate murder" without information from the Blackwater guards and the State Department. Nor did any official attempt to explain why the prime minister's office released the "murder" finding on the day of the first US-Iraqi joint investigation.

Blackwater has yet to give its side of the story publicly, a position that makes the Iraqi report especially one-sided.

Is the Iraqi government trying to hide some of its own dirty laundry?