In previously undisclosed details in the government’s final report, the Iraqi police documented that Blackwater guards shot in almost every direction, killing or wounding people in a near 360-degree circle around Nisour Square.

The thick file amassed for the investigation asserts that bullets reached bystanders who were as far as 200 feet away and nearly on the opposite side of the square.

The police investigation also shows that a second shooting, in which one person was killed and two wounded, occurred about 600 feet from the initial one on the opposite side of the square, along the departure route that the Blackwater team took from the first shooting.

Although American diplomats have worked with personal security companies for most of the time since the American invasion in March 2003, it appears that State Department officials only now have started to thoroughly look at every aspect of the relationship.

As part of that effort, Patrick Kennedy, who heads the State Department’s team reviewing the relationship with personal security companies, met in recent days with the private security industry in Iraq. He posed nearly 20 questions to representatives of the firms that make clear that American diplomats have been largely in the dark about some of the most basic procedures of the people who protect them. A list of the questions was provided by a participant.

Using abbreviations for the Department of State and personal security company, among the questions he posed were: “Do we provide weapons for P.S.C.’s? Does the D.O.S. travel outside the Green Zone too much? What is the ultimate method of discipline for P.S.C. individuals?”

“They were in complete receive mode the entire time,” said an American official after meeting with Mr. Kennedy and his colleagues. “They were saying, ‘Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more.’”