Posted April 22, 2010 By Jeremy Scahill

Firm Run by Ex-Israeli Special Forces Soldier Wants US Security Contracts in Jerusalem, Iraq, Afghanistan

As the Obama Administration continues the military privatization agenda, a CIA-connected firm and an Israeli-run company named Instinctive Shooting International are looking to cash in

The Obama administration has continued the Bush-era reliance on private contractors to sustain the US occupation of Iraq and the US operations in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, Obama has surpassed Bush's reliance on contractors with current contractor levels surpassing 100,000 Defense Department contractors deployed. In Iraq, Obama has maintained the long-standing ratio of one contractor to every US soldier.

General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan/Pakistan, said recently that he believes the US has "created in ourselves a dependency on contractors that is greater than it ought to be." He added: "I think it doesn't save money. I actually think it would be better to reduce the number of contractors involved, increase the number of military if necessary."

Despite such proclamations, the pattern of dependence on contractors is continuing unabated-and not just within the Department of Defense.

This week the US State Department posted a solicitation for armed private security contractors to deploy in "critical or higher than critical threat areas" globally under its Worldwide Protective Services program. Among the firms that have held these contracts are Blackwater, DynCorp, Triple Canopy and Armor Group. ArmorGroup was exposed last year by whistleblowers for a range of misconduct at the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Among the actions revealed by the Project on Government Oversight were hazing rituals involving nudity and heavy drinking that at times included personnel urinating on each other. The whistleblowers alleged that ArmorGroup personnel created a general atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Last December, following POGO's revelations, the State Department said it was phasing out ArmorGroup.

In its solicitation for contract bids this week, the State Department says it will hire as many as six "qualified US firms" for "anticipated and unanticipated personal protective, static guard, and emergency response" functions. The contracts are slated to last one year with the potential for four, year-long options.

To qualify for the contracts, security companies must have a total annual value of at least $15 million in security contracts and must possess a valid "Final Secret Facility Security Clearance." After the contracts are awarded, the State Department says that it will then sponsor the contractor for "Top Secret Facility Clearance." In addition, bidding companies must have at least two years of experience operating in "austere and hostile environments overseas" such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq and experience in "operating long term personal protective security details for executive level dignitaries." The solicitation indicates that the work will include "a static guard and emergency response team requirement in Baghdad, Iraq, a static guard and emergency response team requirement in Kabul, Afghanistan, and a personal protective security service requirement in Jerusalem."

Among the companies listed as "interested vendors" to bid on the contracts are the predictable list of industry giants: L-3 Services, SAIC, USIS, Northrop Grumman, and DynCorp. Two lesser-known firms in particular that have expressed interest in the contracts jump out: Instinctive Shooting International and Evergreen International Aviation.

Hiring Instinctive Shooting International for any type of armed contract in a Muslim country, particularly to operate in Jerusalem with a stamp of US government legitimacy, should be cause for serious concern and Congressional inquiry. Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) was founded by Hanan Yadin, a former member of the Israel National Counter-Terrorism Agency and a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces. According to his bio [PDF], Hanan "received advanced training at the Israeli Anti-Terror Academy and served as an instructor at the Israeli Military Intelligence Academy. As part of a Special Ops unit he executed high-risk missions against terrorist's cells. Hanan is an expert marksman and has completed advanced training in crisis response, Krav Maga (the Israeli unarmed fighting system), urban warfare and tactical operations."

I encountered ISI operatives, all former Israeli soldiers, manning an armed check-point in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At the time, in 2005, its website described ISI's personnel as "veterans of the Israeli special task forces from the following Israeli government bodies: Israel Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National Police Counter Terrorism units, General Security Service (GSS or ?Shin Beit'), Other restricted intelligence agencies."

Today the website has changed dramatically. Its main graphic is of US soldiers wearing American flag patches, wielding automatic weapons in what appears to be Iraq. "After 9/11, ISI was able to bring to bear all of its resources, expertise and experience to work with U.S. military and government agencies in gaining a deeper understanding of radical Islam and provide proven tactical techniques to improve counter-terror operations," according to the website. This would hardly be ISI's first US government contract. It has received many training and security contracts since its founding in 1993. According to the company, it is currently under a five-year contract with the US Army that began in November 2009.

Evergreen has had long-standing ties to the CIA. "In 1980 an Evergreen plane flew the recently deposed Shah of Iran from Panama to Egypt, hours before the Panamanian government was due to receive an extradition request from the new government in Tehran," according to SourceWatch. "Giving rides to dictators is something of a specialty for the company - it also allowed El Salvador's President Duarte to use its helicopter, which was officially in the country to help repair power lines. And according to a series of articles in The Oregonian in 1988, Evergreen's owner and founder Delford M. Smith ??acknowledged one agreement under which his companies provide occasional jobs and cover to foreign nationals the CIA wants taken out of other countries or brought into the United States.'"

Evergreen is perhaps best known more recently for offering-unsolicited-its security services to Oregon county clerks ahead of the 2008 elections. "During this crucial election Evergreen Defense and Security Services has recognized the potential conflict that could occur on November 4," an email from company president Evergreen president Tom Wiggins to election officials stated. "Never has there been a more heated battle in the race for president and voters seem more involved and determined to achieve their respective goals. EDSS proposes to post sentries at each voting center on November 4 to assure that disputes among citizens do not get out of control. All guards will be unarmed but capable of stopping any violence that may occur, and detaining troublemakers until law enforcement help arrives." The offer was suspect on several fronts, not the least of which being that Oregon has no polling places and votes by mail.

According to State Department documents, among the projects up for bidding are:

-Private security teams in Jerusalem. The solicitation calls for 46 personnel, including 36 "security specialists" and team/shift leaders for armed details.

-Embassy guards and an Emergency Response Team in Kabul. The solicitation calls for 219 personnel, including a 142-member embassy guard force and 49 "emergency response" personnel.

-Embassy guards and an Emergency Response Team in Baghdad, Iraq. The solicitation calls for 551 personnel, including 357 "armed guards" and an Emergency Response Team consisting of 30 protective security specialists and four "designated defense marksmen."

The US embassy in Iraq, according to the documents, requires the greatest number of contractors. This is likely because the embassy there is the largest of any embassy of any nation in history.

The State Department has a conference for prospective bidders scheduled for April 27-28 in Arlington, Virginia. Attendance is mandatory for interested companies.

Posted April 22, 2010 By Jeremy Scahill

Ex-Blackwater Prez Made $1.5 Mil a Year, 90% From US Taxpayers

Here's a question for all those fans of the mercenary industry-some of whom pop into this site-who say that the private security industry is a conduit to allow patriotic veterans to continue their service through Blackwater et al., that the money is exaggerated, and that the profits aren't all that:

How do you like these apples?

Gary Jackson, the former president of Blackwater (you know, the guy facing a slew of felony charges, including conspiring to falsify documents and federal weapons charges), appeared in court this week where prosecutors accused him of running Blackwater with a "scofflaw" attitude. Joe Neff of the Raleigh News and Observer reveals this nugget: Jackson's salary at Blackwater was a whopping $1.5 million a year. His severance package: $425,000 a year for 5 years. Oh, and here's some caramel for your tasty apple: 90% of Blackwater's revenue has come from the US government.

Yeah, US taxpayers are really lucky to have been paying 90% of this guy's $1.5 million salary. That's about what the average US general

Posted March 17, 2010 By Tom Barry

Synergy in Security: National Security Complex

In his January 17, 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower cautioned: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

Five decades later, this complex, which Eisenhower defined as the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry," is no longer new. And while Eisenhower's warning is still pertinent, the scale, scope, and substance of the complex have changed in alarming ways. It has morphed into a new type of public-private partnership-one that spans military, intelligence, and homeland-security contracting, and might be better called a "national security complex."

Not counting the supplemental authorizations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, current levels of military spending are, adjusting for inflation, about 45% higher than the military budget when Eisenhower left office. Including the Iraq and Afghanistan war budgets, military spending stands about 30% higher, adjusted for inflation, than any of the post-WWII highpoints-Korea, Vietnam, and the Reagan build-up in the 1980s. Private military contracting, which constituted about half of the Pentagon's spending in the 1960s, currently absorbs about 70% of the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. No longer centered exclusively in the Pentagon, outsourcing to private contractors now extends to all aspects of government. But since 2001, the major surge in federal outsourcing has occurred in the "intelligence community" and in the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Since Sept. 11, 2001, a vastly broadened government-industry complex has emerged-one that brings together all aspects of national security. Several interrelated trends are responsible for its formation and explosive growth: 1) the dramatic growth in government outsourcing since the early 1990s, and particularly since the beginning of the George W. Bush administration, 2) the post-Sept. 11 focus on homeland security, 3) the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 4) the Bush-era surge in intelligence budget and intelligence contracts, and 5) the cross-agency focus on information and communications technology.

The term "military-industrial complex" no longer adequately describes the multi-headed monster that has emerged in our times. The industrial (that is, big business) part of the military-industrial complex has become ever more deeply integrated into government-no longer simply providing arms but also increasingly offering their services on the fronts of war and deep inside the halls of government-commissioned to carry out the very missions of the DoD, DHS, and intelligence agencies. In the national security complex, it is ever more difficult to determine what is private sector and what is public sector-and whose interests are being served.

Different Departments, Same Companies

In 2008, the federal government handed out contracts to the private sector totaling $525.5 billion-up from $209 billion in 2000. That's about a quarter of the entire federal budget. The DoD alone accounts for about $390 billion, or nearly three-quarters of total federal contracts.

The living symbol of the new national security complex is Lockheed Martin, whose slogan is "We Never Forget Who We're Working For." That's the U.S. government-sales to which account for more than 80% of the company's revenues, with most of the balance coming from international weapons sales and other security contracts facilitated by Washington. In addition to its sales of military hardware, Lockheed is the government's top provider of IT services and systems integration (see Table 1, below).

Whether it is military operations, interrogations, intelligence gathering, or homeland security, the country's "national security" apparatus is largely in the same hands. Various components of the U.S. national-security state are divvied up among different federal bureaucracies. But increasingly, the main components are finding a common home within corporate America. Corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, L-3 Communications, and Northrop Grumman have the entire business-military, intelligence, and "homeland security"-covered.

Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing led the top ten military contractors in 2008 (see Table 2).

The 2003 creation of the Department of Homeland Security has helped spawn an explosion of new companies, and new divisions of existing companies, providing "homeland security" products and services. Before President Bush created DHS in the wake of Sept. 11, the agencies that would be merged into the new department did very little outsourcing. From less than 1% of federal contracts (as a total dollar amount) in 2000, outsourcing by DHS has quadrupled as a portion of federal contracting from 2003 to 2009.

Although DHS contracts with scores of new companies, its top contractors are all leading military contractors that have established "homeland security" divisions and subsidiaries.

The top ten DHS contractors in 2008 were Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, IBM, L-3 Communications, Unisys, SAIC, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Electric, and Accenture, all leading military contractors. Other major military contractors among the top 25 DHS contractors include General Dynamics, Fluor, and Computer Sciences Corp (see Table 3).

There is no public list of corporations that contract for U.S. intelligence agencies. But based on company press releases and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tim Shorrock concludes in his new book Spies for Hire that the top five intelligence contractors are probably Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SAIC, General Dynamics, and L-3 Communications. Other major contractors include Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI International, DRS Technologies, and ManTech International, also leading military contractors.

Within the past eight years-since Sept. 11, 2001-the intelligence budget has soared, rising from an estimated $30 billion in 2000 to an estimated $66.5 billion today. Intelligence agencies have channeled most of the new funding to private contractors, both major companies like CACI and thousands of individual contractors. Private contracts now account for about 70% of the intelligence budget. Intelligence community sources told the Washington Post that private contractors constituted "a significant majority" of analysts working at the new National Counterterroism Center, which provides the White House with terrorism intelligence.

The major military contractors are now moving their headquarters from their production centers, often in California and Texas, to the Washington Beltway in pursuit of more intelligence, military, and homeland security contracts. The gleaming Beltway office buildings of the security corporations are now the most visible symbol of this national security complex.

Boots on the Ground, Computers in Cubicles

Another feature of this evolving, ever-expanding complex is that all the U.S. government departments involved in national security-DoD, State Department, DHS, and intelligence-are outsourcing the boots-on-the-ground components of their missions through the use of private security and military provider firms. Companies such as ArmourGroup (which includes Wackhenhut), DynCorp, MPRI, and Xe (formerly Blackwater Worldwide) have injected the private sector directly into the public sector through their work as interrogators, military trainers, prison guards, intelligence agents, and war-fighters.

Five dozen of these security contractors have organized themselves into the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA). After Blackwater came under worldwide scrutiny for its massacre of unarmed Iraqis in central Baghdad on Sept. 17, 2007, the firm left IPOA, whose code of conduct for "peacekeeping" operations it had flagrantly ignored. Blackwater created a new association of private military contractors called Global Peace and Security Operations-conveniently without any potentially embarrassing code of conduct.

Private contractors are not only on the frontlines of war and clandestine operations, but have also penetrated the national security bureaucracy itself. Reacting to a March 2008 GAO report on conflicts of interest within the Pentagon, Frida Berrigan of the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative observed that alarming numbers of "cubicle mercenaries" are now working within federal bureaucracies as administrators, contract managers, intelligence analysts, and cybersecurity chiefs. No longer does the "large arms industry" that Eisenhower warned about just peddle goods like weapons and missiles, it also sells itself through its services.

Common Dominators of the New Complex: Information and Security

Private contractors are also in control of the core of the complex's information and intelligence systems. Information and communications technology is the fastest-growing sector in government contracting. The DHS's expanding involvement in cybersecurity, information systems, and electronic identification programs, for example, is adding billions of dollars annually to the national security boom.

Lockheed Martin led the ranks of information technology (IT) contractors in 2008, followed by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Although IT contracts are expanding rapidly, there are few new entrants to the list of top IT providers to the government. Among the top 100 IT contractors, there were just twelve new entrants, as traditional military giants dominated the list (see Table 4).

One of the largest sources of federal contracting at DHS has been the EAGLE (Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions) IT program, which awarded $8.2 billion in contracts in the past three years. Among the leading contractors are CACI, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and BAE Systems-all major military contractors. Most of the EAGLE IT bonanza is in the form of "indefinite-delivery, indefinite quantity contracts" that provide generous operating room for IT firms to determine their own solutions to DHS' vast IT and cybersecurity requirements.

The major military corporations have quickly formed new branches to focus on these new opportunities outside of their traditional core contracts with the Pentagon. This year, for example, Northrop Grumman created a new Information Systems division to seek military, homeland security, and intelligence IT contracts. Recognizing the interest in the Obama administration in cyber-security and information war, corporations such as Booz Allen Hamilton and Hewlett-Packard, among others, have created new cybersecurity divisions or subsidiaries. Similarly, the new administration's focus on transnational disease has led military companies such as General Dynamics to acquire medical subsidiaries.

Revolving-Door Security Consultants

Another manifestation of the new national security complex is the rise of a new series of consulting agencies that act as an interface between government and their clients. That's an easy connection for such companies as the Chertoff Group, Ridge Global, and RiceHadley Group, since all their principals recently left government, where they had presided over the unprecedented wave of outsourcing.

Two of these national security agencies are headed by the DHS's first two secretaries, Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge, while the newest group brings together Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, who only a year ago were serving as secretary of state and national security adviser, respectively.

When announcing his group's formation, Chertoff boasted, "Our principals have worked closely together for years, as leaders of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA." Indeed, a leading member of this new group is former CIA director Michael Hayden (2005-2009), who also directed the National Security Agency (1999-2005). Others include former DHS deputy Paul Schneider (who was head of acquisitions for NSA and the U.S. Navy prior to his position at DHS); Admiral Jay Cohen (Ret.), who was DHS director of science and technology and previously the Navy's technology chief; and Charlie Allen, who was the intelligence chief at DHS and, according to Michael Chertoff, "pretty much head of everything you could be for the CIA."

The Chertoff Group has now hooked up with Blue Star Capital, a transatlantic investment company specializing in mergers and acquisitions in the security business. In its announcement of the new partnership, Blue Star emphasized their joint interest in "generating opportunities" across the national security spectrum-"in the homeland security, defense, and intelligence markets."

Chertoff himself applauded the value of the merger: "I believe there are many areas of opportunity within the Homeland Security, Intelligence and Defense sectors where the synergies between Blue Star and the Chertoff Group will provide real value."

Taking Back Security

The "unwarranted influence" that concerned Eisenhower during the Cold War now pervades national politics and is rarely questioned. Nor has there been any evaluation of the achievements of the increasingly privatized national security complex. In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama talked about the need for fiscal restraint, but exempted "national security" from the planned spending freeze. Despite manifold evidence of vast waste and scandalous profiteering in the security apparatus-to say nothing of "unnecessary wars"-the president didn't see fit to scale back the security agencies. By failing to do so, he has all but guaranteed that the outsourcing bonanza will continue. With "national security" off limits for budget cuts, Obama signaled that safeguarding the nation against the "unwarranted influence" and "rise of misplaced power" will not be priorities for this administration.

As major corporations such as Lockheed Martin and security consulting agencies such as the Chertoff Group extend their corporate tentacles into the intelligence, military, and homeland security terrains, the greater threat they pose. The corporate penetration of all the government's information-gathering, communications, intelligence, and data systems undermines democratic governance. The new corporate domination of data-mining, communications, and cybersecurity systems-with little or no government oversight -threatens individual liberty and privacy. This also creates a powerful vested interest in a large and growing "national security" apparatus-and one that is deeply integrated with the top echelons of the intelligence agencies, military, and other parts of this secretive state-within-the-state.

In the end, it's not the contractors that are the central problem with the national security complex-it's the outsourcers, that is, the elected politicians and the government administrators they appoint or confirm. The contractors are working to maximize profits, and are answerable mainly to company shareholders. The outsourcers, however, are ultimately answerable, at least in principle, to the public. What is at stake is who really controls public policy-a democratically accountable government, or an unaccountable fusion of governmental and corporate power.

Posted March 16, 2010 by Joby Warrick

GAO blocks contract to firm formerly known as Blackwater to train Afghan police

Federal auditors on Monday put a stop to Army plans to award a $1 billion training program for Afghan police officers to the company formerly known as Blackwater, concluding that other companies were unfairly excluded from bidding on the job.

The decision by the Government Accountability Office leaves unclear who will oversee training of the struggling Afghan National Police, a poorly equipped, 90,000-strong paramilitary force that will inherit the task of preserving order in the country after NATO troops depart.

GAO officials upheld a protest by DynCorp International Inc., which currently conducts training for Afghan police under a State Department contract. DynCorp lawyers argued that the company should have been allowed to submit bids when management of the training program passed from State to the Army. Instead, Pentagon officials allowed the training program to be attached to an existing Defense contract that supports counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan.

Xe Services, the new name of Blackwater, was poised to win one portion of a much larger group of contracts, shared among five corporations, that could earn the companies more than $15 billion over five years.

GAO officials said the decision will allow a new round of bidding by DynCorp and other firms, including Xe Services.

"We recognize the Army's position that it needs to swiftly award a contract for these services," said Ralph O. White, an attorney with the GAO's procurement oversight division. But he said the Army must conduct a "full and open competition," or explain in writing why DynCorp had been excluded.

The Pentagon's decision to allow Xe to run the training program drew a strong protest last week from Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin cited a history of allegedly abusive behavior by the contractor's employees, including misappropriation of government weapons and hiring of workers with criminal records that included assault and drug offenses. He also accused managers of the private security company of lying to win lucrative jobs in Afghanistan.

Levin, responding to Monday's GAO decision, said government contracting practices had too often been unfairly exclusive, though he acknowledged that Xe may ultimately end up as the winner in competitive bidding.

"If this contract is re-bid and Blackwater is among the bidders, I hope that the Defense Department will take a close look at the company to determine if it is a suitable contracting partner for the U.S. government," he said.

A spokesman for Xe declined to comment.

DynCorp President Bill Ballhaus welcomed the decision.

"We are performing this crucial training mission now, and will continue to meet all objectives of the commanders on the ground while a full and transparent bidding process can ensure the best outcome for the taxpayer, our mission and the Afghan people," he said.

Posted March 14, 2010 by DEXTER FILKINS and MARK MAZZETTI

Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants

Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.

While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.

It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Officials said Mr. Furlong's secret network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to merely gather information about the region.

Moreover, in Pakistan, where Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, the secret use of private contractors may be seen as an attempt to get around the Pakistani government's prohibition of American military personnel's operating in the country.

Officials say Mr. Furlong's operation seems to have been shut down, and he is now is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Defense Department for a number of possible offenses, including contract fraud.

Even in a region of the world known for intrigue, Mr. Furlong's story stands out. At times, his operation featured a mysterious American company run by retired Special Operations officers and an iconic C.I.A. figure who had a role in some of the agency's most famous episodes, including the Iran-Contra affair.

The allegations that he ran this network come as the American intelligence community confronts other instances in which private contractors may have been improperly used on delicate and questionable operations, including secret raids in Iraq and an assassinations program that was halted before it got off the ground.

"While no legitimate intelligence operations got screwed up, it's generally a bad idea to have freelancers running around a war zone pretending to be James Bond," one American government official said. But it is still murky whether Mr. Furlong had approval from top commanders or whether he might have been running a rogue operation.

This account of his activities is based on interviews with American military and intelligence officials and businessmen in the region. They insisted on anonymity in discussing a delicate case that is under investigation.

Col. Kathleen Cook, a spokeswoman for United States Strategic Command, which oversees Mr. Furlong's work, declined to make him available for an interview. Military officials said Mr. Furlong, a retired Army officer, is now a senior civilian employee in the military, a full-time Defense Department employee based at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

Network of Informants

Mr. Furlong has extensive experience in "psychological operations" â?" the military term for the use of information in warfare â?" and he plied his trade in a number of places, including Iraq and the Balkans. It is unclear exactly when Mr. Furlong's operations began. But officials said they seemed to accelerate in the summer of 2009, and by the time they ended, he and his colleagues had established a network of informants in Afghanistan and Pakistan whose job it was to help locate people believed to be insurgents.

Government officials said they believed that Mr. Furlong might have channeled money away from a program intended to provide American commanders with information about Afghanistan's social and tribal landscape, and toward secret efforts to hunt militants on both sides of the country's porous border with Pakistan.

Some officials said it was unclear whether these operations actually resulted in the deaths of militants, though others involved in the operation said that they did.

Military officials said that Mr. Furlong would often boast about his network of informants in Afghanistan and Pakistan to senior military officers, and in one instance said a group of suspected militants carrying rockets by mule over the border had been singled out and killed as a result of his efforts.

In addition, at least one government contractor who worked with Mr. Furlong in Afghanistan last year maintains that he saw evidence that the information was used for attacking militants.

The contractor, Robert Young Pelton, an author who writes extensively about war zones, said that the government hired him to gather information about Afghanistan and that Mr. Furlong improperly used his work. "We were providing information so they could better understand the situation in Afghanistan, and it was being used to kill people," Mr. Pelton said.

He said that he and Eason Jordan, a former television news executive, had been hired by the military to run a public Web site to help the government gain a better understanding of a region that bedeviled them. Recently, the top military intelligence official in Afghanistan publicly said that intelligence collection was skewed too heavily toward hunting terrorists, at the expense of gaining a deeper understanding of the country.

Instead, Mr. Pelton said, millions of dollars that were supposed to go to the Web site were redirected by Mr. Furlong toward intelligence gathering for the purpose of attacking militants.

In one example, Mr. Pelton said he had been told by Afghan colleagues that video images that he posted on the Web site had been used for an American strike in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan.

Among the contractors Mr. Furlong appears to have used to conduct intelligence gathering was International Media Ventures, a private "strategic communication" firm run by several former Special Operations officers. Another was American International Security Corporation, a Boston-based company run by Mike Taylor, a former Green Beret. In a phone interview, Mr. Taylor said that at one point he had employed Duane Clarridge, known as Dewey, a former top C.I.A. official who has been linked to a generation of C.I.A. adventures, including the Iran-Contra scandal.

In an interview, Mr. Clarridge denied that he had worked with Mr. Furlong in any operation in Afghanistan or Pakistan. "I don't know anything about that," he said.

Mr. Taylor, who is chief executive of A.I.S.C., said his company gathered information on both sides of the border to give military officials information about possible threats to American forces. He said his company was not specifically hired to provide information to kill insurgents.

Some American officials contend that Mr. Furlong's efforts amounted to little. Nevertheless, they provoked the ire of the C.I.A.

Last fall, the spy agency's station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, wrote a memorandum to the Defense Department's top intelligence official detailing what officials said were serious offenses by Mr. Furlong. The officials would not specify the offenses, but the officer's cable helped set off the Pentagon investigation.

Afghan Intelligence

In mid-2008, the military put Mr. Furlong in charge of a program to use private companies to gather information about the political and tribal culture of Afghanistan. Some of the approximately $22 million in government money allotted to this effort went to International Media Ventures, with offices in St. Petersburg, Fla., San Antonio and elsewhere. On its Web site, the company describes itself as a public relations company, "an industry leader in creating potent messaging content and interactive communications."

The Web site also shows that several of its senior executives are former members of the military's Special Operations forces, including former commandos from Delta Force, which has been used extensively since the Sept. 11 attacks to track and kill suspected terrorists.

Until recently, one of the members of International Media's board of directors was Gen. Dell L. Dailey, former head of Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the military's covert units.

In an e-mail message, General Dailey said that he had resigned his post on the company's board, but he did not say when. He did not give details about the company's work with the American military, and other company executives declined to comment.

In an interview, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the top military spokesman in Afghanistan, said that the United States military was currently employing nine International Media Ventures civilian employees on routine jobs in administration, information processing and analysis. Whatever else other International Media employees might be doing in Afghanistan, he said, he did not know and had no responsibility for their actions.

By Mr. Pelton's account, Mr. Furlong, in conversations with him and his colleagues, referred to his stable of contractors as "my Jason Bournes," a reference to the fictional American assassin created by the novelist Robert Ludlum and played in movies by Matt Damon.

Military officials said that Mr. Furlong would occasionally brag to his superiors about having Mr. Clarridge's services at his disposal. Last summer, Mr. Furlong told colleagues that he was working with Mr. Clarridge to secure the release of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, a kidnapped soldier who American officials believe is being held by militants in Pakistan.

From December 2008 to mid-June 2009, both Mr. Taylor and Mr. Clarridge were hired to assist The New York Times in the case of David Rohde, the Times reporter who was kidnapped by militants in Afghanistan and held for seven months in Pakistan's tribal areas. The reporter ultimately escaped on his own.

The idea for the government information program was thought up sometime in 2008 by Mr. Jordan, a former CNN news chief, and his partner Mr. Pelton, whose books include "The World's Most Dangerous Places" and "Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror."

Top General Approached

They approached Gen. David D. McKiernan, soon to become the top American commander in Afghanistan. Their proposal was to set up a reporting and research network in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the American military and private clients who were trying to understand a complex region that had become vital to Western interests. They already had a similar operation in Iraq â?" called "Iraq Slogger," which employed local Iraqis to report and write news stories for their Web site. Mr. Jordan proposed setting up a similar Web site in Afghanistan and Pakistan â?" except that the operation would be largely financed by the American military. The name of the Web site was Afpax.

Mr. Jordan said that he had gone to the United States military because the business in Iraq was not profitable relying solely on private clients. He described his proposal as essentially a news gathering operation, involving only unclassified materials gathered openly by his employees. "It was all open-source," he said.

When Mr. Jordan made the pitch to General McKiernan, Mr. Furlong was also present, according to Mr. Jordan. General McKiernan endorsed the proposal, and Mr. Furlong said that he could find financing for Afpax, both Mr. Jordan and Mr. Pelton said. "On that day, they told us to get to work," Mr. Pelton said.

But Mr. Jordan said that the help from Mr. Furlong ended up being extremely limited. He said he was paid twice â?" once to help the company with start-up costs and another time for a report his group had written. Mr. Jordan declined to talk about exact figures, but said the amount of money was a "small fraction" of what he had proposed â?" and what it took to run his news gathering operation.

Whenever he asked for financing, Mr. Jordan said, Mr. Furlong told him that the money was being used for other things, and that the appetite for Mr. Jordan's services was diminishing.

"He told us that there was less and less money for what we were doing, and less of an appreciation for what we were doing," he said.

Admiral Smith, the military's director for strategic communications in Afghanistan, said that when he arrived in Kabul a year later, in June 2009, he opposed financing Afpax. He said that he did not need what Mr. Pelton and Mr. Jordan were offering and that the service seemed uncomfortably close to crossing into intelligence gathering â?" which could have meant making targets of individuals.

"I took the air out of the balloon," he said.

Admiral Smith said that the C.I.A. was against the proposal for the same reasons. Mr. Furlong persisted in pushing the project, he said.

"I finally had to tell him, â??Read my lips,' we're not interested,' " Admiral Smith said.

What happened next is unclear.

Admiral Smith said that when he turned down the Afpax proposal, Mr. Furlong wanted to spend the leftover money elsewhere. That is when Mr. Furlong agreed to provide some of International Media Ventures' employees to Admiral Smith's strategic communications office.

But that still left roughly $15 million unaccounted for, he said.

"I have no idea where the rest of the money is going," Admiral Smith said.

Posted March 12, 2010 by David Isenberg

When a Private Contractor Just Isn't Enough

In my last post I noted that Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) is very much in the running to win a contract potentially worth as much as a billion dollars training the Afghan National Police.

Whether Xe can do that well, given the past problems that its subsidiary Paravant had in its contract training the Afghan National Army, as detailed in the Feb. 24 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing is anyone's guess.

DynCorp is another private military contractor, which has trained foreign police forces, although it did such a bad job in Iraq , that the Army, took the job back from them. Dyncorp was also criticized for its work in Afghanistan.

Nevertheless on Wednesday, in a letter to the New York Times, DynCorp President and CEO William Ballhaus wrote,

My own company, DynCorp International, is not one of the pre-selected bidders under the technology procurement vehicle now being used for police training, notwithstanding our history of providing more than 6,000 highly experienced police advisers in 11 countries over the last 15 years... Our current contract enables us to continue to perform on this important mission until the contract expires in July. This is ample time to conduct a full and open competition. Doing so will help ensure the best value for the taxpayer and provide the best outcome for our combatants in the field supporting the mission and the Afghan people.

But the problem of using contractors to train foreign security forces goes beyond Blackwater or the use of any other private firm.

The reason for that was given in another hearing that happened two days before the SASC hearing. This was a hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting entitled, "An Urgent Need: Coordinating Reconstruction and Stabilization in Contingency Operations."

During the second panel Robert Perito, Director, Security Sector Governance Initiative, U.S. Institute of Peace had this exchange with Mr. Henke, one of the CWC Commissioners:

MR. HENKE: You make the statement in that third recommendation that the current heavy reliance on private contractors also undercuts progress towards unity of effort in the field. Since the topic of the hearing today is really unity of effort and synchronization of effort, can you expound on those views and tell us why you believe that to be the case?"

MR. PERITO: In this mission for the first time historically the leadership was passed to the Department of Defense and for good reason at the time. Historically, the leadership for police training in post- conflict interventions had been with the Department of State and Department of Justice. The Department of Justice where I headed the ICITAP Program which trained police in Somalia and in Haiti and in Bosnia and in Kosovo where you had full-time law enforcement professionals in charge of the training. You know, that worked fairly well, but that model was abandoned when we got to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The problem is Iraq and Afghanistan is as follows: Without anyone involved in the police training effort who is a law enforcement professional, the leadership and the determination of what goes on in those projects then shifts to contractors. The contractors then are left to come up based on their own devices with what is to be done. And what we've had in Afghanistan as you're aware is the FDD [Focused District Development] in which only 32 hours of the eight-week program is devoted to police skills, and the contracting company that has that responsibility really doesn't provide overall guidance to its people who then make up out of their own experiences what is to be done. And so unless you have an adequate cadre of trained federal employees to supervise this and other operations, what you get is ad hocery on the part of contractors who are placed in a situation where they have to decide on the spot what to do.

MR. HENKE: But aren't the bulk of the contractors there, though, law enforcement security professionals drawn from across the U.S.?

MR. PERITO: That's exactly the case. They are people who are former law enforcement professionals of various lengths of experience and expertise who are drawn from across the United States, and they go through a nine-day orientation program which I've seen up close and actually participated in.

MR. HENKE: With the contractor?

MR. PERITO: With the contractors, which is more about how do you get from A and how do you get your uniform than what you're supposed to be doing, and then they're deployed in the field. And so they're left pretty to make it up as they go. This is not their fault. These are courageous people. I wouldn't take that away from them. These are very brave people, and they're trying to do the best they can. But there's no overarching theory.

The book that I described earlier looks at how you train police in counter-insurgency operations. It's called Police and War. We went out and looked at agencies engaged and asked them what is your curriculum that you're giving to your trainers to use, and the answer is we don't have one.

MR. HENKE: Right. That sounds like an execution problem, not really a unity of effort problem. So why do you think it's a unity of effort problem?

MR. PERITO: Well, in the beginning I think, if you go back to Bosnia and Kosovo, you did have a certain unity of effort in which you had the Department of State and Department of Justice drawing on their particular expertise with the support of the United States military to do this.

MR. HENKE: But why? Were they -- because they were federal civilian employees?

MR. PERITO: They were all federal civilian employees or at least the direction of the program was in the hands of federal civilian employees, and that ended with Iraq where you had the U.S. military pretty much in charge working through the State Department which outsourced to a contractor.

MR. HENKE: Okay. So your solution would be to do what? I'm curious what the answer is.

MR. PERITO: Well, I think drawing on what's been said by the members of the panel, first of all you need a larger cadre of federal employees in State and AID and the Department of Justice who have the requisite background and support and expertise, and then you need to deploy those people. And then if you use contractors, then you need people who are in charge and understand the mission that can help those contractors and provide them with guidance so that they can do their jobs. But that's not what we have today.

Posted March 8, 2010 by upi

Report: Blackwater documents show failings

Blackwater security workers in Afghanistan drank heavily, used firearms without authorization and ignored U.S. Army training protocols, documents indicate.

The behavior created an environment that may have contributed to the killing of unarmed Afghan civilians in May 2009 by two Blackwater workers who face murder charges in a Virginia federal court, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Monday.

Internal Blackwater documents released Feb. 24 by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee show the company, now known as Xe Services, operated with little oversight in Afghanistan, where it was training the Afghan National Police force.

A senior company executive wrote that Blackwater managers in Afghanistan "cultivated an environment that indirectly" led to the May 5 shootings by former Blackwater workers Christopher Drotleff of Virginia and Justin Cannon of Texas, the documents show.

Company workers had free access to weapons that were intended only for use by the Afghan National Police and the U.S. Army. Blackwater workers sometimes took weapons without signing for them, records show.

Drotleff, Cannon and two other workers took weapons without authorization the day of the shooting May 5.

Posted March 5, 2010 by Congress Watcher

Moran Speaks Against New Blackwater Contract

Blackwater, a company of mercenaries hired by the Bush Administration to fight in Iraq, has been identified by the Pentagon under Barack Obama as the likely recipient of a one billion dollar contract to train fighters for Hamid Karzai's central government in Afghanistan. Blackwater, now operating under the name Xe, has a long history of fraud, violence against civilians and other misconduct.

This week, Senator Carl Levin has received much publicity for his efforts in opposition to the Xe contract. Levin's opposition to Xe, however, is matched by that of U.S. Representative Jim Moran.

On Wednesday, Congressman Moran strongly cautioned against the use of Xe for any new military projects. He explained, "Blackwater-Xe is synonymous with abuse, unprovoked violence, and a 'shoot first' attitude. Their personnel are directly responsible for killing dozens of innocent men, women, and children in Iraq. Clearly, they are not deserving of a U.S. contract to train the Afghan police. Hiring Xe may irreparably damage our efforts to work cooperatively with the Afghan people and will serve as a propaganda tool for our enemies. They will be seen as representing the American people, which they do not. Given Xe-Blackwater's past performance, our government should not be doing business with Xe, and Secretary Gates should prevent this contract from going forward."

Posted March 4, 2010 By ANNE FLAHERTY

Senator Warns Against $1B Deal With Blackwater

A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of "serious questions" about the contractor's conduct.

The comments by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin suggests thinning patience in Congress for the Pentagon's heavy reliance on contractors on the battlefield.

U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan using independent contractors has been a boon for companies like Blackwater and saved money and time for the Defense Department, whose forces are busy in combat.

But the outsourcing has made it more difficult for military commanders to control what happens on the battlefield.

In one recent incident in Afghanistan, two contractors tied to Blackwater allegedly killed two Afghan civilians and injured a third. U.S. officials say the May 2009 shooting damaged relations with the local population

"The inadequacies in Blackwater's performance appear to have contributed to a shooting incident that has undermined our mission in Afghanistan," Levin, D-Mich., wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Blackwater, headquartered in Myock, N.C., is now known as Xe Services.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Thursday he knew of no effort under way to ban Xe Services from contracting with the military. Until then, the company would be legally allowed to submit a bid, he said.

In a separate letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Levin called for a Justice Department investigation into whether Blackwater officials duped the Army into awarding a separate $25 million contract to train Afghan police by creating a shell subcontractor called Paravant.

Levin alleges that company officials boasted to the Army of its large presence overseas and several years of experience without mention of the Blackwater name or that the State Department had dumped the contractor in 2009 after saying it had lost confidence in its management.

Now, Xe is among five companies eligible to compete for a $1 billion contract to train Afghanistan's national police force. DynCorp International of Falls Church, Va., had held a large contract for such training since 2003.

But a decision to transfer control of the program from the State Department to the military is ending DynCorp's run and opening a major opportunity for Xe.

Xe has been shifting its work to training, aviation and logistics after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

Posted March 4, 2010 by Ben Smith

RNC donors to gather at Blackwater compound

The Republican National Committee is planning to raise $60,000 at a fundraiser next month at the North Carolina compound owned by the company formerly known as Blackwater.

According to the RNC fundraising presentation I wrote about yesterday, the committee will hold a gathering of its "Young Eagles" -- major donors under 40 -- at the U.S. Training Center in Moyock, North Carolina April 16, an astute reader points out.

The center, which offers training courses to civilians, law enforcement, and the military, is owned by Xe Services, the embattled private military company formerly known as Blackwater, whose ties to the Republican Party helped made it central to the Bush Administration's operations abroad.

The RNC document doesn't say what the donors will be doing at the North Carolina compound, which describes itself as the nation's "premier weapons and tactics training facility."

Posted March 3, 2010 By AUGUST COLE

Senator Asks Justice Department to Look Into Blackwater Work for Raytheon

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), has asked the Justice Department to look into Raytheon Co.'s use of a Blackwater Worldwide affiliate on a training contract in Afghanistan in order to avoid using the controversial security company's name.

The letter to Attorney General Eric Holder was sent last week and disclosed by the committee Thursday. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week on the contract, an Army contracting official said that he didn't know that the affiliate company, called Paravant, was a Blackwater shell company specifically created for the contract.

Mr. Levin also has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking the Pentagon provide additional scrutiny of a big Afghan police training contract that could go to Xe Services LLC, which is the new name for Blackwater's parent company. The Blackwater name is no longer used.

Posted March 3, 2010 By Christopher M. Matthews

"Smoking Gun" Belatedly Revealed to Defense in Blackwater Case

Prosecutors in the high-profile Blackwater trial only belatedly turned over an exculpatory e-mail to defense attorneys, a document that the attorneys claim impeached the prosecution's entire approach to the case.

The document, which defense attorneys called "a smoking gun," was revealed Tuesday when previously sealed courtroom transcripts were released [1] in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Associated Press and The Washington Post.

In a closed hearing in federal court in Washington on Oct. 26, David Schertler, who represented defendant Dustin Laurent Heard in the case, first raised the issue of the e-mail with Judge Ricardo Urbina. In the email, one of the prosecutors asserts that despite the fact that the only evidence the government has against defendant Nicholas Slatten is tainted, they should use it anyway, Schertler said.

"In this email Mr. Malis is, essentially, saying, look, I'm going to make the decision that we're going to violate this defendant's Fifth Amendment rights, we're going to introduce the tainted information to the second grand jury and in his words, quote, unquote, it is a calculated risk," said Schertler.

The Kastigar hearing on Oct. 26 was held to determine if the prosecutors had violated the defendants' constitutional rights by relying on tainted, compelled testimony given by the guards to the State Department under a grant of immunity immediately after the Sept. 16, 2007 shooting in Nisur Square that left more than 30 Iraqis dead or injured. Urbina ultimately ruled that prosecutors relied on tainted evidence and he dismissed the case in a scathing rebuke of the prosecutors approach.

In the Oct. 26 hearing, Schertler expressed frustration that the defense counsel had received the email on a Saturday evening and questioned whether the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Malis, was withholding more evidence.

"[The email's] been around for almost a year," he said. "â?¦it's something that we think should have been produced, and it causes us to be concerned about â?" not the integrity of Mr. Kaster and Mr. Dittoe, but about the integrity of the process that they have to rely upon to get information that's critical to the issues in this case."

The unsealed transcripts also provide details about the contentious relationships between the government prosecutors and a Public Integrity Section lawyer put in place to help them determine what evidence could be used in the case. The documents paint a picture of a prosecution team that not only disagreed with the advice provided by the PIN lawyer, but deliberately contravened the protocols he was put in place to create.

The central characters in the governmental legal feud were Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Kohl, the case's lead prosecutor, and Raymond Hulser, a Deputy Chief in the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division who had been installed to filter out potentially tainted evidence.

According to testimony in the transcripts, Kohl went behind Hulser's back to obtain the tainted evidence, failed to distribute Hulser's evidentiary protocols to FBI agents investigating the case, obtained search warrants without Hulser's consent and openly complained about Hulser's role in the case to his superiors.

When the Justice Department inherited the Blackwater case from the State Department, it was under enormous public pressure to take action. But DOJ lawyers quickly realized that the immunized testimony of the five former Blackwater Security guards charged in the shooting presented enormous hurdles to prosecution.

Specifically, the defendants gave compelled statements to the State Department under a grant of immunity immediately after the Sept. 16, 2007 incident.

The Blackwater guards, who were contracted to provide security for U.S. government employees in Iraq, claimed they had fired in self defense after an attack by insurgents. But the government said the guards fired without provocation.

The defendants were Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten.

Hulser, who had worked in the Public Integrity Section since joining the department in 1990, had experience dealing with compelled testimony, sometimes referred to as Garrity or Kastigar evidence. So in October 2007 he was assigned to head a DOJ "taint team" set up to prevent impermissible evidence from being used.

While Hulser's advice wasn't legally binding, he had the weight of the Criminal Division behind him. According to his testimony, Hulser was brought in by Benton Campbell who was acting chief of staff for the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Alice Fisher. He said he was also approached by Sigal Mandelker, a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division.

Ultimately the case was transferred to the National Security Division because members of the Criminal Division had been exposed to potentially compelled testimony. Hulser's points of contact in National Security were Assistant Attorney General Ken Wainstein and counterterrorism section chief Mike Mullaney, who was the head of the case's investigation team and would come to serve as middle-man between Hulser and Kohl.

Almost from the start, Hulser advice was either ignored or deliberately contravened.

According to Hulser's testimony, shortly after he was brought on to the "taint team" he created a series of protocols for how the FBI and Department of State agents involved with the case should proceed with the investigation. Both the FBI and State Department agents never received the protocols.

Hulser also instructed the prosecution team to prevent FBI agents from obtaining copies of notes about the guards Sept. 16 statements. Despite his warnings, the agents obtained them.

In April of 2008, Hulser discovered that Kohl had obtained copies of the notes from the compelled interviews, documents Hulser had explicitly told Kohl, through Mullaney, to avoid.

"What I recall happened was, in April I found through this exchangeâ?¦ that Mr. Kohl had already gotten access to some notes of one of the agents who did interviews on September 16," Hulser testified on Oct. 23, 2009. "It came as a surprise to me that they had those. And he expressed the view in e-mails that he thought I had already approved that. I had not."

As Hulser continued to guide the prosecution, Kohl became frustrated. On April 14, 2008, Kohl sent out an email to discuss "Ray Hulser's role in the investigation." In the e-mail, which was not sent to Hulser, Kohl expresses his displeasure that Hulser has "injected himself into our pending document request at state."

But Kohl wasn't the only one who questioned Hulser's advice. In his testimony, Mullaney said that Hulser's view of the evidence was untested.

"I thought his advice was very conservative," said Mullaney. "I mean, I hadn't tested it yet, frankly. I thought there was going to come a point probably where we were going to have to sit down and discuss what was really protected â?¦ what wasn't, whether it all was or not, whether his position was correct or whether the trial team's developing position was correct."

On April 18, Kohl, Hulser, and Mullaney gathered to discuss the case. During the meeting, Hulser and Kohl's different views on whether or not to use the compelled evidence became apparent.

"My view was that the risk was such that they shouldn't take it," Hulser said in his testimony. "His view was that they had a good chance of arguing the other way."

Posted March 1, 2010 By Baqir Sajjad Syed

US security contractors survive, UK firms pack up

Several US contractors who have been at the centre of a controversy over presence of foreign security companies in the country appear to have survived, while the British firms have left.

There has been a recent onslaught of reports in the national media about the presence of foreign security contractors, particularly Blackwater/Xe.

The survival of the US firms, including Catalyst Services considered by many as front organisations of Blackwater/Xe and the Dyncorp, continues to pose a challenge to the country's law-enforcement agencies who fear that these entities may be part of an attempt to establish what they call a parallel security and intelligence network.

According to an official report, other US security firms in Pakistan are Sallyport Global Services, having a security contract with an embassy in Islamabad, and RSM Consulting.

However, all British companies have packed up and left the country.

Foreign security employees working under cover for aid agencies have evaded the focus of intelligence personnel.

The survival of US firms has been attributed to loopholes in the regulatory framework for security companies and patronage by some influential people in the government.

Close to a dozen security contractors from the US and UK had infiltrated Pakistan's private security business to profit from US plans in the country, particularly after the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation, to secure a footprint in the country.

While the Americans and other western countries were not ready to rely on the local security apparatus because of their distrust for Pakistani personnel who lacked proper training and equipment, the unregulated and weak security companies that analysts say are an essential element of the US foreign policy reinforced suspicions about their presence when they manned their missions with former intelligence and military personnel.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates' admission about presence of Blackwater in a television interview during his visit last month added spice to the debate, while the government of Pakistan consistently denied that any such company existed here.

Government agencies, responding to a sudden surge in foreign security firms, had launched an operation to flush them out and corner their local associates. Visas of international staff of the companies were cancelled, while pressure was mounted on local companies to dissociate themselves from their international partners. Those defying the orders faced arrests and cancellation of their licences â?" Inter Risk, a local partner of Dyncorp, being the most well-known case.

An interesting aspect of the action against the organisations is that almost all of them got registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission virtually without any hindrance, highlighting weaknesses in the registration procedure of the corporate sector's watchdog, although it entailed a no-objection certificate from the interior ministry.

At least two of the US companies, Dyncorp and Catalyst Services, have contracts with the government. Dyncorp has an aviation support contract with the interior ministry and, according to sources, Catalyst Services oversaw construction of projects of a paramilitary force.

Pakistan Muslim League-N recently introduced legislation in the National Assembly for regulating the operation of foreign security agencies. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the assembly on the occasion that neither Blackwater nor any other security company existed in the country.

Posted February 28, 2010 By William Fisher

U.S.: Blackwater's Migraines Multiply

Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater â?? once the darling of the military-industrial community.

In separate developments, two former employees of the company charged that the security firm committed "systematic fraud" under its contracts with the U.S. State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Iraqi government announced it would seize heavy weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country; and a U.S. Senate hearing learned that Blackwater employees stole more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force.

The accusations of fraud came from two former employees who filed a false claims lawsuit that allows the employees, acting as whistleblowers, to win a portion of any public money the government recovers as a result of the information.

The Washington Post reports that the former Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) employees Brad and Melan Davis accused the firm of over-billing for travel, charging for liquor and spa trips and for a having a fire pit built for Blackwater staff parties, and charging for the services of a Filipino prostitute who was kept on "staff" in Afghanistan as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation".

Brad Davis was a former Marine and served as a team leader and security guard, including in a posting in Iraq. Melan Davis, his wife, worked as a finance and payroll employee. Melan Davis has accused the company of terminating her in 2008 because she questioned billing practices. Her husband resigned shortly afterward.

Blackwater changed its name to Xe - pronounced "zee" - early last year in an effort to shed the negative baggage acquired from its frequent run-ins with Iraqi, Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces. The Blackwater Lodge & Training Centre, the subsidiary that conducts much of the company's overseas operations and domestic training, has been renamed U.S. Training Centre Inc.

In a related development, the Iraqi government announced that it would seize weapons from foreign security firms and expel ex-Blackwater contractors still in the country within days, according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani.

The decision was triggered by the Iraqi government's outrage over the dismissal by a U.S. court of charges against Blackwater Worldwide guards who were accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The guards said they shot in self-defence.

The judge said there was evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. The U.S. government is appealing the dismissal of the court case. The Iraqi government, which has prohibited Blackwater from operating in Iraq, has hired U.S. lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the company.

For many Iraqis, the killing of the 17 civilians became emblematic of the impunity from prosecution in Iraq enjoyed by foreign security contractors after the 2003 U.S. invasion. That immunity ended last year under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement transferring sovereignty back to Iraq.

Parliamentary elections scheduled for Mar. 7 are also fuelling Iraqi anger at Blackwater. Minister Bolani, who is running as the head of his own coalition against a slate headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told Reuters news service that he had "ordered that the heavy weapons used by some of the foreign security firms be collected."

And in yet another development, it emerged at a hearing of the Senate armed services committee that Blackwater employees took more than 500 assault rifles intended for the Afghan police force and routinely carried weapons without permission.

It also emerged that to burnish its negative image to win contracting business in Afghanistan, Blackwater created what one senator called a shell company. Senators said that company, Paravant, deceived U.S. officials. It claimed Blackwater was not involved but used Blackwater's past performance to establish its credentials.

"They made representations here that are wildly false," said Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat. "Everyone knew in the field it was Blackwater trying to get rid of a negative name."

Levin warned that Afghan civilians did not distinguish between troops and contractors, and that when contractors misbehaved it turned the population against U.S. forces and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.

The Senate hearing focused in part on a December 2008 accident in which a Blackwater employee was shot in the head during what the company described as a vehicle training exercise but Levin called horseplay.

According to committee investigators, a Blackwater trainer jumped on top of a moving vehicle while carrying a loaded AK47. The vehicle hit a bump and the rifle discharged, striking another trainer in the head. At the hearing Wednesday, former Blackwater officials insisted the Americans were engaged in vehicle training. Levin accused Blackwater of covering up misconduct by describing the shooting as an accident during "routine" training.

In May, two Afghan civilians were killed in a shooting involving Paravant employees. Investigators later determined that the contractors had "violated alcohol policies", were not authorised to have weapons and had violated other policies. The U.S. Justice Department said the shooting had a detrimental effect on U.S. national security.

Former Paravant official Brian McCracken acknowledged the company's trainers were carrying weapons without authorisation but said they often operated in dangerous environments among armed Afghans, without U.S. army protection.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001, Blackwater was awarded contracts worth billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company provided security for U.S. embassy personnel and important visitors in those locations.

Erik Prince, Blackwater's founder and former CEO, was a substantial contributor to the Republican Party and had close ties to senior officials in the administration of George W. Bush.

Posted February 23, 2010 By Spencer Ackerman

Blackwater Took Hundreds of Guns From U.S. Military, Afghan Police

Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to work for the company evidently signed for a weapons shipment using the name of a "South Park" cartoon character. And Blackwater has yet to return hundreds of the guns to the military.

A Blackwater subsidiary known as Paravant that until recently operated in Afghanistan acquired the weapons for its employees' "personal use," according to committee staffers, as did other non-Paravant employees of Blackwater. Yet contractors in Afghanistan are not permitted to operate weapons without explicit permission from U.S. Central Command, something Blackwater never obtained. A November 2008 email from a Paravant vice president named Brian McCracken, obtained by the committee, nevertheless reads: "We have not received formal permission from the Army to carry weapons yet but I will take my chances."

As a result of Blackwater's disregard for U.S. military restrictions on contractor firearms, four employees of Paravant â?" which held a subcontract from defense giant Raytheon to train Afghan soldiers â?" under the influence of alcohol opened fire on a car carrying four Afghan civilians on May 5, 2009, wounding two. That incident, occurring less than two years after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, prompted the committee's investigation.

"In the fight against the Taliban, the perception that the Afghans have of us is critical," Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the committee, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. "It's clear to me that if we're going to win that struggle, we need to know that contractor personnel are adequately screened, they're adequately supervised and they're adequately held accountable." Levin will hold a hearing on Blackwater's Afghanistan contracts Wednesday morning.

The committee's investigation points to the contrary. Blackwater personnel appear to have gone to exceptional lengths to obtain weapons from U.S. military weapons storehouses intended for use by the Afghan police. According to the committee, at the behest of the company's Afghanistan country manager, Ricky Chambers, Blackwater on at least two occasions acquired hundreds of rifles and pistols from a U.S. military facility near Kabul called 22 Bunkers by the military and Pol-e Charki by the Afghans. Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of all U.S. military forces in the Middle East and South Asia, wrote to the committee to explain that "there is no current or past written policy, order, directive, or instruction that allows U.S. Military contractors or subcontractors in Afghanistan to use weapons stored at 22 Bunkers."

On one of those occasions, in September 2008, Chief Warrant Officer Greg Sailer, who worked at 22 Bunkers and is a friend of a Blackwater officer working in Afghanistan, signed over more than 200 AK-47s to an individual identified as "Eric Cartman" or possibly "Carjman" from Blackwater's Counter Narcotics Training Unit. A Blackwater lawyer told committee staff that no one by those names has ever been employed by the company. Eric Cartman is the name of an obnoxious character from Comedy Central's popular "South Park" cartoon.

Blackwater personnel invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination when approached by the committee to explain the weapons acquisitions from 22 Bunkers, according to committee staff. Sailer, who is still deployed to Afghanistan, told the committee that he thought Blackwater was signing for the weapons to train Afghan police, a task it has never conducted.

Not all of the guns received from Blackwater have been returned to the Afghan government â?" and, according to committee staff, many only began to be returned after staff approached the company for an explanation. "It was represented to us that all the weapons had been returned" to 22 Bunkers, Levin said. "That is not true. Hundreds of them were not returned." Asked if that meant Blackwater lied to Congress, Levin replied, "They misrepresented the facts, and I'd like to leave it at that."

Raytheon did not renew Paravant's contract for training the Afghan army, which expired in September. Blackwater still holds a contract with the State Department worth millions of dollars to protect diplomats in Afghanistan. While that contract expires this year, Politico reported on Tuesday that Blackwater, now renamed Xe Services, might acquire a new multimillion-dollar contract from the Defense Department to train Afghan police â?" the same police force that Blackwater's weapons diversions from 22 Bunkers deprived of hundreds of pistols and rifles.

This is not the first time Blackwater has faced allegations of diverted weapons. In 2007, company employees came under federal investigation for improperly shipping hundreds of weapons to Iraq, some of which are believed to have been sold on the black market and acquired by a Kurdish terrorist group. A Blackwater statement at the time said allegations that the company was "in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless." The New York Times reported in November that the company is negotiating with regulators over "hundreds of millions of dollars in fines" associated with the illicit weapons shipments.

In January, Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, confirmed to Vanity Fair that his 12-year-old company â?" which has earned more than a billion dollars through government contracts in the past decade â?" was involved in a nascent terrorist assassination program run by the CIA, among other CIA activities. "I'm paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket," Prince told the magazine. Additionally, The Nation recently reported that Blackwater assists the Joint Special Operations Command with the terrorist manhunt in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including with the operations of JSOC's armed unmanned drones.

Levin said his inquiry had uncovered "inadequate oversight by the Army over this contract." The Florida-based Army office supposedly overseeing the contract did not even have a contracting officer representative in Afghanistan when the Paravant employees shot at Afghan civilians on May 5, 2009. Yet as early as December 2008, concerned Raytheon personnel informed that Army office that Paravant personnel were carrying unapproved weapons. An officer in Afghanistan responsible for training Afghan soldiers told the committee, "We should have had better control."

Additionally, Blackwater personnel in Afghanistan, including those involved in both the May shooting and an earlier improper weapons discharge from December 2008, have been cited for, among other infractions, drug and alcohol abuse and, in one case, an "extensive criminal history."

Wednesday's hearing is expected to receive testimony from current and former Blackwater/Paravant officers, including Brian C. McCracken, the former Paravant vice president who now serves as Raytheon's chief Afghanistan program officer; Fred Roitz, a Blackwater vice president; and John Walker, a former Paravant program officer.

Posted February 23, 2010 By ANNE FLAHERTY

Senate panel finds lawless Blackwater contractors

A Senate investigation accuses the Army of turning a blind eye when a Blackwater subsidiary hired violent drug users to help train the Afghan army and declared "sidearms for everyone" even though employees weren't authorized to carry weapons.

The findings by Democratic staff on the Senate Armed Services Committee paint a disturbing picture of lawlessness that contributed to the May 2009 shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians and fed anti-Western sentiment in the region.

"Blackwater operated in Afghanistan without sufficient oversight or supervision and with almost no consideration of the rules it was legally obligated to follow," said Sen. Carl Levin, the committee's chairman.

"Even one irresponsible act by contractor personnel can hurt the mission and put our troops in harm's way," Levin said.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the company, which is now known as Xe Services, said management was taking steps to address shortcomings in the program when the shootings occurred.

"The individual independent contractors actions the night of May 5th clearly violated clear company policies and they are being held accountable," he said in an e-mailed statement.

Former employees of the company's subsidiary Paravant - Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff - have been charged with killing two Afghans and injuring a third.

Cannon and Drotleff were not supposed to be armed and had been drinking.

They also probably shouldn't have been hired by Blackwater at all. Drotleff's lengthy criminal record included assault and battery, while his three-year career in the Marines ended after seven unauthorized absences, assault and other charges.

Cannon had been discharged from the Army after going AWOL and testing positive for cocaine, although he later petitioned successfully to have his military records changed to an honorable discharge.

The Senate Armed Services Committee planned to convene a hearing on Wednesday. Among those expected to testify were several former Blackwater contracting officials and contracting officers for the Army.

Levin said he wanted to investigate the circumstances surrounding the 2009 shooting because it was such an obvious example of lax oversight of the estimated 100,000 contractors working in Afghanistan.

Blackwater has been involved in several security incidents, including the 2007 shooting at Nisoor Square in Baghdad that killed 17 people, including women and children. Since the shooting, the Myock, N.C.-based Blackwater has renamed itself Xe Services and overhauled its management.

Iraq has pulled the company's license to operate in the country.

Levin said he wants to determine who should be held accountable for the gaps in oversight that led to the 2009 shooting and what should happen to prevent future incidents. But he stopped short of suggesting that Xe be barred from working with the military overseas.

The senator said that among the startling discoveries in his investigation was that contracting personnel acquired several hundred weapons, including more than 500 AK-47s, from a U.S. facility in Kabul that stores the weapons for use by the Afghan police.

The committee obtained a November 2008 e-mail from a company vice president that said, "I got sidearms for everyone... We have not yet received formal permission from the Army to carry weapons yet but I will take my chances."

Corallo called the distribution of weapons without prior authorization a "shortcoming" in the program.

"Though Raytheon, the prime contractor, and the (Defense Department) customer were both aware of Paravant management's decision, and were working to obtain authorization, contractors should not have been armed without the proper approvals," he said.

Army contracting officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Posted February 19, 2010 By Carol Huang

When things go boom in the night, Pakistanis blame Blackwater

The US says it doesn't work with the security firm Blackwater in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government insists no Blackwater employees are working in the country. But many Pakistanis doubt those assertions, complicating US efforts to build trust.

Armed Americans are driving around in unmarked cars, getting caught, and mysteriously released. Who are they? Blackwater, running covert ops for the United States in Pakistan.

Or at least that's what large numbers of Pakistanis appear to believe.

It sounds like textbook conspiracy theory. But in a country that's already highly suspicious of the US and the notorious security firm, rumors that germinated in small circles have spread nationwide and taken root among mainstream journalists and intellectuals.

For many Pakistanis, the tales confirm that America at best cannot be trusted. For the US, they create another wall of resistance to convincing Pakistanis the US is an ally, one that desperately needs their help fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

These days "any embassy vehicle that's got men who are in good shape seem to be Blackwater," says US Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire. "It certainly makes getting our message across more challenging."

Mr. Snelshire says he fields as many as 20 calls a day when especially scandalous reports about Blackwater (which has rebranded itself as Xe) hit newsstands. He says the embassy only employs security contractors from a different firm, DynCorp, and only to train Pakistanis as security guards.

When asked if Blackwater or Xe worked for any other branch of the US or Pakistani government, he writes in an e-mail, "I would refer you to Ambassador [Anne] Patterson's statement that â??we do not use Blackwater or Xe in Pakistan.' On the question of whether or not Blackwater or Xe have any private contracts or contracts with the Government of Pakistan I would refer you to Blackwater/XE."

Three calls to the company were not returned.

History of distrust

Many of the stories circulating about Blackwater are far from substantiated. Even Awab Alvi, an early adopter of the rumors who tracks the topic on his blog, says that "there's no concrete evidence" and that "of the 50 reports that come through, maybe one or two are right." Many accounts come from the Pakistani paper The Nation, which last year drew criticism for calling an American journalist a spy, forcing him to leave the country.

But like many Pakistanis, Dr. Alvi can tick off decades' worth of reasons not to give the US the benefit of the doubt â?? and why rumors of secret US-backed operations might find a receptive audience.

In the 1980s, the narrative goes, the US propped up dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq as an ally against the Soviets in Afghanistan. After the war ended, the US withdrew, leaving Pakistanis to cope with the guns, drugs, and refugees that spilled into their territory.

In recent years, Blackwater gained notoriety over allegations of recklessness and excessive, often lethal, force in Iraq and Afghanistan. On Feb. 11, the Iraq government expelled more than 200 current and former foreign security contractors in connection with a 2007 shooting by Blackwater guards in Baghdad that left 17 civilians dead. In December, a US court dismissed charges of manslaughter against five Blackwater employees, a decision Vice President Joe Biden said the US would appeal. Two former Blackwater contractors based in Kabul are facing charges of second-degree murder over the deaths of two Afghans who were allegedly shot in a traffic accident last May.

The buildup of distrust and swirl of rumors have left Pakistanis to imagine the worst about US intentions, fueling already intense anti-Americanism: Blackwater is here to kill and "disappear" people, or seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons if the country falls apart. The US is arming and funding not only the Pakistani Army but also the Taliban, to kill off both sides and take over the country. Most Taliban must be foreigners, because Pakistanis would never kill civilians, as the suicide bombers here do, the theory goes.

The Taliban have exploited these beliefs, warning of Blackwater attacks in the northwest. Last November, the Taliban accused the firm of carrying out a suicide bombing to "malign" the insurgency, which "does not believe in the killing of innocent civilians."

Blow to national pride

The idea of American security contractors let loose in the country reflects Pakistani frustrations with the US but also with their own government. Already many see their leaders as kowtowing to the US by fighting militants at its behest and allowing drone attacks on Pakistani territory. Protesters have demonstrated against Blackwater in Peshawar, Lahore, and Karachi.

"If there's a good reason" for the firm to operate here, "on occasion they should explain it," says Cyril Almeida, assistant editor of the Dawn, a leading Pakistani daily.

"You don't have to tell me so-and-so Blackwater official is in so-and-so compound doing whatever covert operation," he says. "But give a clear understanding. What kind of personnel have you got inside the country, and on the military side, what are they doing?... Is it legal?... Is it desirable?"

But even on military cooperation, the US and Pakistan tend to downplay their partnership to avoid inflaming anti-Americanism. A counterinsurgency training program run by US forces in northwestern Pakistan â?? spotlighted this month when three American soldiers were killed in a suicide bomb â?? had been acknowledged but not advertised.

Even as US drone attacks on Pakistani soil have become an open secret, US officials continue to refer to them indirectly. When the airstrikes first ramped up a few years ago, both governments denied knowledge of them.

"I have a problem with the government constantly lying about these things," says Asif Akhtar, a blogger based in Lahore, adding that it has undermined its credibility.

When US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Islamabad in January, Pakistani media seized on what appeared to be an admission that Blackwater was indeed operating here. In response the Defense Department issued a statement saying it "does not use Blackwater in Pakistan."

Pakistan's government denies any Blackwater presence, as Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani reiterated last week. Interior Minister Rehman Malik famously vowed last November to resign if proved wrong. The speculation has spiraled to the point that "anybody traveling with white skin is considered to be Blackwater," he told Dawn last week.

â??A lot of evidence'

Repeated denials, however, have not stemmed rumors of policemen pulling over carloads of Americans with weapons, nor quashed speculation that these people are Blackwater. Instead, the belief has gained currency as Western media have reported that Blackwater is working for the CIA in Pakistan.

In August, The New York Times said the firm was operating on secret bases in the country to load bombs onto the drones fired at the tribal areas â?? a contract the CIA acknowledged in December by saying it had been canceled.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Blackwater head Erik Prince detailed his firm's partnerships with the CIA, including training agents to assassinate Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan. A November report in the American publication The Nation claimed that Blackwater employees were plotting assassinations from a base in Karachi and training Pakistani forces, and sometimes conducting raids with them, in the northwest.

"There's a lot of evidence to suggest that Blackwater was operating in Pakistan under a different name," says Rifaat Hussain, a security analyst at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad who is frequently cited in Western media.

Mr. Hussain says he is 100 percent sure Blackwater is operating in Pakistan. "Even when the CIA says they have terminated contracts with them, there is no guarantee that these guys will not resurface," he says. "What has appeared in public is only the tip of the iceberg."

Correspondent Issam Ahmed contributed from Lahore, Pakistan.

Posted February 17, 2010 By Spencer Ackerman

Senate Panel Announces Big Hearing on Blackwater's Afghanistan Contract

All it took was a) shots fired at Afghan civilians on a Kabul road; b) bribes to foreign officials that amount to hush money; c) credible accounts of unlicensed weapons shipping; d) secret raids alongside the CIA on suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan; and of course e) heavy collaboration with the Joint Special Operations Command to attract some real Senate scrutiny of Blackwater, the much-renamed private security firm that according to its founder is a CIA cutout. The Senate Armed Services Committee just announced a hearing on "contracting in a counterinsurgency: an examination of the Blackwater-Paravant contract and the need for oversight." It gets underway next Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 9:30 a.m. (Paravant is a Blackwater subsidiary working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan.)

As far as I'm aware, this is the first Senate hearing exclusively devoted to Blackwater. The previous big Blackwater hearing came before the House oversight committee in 2007, and it mainly resulted in forcing the State Department's conflict-of-interest-laden inspector-general, Cookie Krongard, to resign in disgrace after misrepresenting his ties to the company before the panel.

From the looks of the witness list, there may be some real disclosures: Paravant's ex-program manager, John R. Walker, is slated to testify, as is its ex-vice president Brian C. McCracken. So are a host of retired military officials, including the former head of the effort to train Afghan security forces, retired Col. Bradley Wakefield. A former Blackwater vice president for contracts, Fred Roitz, has been invited, but it's unclear whether he'll appear.

It's worth pointing out that to the best of my knowledge, there was no Senate hearing devoted to scrutinizing Blackwater's multi-million dollar contracts with the government after its guards shot and killed 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians in September 2007.

Posted February 13, 2010 by David Isenberg

Blackwater Uses the F(raud) Word

Xe Services (formerly known as Blackwater) is once again in the news, thanks to charges made by two of its former employees.

The ex-employees, a husband and wife team, Brad and Melan Davis, worked in various Blackwater locations, both overseas and in the United States.

They are suing Blackwater under the False Claims Act, a U.S. federal law which allows people who are not affiliated with the government to file actions against federal contractors claiming fraud against the government. Persons filing under the Act stand to receive a portion (usually about 15-25 percent) of any recovered damages. Claims under the law have been filed by persons with insider knowledge of false claims which have typically involved health care, military, or other government spending programs. The government has recovered nearly $22 billion dollars under the False Claims Act between 1987 and 2008.

The Davis's suit makes many charges but, predictably, the press thus far has largely focused on the most sensationalistic, namely that Blackwater officials kept a Filipino prostitute on the company payroll for a State Department contract in Afghanistan, and billed the government for her time working for Blackwater male employees in Kabul. The alleged prostitute's salary was categorized as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation" expenses.

This rather superficial focus is similar to what the media did when the Project on Government Oversight released its report last September on drunken party antics by ArmorGroup private security contractors in Kabul, Afghanistan. Lost in all the coverage of contractors eating chips out of someone's ass was the fact that ArmorGroup's performance had "negatively impacted the security posture of the Local Guard Program for the U.S. Mission to Kabul."

Let's acknowledge that for the time being the Davis's charges are just that and have yet to be proven. But if they end up being substantiated and Blackwater eventually suffers significant punishment it will be the equivalent of convicting Al Capone on tax evasion charges, given that in December a U.S. federal judge dismissed charges against Blackwater contractors accused of killing innocent Iraqi civilians in the September 2007 Nisoor Square incident, on the grounds that the government bungled the case by using testimony that was given under a grant of immunity.

It may be sad to say but, given the history of sexual activities and some private contractors, the alleged use of a prostitute by Blackwater may actually be a step up. At least they were not trafficking in child sex slaves as some DynCorp contractors did in Bosnia back in the late 1990s.

Not did they drug and gang rape a fellow contractor as some KBR contractors reportedly did in 2005.

In fact, Blackwater contractors may have been inspired by the actions of the now legendary Tori the Escort. Back in 2007 Wonkette broke the story that Tori was going to be in Baghdad's Green Zone for an extended tour, "entertaining all members of the PMC community registered with PSCAI (Private Security Company Association of Iraq)."

If only Blackwater had not billed the government for her services it is likely that nobody would care. There has been no detail yet on what she was paid or what Blackwater billed the government for, when requesting reimbursement for her services, so one cannot say if she was truly more cost effective and efficient than a public sector counterpart, -- a constant claim that the private sector always makes -- such as a congressman or senator. Hopefully future depositions will provide further detail.

But even when you add in the overhead (whatever that might be, clean sheets provided by KBR perhaps?) that contractors always add when submitting bills to the government it seems unlikely that the net revenues would be worth the scandal.

Blackwater would have been better off just employing the prostitute as an independent contractor and paying for her services out of pocket.

As the use of a prostitute is between consenting parties it cannot be termed "sexual harassment" which is actually prohibited under the terms of the Worldwide Personal Protective Services (WPPS) contract under which Blackwater operates in Afghanistan. However there is a clause, with respect to guard conduct that states:

Personal activity on post: The guards will not engage in any unofficial business on post; i.e., soliciting, canvassing, peddling, sales promotion of a commercial item, loan money for interest and etc: (p. 70)

Of course, a lawyer could probably argue that the woman was originally working at a hotel, thus, not on base, and as such is not covered by the clause. Where she worked when she was put on the payroll remains an unanswered question.

It bears pointing out that Melan Davis, who reported the billing of the prostitute's services to the government was hired back in December 2005. In the suit she notes:

Shortly after I was hired, I asked for guidance on the cost accounting. As a result of my request, a group of Blackwater personnel (including me) attended a meeting with Paul Desolites, Department of State. Mr. Desolites advised us that any costs billed to Task Orders Nos. 4 and 6 had to be costs actually incurred by Blackwater making payments to third parties. Intra-company transfers from one Blackwater entity to another were not permitted to be submitted for reimbursement under the terms of the Task Orders.

After the Department of State meeting educated me on die permissibility of various practices, I discovered a substantial amount of fraudulent billing. One of the first items I uncovered was Blackwater billing for payments made to a prostitute. I came across the name of a female Phillipino on the expenses submitted for cost reimbursables in connection with Task Force No. 4. At that time, to my knowledge, the only third country nationals we had in country in Afghanistan were Columbians. I wanted to figure out whether we had Phillipinio third country nationals as well because I had not seen any others beyond this name.

I contacted Susan Bergman, who was the logistics operations manager in Kabul, Afghanistan. She informed me that the woman was not a third country national hired to serve as a static guard, but rather was a prostitute, who had been ousted from the hotel where she was working for several Blackwater men. As a result, they put her on the Blackwater payroll under the Morale Welfare Recreation ("MWR") category. To the best of my knowledge, Blackwater billed her plane tickets and monthly salary to the United States under the Task Orders.

This takes corporate pimping to new heights. Also, given the timeline she describes this means that Blackwater was still a member of the International Peace Operations Association, a leading trade group for the private military contracting industry. (Blackwater pulled out of IPOA after the Nisoor Square shootings). IPOA has a Code of Conduct that its member companies are supposed to follow, though what happens if a company violates the code has never been clear.

While there is nothing in the Code that says contractors can't use prostitutes there are a few sections that could reasonably be construed as suggesting it is a bad idea.

The section on human rights says "Signatories shall respect the dignity of all human beings and strictly adhere to all applicable international humanitarian and human rights laws."

The section on accountability says "Signatories shall support effective legal accountability to relevant authorities for their actions and the actions of their personnel. Signatories shall proactively address minor infractions, and to the extent possible and subject to contractual and legal limitations, fully cooperate with official investigations into allegations of contractual violations and breaches of international humanitarian and human rights laws." By billing the government for the prostitute's services Blackwater was certainly in violation of "contractual limitations."

Moving on, there are a number of far more serious allegations in the Davis's suit, which merit full investigation.

Let's consider Hurricane Katrina. Over the years Blackwater has taken lots of criticism from critics with axes to grind for supposedly providing jackbooted mercenaries to patrol the streets in the hurricane's aftermath. Up to now this has mostly been hot air with precious little substantiation.

But in the suit Brad Davis, who worked in Louisiana for Blackwater, contends:

Blackwater failed to provide the services required by the contract with FEMA and the State of Louisiana. Blackwater was arming its employees with deadly weapons (shotguns, Glocks, and M-4s) in order to provide security. As a result, Blackwater was required to monitor closely the weaponry, and keep at all times a registry of the weapons in the hands of its employees. Blackwater utterly failed to monitor these deadly weapons, and instead lost track of countless weapons.

Blackwater repeatedly and routinely falsified records to hide this serious issue from FEMA and other United States agencies.

Blackwater repeatedly and routinely falsified GSA 139 forms, which are the forms that Blackwater was directed to use to record the hours worked by its employees. Blackwater permitted employees to "clock in" for their fellow employees.

Beginning in October 2005, and continuing until at least April 2006, Blackwater submitted invoices to the United States and to the State of Louisiana that contained falsified hours.

Reasonable discovery is likely to establish that the persistent fraud by

Blackwater on the Hurricane Katrina contracts that was observed firsthand by Relators during the October 2005 to April 2006 timeframe actually persisted well past April 2006.

It bears note that during this time, when Blackwater was a member, that IPOA's Code of Conduct states that, "Signatories using weapons shall put the highest emphasis on accounting for and controlling all weapons and ammunition utilized during an operation and for ensuring their legal and proper accounting and disposal at the end of a contract."

A thus far unmentioned aspect of the weapons issue, mentioned in a footnote to the suit, is the following from Bad Davis:

I also learned from colleagues that the failure to account for weapons was not limited to Louisiana. On one occasion, Blackwater employees working in Moyock sold a M249 (known as a "saw") to a civilian for $10,000. It is illegal to possess such weapons. Not realizing it was illegal, the purchaser brought it back to the armory on a different shift, complaining that there was something wrong and seeking refund or replacement Although the United States ended up learning about the incident, the United States did not realize that the United States law enforcement personnel tasked to investigate the incident were put on Blackwater's payroll.

In plain English that seems to say that Backwater paid off the police to ignore its violation of the law.

Davis also says that:

Blackwater failed to fulfill the contract requirements for training in Louisiana. Blackwater hired persons without completing any screening in advance. At times, it turned out that Blackwater had armed and placed on the streets persons who had been convicted of felonies or were otherwise prohibited by the Lautenberg Act (regarding persons convicted of domestic violence) from carrying weapons. Although Blackwater eventually terminated some or all of those persons, Blackwater had armed them and placed them on public streets of Louisiana for a significant period of time.

Another disturbing charge is this:

Blackwater operated a private training facility called Blackwater Academy.

Many persons enrolled in Blackwater Academy were subsequently hired by Blackwater to serve on the Department of State contract, International Republican Institute contract, and other contracts funded by the United States.

Blackwater hired persons to serve on these contracts in order to ensure that these persons had the funds necessary to pay their outstanding tuition bills at Blackwater Academy.

As a result of this direct financial benefit to Blackwater Academy, Blackwater would continue to deploy persons to serve as "shooters" on contracts funded by the United States even after such persons had proven themselves wholly incompetent.

Despite pleas from its own management, Blackwater repeatedly refused to terminate shooters who had used excessive and unjustified force against Iraqis because Blackwater wanted to ensure that these persons could pay outstanding Blackwater Academy tuition.

By providing unqualified shooters who used excessive and unjustified force against Iraqis, Blackwater defrauded the United States in two ways: First, it failed to provide contractually-required services. Second, this misconduct caused the United States to expend substantial time and money redressing the various harms caused by these unqualified persons.

These unqualified persons included Beau Phillips and Luke Doak, both of who or injured Iraqis with unjustified and excessive force.

Blackwater management was well aware of the unjustified shootings, but failed to report them to the United States as was required by the terms of the contract. Blackwater also failed to terminate these persons and instead continued to bill the United States for their services.

Blackwater continues to defraud the United States to date by billing the United States for trainings conducted by Luke Doak.

If true, what Blackwater did could be considered a form of indentured servitude. Blackwater permits persons to go through the Academy at no charge, and then deducts the tuition from their subsequent pay as Blackwater contractors over a two year period. That explains why Blackwater would keep someone in the field who should not be there. For example Blackwater benefitted financially in two ways by keeping Doak on contract: Blackwater received payments from the United States and also received payments directly from Doak.

As Davis notes in the suit, "Gloria Shyties told me that Blackwater needed to find Doak a job in order to ensure that he repaid Blackwater the tuition. She was well aware of the fact that Doak had murdered two people with Blackwater weapons while working on a Blackwater contract in Iraq."

Second, if Blackwater was providing unqualified personnel to work in Iraq it was clearly in violation of the terms of its WPPS contract.

Brad Davis details three incidents that he personally observed in which Blackwater personnel intentionally used excessive and unjustified deadly force, and in some instances used unauthorized weapons, to kill or seriously injured innocent Iraqi civilians. He notes that in regard to the first incident Blackwater failed to report the incident to the State Department, a clear violation of the WPPS contract. After the second incident the State Department had heard about it because someone other than Blackwater had reported it.

According to Brad Davis Blackwater not only overbilled the United States for travel expenses in Afghanistan but did so in various ways:

First, Blackwater created phony invoices that misled the United States into believing Blackwater had made payments to an unrelated third party.

Second, Blackwater transported employees on its own wholly-controlled Presidential Airways subsidiary (previously called Blackwater Aviation), but billed the United States as if the travel had occurred on unrelated third party commercial carriers.

Third, Blackwater created phony invoices to obscure the fact that Blackwater had failed to keep any of the necessary contemporaneous documentation on travel. Blackwater and Greystone employees worked around the clock in Jordan for several days in February 2008 creating phony invoices - at rates well in excess of what was actually paid to any third party - to match personnel musters. In reality, Blackwater lacked the necessary contemporaneous records and was not authorized to bill the United States under the terms of the contract.

Davis also charges that in addition to improperly billing the U.S. government it also solicited kickbacks:

Blackwater overbilled the United States for services provided by a man named Sargon Hendrich. Mr. Hendrich provided some services to Blackwater, and invoiced those services at rates well in excess of fair market value. Blackwater billed the services to the United States. After the funds received from the United States were disbursed to Mr. Hendrich, he would then pay kickbacks to Blackwater.

Furthermore, in what can be only viewed as a moment of serendipity in light of a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report on the subject Brad Davis charges that:

Blackwater used Greystone , a wholly-controlled offshore company, to obscure the amount of taxable revenues earned by Blackwater. Reasonable discovery will show that Blackwater transferred funds offshore to Greystone, and then reflected those funds as payment for management fees. Reasonable discovery will show that Blackwater was using this mechanism to send its profits offshore beyond the reach of the United States Internal Revenue Service.

Ironically, given the private military industry's constant refrain that it is more cost-effective than government, the suit notes that "On or about March 25, 2006, Blackwater contractor Greg Krebs told Melan Davis that she would never win a medal for saving the government money, and she needed to back off."

It also appears that Blackwater may have been inspired by former U.S. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, the state where Blackwater is headquartered. Among other things, Edwards is distinguished for cheating on his wife when she was battling lung cancer. The suit notes that:

Defendants wrongfully terminated Melan Davis from the corporate offices in retaliation for her attempts to rectify the abuses occurring in the Jordan offices. Defendants' own internal investigation recommended that Ms. Davis not be terminated, but Defendants nonetheless terminated Ms. Davis on February 1, 2008, while she was out on leave battling cancer.

Yet another charge, which seems reminiscent of the character Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder in Joseph Heller' famed Catch-22 novel is that "Erik Prince personally smuggled out antique Iraqi fighter planes. He had the planes dismantled, smuggled out in parts, and then reassembled for display."

If the suit comes to trial Blackwater's lawyers conceivably could argue that whatever illegal actions took place were the result of actions by its independent contractors, not that that would be much of an excuse, as Blackwater's responsibility for proper oversight exist regardless of who is being paid. Nevertheless it is important to remember that much of the activities were both known to and participated in by permanent Blackwater staff, according to the suit. Regarding Louisiana, Brad Davis says, "In my area, I personally caught five Blackwater employees engaged in fraud. These employees would show up at the site, sign in and leave a few hours later. Two of those persons were not so-called "independent contractors," but were full-time Blackwater employees from Moyock. There names are John Youngblood, and Heather Brantley."

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Xe Services said Thursday that "The allegations are without merit and the company will vigorously defend against this lawsuit. It is noteworthy that the government has declined to intervene in this action," he said.

Of course, back when the U.S. government was investigating Blackwater contractors for the Nisoor Square shootings company spokesmen condemned the government for what it characterized as a rush to government before the facts were in. Now it is praising the government for not joining in even though the facts have yet to be verified. One hopes that in the future it will at least make up its mind what it wants the government to do.

Posted February 11, 2010 By MARK MAZZETTI

2 Ex-Workers Accuse Blackwater Security Company of Defrauding the U.S. for Years

Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security company of defrauding the government for years by filing bogus receipts, double billing for the same services and charging government agencies for strippers and prostitutes, according to court documents unsealed this week.

In a December 2008 lawsuit, the former employees said top Blackwater officials had engaged in a pattern of deception as they carried out government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The lawsuit, filed under the False Claims Act, also asserts that Blackwater officials turned a blind eye to "excessive and unjustified" force against Iraqi civilians by several Blackwater guards.

Blackwater has earned billions of dollars from government agencies in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, when the company won contracts to protect American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan. The former employees who filed the lawsuit, a married couple named Brad and Melan Davis, said there was little financial oversight of the money.

Last year, an audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction and the State Department's inspector general found that the State Department had overpaid Blackwater $55 million because the company had failed to adequately staff its teams assigned to protect American diplomats in Iraq.

The documents detailing the Davises' accusations were unsealed after the Justice Department declined to join in the case against Blackwater, which last year changed its name to Xe Services. A Xe spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment about the case.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Davis said that she and her husband had decided to proceed with the case because "it's the right thing to do," and that it was time for "the truth from inside the company" to be made public. If the government is able to recover money from Blackwater as a result of the lawsuit, the Davises could claim a percentage as whistleblowers.

Mr. Davis, a former Marine, performed a number of jobs for the company, including working as a private security guard in Iraq.

Ms. Davis was fired from the company, and she is challenging the legality of her dismissal. Mr. Davis voluntarily resigned from the company.

According to the lawsuit, Ms. Davis raised concerns about the company's bookkeeping with her bosses in March 2006, when she was handling accounts for the company's contracts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit claims she was told to "back off," and that she "would never win a medal for saving the government money."

Ms. Davis also asserts that a Filipino prostitute in Afghanistan was put on the Blackwater payroll under the "Morale Welfare Recreation" category, and that the company had billed the prostitute's plane tickets and monthly salary to the government.

She also said Blackwater management used a subsidiary company, Greystone Ltd., to double bill the government for plane tickets between the United States and Amman, Jordan, which served as a transit point for the company's employees in Iraq.

Posted February 4, 2010 By pk mirror

Use of mercenaries masks scope of US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq

There has been a massive increase in the funding of US war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and private military contractors are flourishing in its wake, even though their reputations are at an all-time low.

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky told RT that there are at least as many contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan as there are military.

"So when the President asks for a 30,000 troop increase in Afghanistan, we are talking about at least that number of contractors too, which makes the mission much bigger. We don't even count them when they get killed," she said.

Jan Schakowsky also added that private contractors in Iraq are getting away with murder.

"We have seen these private hired guns - mercenaries if you will - actually in situations that have jeopardized the mission of the US, have put her own troops at risk, have killed private civilians," she said. "So far those cases have been dismissed. Fortunately, the Justice Department has decided to appeal the ruling and go forward, but they're in a kind of grey legal limbo."

Jan Schakowsky believes it is worrying that private firms like Blackwater have an even greater capability to wage wars than America itself.

"Blackwater use certain helicopters that, believe it or not, the US government doesn't even have. These [private] companies have the capacity that the US government does not have. I think this is a very dangerous trend," she concluded.

Posted February 1, 2010 By MARK MAZZETTI and JAMES RISEN

U.S. Examines Whether Blackwater Tried Bribery

The Justice Department is investigating whether officials of Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining the firm's security work in Iraq after a deadly shooting episode in 2007, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said that the Justice Department's fraud section opened the inquiry late last year to determine whether Blackwater employees violated a federal law banning American corporations from paying bribes to foreign officials.

The inquiry is the latest fallout from the shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad, which left 17 Iraqis dead and stoked bitter resentment against the United States.

A federal judge in December dismissed criminal charges against five former Blackwater guards implicated in the episode, but Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently announced that the Obama administration would appeal that decision.

The investigation, which was confirmed by three current and former officials speaking on condition of anonymity, follows a report in The New York Times in November that top executives at Blackwater had authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials to buy their support after the shooting. The newspaper account said it could not determine whether any bribes were actually paid or identify Iraqi officials who might have received the money.

The Justice Department has obtained two documents from the State Department, which had security contracts with the company, that have raised questions about Blackwater's efforts to influence Iraqi government officials after the Nisour Square shootings, according to two American officials familiar with the inquiry.

One document, a handwritten note, shows that a Blackwater representative told a senior official at the American Embassy in Baghdad that the company had hired a prominent Iraqi lawyer to help the firm make compensation payments to Iraqi victims of the shootings, a practice encouraged by the State Department.

According to the document, as described by the two government officials, the Blackwater official said the firm had hired the lawyer hoping that the lawyer's close ties to top Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, would help Blackwater obtain a license to continue operating in Iraq.

Several officials identified the Iraqi lawyer as Jaafar al-Mousawi, who had earlier served as the chief prosecutor in the trial of Saddam Hussein.

The second document is a response from a senior Embassy official, an e-mail message warning Blackwater officials not to bribe the Iraqi government, the officials said. In an interview in Baghdad on Friday, Mr. Mousawi said that in February 2008 he worked with top Blackwater officials to spend up to $1 million to compensate the families of the Nisour Square victims. He said he consulted with Mr. Maliki about the payments.

"He said, 'Go ahead and help because these are poor people,' " Mr. Mousawi said.

Saying that 40 families received a total of about $800,000, he added that he believed that Blackwater hoped the compensation would help "moisten the situation with the Iraqi government to get the license."

But he said that he was unaware of any efforts by Blackwater executives to bribe Iraqi officials, and that news reports misinterpreted the purpose of the victims' fund as intended bribes.

Several former Blackwater employees, however, had told The Times that Blackwater's president at the time, Gary Jackson, authorized about $1 million for payments to Iraqi officials, with only a small portion intended for victims. While the documents apparently do not offer proof that Blackwater paid off any Iraqi officials, the American officials who have reviewed them say they suggest that officials at the United States Embassy in Baghdad were concerned enough about Blackwater's plans to issue the warning to the company.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. Stacey DeLuke, a spokeswoman for Blackwater, now called Xe Services, which is based in Moyock, N.C., did not respond to a request for comment.

The bribery investigation is still in its early stages, according to officials familiar with the inquiry. They said that lawyers in the fraud section at the Justice Department's Washington headquarters were working with federal prosecutors in North Carolina, where a federal grand jury has been examining Blackwater's activities for several years. The State Department is also cooperating with the bribery investigation, several officials said.

Securing convictions under the federal antibribery statute, called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, is often difficult. Steven Tyrrell, who until December ran the Justice Department's fraud section, said that there was seldom a paper trail of the illegal transactions and that prosecutors usually had to rely on whistle-blowers inside a company to testify about bribery payments.

Under the statute, the prosecutors must prove the "corrupt intent" of those making payments to the foreign officials, and the payment "must be intended to induce the recipient to misuse his official position" according to a statement on the Justice Department Web site. The statement notes that the mere offer or promise of a bribe can violate the statute.

Over the past year, the Justice Department has dramatically expanded its bribery investigations, placing a new emphasis on prosecuting individual executives rather than merely getting companies to pay large fines for paying off foreign officials.

"The fear of jail is more of a deterrent than the fear of having to pay a monetary fine, which many companies might see as the cost of doing business," Mr. Tyrrell said. He declined to speak about the Justice Department's inquiry into Blackwater or confirm its existence.

The Nisour Square shooting incited intense anger among Iraqis, and officials in Baghdad threatened to kick Blackwater out of the country. At the time, the security company had contracts in Iraq with the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Families of the Nisour Square victims have said in interviews that Mr. Mousawi met with them and arranged compensation payments on behalf of Blackwater. The Iraqis said an American described as "Mr. Rich" sometimes joined Mr. Mousawi.

Several American officials have identified the man as Rich Garner, then Blackwater's Iraq country manager. Former employees have previously said the money authorized for secret payments of Iraqi officials was sent to Mr. Garner in Baghdad from the firm's office in Amman, Jordan.

Blackwater was able to keep its State Department contract in Iraq for nearly two years without obtaining the operating license Iraqi officials had said would be required.

In May 2009, Blackwater finally lost the deal. The firm still provides diplomatic security for the State Department in Afghanistan.

While the Justice Department's investigation appears to focus on specific allegations of bribery after the Nisour Square shooting, several former Blackwater officials have said that questionable transfers of cash were frequent at Blackwater.

In interviews, former Blackwater officials described how the company over the years sent millions of dollars in cash into Iraq, usually carried by hand in paper bags, and kept few records of the transfers.

Some of the former employees told the prosecutors that they could not identify the recipients of the money, while others have said the money went to bribe Iraqi officials, according to current and former government officials and outside lawyers familiar with the matter.

The Justice Department's decision to open an investigation of Blackwater came weeks before the judge in Washington dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater guards.

They had been charged with manslaughter and related weapons violations in the Nisour Square shootings, but United States District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina threw out the case and harshly criticized prosecutors for relying on statements made by the guards under grants of immunity.

Separately, some Nisour Square victims have dropped a civil lawsuit against Blackwater after reaching a financial settlement with the company.

But the company's legal troubles persist. Two former guards for a Blackwater subsidiary were charged in January in the deaths of two Afghans and the wounding of another in Afghanistan last year.

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Baghdad.

Posted January 29, 2010 by Mike Scarcella

DOJ, Defense Lawyers Want Court Papers Sealed in Blackwater Case

A federal judge in Washington is blocking a joint request from the Justice Department and the defense lawyers for a group of former Blackwater security guards to keep sealed hundreds of pages of transcripts from hearings that led to the dismissal of charges.

Judge Ricardo Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today denied the joint request in a one-page order.

The lawyers for both sides asked yesterday that the transcripts?three weeks' worth of closed-door hearings?remain sealed since the Justice Department is appealing the failed prosecution to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. There, the department is challenging Urbina's Dec. 31 order dismissing charges. The department filed a notice of appeal this afternoon.

A Justice Department attorney said in court papers yesterday that the transcripts should remain sealed -- pending the outcome of the appeal, in the event the case is remanded to the trial court -- to prevent the tainting of witnesses and potential jurors. The sealed hearings explored the extent to which the government improperly used immunized statements in building the case against the guards, who are charged in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians during a gunfight in Baghdad in September 2007.

Urbina found the government acted recklessly in mounting the prosecution and dismissed the indictment. After the dismissal of charges, Urbina ordered the release of the sealed hearing transcripts by Feb. 2, the last day the government had to challenge the ruling.

The attorneys for the opposing sides agreed that it was easier to ask Urbina?rather than the D.C. Circuit?to keep the transcripts under seal. Now, it appears the lawyers in the case will have to file court papers with the D.C. Circuit to stay the release of the transcripts.

"If the motion is filed with the court of appeals after the notice of appeal is filed, the court of appeals would have almost no time to receive the docket, assign a panel, and familiarize itself with the case before the February 2nd deadline," Justice Department National Security Division trial attorney Joseph Kaster said in court papers filed yesterday.

Posted January 28, 2010 By Jeremy Scahill

Blackwater's Youngest Victim

Every detail of September 16, 2007, is burned in Mohammed Kinani's memory. Shortly after 9 am he was preparing to leave his house for work at his family's auto parts business in Baghdad when he got a call from his sister, Jenan, who asked him to pick her and her children up across town and bring them back to his home for a visit. The Kinanis are a tightknit Shiite family, and Mohammed often served as a chauffeur through Baghdad's dangerous streets to make such family gatherings possible.

An accompanying slideshow of Ali Kinani, his family, and the Nisour massacre can be found here.

Mohammed had just pulled away from his family's home in the Khadamiya neighborhood in his SUV. His youngest son, 9-year-old Ali, came tearing down the road after him, asking his father if he could accompany him. Mohammed told him to run along and play with his brothers and sister. But Ali, an energetic and determined kid, insisted. Mohammed gave in, and off the father and son went.

As Mohammed and Ali drove through Baghdad that hot and sunny Sunday, they passed a newly rebuilt park downtown. Ali gazed at the park and then turned to his father and asked, "Daddy, when are you gonna bring us here?"

"Next week," Mohammed replied. "If God wills it, son."

Ali would never visit that park. Within a few hours, he would be dead from a gunshot wound to the head. While you may have never heard his name, you probably know something about how Ali Mohammed Hafedh Kinani died. He was the youngest person killed by Blackwater forces in the infamous Nisour Square massacre.

In May 2008 Mohammed flew to Washington to testify in front of a grand jury investigating the shooting. It was his first time out of Iraq. The US Attorney, Jeffrey Taylor, praised Mohammed for his "commendable courage." A year after the shooting, in December 2008, five Blackwater guards were indicted on manslaughter charges, while a sixth guard pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed Iraqi. American justice, it seemed to Mohammed, was working. "I'm a true believer in the justness and fairness of American law," Mohammed said.

But this past New Year's Eve, federal Judge Ricardo Urbina threw out all the criminal charges against the five Blackwater guards. At least seventeen Iraqis died that day, and prosecutors believed they could prove fourteen of the killings were unjustified. The manslaughter charges were dismissed not because of a lack of evidence but because of what Urbina called serious misconduct on the part of the prosecutors.

Then, a few days after the dismissal of the criminal case, Blackwater reached a civil settlement with many of the Nisour Square victims, reportedly paying about $100,000 per death.

Blackwater released a statement declaring it was "pleased" with the outcome, which enabled the company to move forward "free of the costs and distraction of ongoing litigation." But Mohammed Kinani would not move on. He refused to take the deal Blackwater offered. As a result, he may well be the one man standing between Blackwater and total impunity for the killings in Nisour Square.

On September 15, 2009, the night before the second anniversary of his son's death, Mohammed Kinani sued Blackwater in its home state of North Carolina, along with company owner Erik Prince and the six men Mohammed believes are responsible for his son's death. In an exclusive interview providing the most detailed eyewitness account of the massacre that has yet been published, Mohammed told his story to The Nation.

***

Mohammed Kinani, 38, is a gentle man, deeply religious and soft-spoken. When we meet, he takes off his hat as he greets me with a slight bow. He then presents me with a gift--a box of baklava--and insists that we try some right away. Before we sit down to discuss the events that led to the death of his son, Mohammed goes out of his way to assure me that no question is off limits and that he wants Americans to know what happened that day. It was as though he was telling me it was OK to ask him to relive the horror. "Those few minutes in Nisour Square, I will never forget; so whatever you ask me, I will answer with absolute clarity," he said.

Before we talk about Nisour Square, Mohammed tells me about his life. He was born in Baghdad in 1971 and grew up in a large home with his siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents. His father, Hafedh Abdulrazzaq Sadeq Kinani, was a merchant who traded cars and auto parts. After high school, Mohammed enrolled at a technical institute in Baghdad but ultimately dropped out to take over the family business with his brothers. He avoided mandatory military service in Saddam's forces by paying his way out. He married a relative from his mother's side of the family and bought a home in Baghdad's al Adel neighborhood, and they had three sons and a daughter. Mohammed said his family despised Saddam, "a dictator who stole people's freedom."

Mohammed welcomed the arrival of US forces in Baghdad in April 2003. "On the first day the US Army entered Baghdad I was personally giving away free juice and candy in the street," Mohammed remembers. He and Ali would give out water and take photos with the troops when when Humvees passed by their house. "One of the soldiers even carried Ali on board one of the Humvees and took a photo with my son," Mohammed remembers. "My son loved the American Army."

In November 2006, as sectarian violence spread across Baghdad, Mohammed and his family were driven from their home by a prominent Sunni militia leader, and they moved into Mohammed's parents' home. Mohammed was devastated, but he also saw it as part of the price of freedom. "We cannot question God's plans," he says.

Before September 16, 2007, Mohammed had never heard of Blackwater. When he would stop at a US checkpoint, he would smile at the soldiers and thank them for being there. Ali enjoyed sticking his head out the window at checkpoints and telling Iraqi police, "I'm in the Special Forces." The police would laugh, Mohammed recalls, and wave him through, saying, "You're one of us." So when Mohammed found himself in a traffic jam that he thought was the result of a US military checkpoint at Nisour Square, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him.

To pick up his sister, Mohammed would have to pass Nisour Square twice. The first time he passed, he noticed it was extremely congested. There was a construction project nearby and Iraqi police lingering on the roadside directing traffic. Eventually, he and Ali picked up Jenan and her three children and began the return journey.

A few blocks from the square, they encountered two Iraqi checkpoints and were waved through. As they approached the square, they saw one armored vehicle and then another, with men brandishing machine guns atop each one, Mohammed recalls. The armored cars swiftly blocked off traffic. One of the gunners held both fists in the air, which Mohammed took as a gesture to stop. "Myself and all the cars before and behind me stopped," Mohammed says. "We followed their orders. I thought they were some sort of unit belonging to the American military, or maybe just a military police unit. Any authority giving you an order to stop, you follow the order." It turns out the men in the armored cars were neither US military nor MPs. They were members of a Blackwater team code-named Raven 23.

As the family waited in traffic, two more Blackwater vehicles became visible. Mohammed noticed a family in a car next to his--a man, woman and child. The man was staring at Mohammed's car, and Mohammed thought the man was eyeing Jenan. "I thought he was checking my sister out," Mohammed remembers. "So I yelled at him and said, 'What are you looking at?'" Mohammed noticed that the man looked frightened. "I think they shot the driver in the car in front of you," the man told him.

Mohammed scanned the area and noticed that the back windshield of the white Kia sedan in front of him was shattered. The man in the car next to Mohammed began to panic and tried to turn his car around. He ended up bumping into a taxi, and an argument ensued. The taxi driver exited his car and began yelling. Mohammed tried to break up the argument, telling the taxi driver that a man had been shot and that he should back up so the other car could exit. The taxi driver refused and got back into his vehicle.

At that point, an Iraqi police officer, Ali Khalaf Salman, approached the Kia sedan, and it started to slowly drift. The driver had been shot, and the car was gliding in neutral toward a Blackwater armored car. Salman, in an interview, described how he tried to stop it by pushing backward. He saw a panicked woman inside the car; she was clutching a young man covered in blood who had been shot in the head. She was shrieking, "My son! My son! Help me, help me!" Salman remembered looking toward the Blackwater shooters. "I raised my left arm high in the air to try to signal to the convoy to stop the shooting." He said he thought the men would cease fire, given that he was a clearly identified police officer.

"As the officer was waving, the men on the armored cars started shooting at that car," Mohammed says. "And it wasn't warning shots; they were shooting as in a battle. It was as though they were in a fighting field. I thought the police officer was killed. It was insane." Officer Salman managed to dive out of the way as the bullets rained down. "I saw parts of the woman's head flying in front of me," recalled his colleague, Officer Sarhan Thiab. "They immediately opened heavy fire at us."

That's how the Nisour Square massacre began.

"What can I tell you?" Mohammed says, closing his eyes. "It was like the end of days."

Mohammed would later learn that the first victims that day, in the white Kia, were a young Iraqi medical student, Ahmed Haithem Al Rubia'y, and his mother, Mahassin, a physician. Mohammed is crystal clear that the car posed no threat. "There was absolutely no shooting at the Blackwater men," he says. "All of a sudden, they started shooting in all directions, and they shot at everyone in front of them. There was nothing left in that street that wasn't shot: the ground, cars, poles, sidewalks; they shot everything in front of them." As the Blackwater gunners shot up the Rubia'ys' vehicle, Mohammed said, it soon looked like a sieve "due to how many bullet holes it had." A Blackwater shooter later admitted that they also fired a grenade at the car, causing the car to explode. Mohammed says the Blackwater men then started firing across the square. "They were shooting in all directions," he remembers. He describes the shooting as "random yet still concentrated. It was concentrated and focused on what they aimed at and still random as they shot in all directions."

One of the Blackwater shooters was on top of an armored vehicle firing an automatic weapon, he says. "Every time he would finish his clip, he would throw it on the ground and would load another one in and would start shooting again, and finish the new one and replace it with another." One young Iraqi man got out of his car to run, and as he fled, the Blackwater shooter gunned him down and continued firing into his body as it lay on the pavement, Mohammed says. "He was on the ground bleeding, and they're shooting nonstop, and it wasn't single bullets." The Blackwater shooter, he says, would fire at other Iraqis and cars and then return to pump more bullets into the dead man on the ground. "He sank in his own blood, and every minute the [Blackwater shooter] would shoot left and right and then go back to shoot the dead man, and I could see that his body would shake with every bullet. He was already dead, but his body was still reacting to the bullets. [The shooter] would fire at someone else and then go back to shoot at this dead man." Shaking his head slowly, Mohammed says somberly, "The guy is dead in a pool of blood. Why would you continue shooting him?"

In his vehicle, as the shooting intensified, Mohammed yelled for the kids to get down. He and his sister did the same. "My car was hit many times in different places. All I could hear from my car was the gun shots and the sound of glass shattering," he remembers. Jenan was frantic. "Why are they shooting at us?" she asked him. Just then, a bullet pierced the windshield, hitting Jenan's headrest. Mohammed shows me a photo of the bullet hole.

As gunfire rained on the SUV, Jenan grabbed Mohammed's hair, yanked his head down and covered him with her body. "My young sister was trying to protect me by covering me with her body, so I forced myself out of her grip and covered her with my body to protect her. It was so horrific that my little sister, whom I'm supposed to protect, was trying to protect me." Mohammed managed to slip his cellphone from his pocket and was going to call his father. "It's customary that when in agony before death, you ask those close to you to look after your loved ones," he says. Jenan demanded that Mohammed put down the phone, reminding him that their father had had two strokes already. "If he hears what's happening, he'll die immediately," she said. "Maybe he'll die before us."

At that moment, bullets pierced the SUV through the front windshield. A bullet hit the rearview mirror, causing it to whack Mohammed in the face. "We imagined that in a few seconds everyone was going to die--everyone in the car, my sister and I and our children. We thought that every second that passed meant one of us dying." He adds, "We remained still, my sister and I. I had her rest her head on my lap, and my body was on top of her. We'd sneak a peek from under the dashboard, and they continued shooting here and there, killing this one and that one."

And then the shooting stopped.

***

Ali and his father were inseparable. Ali's older brothers called him "Daddy's favorite," and the family affectionately called him by his kid nickname, Allawi. "He was the closest of my sons to me. He was my youngest and was always indulged," recalls Mohammed. "He would sleep on my arm. He's 9 and half years old but still sleeps on my arm. He has his own room, but he never slept alone." When the boy turned 9, Ali's father thought, "This can't go on--him sleeping on my arm as his pillow. So I said, 'Son, you're older now; go sleep like your brothers, in your bed in your room. It doesn't work anymore; you're getting older. You're gonna be a man soon.'"

"As you wish, father," Ali said. "He always said that," Mohammed recalls. "As you wish, father." Ali left the room, but Mohammed looked over and saw the shadow of Ali's feet under the door. "So I called him in, and Ali opened the door and said, 'Daddy, I'm Allawi, not Ali,'" Mohammed remembers. "He was telling me that he's still young." Mohammed gave in, and Ali slept in his arms again. "He never had a pillow besides my arm," says Mohammed.

As he sat in his severely damaged SUV, Mohammed thought that, in the midst of horror, a miracle had blessed his car. We are alive, he thought. As the Blackwater forces retreated, Mohammed told Jenan he was going to go check on the man who had been repeatedly shot by Blackwater. "I was deeply impacted by that man they continued shooting at," Mohammed recalls. As he exited his car, Mohammed's nephew yelled, "Uncle, Ali is dead. Ali is dead!" Jenan began to scream.

Mohammed rushed around to Ali's door and saw that the window was broken. He looked inside and saw his son's head resting against the door. He opened it, and Ali slumped toward him. "I was standing in shock looking at him as the door opened, and his brain fell on the ground between my feet," Mohammed recalls. "I looked and his brain was on the ground." He remembers people yelling at him, telling him to get out while he could. "But I was in another world," he says. Then Mohammed snapped back to consciousness. He put Ali back in the car and placed his hand over his son's heart. It was still beating. He got in the driver's seat of his car, tires blown out, radiator damaged, full of bullets, liquids leaking everywhere, hoping still that he could save Allawi's life. Somehow he managed to get the car near Yarmouk Hospital, right near the square. He picked up Ali and ran toward the hospital. He nearly collapsed on the road, and an Iraqi police officer took Ali from his arms and ran him into the hospital.

Mohammed checked that the other children were safe and then dashed to the hospital. "I entered the emergency room, and blood was everywhere, dead people, injured people everywhere," he remembers. "My son was in the last bed; the doctor was with him and had already hooked him with an IV line." As Mohammed stood by Ali's bed, the doctor told him that Ali was brain dead. "His heart is beating," the doctor said, "and it will continue to beat until he bleeds out and dies." The doctor told him that if there were any hope to be found, it would require taking Ali in an ambulance to a neurological hospital across town. The fastest route meant that they had to pass through Nisour Square. Iraqi police stopped them and told them they could not pass. "The US Army is here and won't let you through," the officer told them. The driver took an alternate route and was going so fast the ambulance almost crashed twice. When they got to the hospital, Mohammed offered to pay the driver--at least for the gas, which is customary. The driver refused. "No, I would like to donate blood to your son if he needs it," he told Mohammed. A few moments later, Mohammed stood with a doctor who told him there was nothing they could do. Ali was dead.

Mohammed wanted to take his son's body home with him, but the hospital regulations required that he get papers from the police. So Mohammed had to leave. He spent hours tracking down the right authority to sign off. Finally he was able to take Ali's body to prepare him for a Muslim burial. That night there was no electricity in Baghdad, so they had to run a generator to keep air-conditioning going to protect Ali's body from the sweltering heat. The next morning they took Ali to the southern holy city of Najaf to be buried at the family plot. "As Muslims, we believe that Ali died innocent with no obligation," says Mohammed. "My son died at an age where there were no strings attached. My son was young and innocent, so he flew up [to heaven] like a white dove. This is what's making it easier on me. I always tell my wife that your son is a bird in heaven, he's with God and when we die we will be united eternally." Mohammed looks down and then up. "I still thank God for everything. I thank him because we were six in that car, and he's the only one to go. Although that one is piece of my heart, it happened and I can't change it. I have my other kids that I will raise, and hopefully I'll be able to keep them safe."

***

After Ali's death, some of Mohammed's friends came to him and asked him if the death had changed his attitude toward the Americans. It hadn't, he told them. "I honestly separate distinctly between Blackwater and the American people and the American government," he says. "I honestly love America and the American people. What happened to my family is totally isolated from the American people and government."

Mohammed carries with him a letter to his family signed by Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in Iraq, dated June 25, 2009. The letter is the result of an extraordinary gesture made by the Kinanis after Ali's death. The US Embassy offered to provide a $10,000 condolence payment to the families of the victims of Nisour Square, making clear it was not a remedy for what happened and not a substitute for any potential legal action against the shooters. Initially Mohammed refused the money, but the embassy pursued his family, urging them to take it. They eventually did, but with one condition: that the US military accept a $5000 donation from the Kinanis to the family of a US soldier killed in Iraq. Mohammed's wife, Fatimah, delivered the gift to the US Embassy. "My wife labeled it as a gift from a mother who sacrificed a son on the path to freedom, a gift from Ali's family to whichever US military family the embassy chose, to any soldier's family that was killed here in Iraq, who lost his life in Iraq for the sake of Iraq." Soon thereafter, Fatimah received the letter from General Odierno. "Your substantial generosity on behalf of the families of fallen American soldiers has touched me deeply," Odierno wrote.

After Ali's death, the thought of suing Blackwater didn't cross Mohammed's mind. He readily cooperated with the US military and federal investigators, and he believed that justice would be done in America. But when he would go to the US Embassy, Mohammed recalls, he would get "hammered there. They all wanted me to shut up so they could defend Blackwater." He says an embassy official tried to convince him that there had been a firefight that day, not a massacre. Mohammed was unfazed by what he considered a grand lie and continued to cooperate with the US investigation. Then, he says, Blackwater stepped in.

In a letter to ABC News threatening a defamation lawsuit for a story the network had done about Nisour Square, a Blackwater attorney denied that Blackwater had killed Ali, claiming instead that he was killed by "a stray bullet" possibly fired by the US military "an hour after Blackwater personnel had departed the scene." The letter claimed Ali was killed by a "warning shot" that "ricocheted and killed the nine-year-old boy." It said it was not "even possible" Blackwater "was responsible."

Then an Iraqi attorney working with Blackwater approached Mohammed. But he wasn't just any lawyer. Ja'afar al Moussawy was the chief prosecutor of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, which prosecuted Saddam Hussein and other leading officials. He was the Iraqi lawyer.

Mohammed agreed to meet with Moussawy and Blackwater's regional manager. When Mohammed arrived at the Blackwater headquarters in the Green Zone, there was a lunch spread laid out on the table. Moussawy asked Mohammed if he wanted to eat, and Mohammed said he would, "to show you that I have nothing against you personally." Mohammed says he told them, "My problem is not with any of you, rather with the guys who killed my son." After lunch, the manager asked Mohammed to tell him what happened in the square that day. Mohammed did. The manager then said he had an offer for him.

"We want to give you $20,000," Mohammed recalls the Blackwater manager saying.

"I'm not taking a penny from you," Mohammed told him. "I want no money."

Mohammed asked for a blank piece of paper and a pen. "Look I have the paper and I can sign and waive all my [legal] rights. All my rights, I will sign away now, but under one condition: I want the owner of Blackwater to apologize to me publicly in America and say, 'We killed your son, and we're sorry.' That's all I want."

The Blackwater manager asked Mohammed why it was so important to have an apology. Mohammed reminded him of Blackwater owner Erik Prince's Congressional testimony two weeks after the Nisour Square shootings. In his testimony, Prince said his men "acted appropriately at all times" at Nisour Square and that the company had never killed innocent civilians, except perhaps by "ricochets" and "traffic accidents." At that hearing, on October 2, 2007, a document was produced showing that before Nisour Square the State Department, Blackwater's employer, had coordinated with Blackwater to set a low payout for Iraqi shooting victims because, in the words of a Department security official, if it was too high Iraqis may try "to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family's future."

Mohammed said he wanted Prince to publicly reject this characterization of "Iraqis as mercenaries." The Blackwater manager, he says, told him Blackwater does not apologize. "You killed my son!" Mohammed exclaimed. "What do you want, then? Why did you bring me here?"

Mohammed then confronted the Blackwater manager about the letter to ABC News. "I told him that Blackwater was trying to stain the reputation of the American Army" by blaming Ali's death on US soldiers. Mohammed recalls asking, "Aren't you an American company, and this is your national army? Why would you do this to your own?" Mohammed says he threw the pen and paper at the Blackwater manager and left. In a statement to The Nation, a Blackwater spokesperson confirmed that the company had offered Mohammed a "condolence payment" and that he declined it.

It was then that Mohammed decided that his best recourse would be to cooperate with the US criminal investigation of the incident and to sue Blackwater in civil court the United States. "I want Blackwater, who refused to apologize, to get what they deserve according to the rule of law," Mohammed says. "I had no other option but to go down the legal path, to have justice applied--something that will be comforting to victims' families and something that might deter other criminals from committing the same act."

***

Mohammed's American lawyers contend, as did federal prosecutors, that the Blackwater men disobeyed orders from superiors not to leave the Green Zone, which ultimately led to the shooting at Nisour Square, and that they did not follow proper State Department guidelines for the use of force, instead shooting unprovoked at Mohammed's car and the other civilians in the square. They also allege that Blackwater was not guarding any US official at the time of the shooting and that the Nisour Square killings amounted to an offensive operation against unarmed civilians. "Blackwater was where it shouldn't have been, doing something it was not supposed to do," says Mohammed's lawyer Gary Mauney. They "weren't even supposed to be in Nisour Square, and if they hadn't have been, no shootings would have occurred."

Unlike the other civil suits against Blackwater, which were settled in federal court in January, Mohammed's case was filed in state court in North Carolina. It is also different because Mohammed is directly suing the six Blackwater men he believes were responsible for the shooting that day. The suit also argues that Prince and his network of Blackwater companies and affiliates are ultimately responsible for the conduct of the men at Nisour Square. The Blackwater shooters "weren't doing anything related to their work for the government," Mauney says. "After the events happened, Blackwater came out and said, 'We support what they did. We think it was justified.' They ratified the conduct of their employees."

Moreover, Mohammed's lawyers contend that the evidence that was ruled inadmissible in the criminal Nisour Square case because it was obtained in exchange for a promise of immunity and reportedly under threat of termination is valid evidence in their civil case. Several statements by Blackwater guards who were at the square that day directly bolster Mohammed and other Iraqis' claim that it was an unprovoked shooting.

Perhaps the most potent piece of evidence in Mohammed's case comes from one of the men he is suing. Jeremy Ridgeway, a turret gunner on the Raven 23 team that day, pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian. In his sworn proffer that accompanied his guilty plea, Ridgeway admitted that he and the other five defendants "opened fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians...killing at least fourteen people" and wounding at least twenty others. "None of these victims was an insurgent, and many were shot while inside of civilian vehicles that were attempting to flee" the Blackwater forces. Ridgeway also admitted that Raven 23 had "not been authorized" to leave the Green Zone and that after they departed, they "had been specifically ordered" by US Embassy officials to return. "In contravention of that order," they proceeded to Nisour Square. Ridgeway admitted to shooting and killing Dr. Al Rubia'y in the Kia sedan, adding that another Blackwater shooter launched an M-203 grenade, "causing the vehicle to erupt in flames." He acknowledged that "there had been no attempt to provide reasonable warnings to the driver." As the Raven 23 convoy exited the square against the flow of traffic, Ridgeway admitted, Blackwater forces "continued to fire their machine guns at civilian vehicles that posed no threat to the convoy."

Evidence in the criminal case also reveals that three other men on the Raven 23 convoy--Adam Frost, Mark Mealy, Matthew Murphy--were "horrified" at what their colleagues had done in the square that day. In a journal entry he wrote after the shooting, Frost recounted returning to the Green Zone, where he and Murphy confronted the men who did the killings at Nisour Square. "We started to curse at them and tell each other how fucked up they were," he wrote. "We could not believe what we had just seen." Murphy told the grand jury his colleagues were shooting "for nothing and for no reason." Mealy described two of the defendants, Evan Liberty and Paul Slough, giving each other high-fives, "patting each other on the back and bragging about what a great job they had done." In his testimony, Murphy described what he had seen that day as "pretty heinous shit."

Frost, who prosecutors say did not fire his weapon at Nisour Square, wrote in his journal that he "prayed for comfort to be given to those families that we had broken." When the FBI launched its investigation of the shooting, Frost said he was "strongly encouraged," though not ordered, by Blackwater management not to answer its questions. He said a Blackwater manager had told him that the company was already fully cooperating with the State Department and had been honest in detailing the shooting. "I thought to myself, you fuckers have been anything but honest with the State Department and their investigation," Frost wrote.

Mauney and his partner, Paul Dickinson, believe that these statements and others like them, along with the accounts of scores of Iraqi witnesses and forensic evidence, paint a case of overwhelming guilt on the part of the Blackwater shooters who killed Ali Kinani and the other Iraqis that day. "I think it's important for folks to know that Blackwater has not won," says Mauney. In addition to Mohammed, Mauney and Dickinson represent five other families impacted by Nisour Square, including those of two others killed by Blackwater. "They've come here with a heart full of belief in the US justice system," says Dickinson. In late January on a visit to Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden announced that the United States would appeal the dismissal of the criminal cases, saying the judge's ruling was "not an acquittal." Blackwater's lawyers have said they believe the appeal will fail.

As we wrap up the interview, Mohammed Kinani gathers up all the photos he has brought to show me: pictures of Ali and his other children, pictures of his wife and of his severely damaged car. He stops and stares at a school portrait of Ali. We look at a video on his laptop of his home--the one currently occupied by the Sunni militia leader--and then he pauses and clicks on another video file. The screen pops up, and there is Ali, hopping around a swimming pool with his cousins and siblings. With a wide smile, Ali approaches Mohammed's cellphone camera and says, "I am Allawi!"

Mohammed tells me, "I wish the US Congress would ask [Erik Prince] why they killed my innocent son, who called himself Allawi. Do you think that this child was a threat to your company? This giant company that has the biggest weapons, the heaviest weapons, the planes, and this boy was a threat to them?" he says. "I want Americans to know that this was a child that died for nothing."

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Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, published by Nation Books. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!.

Posted January 23, 2010 By AHMED QURAISHI

What Robert Gates Didn't Say - And US Media Hides - About Blackwater In Pakistan

Two Pakistani employees of an American defense contractor engaged by the US Embassy in Islamabad have been linked to two attacks on Pakistani military and the assassination of a Brigadier. If this is not alarming, then consider that US Ambassador Anne Patterson's name has come up in an investigation where thousands of dollars were paid in bribes to Interior Ministry to smuggle illegal weapons into Pakistan. Not to mention how Washington is empowering India in Afghanistan at Pakistan's cost. When Pakistan takes countermeasures, US officials like Mr. Gates and Mr. Holbrooke accuse Pakistan of 'anti-Americanism' and harassing US diplomats. Time for some straight talk.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted during an interview with a Pakistani TV station that Blackwater [now 'Xe International'] and DynCorp are operating in Pakistan. Immediately after the statement, Pentagon tried to put a spin on his words.

But US meddling inside Pakistan ?by posting private US defense contractors under diplomatic cover of the US embassy ? is a reality for most Pakistanis. Some of these Americans have been caught disguised as Taliban right in the heart of Islamabad. Some Pakistanis were manhandled by some of these American militiamen on the streets of at least two Pakistani cities in recent months.

Since Pakistan is not Iraq or Afghanistan despite all the US direct and indirect misinformation, these US covert operators were arrested on several occasions.

The mainstream US media continues to keep the good American people and the world opinion in the dark about this. But this is probably one of the biggest untold stories in America's war on terror. This is about United States trying to put boots on the ground inside Pakistan through the help of a pro-US government in Islamabad that shares [or at least key figures in it] the US objective of containing and limiting the ability of Pakistan's military to influence the country's foreign policy. This is about Pakistan wanting to keep an independent foreign policy versus Pakistan blindly serving US policy on Afghanistan, India and China.

Mr. Gates tried to put a gloss on this US covert meddling when he said, 'Well, they're [Blackwater and DynCorp] operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.'

Not true. The truth is that the issue is so serious that, according to Pakistani investigators, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson is a suspect in a case of bribes amounting to little over US $ 270,000 paid by DynCorp in 2009 to senior officials at the federal Interior Ministry in Pakistan. The money went in exchange for allowing illegal weapons into Pakistan to be used by private US defense contractors without informing the country's security departments and intelligence agencies. Ms. Patterson personally lobbied Pakistani officials for this concession to DynCorp. She even wrote a letter to Pakistani officials, followed by a letter by her Deputy Head of Mission Mr. Gerald Feierstein, asking Pakistani Interior Ministry officials to issue permits for weapons to be used by DynCorp in the 'entire territory of Pakistan.' The US ambassador is directly linked to the probe, which has resulted in the arrest of a key aide to Pakistan's Minister of State for the Interior. But the government of President Zardari will not dare allow Pakistani investigators to pursue US Ambassador's role in the scandal. A key question in the probe is how the US Embassy and DynCorp allowed the cargo of illegal weapons into Pakistan. According to one lead, a huge cache of weapons reached a Pakistani tribal leader on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, who in turn wrote to the Interior Ministry announcing he was 'gifting' the weapons to a Pakistani subcontractor of DynCorp.

Incidents like this and others raised alarm bells inside Pakistani security departments and the intelligence community. In effect, key figures in President Zardari's government were found to have given approval for the entry of a large number of US citizens into Pakistan for 'official US government business' without explaining what that is. When Pakistani authorities tried to get to the bottom of how private US defense contractors ended up inside Pakistan in large numbers and what they were exactly doing here, US officials and media launched what appears to be a media trial of Pakistan, accusing the country of 'harassing' US diplomats and denying visas to them because of alleged anti-Americanism.

The unwillingness of the Zardari government to confront Washington and Pakistan's generally weak media outreach skills allowed Washington to pain this as a case of anti-Americanism fueled by war on terror.

'Conspiracy theories' is another label that US officials and media have increasingly used recently as a cover to hide serious violations of diplomatic norms and sovereignty involving undercover private US operatives inside Pakistan.

This is how the Wall Street Journal tried to delegitimize serious Pakistani concerns raised during Mr. Gates' visit in a report filed from Islamabad whose opening line read as follows, "U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is overseeing wars with Sunni militants in Iraq and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, he's facing a different foe: the pervasive conspiracy theories that fuel widespread anti-American feelings here."

The truth is that there are no conspiracy theories but real events, reported and documented, that raise questions over US political, diplomtic, and covert meddling inside Pakistan. Here is a list:

1. NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE: In July 2009, four US 'diplomats' were arrested inside the maximum security perimeter around Pakistan's premier nuclear facility at Kahuta. They failed to tell Pakistani investigators what they were doing there and how they managed to slip through the security checkpoints in the area. US Embassy intervened to rescue the four 'diplomats' after almost three hours in detention, citing diplomatic immunity. President Zardari's government refused to let Pakistani security authorities press charges.

2. SUSPICIOUS CONDUCT: On Oct. 6, 2009, Pakistani police arrested two Dutch diplomats roaming the streets of Islamabad without a number plate carrying advanced weapons. Pakistani police were surprised when security personnel from the US Embassy reached the scene to rescue the Dutch. The Americans used their contacts within the Zardari government to get everyone released. Later, Pakistan Foreign Office summoned US and Dutch diplomats for a private meeting over the incident. But the Pakistani government refused to demand a public explanation from US and Dutch diplomats despite recommendations from police and security officials.

3. FACILITATING INDIAN ACTIVITIES: In this high profile case in May 2009, a US diplomat arranged a small meeting between an Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani federal government officials at a private house. The invited Pakistanis worked in civilian positions, including one with access to Prime Minister's Office. It appeared that the US diplomat was basically facilitating the Indian to meet senior officials who otherwise would be inaccessible for him. Pakistan Foreign Office took serious exception to the meeting, publicly reprimanded the Pakistani officials who attended the meeting but stopped short of seeking explanation from the US embassy. According to Pakistani investigators, for a US diplomat to indulge in facilitating possible espionage linked to an Indian diplomat was a matter of grave concern. It also fitted with the US policy of exercising tremendous pressure on the pro-US government in Islamabad to give concessions to India at the expense of Pakistani strategic interests.

4. COVERT US MILITIAS IN THE HEART OF PAKISTAN: In September 2009, undercover US agents were found to have recruited a total of 100 former elite Pakistani military commandos to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes. A 100 more were under training at a secret facility camouflaged as a workshop on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital when it was raided by Pakistani police. It turned out that DynCorp was training the men. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson brought DynCorp to Pakistan by telling Pakistani officials that the private defense contractor would provide security to embassy buildings. But she never explained why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias on Pakistani soil without informing the Pakistani government or military or the intelligence agencies. Some of those who were under training at the time of the raid said that DynCorp focused on recruiting retired officers who had links and contacts within the Pakistani military and could glean information from their sources. [See video and pictures]

5. PUSHY US DIPLOMATS: The US Embassy in Islamabad has made it its business to mount pressure on owners of Pakistani newspapers to curtail or expel columnists and commentators critical of US policy. Of special target are those who expose how US Embassy is meddling in Pakistani affairs and expanding the US footprint inside Pakistan. Last year, Ambassador Patterson sent a letter to one of the largest Pakistani media groups accusing a columnist of endangering American lives and succeeded in pushing her out. The US Embassy is also recruiting opinion makers within the Pakistani media, academia and military in order to promote the US agenda even at the cost of Pakistani interests, dismissing critics as 'conspiracy theorists' and accusing them of anti-Americanism. A senior Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain exposed US activities in the following words, "Pro-American lobby in Pakistan is growing in direct proportion to the scaling up of suspicions about the US. The main task of this lobby is to reduce the complexity of the US's objectives towards Pakistan to romantic levels of trust (?) A motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers - they are the darlings of the US embassy staff. They are the instruments of positive outreach and public diplomacy that US diplomats are so keen to expand in Pakistan."

6. HARASSING PAKISTANIS: Private US security contractors, or militiamen, have been involved in at least three incidents registered by the Pakistani police where armed Americans physically assaulted unarmed ordinary Pakistanis in public places. In one case, the nephew of a senior member of President Zardari's own government was manhandled and locked up in the toilet of a gas station by men described as armed military-looking civilian Americans.

7. RESISTING POLICE CHECKS: In at least five incidents, US 'diplomats' disguised as Taliban, complete with beards and Pashto language skills, were stopped at several police checkpoints in Islamabad and Peshawar. In some cases, these American 'diplomats' tried to speed through police barriers. In one recent case, this resulted in a brief police chase, where a Pakistani officer dragged the US 'diplomats' back to the police picket and forced the Americans to apologize to Pakistani police officers. Again, no charges were pressed because these private US agents carried diplomatic passports.

8. ENGINEEING DOMESTIC POLITICS: As recently as December 2009, US ambassador in Islamabad was found meeting senior Pakistani politicians at private homes of mutual friends in unannounced meetings restricted to 3 to 4 persons. The ambassador asked her guests to publicly support the embattled pro-US President Zardari. US diplomats in Islamabad and officials in Washington have been blatantly interfering in Pakistani politics. In addition to helping form the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad, made up of pro-US parties, US officials have been busy trying to save both Mr. Zardari and his key political adviser and ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani. US officials in Washington have been briefing sympathetic US journalists about this. In one case, columnist Trudy Rubin had this to say while discussing Pakistan in an article published last month: "Here is the first piece of good news: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari seems to have weathered a campaign by opponents, including the military, to force him out of office. Zardari has deep flaws, but his ouster would have hampered efforts to fight the jihadis. So would the removal, now averted, of Pakistan's effective ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom the Pakistani military had unfairly blamed for conditions that Congress imposed on aid to Pakistan."

9. BRIBES AND ILLEGAL WEAPONS: This case is stunning because of the direct involvement of US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson in lobbying for DynCorp. The company ended up bribing Interior Ministry officials to smuggle banned weapons into Pakistan and then went on to raise private militias and hire retired Pakistani military officers to run rapid deployment teams and possibly even spy on the Pakistani military.

10. DEMONIZATION OF PAKISTAN: Since 2007, US officials and US media has systematically demonized Pakistan worldwide, creating false alarm over Pakistan's strategic arsenal. US officials and media have also pushed to bracket Pakistan along with Iraq and Afghanistan in order to justify a possible military intervention. When Pakistan resisted US meddling recently, US media again went on rampage, accusing Pakistan of 'anti-Americanism' and harassment of US diplomats. Additionally, there has been a marked increase of lectures and studies by US think-tanks inviting unknown separatist individuals and groups to speak and fan ethnic separatism inside Pakistan and theorize on the breakup of the country.

11. ABETTING TERROR INSIDE PAKISTAN: The suspicions about why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias inside the federal Pakistani capital almost turned real when a suspect in the attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in October 2009 was allegedly found to have been recruited by DynCorp. In a second case, another suspected DynCorp recruit was found involved in assassinating a senior Pakistani military officer as he drove to work. In other words, two Pakistani employees of a US defense contractor engaged by the US embassy have been linked to two terrorist attacks on the Pakistani military. Add to this that Pakistan's military and intelligence are a favorite punching bag for the United States and its allies, like India and Britain, and the picture of what the US is doing in Pakistan becomes even more disturbing.

These points explain how ill-motivated the US complaints about delaying visas and alleged anti-Americanism in Pakistan are. This is what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Gates are loath to share with the American people and the world public opinion.

Posted January 21, 2010 By Michael Carl

Army-sponsored report suggests new 'police force'

Domestic agents could be used in 'shaping an environment before a conflict'

A newly released Rand Corporation report proposes the federal government create a rapid deployment "Stabilization Police Force" that would be tasked with "shaping an environment before a conflict" and restoring order in times of war, natural disaster or national emergency.

But civil libertarians are worried just exactly what the force would do, domestically or overseas.

Page 16 of the 213-page report says the new elite unit's purpose depends on where it is and who would be in command.

"The answer to this question (about its purpose) depends on the situation into which an SPF might be inserted. The SPF could be used for missions such as: shaping an environment before a conflict; law enforcement duties in an active conflict environment; or security, stability, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) operations after a conflict. It could operate as an independent entity under a U.S. ambassador or a U.N. Senior Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG), or as a force element reporting to a Joint Task Force (JTF) commander," the report states.

The purpose statement doesn't say where the new unit would be deployed. However, Rand Corporation report co-author Terry Kelly said the Army-commissioned study primarily focuses on a force that would be sent overseas.

"The unit is supposed to deploy to places like Iraq or Afghanistan or maybe even places like Haiti where there's a tremendous disaster," Kelly said.

"Really, the purpose would be to help our military forces or whoever is in charge of maintaining stability to catch terrorists or prevent major criminals from operating," he added.

Mark Taylor, a private investigator and intelligence analyst with experience in Iraq, says he can't see the purpose for such a force.

"With regard to overseas missions, there is the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. If they need assistance, you have private military contractors such as XE and DynaCorp," Taylor said.

"In my case, the company I worked for moved in, did the mission and left. Period. In the case of a federal bureaucracy, you will fund it and it will do nothing but grow into a bureaucratic nightmare," Taylor said.

Taylor believes the additional force would just add to the confusion in any overseas situation.

"In addition the military and private contractor options, there are always the United Nations blue helmets, for whatever good they do. A federal police force would amount to nothing more than another colored helmet," Taylor said.

Taylor's comments about the U.N. point to the command structure of the overseas force. One of the statements in the report says the unit could serve under a U. S. foreign service officer or under U.N. authority.

Kelly admits the U.N. connection.

"It might be a U.S. ambassador who is in charge. It could work for the U.N. because there are plenty of U.N. missions that are working in different countries," Kelly said.

"That would be the decision that our government would make that this unit would work under U.N. authority. Usually when we have our forces under U.N. authority they're operating for a U.S. commander who is working with the U.N.," she said.

Although the report by the federally funded think tank spends most of its pages on overseas deployment, civil libertarians wonder if the proposed unit will only focus on foreign operations.

Kelly confirmed the force could be deployed in the United States.

"If there were a major disaster like Katrina it could be deployed in the U. S. but that's not the purpose of the research," he said.

"It's important to point out that the goal was to create a force that's deployable overseas. If it's to be used in the United States it would be a secondary thing and then only in an emergency," Kelly said.

But Taylor believes there is no need for a federal police force to function in the U.S.

"I cannot see any positives in setting up a national police force. Cities, counties and states have control over their own law enforcement and it should remain that way. Granting the federal government the power to police each individual locality is a Gestapo waiting to happen," Taylor said.

"If it became necessary to supplement local law enforcement in the case of another New Orleans, where a disaster situation is made more dangerous by lawless thugs looting, it would be more practical to hire a private contractor such as XE or DynaCorp to send their highly trained professionals in to stabilize the area. Once the job is done, they go on to the next (assignment)," Taylor said.

Darrell Castle is a retired Marine Corps officer with service in Vietnam, a practicing attorney and the Constitution Party's 2008 vice presidential nominee. Castle is skeptical of the report and believes the unit could be used in the U.S. against Americans.

"First, you have to approach anything done by or for the federal government in light of what I believe the ultimate goal of the federal government to be," Castle said.

"As I see it, the goal is to do the bidding of the international cartel of central bankers and financiers in order to assist them in building a world government police state which would entail total surveillance, total control, and the absence of what we think of as constitutional rights," he said.

Castle added that even though the report focuses mostly on foreign deployments, some of the language leaves open the possibility for domestic use.

"To that end, the question becomes, how does a stability police force for the United States move the federal government closer to its goal of totalitarian control? When the question is asked in that manner, the answer becomes fairly obvious," Castle warned.

Castle believes the goal is power, and a major springboard for such a power grab comes from the economy.

"Conditions have been intentionally created within the United States which make some kind of chaotic catastrophe very likely. This event could be anything the mind of man can dream up due to the overwhelming public debt and huge deficit which is budgeted to grow by trillions over the next few years," Castle said.

"Hyperinflation and the resulting loss of the dollar's reserve status seems unavoidable. The United States is now at deficit spending which is 40 percent of the budget and climbing," Castle said.

To illustrate his point, Castle turned to history.

"The Weimar government in pre-Hitler Germany accelerated deficit spending to 70 percent of budget and when it did, hyperinflation occurred with its ruination of the German nation that started a cataclysmic chain of events in motion," he said.

"The Stability Police Force then is necessary to control the population much as the U.S. military is attempting to control the remaining population of Haiti right now. It is part of a long existing effort to mingle and combine all law enforcement, federal, state, and local with the military into one force," Castle said.

Castle is not the only one who thinks the Stabilization Police Force is the next step in establishing a totalitarian state. The Rand Corporation's Kelly said that since the report's release, he's received a number of letters and phone messages making the same claim.

However, Kelly insists the study is not a master plan for authoritarian rule.

"There are all kinds of aspects of government that can be manipulated in a bad way. But it would require a whole bunch of things to go wrong. Any means of coercion that exist in the government can be manipulated if the right things go wrong," Kelly said.

"Is it is conceivable that it could be used for a malevolent purpose? Yes, but it's not designed to do that and its purpose would not be for power. Frankly there would be much easier tools for someone with bad intentions," Kelly said.

"The two options we thought were viable were as a reserve option where call a whole bunch of police officers from a whole bunch of precincts. That's a really hard thing to do," Kelly said.

"If someone wanted to use the unit for a bad purpose it would require the cooperation of a whole bunch of people and a whole bunch of organizations," he said.

"The other option we picked was a military unit, to create a military police unit to do the specific tasks. Military police units do military police work, not civilian police work which is what you need in these countries like Iraq and Afghanistan," Kelly said.

"I don't think this unit will create any more danger than already exists. If somebody wanted to do something unfortunate, there are easier ways to do it than manipulating this force," Kelly said.

Command of the Stabilization Police Force is still a concern. Page 123 of the Rand Corporation report says the force would work best under a civilian federal agency or the military police.

"They (the data) suggest that the U.S. Marshals Service and the MP options are the only credible ones. The Marshals Service has sufficient baseline capabilities and a policing culture to build a competent SPF, and its location in the Department of Justice makes it well suited to achieve broader rule-of-law objectives. This finding is consistent with a significant body of academic and policy research, which strongly concludes that civilian agencies are optimal for the execution of policing functions."

Taylor's concerns about the creation of such a response force and placing the unit under a federal department come from seeing how federal operations have functioned in the past.

"Once you establish a government agency or program, it does nothing but grow into a huge bureaucratic monstrosity that feeds on the taxpayer. And, as with the case of health care, bank bailouts and the like, should the federal government even consider such an undertaking, it would amount to just another intrusion into the states' rights to govern and intrude into the liberties of the American people," Taylor said.

Posted January 21, 2010 By Jeremy Scahill

Blackwater Wants to Surge its Armed Force in Afghanistan

A newly released State Department audit of Blackwater praises the firm's work as the US government weighs expanding Blackwater's operations in Afghanistan.

A just-released US State Department Inspector General's report on Blackwater's work in Afghanistan reveals that Blackwater is proposing increasing its private armed forces in Afghanistan, particularly in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat where the US is opening consulates. Blackwater is currently in the running for a $1 billion contract to train Afghanistan's national police force.

In general, the report praises Blackwater's work in protecting US diplomats and aid officials, saying its "personal protective services have been effective in ensuring the safety of chief of mission personnel in Afghanistan's volatile and ever-changing security environment." The Inspector General, however, criticized Blackwater for providing "inappropriate" training for its Afghanistan personnel pre-deployment, saying "before arriving in the country, personal security specialists did not receive a speci�c type of security training unique to operating in the Afghanistan environment," saying that "rather than taking courses in cultural awareness for Afghanistan, the specialists had been trained in Iraq cultural awareness."

The IG's report, which was completed in August, makes no mention of the May 2009 incident where Blackwater operatives allegedly killed two Afghan civilians sparking their arrest in the US on murder charges. That could be because those men worked on a Department of Defense training contract (not a State Department diplomatic security contract) for Blackwater subsidiary Paravant. Blackwater works for multiple federal agencies in Afghanistan. The IG's report focuses on the work of Blackwater's recently renamed US Training Center (USTC). "No one under U.S. Training Center's protection has been injured or killed, and there have been no incidents involving the use of deadly force," according to the report. The report was released before the December 30 suicide bombing of the CIA station in Khost, Afghanistan where at least two Blackwater operatives were killed while reportedly doing security for the CIA.

Since 2006, the State Department has spent $110 million on 119 Blackwater personnel in Afghanistan. It notes that earlier this year, 54 additional Blackwater personnel were added. Blackwater "has conducted missions in 24 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces," according to the report. As of April 2009, Blackwater had 94 Americans and 20 Colombians working on the State Department contract. Most of the Americans, according to the IG, had a special forces background.

According to figures provided to the Inspector general by Blackwater, in 2008 the company "conducted 2,730 personal protection missions in support of staff from the Department of State, including the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, USAID, and various Congressional delegations."

In March 2009, the State Department decided to deploy 14 Foreign Service Offïcers to the new consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Blackwater subsequently submitted a proposal to add 67 personnel to each location, which seemed to raise some eyebrows at the State Department. The Regional Security Officer in Kabul, according to the IG report, "has reported that the security threat in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat is considerably lower security than in Kabul."

In a revelation that should certainly spark another audit, the IG found that the State Department's Diplomatic Security (DS) division is not independently verifying Blackwater's invoices for the labor of its forces. "DS does not review or verify the accuracy of personnel rosters (muster sheets) prepared by USTC before they are submitted to USTC program management and subsequently to DS in the United States to ensure that contractor charges for labor are accurate." These "muster sheets" are "the basis for the [State] Department's payment" to Blackwater.

Posted January 21, 2010 By Jeremy Scahill

US Security Company Offers to Perform "High Threat Terminations" and to Confront "Worker Unrest" in Haiti

Here we go: New Orleans 2.0

We saw this type of Iraq-style disaster profiteering in New Orleans and you can expect to see a lot more of this in Haiti over the coming days, weeks and months. Private security companies are seeing big dollar signs in Haiti thanks in no small part to the media hype about "looters." After Katrina, the number of private security companies registered (and unregistered) multiplied overnight. Banks, wealthy individuals, the US government all hired private security. I even encountered Israeli mercenaries operating an armed check-point outside of an elite gated community in New Orleans. They worked for a company called Instinctive Shooting International. (That is not a joke).

Now, it is kicking into full gear in Haiti. As we know, the member companies of the Orwellian-named mercenary trade association, the International Peace Operations Association, are offering their services in Haiti. But look for more stories like this one:

On January 15, a Florida based company called All Pro Legal Investigations registered the URL Haiti-Security.com. It is basically a copy of the company's existing US website but is now targeted for business in Haiti, claiming the "purpose of this site is to act as a clearinghouse for information seekers on the state of security in Haiti."

"All Protection and Security has made a commitment to the Haitian community and will provide professional security against any threat to prosperity in Haiti," the site proclaims. "Job sites and supply convoys will be protected against looters and vandals. Workers will be protected against gang violence and intimidation. The people of Haiti will recover, with the help of the good people from the world over."

The company boasts that it has run "Thousands of successful missions in Iraq & Afghanistan." As for its personnel, "Each and every member of our team is a former Law Enforcement Officer or former Military service member," the site claims. "If Operator experience, training and qualifications matter, choose All Protection & Security for your high-threat Haiti security needs."

Among the services offered are: "High Threat terminations," dealing with "worker unrest," armed guards and "Armed Cargo Escorts." Oh, and apparently they are currently hiring.

Posted January 21, 2010 By Devin Lowell

PMCs are counterproductive to peacekeeping

War breeds tragedy; this is inevitable. But, greater tragedy occurs when needless and preventable violence takes the lives of ordinary people living in a warzone. This truth is evident in the recent arrest of two former Blackwater employees working in Afghanistan.

The unfortunate Blackwater example highlights the problematic issue of the use of private military contractors.

Two Americans, Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff, formerly employed by Paravant LLC, a subsidiary of the company commonly referred to as Blackwater, were charged with the murder of two Afghan civilians in Kabul last year. The men allegedly opened fire on a vehicle involved in a traffic accident in front of their convoy. The men were armed, despite a U.S. military order forbidding the contractors from carrying weapons.

Although more widely publicized than others, the incident is just one of many involving contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq. In another case in 2007, five Blackwater employees opened fire in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 Iraqi civilians. Charges against these employees have been thrown out.

For those unfamiliar, Xe Services, still referred to by its former name, Blackwater, is a private military corporation (PMC). PMCs are essentially mercenary armies and guns-for-hire. In Blackwater's case, this includes an air force and navy.

The widespread use of PMCs presents a unique dilemma in war: On the one hand, if they were to act in a responsible manner, they might have a role to play in peacekeeping around the globe. However, this never has been, and probably never will be, the case.

What the use of these companies has done is to proliferate violence while creating a void of accountability, both to the contracting government and to the public. There exists a serious lack of government oversight with regard to the contracting and conduct of PMCs.

This often results in gross misconduct, not just limited to murder of civilians. Just one of many past examples is last year's assault of a female contractor in Iraq by her coworkers.

PMCs allow the government to expand its use of force without the oversight or input of the public-the taxpayers funding these wars. The idea of armies loyal only to their salaries is a dangerous enough one. Couple that with secretive, often no-bid contracts, and it becomes an exponentially greater threat to democracy and international order.

If, however, a system of international and domestic accountability and oversight could be established, and the PMCs prove a willingness to take legal responsibility for their actions, then they might present an opportunity rather than a hazard. In instances of humanitarian crises, it might prove easier for a PMC to act than any national military to intervene.

Until this becomes the case, the use of PMCs should be severely restricted or entirely banned. The growing insurgency in Afghanistan is only fueled when Americans commit murder or otherwise cause unnecessary civilian deaths, and any new counterinsurgency strategy there should be wary of that.

- Lowell is a Concordia senior in journalism and political science.

Posted January 18, 2010 By Muhanad Mohammed

Iraq instructs lawyers to take on Blackwater cases

Iraq has asked its lawyers in the United States to take on U.S. security firm Blackwater on behalf of victims shot by the company's security guards at a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007, officials said on Monday.

Fadhil Mohammed Jawad, a legal adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said a law firm used by the Iraqi government in the United States had been asked to contact lawyers previously hired by victims of the shooting and their families to take over their cases.

"The Iraqi government will take the matter up on behalf of the families of the victims," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said at a meeting with the families and victims.

"They have rights, and the aggressor must recognize their rights and the right to compensation because this was a despicable treatment of innocent people," Dabbagh said.

A U.S. federal judge last month threw out charges against five Blackwater guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians at the traffic circle in September 2007, saying the defendants' constitutional rights had been violated.

The Blackwater incident came to symbolize for Iraqis what they saw as foreigners' disregard for their lives after private guards protecting U.S. personnel were given immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts following the 2003 U.S. invasion.

It also threw a critical light on the United States' use of private security contractors in Iraq.

COMPENSATION

The security guards' immunity was lifted in a bilateral agreement that came into effect from last year.

The Iraqi government called the U.S. court ruling "unacceptable and unjust." The guards say they fired in self-defense in the incident, which occurred during some of the worst sectarian violence in Iraq.

Victims and relatives who attended a meeting on Monday with the government said they welcomed its efforts on their behalf.

"I am desperate for this belated action carried out by the Iraqi government but I think our rights will not be respected because Blackwater is influential in America and Iraq," said Eidan Abu al-Lul, who was wounded in the incident.

Sahib Naser Shamkhi, whose son was killed, said he was paid $20,000 at the time by Blackwater, which is now called Xe Services, to cover funeral costs and was persuaded to sign a document in English presented by the firm that he could not read.

"I think if the Iraqi government intervened in the case, we will reclaim the rights of our sons, who are the sons of the government, which must defend its sons," Shamkhi said.

(Editing by Michael Christie and Ralph Boulton)

Posted January 16, 2010 by Ralph Nader

Privatization Profiteering

Whenever Frank Anderson speaks the way he did at a recent public forum in Washington, D.C. about "essential state functions performed by businesses," people better listen. Mr. Anderson is the president of the Middle East Policy Council, but previously he was the chief of the Near East and South Asia Division of the CIA. A discussion-relayed over C-Span-featuring Mr. Anderson, was among established scholars and policy wonks focused on national security in that tumultuous area of the world. Mr. Anderson was asked about Blackwater, the controversial corporation whose profits come from Pentagon and State Department contracts to provide security to U.S. government personnel in west and central Asia and to perform such secret operations that it could have an identity crisis with the CIA.

Blackwater has gotten in trouble for shooting up Iraqi civilians in unprovoked situations. The corporation's operatives are involved in sensitive missions, such as the recent double-agent suicide explosion in Afghanistan. Again and again, the line between corporate and governmental functions is not only blurred, it has ceased to exist.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL.) called Blackwater a "repeat offender endangering our mission repeatedly, endangering the lives of our military and costing the lives of innocent civilians." She asked why Blackwater is employed anywhere by the U.S. government.

Outsourcing national security activities, right down to interviewing job applicants for intelligence agencies, is troubling many retired and active members of the national defense and security agencies. Yet corporate contracting, launched big time by Ronald Reagan, seems unstoppable. There are more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than there are U.S. soldiers. Over two hundred thousand of them and counting.

The rationale for these contracts is (1) greater efficiency, (2) greater talent and (3) more flexible personnel in and out whenever they are needed.

First, throw out the tax dollar savings argument. Mr. Anderson estimates that the costs are two to three times more when corporations do the work. Other estimates are higher, even when non-deliveries, contaminated food and drinking water, embezzlements and fraud that keep Pentagon auditors awake at night, are not included.

Government acquisition specialists accuse politicians of creating layers and layers of contractors with their massive, convoluted contracts dissipating accountabilities. It is a Kafkaesque nightmare of corporate statism. Of course, all this has led to a government brain and skill drain over to the corporate sector which pays so much more than government. A vicious cycle of incapacity and hollowing out sets in and allows the governmental departments to rationalize more outsourcing.

"No way that we should have allowed businessmen to perform essential state functions," said Mr. Anderson, especially, he added, in the areas of "intelligence and the application of violence."

At the same forum, Bruce Riefel, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and former CIA officer and specialist in Middle East Affairs, agreed with Mr. Anderson, bemoaning more and more layers of reviews and contracts.

Messrs Anderson and Riedel are not loners. Their views often reflect a larger circle of governmental professionals who have seen the wholesale stampede of contracting out government from DOD, CIA, AID, and NASA. The Congress is sort of looking into this mindlessness that is swelling deficits and escaping standards of public service and ethics. The prospects for change? Mr. Anderson said "fixing this would require revolutionary changes." That objective can only come from the proverbial people-aroused and determined. If that does not happen, what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called fascism in 1938-that is corporate control of government-will tighten its very costly grip.

The corporate government mentality is not restricted to Washington, D.C. State governments are also outsourcing with similar though lesser waste, fraud and escape from accountabilities.

Just last week, Virginia's incoming governor, Robert F. McDonnell, announced that he will let his Cabinet secretaries have dual allegiances by serving on commercial corporate boards of directors. Virginia is one of the states that permits this in-built conflict of interest between duty to the citizens and loyalty to specific corporate profit.

So his new Secretary of Commerce and Trade, Robert Sledd, will continue to sit on three corporate boards. In his day job, Sledd is responsible for 13 agencies that regulate business policy, according to the Washington Post. On the side, he sits on the board of a tobacco company and a medical supplies business.

Down in Arizona, a new slide toward the pits is about to occur. Beset with a large state deficit, the state officials and their Governor refuse to end corporate welfare and corporate tax abatements and subsidies. Instead, get this, they have put "for sale" signs on Arizona's state buildings hoping to realize $735 million and then start paying the buyers rent!! (Breaking News--they've got a sale!)

Also up for sale, among other structures, go the legislative buildings, the Department of Public Safety, the prisons and the state Coliseum. Organizational psychiatrists and efficiency economists, please help us understand.

Wouldn't it have been better for the state legislators to just sell the back of their jackets to corporate advertisers? Then at least, there would be truth in advertising!

For a regular stream of news about privatization visit: privatizationwatch.org [1]

Ralph Nader [2] is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book - and first novel - is, Only The Super Wealthy Can Save Us [3]. His most recent work of non-fiction is The Seventeen Traditions [4].

Posted January 14, 2010 By ALBERT MURIUKI

War and commerce link revealed

Just what would happen if Kenya was to discover large quantities of a rare and precious natural resource that the developing world critically needs?

What would happen if the West decided to attack Kenya, take over the exploitation of the natural resource and try and make our cacophonous political scene more "democratic, free market based and transparent."

What recourse would Kenyans have if a superior more developed country, say the United States, decided that the leadership was too unstable and a danger to the stability of the region and was a hot bed for al- Qaeda, and therefore decided to occupy Kenya, exploit the rare and valuable natural resource and ensure we held periodic elections every five years?

More realistically, what would happen if a private military company, such as Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater, killed and tortured hundreds of Kenyans while working for its client, the US government, in the war against terror and bombed whole villages in pursuing al-Qaeda; would Kenyan civilians be able to hold the US accountable for a private companies infractions, or would they be left high and dry with no recourse?

This is not farfetched, while operating as Blackwater, Xe Services did launch attacks on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) into Somalia and Yemen from Kenya while pursuing al-Qaeda operatives. In Sierra Leone, the now defunct South African private military company, Executive Outcomes, received mineral concessions for bringing the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebellion to an end and restoring the Sierra Leonean government. An act that the Sierra Leonean Truth Commission called "the mortgaging of the nations assets," the question is, can the government of Sierra Leone be held responsible for any crimes committed by its employee, Executive Outcomes? In a new book, "War, Commerce And International Law" Kenyan legal scholar, Prof James Thuo Gathii, explores these issues and more. From the war on terror and the Iraq occupation, the book traces the origins of two of the great preoccupations of international law; war and commerce.

From the emergence of the United States as weak state to its current status as the sole global super power, Prof Gathii explores wars and conflicts, including those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Iraq and the application of international law and how international law carries with it the legacy of imperialism and colonial conquest. An associate dean for Research and Scholarship and a professor of international commercial law at Albany Law School in New York City, Gathii is no stranger to the Kenyan legal scene, he is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a visiting professor at University of Nairobi's Law School and a frequent contributor to the Business Daily.

According to Prof Makau Mutua, the dean at the State University of New York, Buffalo Law School, Gathii's work is not only a pioneering work of African intellectual scholarship at the global stage, it is the only one on the topic he knows of.

At a time when Kenyans are extremely intrigued by the application of international law due to the looming threat of investigations and arrest of suspects of the post-election violence last year by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and having been attacked twice by al-Qaeda, Gathii's book shows how international law is manipulated by powerful countries to make war and confiscate or destroy the property of their enemies, whereas weak nations try to use international law to protect themselves against plunder, pillage, and confiscation of their property by powerful States. At a time of great geopolitical tensions over dwindling resources, Gathii explores the relationship between commerce and war and how they depend and complement each other. We see how the US has evolved from a strong supporter of international law when it was a weak state, to its disregard in recent times.

Gathii argues that one of the reasons the US took a large role in Iraq is because it made its own national security interests the primary aim. As such, if its role meant having no regard for international law, the US was least bothered. It is in examining amorphous wars like the war on terrorism that Gathii explores how weak States like Kenya can safeguard their interests from private contractors hired by more powerful States. Gathii seeks to establish the laws that regulate such private armies and whether these laws are adequate or not.

For Kenyan lawyers, the proliferation of acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea against vessels off the coast of Somalia which has now prompted the international community to intervene and to carry out law enforcement measures in the Horn of Africa region, beckons new opportunities and areas of practice and War Commerce and International Law gives a good grounding of how to utilise domestic and international laws while fighting non State combatants like the pirates.

The book also illustrates the actions that can be used in law to combat private military companies working for State governments.

Posted January 13, 2010 by Justin Elliott

The Blackwater Kabul Shooting Case: What Do We Know?

Amid a busy news week, the indictment Wednesday of a pair of former Blackwater contractors for the alleged murder of two Afghan civilians hasn't gotten much attention. But the case has the potential to become a big problem for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and for Blackwater's future business prospects in that country.

The particulars of what happened last May 5 -- including whether the contractors had been drinking and whether they were acting in self-defense -- are in dispute, but everyone agrees the shooting occurred after a traffic accident in Kabul.

The charges have attracted attention for coming so soon after a federal judge dismissed a case against Blackwater contractors who allegedly killed 17 civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007. That shooting also unfolded after a traffic incident.

The contractors in the Kabul case, Christopher Drotleff, 29, and Justin Cannon, 27, were arrested last week in Corpus Christi, TX, and Virginia Beach, VA, respectively. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Here's what we know:

They are charged with second-degree murder and other counts under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which allows cases against people employed by the military abroad, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In Afghanistan the pair were doing weapons training with Afghan soldiers through a Blackwater subsidiary called Paravant LLC. (Blackwater is now known as Xe.) Paravant was a subcontractor on a large Raytheon contract.

According to interviews with the AP, the men say that the shooting occurred when two U.S. vehicles, each holding a pair of contractors, were driving in Kabul. An Afghan car slammed into the first vehicle, flipping it over, they say. Drotleff and Cannon, who were in the other car, say that when they got out to help, the Afghan car swung around and started driving at them.

At that point, the pair opened fire, Cannon with an assault rifle and Drotleff with a handgun, according to the indictment. The indictment does not offer a narrative of what allegedly happened, but the AP reports Drotleff emptied a 16-round clip.

Drotleff has said he fired in self-defense, telling the AP, "I feel comfortable firing my weapon any time I feel my life is in danger. That night, my life was 100 percent in danger." He also suggested that a political agenda is driving the case.

The two men killed were Rahib Mirza Mohammad (also known as Rahib Helaludin) and Romal Mohammad Naiem, according to the indictment. The contractors are also charged with attempted murder of Fareed Haji Ahmad (aka Sayd Kamal), who was injured.

The Los Angeles Times in August quoted an Afghan police investigator saying that one of the two slain men was walking home from prayers when he was shot in the head, 200 yards away from the traffic incident. The investigator also said the Toyota sedan that was involved in the incident did not have any weapons in it.

The Times piece, which appears to be one of the few -- if not the only -- reporting done on the Afghan men who were killed, quotes Afghan sources saying the shooting was unprovoked:

Residents say the U.S. contractors opened fire without provocation after one of their vehicles tipped over in a traffic accident. Killed along with Dost was Romal, 22, a passenger in a Toyota sedan on his way home from work. ...

Mohammed Shafi, a neighborhood elder who said he ran to the shooting scene that night, said the Toyota driver told him that the Americans ordered him to stop, then told him to move on. When the driver began pulling away, Shafi said, the Americans started shooting.

After the shooting, the contractors lost their jobs -- for violating Blackwater's drinking policy. They deny they had a drink since they arrived in Afghanistan in November 2008, according to CNN.

Drotleff has been arrested twice for DUIs in the past decade in Virginia Beach, according to the Virginia Pilot.

In the days following the shooting, Cannon and Steve McClain, a contractor who was in the other vehicle, fled Afghanistan fearing prosecution there, according to Attorney Daniel Callahan.

Callahan, who was representing the men as of last spring, said at the time that Blackwater was attempting to turn them into "scapegoats." He told the Wall Street Journal: "We believe Blackwater is trying to paint these men as out on a lark and drinking so that the company can maintain its ability to work in Afghanistan after losing its work in Iraq." Callahan did not return our call seeking comment.

Callahan also told the Journal the men were carrying captured AK-47 assault rifles, on instructions from their manager -- even though they weren't supposed to have weapons at the time

After the shooting, the dead men's families were paid by either the U.S. military or representatives of Blackwater, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Posted January 13, 2010 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

US Suspect in Afghan Deaths to Be Held Until Trial

A former Blackwater contractor charged in the shooting deaths of two Afghans will be held in custody until his trial because his history of disregarding authority suggests he would break conditions set for his release, a judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Tommy Miller also found that Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach would be a potential danger to the public if he were freed on bond. He cited a bizarre incident in September in which prosecutors say Drotleff invited FBI agents to his home to talk, then refused to let them in and called police to report that armed men were trying to enter his house.

Miller said Drotleff's actions created ''the equivalent of an ambush situation'' that could have had local police confronting armed FBI agents they believed to be intruders.

Drotleff and another former contractor, 27-year-old Justin Cannon of Corpus Christi, Texas, are charged with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges. They are eligible for the federal death penalty, although the attorney general has not determined whether to seek it.

Both men have said they were justified in opening fire last year on a car that caused an accident in front of their vehicle at a Kabul intersection. The men were in the country to train the Afghan National Army.

Federal prosecutor Randy Stoker said Drotleff had been drinking in violation of military and company policy the day of the shooting and that he left the base without authorization. Drotleff's attorney, Lawrence Woodward, said the men were driving some interpreters home when a car rammed the vehicle ahead of them. He said they got out to help the crash victims and fired their weapons only after the car that caused the accident sped toward them.

Stoker said the shooting was unprovoked. He said bullet holes showed that some of the shots were fired from behind the car as its driver tried to flee.

Much of the 90-minute hearing focused on Drotleff's military and criminal records. Drotleff was punished several times for unauthorized absences and disrespecting officers during more than two years in the U.S. Marines. Stoker said Drotleff told court officials he was discharged in 2001 for refusing an anthrax shot, but records showed he received a less-than-honorable discharge after altering a military ID.

The prosecutor also noted that Drotleff's criminal record includes drunken driving, assault and resisting arrest.

Woodward acknowledged that Drotleff had a bad military record, but he said that was 10 years ago. He also said Drotleff's criminal record shows no felony convictions.

Woodward said Drotleff had a job lined up working for a plumbing company. He said that if Drotleff had wanted to flee, he could have done so months ago but he stayed and cooperated with authorities.

But the judge said he was troubled by Drotleff's ''abysmal'' military record and scrapes with the law. ''He has disobeyed direct orders on numerous occasions,'' Miller said.

A trial date has not been set.

A detention hearing for Cannon is scheduled for Thursday in Texas, Stoker said.

Drotleff and Cannon were arrested last week, a day after Xe -- the North Carolina-based company formerly known as Blackwater -- settled a series of federal lawsuits alleging that illegal activity by the company led to the deaths of dozens of Iraqis. Those killings and other problems in Iraq have led to the U.S. government's push to increase oversight of contractors in war zones.

Posted January 13, 2010 By Jessica Savage

Bail hearing set for Blackwater contractor charged with murder

The Justin Cannon whom the government accuses of murder is known to friends and family as a patriot with a sense of humor, who still would be serving happily in the Army were it not for an injury.

The Corpus Christi resident and former Blackwater contractor is expected to appear in court Thursday for a judge to decide if he will be granted bail on federal murder charges. Otherwise, he will likely spend months behind bars while he awaits trial.

Cannon and former contractor Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va., are charged in the May 5 shooting death of two Afghans. Both have said the shooting was in self-defense.

Federal agents arrested Cannon last week and booked him into Aransas County Detention Center where he was being held Tuesday.

His family said Cannon appears to be in good spirits, given the situation. Cannon's release on bail will depend upon two factors: his ability to prove he is not a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

"I think that we stand in a good position." said defense attorney David Diaz, who has been hired to represent Cannon in this phase of the case.

Since Cannon's arrest Jan. 7, friends and family have joined together in his defense, creating Web site RangerDefenseFund.com and Facebook page "Free Justin H. Cannon" to raise awareness about the case and money should bail be set.

"We are overwhelmed with the number of people who have expressed support," said Cannon's father, Chuck. "I knew he had a number of friends, but I'm still surprised."

The charges against Cannon have gained worldwide attention. As that spotlight increases, supporters say they want the public to know the man they know: a hardworking American patriot with a great sense of humor.

Cannon reached a childhood dream in 2001 when he joined the Army. He served with the 75th Rangers in Afghanistan and later helped U.S. forces liberate Iraq in 2003. He lost friends in the war, but never his patriotism, family said.

At the end of his term, Cannon's ability to continue serving in the military ended with a persistent back injury. It left Cannon wondering what else he could do to help.

At a friend's suggestion, Cannon looked into contract work overseas. He was elated with the prospect, his father said.

"This gave him a chance to give back to his country again."

Cannon accepted a position in 2007 with Paravant, a subsidiary of Xe, the company formerly known as Blackwater. He became a weapons instructor for the Afghan National Army and was sent to Afghanistan.

On the night of May 5, Cannon, Drotleff and several contractors were traveling on a road in Kabul when a speeding car slammed into the first vehicle of their convoy. The impact caused the vehicle to flip.

Cannon and Drotleff, who were in another vehicle, got out to help. They said the car that caused the accident turned and started speeding toward them. Fearing for their lives, both opened fire, according to their account.

The shots killed two Afghan men in the vehicle and injured at least one other person, according to an indictment handed up by a Virginia grand jury.

Blackwater fired Cannon, Drotleff and two others days after the shooting,

The former workers have told the Associated Press that Blackwater tried to make them scapegoats. They said the company armed some of its workers in Afghanistan despite U.S. military documents that prohibited them from carrying guns.

Cannon's father said his son still doesn't understand why Blackwater fired him.

"He felt like he was defending himself, his fellow contractors and the interpreters they were transporting who were Afghans," he said.

Cannon moved back to Corpus Christi where he was working and planned to attend Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in the spring to pursue an interest in business.

Close friends of Cannon said they were in shock when they found out a Virginia grand jury had issued an indictment, charging Cannon and Drotleff with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges.

"When I look at Justin Cannon, I don't see a murderer at all," said Shane O'Neal, who has known Cannon for three years. "I see him as a man who served his country."

The federal investigation is the latest push in the U.S. government's attempt to increase oversight of contractor activities in war zones after a series of problems in Iraq strained relations between Washington and Baghdad. Several Blackwater contractors had been charged with 14 counts of manslaughter for their role in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square, but a judge dropped those charges two weeks ago.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Posted January 12, 2010 by Infowars Ireland

Blackwater - Xe Mercenaries Arrive In Somalia, Al-Shabab Says

At least 18 people have been killed in clashes between rival factions in southern and central Somalia, and there are reports that Blackwater/Xe mercenaries have entered the country.

A battle broke out between the pro-government Ahlu Sunnah militia and Hizbul Islam fighters in the town of Baladwayne on Sunday and went well into Monday, during which at least 13 people lost their lives, witnesses said.

In addition, five people were killed when Hizbul Islam fighters engaged Al-Shabab fighters in the town of Dhobley near the Kenyan border, Reuters reported.

There are also allegations of US-sponsored bomb plots in the capital.

The bombings will be carried out in order to create a pretext to launch a campaign against Al-Shabab, a spokesman of the group, Sheikh Ali Mohammed Rage, told Reuters.

"We have discovered that US agencies are going to launch suicide bombings in public places in Mogadishu," he told reporters. "They have tried it in Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We warn of these disasters. They want to target Bakara Market and mosques, then use that to malign us."

At a meeting with tribal elders in Mogadishu on Monday, the Al-Shabab spokesman said that mercenaries of the Xe private security firm - formerly known as Blackwater - have arrived in the Somali capital, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported on Monday.

Blackwater/Xe mercenaries plan to carry out bombings in Mogadishu in order to accuse Al-Shabab of being the culprits in the attacks, the Al-Shabab spokesman added.

He went on to say that the Blackwater/Xe mercenaries have already recruited many lackeys to help them carry out bombings targeting prominent individuals and innocent civilians.

The Al-Shabab spokesman also told the tribal elders that a system based on Islam should be established in Somalia.

Posted January 11, 2010 by Mike Scarcella

Federal Judge Orders Release of Sealed Court Papers in Blackwater Case

A federal judge in Washington is planning to release hundreds of pages of transcripts from sealed hearings in the government's prosecution of five former Blackwater Worldwide security guards, saying there is no justification for keeping the information secret indefinitely.

Judge Ricardo Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a ruling Jan. 7 that the transcripts, from three weeks of closed-door hearings in October, will be released to the public Feb. 2-the day after the deadline for the Justice Department to file an appeal in the case to challenge the dismissal of charges.

The Justice Department could ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay the release of the transcripts in the event the government does file an appeal.

Last month, Urbina dismissed charges after finding prosecutors misused immunized statements the guards made during the investigation of the September 2007 fatal shooting in Nisour Square in Iraq that was the centerpiece of the criminal case against the defendants. Twenty-five witnesses testified at the sealed hearings in October. There were hundreds of exhibits presented into evidence.

Urbina said at a court hearing in October, according to a transcript, that the hearing was sealed to protect the rights of the defendants. The hearings relied on grand jury minutes and immunized statements by the guards. The danger presented by media coverage, Urbina said, "is far more specific than the generalized risk of jury taint."

The prosecutors and lawyers for the defendants were given a deadline of noon today to file redacted versions of their pre- and post-trial court papers with the expectation that those documents would be "disclosed promptly," according to Urbina's ruling.

Posted January 11, 2010 By Press TV

Ex-ISI chief sheds light on Blackwater role in Pakistan

A former Pakistani intelligence chief confirms that the infamous US security contractor Blackwater (now known as Xe Services LLC) is involved in the US missile attacks on northwestern Pakistan.

"They certainly have had a role to play," said Asad Durani, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

He was commenting on the missile raids that the United States carries out on the Pakistani tribal region using unmanned aerial vehicles.

"I learned somewhere that these people are employed certainly for?the logistic support at the drone bases. That is understandable," Durani said.

"They may not be directing in that sense the drone attacks," he said, claiming that the fire is directed by, among others, "people who can merge with the background who go to certain areas, carry out or find out where the possible targets are."

The security firm won notoriety for its killing of more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in September 2007. The firm later on changed its name to Xe Services LLC.

Two former Blackwater mercenaries have also been charged with the 2009 murder of two Afghan civilians in Kabul.

Pakistan's Wattan Party's Punjab President Hashim Shaukat Khan has accused the country's Interior Ministry of buckling "under American pressure" by letting 200 Blackwater staffers enter Pakistan without clearing the customs.

The former ISI chief implicated the contractor in festering violence across Pakistan, saying "the main role of these security agencies in the deteriorating situation is their presence in the country amongst other things to provide security to the US personnel, but very importantly also for espionage."

"They are looking for what they call the remnants of al-Qaeda and some sympathizers of Taliban," Durani added, referring to the US excuse for taking the border areas under relentless missile attacks.

The attacks, launched by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in cooperation with the Pentagon, reportedly killed more than 700 civilians in Pakistan in 2009.

More than 50 such raids in 2008 left hundreds of mostly civilian mortalities.

Washington has escalated the attacks this year, which has so far witnessed at least six raids US drones. Latest attacks, mostly targeting villages in North Waziristan, have killed at least 30 people, which the US claims were mostly militants.

The Long War Journal, a US website tracking the strikes, however, says the assaults have killed mostly civilians and have failed to target top militant leaders.

"It is quite thinkable that these people, since they have been employed by the CIA for certain purposes, so in the overall game, they become an important player and also then become the targets of not only some retaliatory measures but also the anger of the Pakistani people," the former ISI chief concluded.

Posted January 11, 2010 By New York Times Editorial

Privatized War, and Its Price

A federal judge in Washington, Ricardo Urbina, has provided another compelling argument against the outsourcing of war to gunslingers from the private sector. In throwing out charges against Blackwater agents who killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square in September 2007, Judge Urbina highlighted the government's inability to hold mercenaries accountable for crimes they commit.

Judge Urbina correctly ruled that the government violated the Blackwater agents' protection against self-incrimination. He sketched an inept prosecution that relied on compelled statements made by the agents to officials of the State Department, who employed the North Carolina security firm to protect convoys and staff in Iraq. That, he said, amounted to a "reckless violation of the defendants' constitutional rights."

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton competed over who would take the toughest line against mercenaries. It is clear that the only way for President Obama to make good on the rhetoric is to get rid of the thousands of private gunmen still deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The killings in Nisour Square were hardly the first misdeeds by hired guns in Iraq, or the last. The army has said contractors from firms like CACI International Inc. were involved in more than a third of the proven incidents of abuse in 2003 and 2004 in the Abu Ghraib prison. Guards from Blackwater - which has renamed itself Xe Services - and other security firms, like Triple Canopy, have been involved in other wanton shootings.

On Jan. 7, two former Blackwater guards were arrested on murder charges stemming from a shooting in Afghanistan last May that left two Afghans dead.

Still, the government has failed to hold armed contractors accountable. When its formal occupation of Iraq ended in 2004, the Bush administration demanded that Baghdad grant legal immunity to private contractors.

Congress has tried to cover such crimes with American law. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act extends civilian law to contractors supporting military operations overseas, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice was broadened in 2006 to cover contractors.

But the government has not prosecuted a single successful case for killings by armed contractors overseas. An Iraqi lawsuit against American military contractors by Iraqi victims of torture at Abu Ghraib was dismissed by a federal appeals court that said the companies had immunity as government contractors.

Furious that the Nisour Square case was dismissed, the Iraqi government said it might file civil suits in the United States and Iraq against Xe. But its chances of success are not considered great. The families of many of the victims of the rampage accepted a settlement from Xe last week, worried that had they pursued their civil suit they might have gotten nothing.

There are many reasons to oppose the privatization of war. Reliance on contractors allows the government to work under the radar of public scrutiny. And freewheeling contractors can be at cross purposes with the armed forces. Blackwater's undersupervised guards undermined the effort to win Iraqi support.

But most fundamental is that the government cannot - or will not - keep a legal handle on its freelance gunmen. A nation of laws cannot go to war like that.

Posted January 10, 2010 By DemocracyNow

"Blackwatergate"-Private Military Firm in Firestorm of Controversy over Involvements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany

Blackwater is all over the news. In the last seventy-two hours, a series of breaking developments involving the notorious private military firm have come to light, ranging from their involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Germany, as well as legal cases here at home. We speak with investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, who is launching an investigation into why two Blackwater contractors were among the dead in the

December 30 suicide bombing at the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.

Guests:

Jeremy Scahill, investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent, author of the international bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D - IL), leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

JUAN GONZALEZ: Blackwater is all over the news. In the last seventy-two hours, a series of breaking developments involving the notorious private military firm have come to light, ranging from their involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Germany, as well as legal cases here at home.

In the latest news, two former Blackwater operatives were arrested yesterday on murder charges stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May.

The news broke just hours after it was revealed Blackwater had reached a settlement with Iraqi victims of a string of shootings, including the Nisoor Square massacre, who had sued the company for what they called "senseless slaughter." Blackwater is reportedly paying $100,000 for each of the Iraqis killed by its forces and between $20,000 to $30,000 to each Iraqi wounded. News of the settlement came a week after a federal judge dismissed manslaughter charges against five Blackwater operatives involved in the Nisoor Square massacre that killed seventeen Iraqi civilians.

Then, on Wednesday, prosecutors in Germany announced they had launched a preliminary investigation into a report that the CIA and Blackwater had planned a secret operation in 2004 to assassinate a German citizen in Hamburg with suspected ties to al-Qaeda.

AMY GOODMAN: And last but not least, Blackwater's continued involvement with the CIA surfaced this week when it was revealed two Blackwater contractors were among the eight dead in the December 30th suicide bombing at the CIA station in Khost, Afghanistan. Last month, the CIA announced the agency had canceled its contract with Blackwater.

Illinois Representative Jan Schakowsky, a leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, says she'll launch an investigation. Congress member Schakowsky joins us now on the phone from Washington, DC.

And we're joined here in the studio by investigative journalist, Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Jeremy, let's begin with you. The piece you have in The Nation magazine says "Blackwater and the Khost Bombing: Is the CIA Deceiving Congress?" Two Blackwater operatives killed there?

JEREMY SCAHILL: My understanding is that there were two Blackwater operatives killed at this bombing?one was a former Navy Seal; the other was an Army master chief sergeant?and that there was a third Blackwater operative that was wounded in the blast, I understand from my sources.

Let's remember here that this was the worst attack on a CIA base that we know about since the 1980s. And here you have three Blackwater guys in the center of this blast at the time. Now, we're not sure what the role was of the Blackwater guys there. That's what Representative Schakowsky is investigating right now. But let's say for a moment that they were doing security, because Blackwater has, since 2002, had a contract with the CIA to do force protection in Afghanistan for the CIA. They not only guard static outposts of the CIA, but when CIA operatives move around the country, Blackwater guys travel with them as their security.

So if they were doing the security there, and you have, on their watch, this incredibly devastating attack, not just against some random CIA outpost in the middle of Canada or something, but against the epicenter of the forward operating maneuvers that the intelligence community of the US is engaged in to hunt down Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, because this asset made it onto that base, we understand, claiming that he had just met with Ayman al-Zawahiri. So how is it that he walks in there with explosives? And then, I think that should be one of the things that's investigated as Congresswoman Schakowsky takes this on.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Congresswoman Schakowsky, your concerns about this latest report and what you're hoping to look into?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: You know, regardless of what the role that the Blackwater operatives were playing in this incident, why is the CIA, why is any unit of the government, the State Department, the Department of Defense?why would anyone hire this company, which is a repeat offender, threatening the mission of the United States, threatening, endangering the lives of American, well, CIA and military, and then?and also known to threaten and kill innocent civilians? It is just amazing to me, astonishing to me, that we still find Blackwater anywhere in the employ of the United States government at any place around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, during the primaries, Hillary Clinton supported a ban on Blackwater. President Obama didn't. How does that relate to what you're introducing now, the legislation that you're introducing?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Look, I'm introducing legislation called Stop Outsourcing Our Security, and the idea of that is that when we have mission-sensitive activities, inherently governmental functions in battle zones around the world, that we should have only people that bear the stamp of the United States government. And that means that that would include no private military contractors at all in those operations.

Now, look, when we have a situation where you can question whether or not these contractors can get away with murder?after all, this case against those shooters at Nisoor Square has been dismissed?hopefully that there will be another effort by the Justice Department to go after these people, because it was dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct, which is true. I think there were many mistakes made. But right now, these contractors are in a legal limbo. And so, if these individuals can get away with murder, imagine?you don't have to imagine, you know what it does to our relations with the Iraqi government and with governments around the world. And now you've got a situation where Germany is asking, what were Blackwater people doing in Germany?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I'd like to ask you about that, in particular, Congresswoman. Here you have a situation not just of being involved in murder, but apparently of being involved in government-sanctioned assassination attempts. And that is being, to some degree, contracted out. Forget about whether the government should be involved in such a kind of assassination attempts, but to contract out that activity? That is really astounding.

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: This really is part of an ongoing investigation that I can't talk about, but even the fact that there is that allegation, I think, gives one a picture of the degree to which Blackwater has been completely enmeshed in these secret operations. And, you know, at least the allegation that they are, I think is disturbing enough. And there is an investigation going on around activities, you know, like that.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, what do you know about what happened?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Erik Prince gave this interview to Vanity Fair magazine, and he gave the interview to a former CIA lawyer, Adam Ciralsky, who, himself, has had a history of doing what's called "graymailing," which is that you believe or you fear that the government is going to come after you in some way, and so you then leak parts of information about what it was that you were involved with, which is what Erik Prince was doing in that Vanity Fair article as a way of sort of saying to the government, "If you come after me, I'll blow the whistle on all these things."

One of the things, though, that came out in that article is that Erik Prince, shortly after 9/11, assembled, he claims, a team, a secret clandestine team for the CIA that trained not at any of the official CIA facilities, but at one of Erik Prince's homes in Virginia. He trains this team, and then they deployed around the world. And they would go into countries, and, in the parlance of the intelligence community, they would go "in dark," meaning that, in some cases, the CIA chief of station in the countries that they went into wasn't even notified that they were going in there.

So, what Representative Schakowsky is talking about here, or, Juan, you were asking about, is that one of these operations allegedly took place in Hamburg, Germany, where a Blackwater-led team inserted inside of Germany to hunt down this man who was a Syrian-born naturalized citizen of Germany that had been alleged to have had connections with three of the 9/11 plotters. And they were doing what's called?they were trying to find him, fix his location, and finish him off, is what they call it. And my understanding is that someone actually in government, not a Blackwater person, called off that operation, so the trigger was never pulled.

Another operation took place, we understand, inside of Dubai. And Erik Prince talks about working on covert operations inside of Syria, as well, where he was helping the Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC, the Special Forces, identify targets inside of Syria.

So all of this needs to be very deeply probed, because you have not only a situation where these hit teams are being contracted out, but the German politicians are now saying, What if the German intelligence outsourced to a private company assassination operations in New Orleans, in the United States? How would your government respond to this? So this could be a substantial diplomatic problem for the Obama administration, because the Merkel government is now starting to ask questions. Not just Green Party politicians, but today one of Angela Merkel's biggest allies in Germany said that they're probing it, and they want answers from Washington.

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Schakowsky, what kind of support do you have from the White House on either of your efforts?the legislation to stop outsourcing or the investigation?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Well, we have met with various agencies about the issue of just the outsourcing of security issues and security matters in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And I think that the thing that's really frightening is it seems that the United States military, the United States government, doesn't have the capacity, at least when we talk about private security contractors, to do the job and seems to think that it is?makes us more agile and nimble to be able to contract out.

My question is, how many times do we have to?does the mission have to be endangered or do people have to be killed before we understand that it is so important for us to have people who are within the standard chain of command, where the accountability mechanisms are built in, who aren't going to go rogue on us and do things that are improper? And so, so far, what we're finding is that even in Iraq?and Jeremy was able to turn that up?that contracts that were supposed to be terminated continued because Blackwater had a capacity that even the United States government does not have.

This is a very unwholesome, unhealthy situation. We have to build that capacity, and we have to end this relationship with companies that don't have the same standard of transparency and accountability as those who work directly for the United States of America.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Jeremy, what about that Iraq situation, the Nisoor Square killings? There were some settlements that Blackwater has reached with some of the victims, but not all of them. And what's been the reaction of the Iraqi government to the acquittals of the Blackwater people?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first, on the settlement that was announced yesterday, we're talking about not just the Nisoor Square massacre, but we're also talking about six other incidents?the shooting of bodyguards at an Iraqi TV station, the killing of three other individuals shortly before Nisoor Square. And my understanding from sources is that the victims who?the families of people who died were paid somewhere in the ballpark of $100,000, and then injuries were compensated between $20,000 and $30,000. And then there were a couple of people that got more because of the nature of their injuries. But you're talking about Blackwater getting?they get $1.5 billion in Iraq. Ninety percent of this company's revenue comes from the US government. For them to pay, you know, five, six million dollars is chump change. In fact, one source that's been involved with these cases told me that Blackwater got a real bargain here. And indeed, Blackwater released a statement saying that they were pleased with it, and it allows the company to get on with its business.

But one story that people are not really looking at, the way that these guys got off on these manslaughter charges for Nisoor Square is identical to the way that Oliver North got off on the criminal charges stemming from Iran-Contra, because they were granted immunity by the State Department immediately after the shooting. And so, the prosecutors then, from the Justice Department, had to use?could not use any information from the statements that they gave, because the had been promised immunity by the State Department. Why on earth did the State Department give these guys immunity? These were the prime suspects, and you give them an immunity that generally is reserved for people that you're trying to flip as witnesses, not the actual suspects.

But I spoke to?and this is something no one's reported yet?I spoke to a source with direct knowledge of the US military's official investigation of Nisoor Square, and this source told me that military investigators had determined that it was a criminal event, that it was unprovoked fire, and?and this is what the important part is?and that military investigators had determined that those men who did the shooting at Nisoor Square were not entitled to immunity under the Bremer-era Order 17 that granted immunity to contractors, because they shot unprovoked civilians, which violated the terms of their contract, and had disobeyed orders from superiors not to leave a post where they were, meaning that they were not eligible for that immunity.

And the investigators determined that the appropriate legal venue would have been in Iraq, that the Iraqis should have been allowed to go and arrest those individuals, but they were secretly ferried out of Iraq in the dead of night by the State Department and Blackwater, taken to the US, where they then got off on murder?on manslaughter charges, on the same technicality that Oliver North got off on.

AMY GOODMAN: Could they be extradited?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Scott Horton, who is an international and military law expert that you interviewed last week, I talked to him about this, and the United States and Iraq do have an extradition treaty of 1934. The Status of Forces Agreement gives Iraq jurisdiction. And if they were ineligible for Order 17 immunity, then Iraq could say that the appropriate place for their trial, now that you've failed to do it for technical reasons, would in fact be in Iraq.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And was that military determination done before they left the country or afterwards?

JEREMY SCAHILL: No, this was?the military started investigation within less than an hour of the last bullets being fired there. They went on the scene. They gathered forensic evidence. But this was an investigation that went on for months. And so, it's not as though the military, you know, determined it within twenty-four hours and said, "Oh, wait a minute, we have to hand these guys over to Iraqis." It was investigators looking and carefully and meticulously documenting this incident and then saying this was improper that they were removed from the country.

AMY GOODMAN: In the settlement, which is incredibly low, $100,000 per death, did some of the Iraqi families want to pull out?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, there is another lawsuit. There are other Iraqis that have different legal representation. And there's a case that's gotten no attention yet in the state of North Carolina. The man who was perhaps the single most prominent witness to the Nisoor Square shooting, he was driving a vehicle right behind the first vehicle that the Blackwater guys shot. His nine-year-old son was shot in the head. His head exploded on a van, on his cousins and other people in the vehicle. That man has retained counsel in North Carolina and is suing. That could be a very problematic case for Blackwater, because they're not only suing Erik Prince of Blackwater, they're suing the individual shooters in state court in North Carolina. So that could be the one that ends up actually going to trial.

There also?you could read it in the papers?there were?some of the plaintiffs in this case were very, very disappointed in the settlement that they got and felt that $100,000 for a death is a complete injustice.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the latest news of the two former Blackwater operatives who were arrested on murder charges stemming from the killing of two Afghans?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Remember, these killings took place under the Obama administration. And what's significant about this is that the men who are alleged to have murdered?these second-degree murder charges with the indictment?two Afghan civilians were there as military trainers. These weren't security operatives. The Obama administration is dramatically expanding the US training of Afghan forces, meaning that you're going to have more of these types of guys on the ground. So these individuals were alleged to have opened fire unprovoked on a civilian vehicle, killing two people. They weren't even?they weren't guarding any diplomats. They weren't even in the country to be guarding anyone. They were there as trainers. And yet, they're involved with this incident that has caused some significant diplomatic problems between the US and the Karzai government.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Congresswoman Schakowsky, I'd like to ask you, finally, in terms of how, in your experience and?how the military is reacting to these continual problems with Blackwater and how it's affecting its ability to continue its mission, whether it's in Iraq or in Afghanistan?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I think there's a good deal of resentment, in general, toward the contractors. You know, the companies like Blackwater recruit out of the military. We train them. They take the highly skilled people, and they skim them off. They pay them a good deal more. They are indistinguishable often to the people on the ground, to the Iraqis or the Afghans, from people who are actually in the military. And yet, they conduct themselves in a much more reckless way and?often, not always. And so, I think that the military itself?I'm talking now not about necessarily the top brass, but?would appreciate the fact if the jobs were done by the military themselves, as opposed to hiring out these companies who have proven themselves to be so unreliable and dangerous.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to leave it there. Congress member Jan Schakowsky, leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, thanks for joining us from Washington, DC. And Jeremy Scahill, thank you so much for your work, investigative journalist, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, and Democracy Now! correspondent.

Posted January 10, 2010 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Iraqi in Blackwater Case Rejects Compensation Deal

An Iraqi injured by the U.S. private security firm once known as Blackwater will not accept a compensation deal for injuries he suffered after company employees opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square, he said Sunday.

Mahdi Abdul-Kadir was speaking about a civil lawsuit. It is separate from the criminal case brought against the company, whose dismissal has become a lightening rod for Iraqi resentment over the behavior of private security companies and prompted Iraqi politicians to denounce the U.S. justice system.

Abdul-Kadir said Blackwater's offer of compensation to those who had been injured or had family members killed was too low. He said he has asked the deputy speaker of Iraq's parliament to cancel the agreement that the plaintiff's lawyer Susan Burke reached Jan. 6.

''We have rejected the settlement because it is a small amount. We won't accept such an amount,'' he said.

He added that none of the plaintiffs had yet received any money from the group, now known as Xe Services. It is not clear how many, if any, other plaintiffs will follow Abdul-Kadir's lead and continue to fight the company in court.

Another plaintiff had said the company had offered $30,000 for each person wounded in the 2007 incident in Nisoor Square and $100,000 to the families of the 17 killed.

On Dec. 31, a U.S. federal judge threw out criminal charges against the company, citing mistakes by prosecutors. Many Iraqis saw the decision as a confirmation of a long-held suspicion that U.S. security contractors were above the law. The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case and U.S. senator John McCain expressed his hope that it would be appealed.

Posted January 9, 2010 By Marlarky News

How's that Name-Change Working Out?

Back in 2007, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced Senate Bill S 2398, the Stop Outsourcing Security Act. It collected a single co-sponsor, Senator Hillary Clinton.

The crux of the bill:

The use of private security contractors for mission critical functions undermines the mission, jeopardizes the safety of American troops conducting military operations in Iraq and other combat zones, and should be phased out.

It went nowhere.

Back in the heat of the presidential campaign, in February 2008, Senator Clinton said that:

"?from this war's very beginning, this administration has permitted thousands of heavily-armed military contractors to march through Iraq without any law or court to rein them in or hold them accountable. These private security contractors have been reckless and have compromised out mission in Iraq. The time to show these contractors the door is long past due."

Indeed. And Clinton's voice was not the only one raised against the damage done by mercenaries. A Congressional report found the same, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had tough words as well.

One of the main catalysts for those tough words was the company that now calls itself Xe but is still known to everyone as Blackwater. Although Blackwater's contract for security work in Iraq was canceled after nearly five years of behavior that some might call scandalously reckless and I call bloodthirsty, the administration in which Clinton is now a key player has found itself unable to cut its ties to Blackwater. At a hearing last month of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, it was learned, as Justin Elliott reported at TPMuckracker, that Blackwater pre-qualified as one of the five companies to train Afghan police. It was learned too that Blackwater is the only company that handles security for State Department employees in Afghanistan. And it obviously has a security contract with the CIA for front line work in Afghanistan.

The question is why. Or, rather, what the hell? As if U.S. military interventions weren't problematic enough, these cowboys still operate as if they were in some third-tier action movie. Not a low-budget one, however.

As if all the sanguinary scandals and investigations of the past weren't enough, all through December, the headlines fairly screamed "Blackwatergate."

First came the news about Blackwater participating in CIA raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then a more than mildly perturbed judge ruled that the five company employees who had killed 17 civilians in Iraq couldn't be tried because federal prosecutors had botched what should have been an airtight case against them by violating their constitutional rights. Then it was learned that two of the seven CIA operatives killed December 30 by a double-agent suicide bomber in Khost, Afghanistan, were Blackwater employees. Then it turned out that a third Blackwater employee was injured in the Khost bombing. Then two Blackwater employees were indicted for murdering two Afghans last May.

The news about the deaths at Khost sent Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, over the edge. She was launching an investigation she told Jeremy Scahill, a reporter at The Nation who has been following Blackwater since he began research for his outstanding 2008 book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Schakowsky said:

"The Intelligence Committees and the public were led to believe that the CIA was phasing out its contracts with Blackwater and now we find out that there is this ongoing presence. ? Is the CIA once again deceiving us about the relationship with Blackwater?

"It's just astonishing that given the track record of Blackwater, which is a repeat offender endangering our mission repeatedly, endangering the lives of our military and costing the lives of innocent civilians, that there would be any relationship," Schakowsky said. "That we would continue to contract with them or any of Blackwater's subsidiaries is completely unacceptable."

Today, on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez interviewed Scahill and Schakowsky. You can watch it, read the transcript at the link, or read the excerpt below:

JEREMY SCAHILL: Let's remember here that this was the worst attack on a CIA base that we know about since the 1980s. And here you have three Blackwater guys in the center of this blast at the time. Now, we're not sure what the role was of the Blackwater guys there. That's what Representative Schakowsky is investigating right now. But let's say for a moment that they were doing security, because Blackwater has, since 2002, had a contract with the CIA to do force protection in Afghanistan for the CIA. They not only guard static outposts of the CIA, but when CIA operatives move around the country, Blackwater guys travel with them as their security.

So if they were doing the security there, and you have, on their watch, this incredibly devastating attack, not just against some random CIA outpost in the middle of Canada or something, but against the epicenter of the forward operating maneuvers that the intelligence community of the US is engaged in to hunt down Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, because this asset made it onto that base, we understand, claiming that he had just met with Ayman al-Zawahiri. So how is it that he walks in there with explosives? And then, I think that should be one of the things that's investigated as Congresswoman Schakowsky takes this on.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Congresswoman Schakowsky, your concerns about this latest report and what you're hoping to look into?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: You know, regardless of what the role that the Blackwater operatives were playing in this incident, why is the CIA, why is any unit of the government, the State Department, the Department of Defense?why would anyone hire this company, which is a repeat offender, threatening the mission of the United States, threatening, endangering the lives of American, well, CIA and military, and then?and also known to threaten and kill innocent civilians? It is just amazing to me, astonishing to me, that we still find Blackwater anywhere in the employ of the United States government at any place around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, during the primaries, Hillary Clinton supported a ban on Blackwater. President Obama didn't. How does that relate to what you're introducing now, the legislation that you're introducing?

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Look, I'm introducing legislation called Stop Outsourcing Our Security, and the idea of that is that when we have mission-sensitive activities, inherently governmental functions in battle zones around the world, that we should have only people that bear the stamp of the United States government. And that means that that would include no private military contractors at all in those operations.

Now, look, when we have a situation where you can question whether or not these contractors can get away with murder?after all, this case against those shooters at Nisoor Square has been dismissed?hopefully that there will be another effort by the Justice Department to go after these people, because it was dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct, which is true. I think there were many mistakes made. But right now, these contractors are in a legal limbo. And so, if these individuals can get away with murder, imagine?you don't have to imagine, you know what it does to our relations with the Iraqi government and with governments around the world. And now you've got a situation where Germany is asking, what were Blackwater people doing in Germany?

Not just Blackwater. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, chairperson of the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, pointed out in mid-December that from June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan. In the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Pentagon in Afghanistan doubled, to more than 10,000.

I suspect that the Stop Outsourcing Our Security legislation has no more chance of passing in 2010 than it did in 2007-08. That's not merely troubling, it's infuriating. Because whatever you think of U.S. policy in Afghanistan ? and I think the White House is on the wrong track and we'll all soon come to regret it ? who can doubt that these private armies are a serious danger, and not just to U.S. "interests and image" abroad, but, quite possibly in the not-too-distant future, to citizens at home.

Posted January 9, 2010 By RICHARD LARDNER

Xe Services aiming for Afghan police training deal

Blackwater Worldwide's legal woes haven't dimmed its prospects in Afghanistan, where the company is a contender to be a key part of President Barack Obama's strategy for stabilizing the country.

Now called Xe Services, the company is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan's troubled national police force. Xe has been shifting to training, aviation and logistics work after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

Yet even with a new name and focus, the expanded role would seem an unlikely one for Xe because Democrats have held such a negative opinion of the company following the Iraqi deaths, which are still reverberating in Baghdad and Washington.

During the presidential campaign, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, now Obama's secretary of state, backed legislation to ban Blackwater and other private security contractors from Iraq.

Xe eventually lost its license to operate as guardian of U.S. diplomats in Iraq and the State Department, with Clinton at the helm, elected not to rehire the company when the contract expired in 2009. Delays in getting a new company in place led to a temporary extension of the State contract.

A federal judge on New Year's Eve dismissed criminal charges against five of the Blackwater guards, citing repeated missteps by federal prosecutors. The Iraqi government has vowed to pursue the case, a new strain on relations between the U.S. and Iraq.

Xe on Wednesday reached a settlement in a series of civil lawsuits in which dozens of Iraqis accused the company of cultivating a reckless culture that allowed innocent civilians to be killed. On Thursday, however, two former Blackwater contractors were arrested on murder charges in the shootings of two Afghans after a traffic accident last year.

Despite the scrutiny, the U.S. relies heavily on Xe _ pronounced "zee" _ for support in Afghanistan and the workload may grow significantly.

Xe spokesman Mark Corallo declined to comment on whether the company, based in Moyock, North Carolina, is bidding for the Afghan police training contract. But a U.S. official knowledgeable of the deliberations said Xe is competing. The official requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information about the federal contracting process.

Xe provides security services in Afghanistan, though on a smaller scale than it did in Iraq. As of November, Xe had more than 200 security personnel on the ground in Afghanistan, according to documents highlighting Xe's operations.

Two Xe guards were killed Dec. 30 during a suicide bombing attack at a CIA base in southeastern Afghanistan, again raising questions about services the firm provides for the CIA.

Late last year, CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated the use of Xe personnel in loading and other logistics for airborne drones used to hunt militants in Pakistan.

Xe is also a prolific provider of aviation services in Afghanistan, where travel on land is complicated by the country's rugged terrain and roadside bombs. In airplanes and helicopters, Xe has ferried thousands of passengers and millions of pounds (kilos) of cargo and mail under contracts with U.S. Transportation Command with a potential value of more than $750 million, according to the company documents.

In 2009 alone, Xe projected total revenues at $669 million, the documents state, and three-quarters of the total stems from federal contracts to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Afghan national police training contract is expected to be awarded soon and Xe is among five companies eligible to compete.

Obama is ramping up efforts to expand and improve the Afghan army and national police into a force able to handle the country's security burden so U.S. troops can begin withdrawing in July 2011. The private sector's help is needed because the U.S. doesn't have a deep enough pool of trainers and mentors with law enforcement experience.

Under an existing defense contract, Xe already trains the Afghan border police _ an arm of the national police _ and drug interdiction units in volatile southern Afghanistan, according to the documents.

The Defense Department's plan is to fold the border police training into the broader contract.

Charles Tiefer, a professor of government contracting at the University of Baltimore Law School, says Xe's foothold in Afghanistan could give it an edge over other competitors. And defense officials considering bids for the police training work may pay more attention to Xe's resume in Afghanistan than as a security contractor in Iraq, he added.

"Blackwater's current contract for the border police means it already has assets _ experience, a proven record and existing capacity and personnel in Afghanistan _ for a contract to train the Afghan national police," said Tiefer, a member of the independent Commission on Wartime Contracting.

The top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, wants to build the Afghan national police to a force of 160,000 by 2013 _ up from the roughly 94,000 now.

The Afghan army is in better shape than the national police, an organization riddled with corruption and generally unable to control crime or combat the Taliban.

At a hearing in December held by the Commission on Wartime Contracting, Fred Roitz, Xe's executive vice president of contracts and sales, sought to burnish the company's credentials. He said the company trains Afghan law enforcement units to operate effectively "in one of the most dangerous border regions in the world."

Roitz added that Xe has a new chief executive officer, Joseph Yorio, who replaced the company's founder, Erik Prince, in March. Prince's decision to step aside underscored the company's efforts to distance itself from the Blackwater brand.

Since 2003, DynCorp International of Falls Church, Virginia, has held a large State Department contract for training Afghanistan's national police. The most recent installment of the training contract was awarded in August 2008 and it generates about $20 million in revenue a month for DynCorp, according to company spokesman Douglas Ebner.

But a decision by McChrystal to give U.S. military officials control over all police training contracts is ending DynCorp's run and creating a major opportunity for Xe and the other companies.

DynCorp has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office, alleging that the approach is "procedurally and legally flawed," according to company vice president Donald Ryder.

Military authorities gave responsibility for managing the expanded contract to a Navy office in Dahlgren, Virginia. The Counter NarcoTerrorism Technology Program Office has five pre-approved vendors: Xe, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and ARINC Engineering Services.

Posted January 8, 2010 By Jeremy Scahill

Did the CIA Deploy a Blackwater Hit Team in Germany?

The magazine reported that after 9/11, the CIA used one of Prince's homes in Virginia as a covert training facility for hit teams that would hunt Al Qaeda suspects globally. Their job was find, fix, and finish: "Find the designated target, fix the person's routine, and, if necessary, finish him off," as the magazine put it.

According to Vanity Fair, one of the team's targets was Mamoun Darkazanli, a naturalized German citizen originally from Syria. Darkazanli has been accused by Spain of being an Al Qaeda supporter with close ties to the alleged 9/11 plotters who lived in Hamburg. The Blackwater/CIA team "supposedly went in 'dark,' meaning they did not notify their own station--much less the German government--of their presence," according to Vanity Fair. "[T]hey then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down." Authorities in Washington, however, "chose not to pull the trigger."

This week, a senior lawmaker in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union called on Washington to provide an explanation. "If this commando really existed and the U.S. government knew about it but didn't notify our government then this would be a very grave incident," said the lawmaker, Wolfgang Bosbach.

His concerns were echoed in the US by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "This really is part of an ongoing investigation that I can't talk about, but even the fact that there is that allegation, I think, gives one a picture of the degree to which Blackwater has been completely enmeshed in these secret operations," Schahowsky said. "And, you know, at least the allegation that they are, I think is disturbing enough. And there is an investigation going on around activities like that."

Dieter Wiefelspütz, the domestic policy spokesperson for the parliamentary group of Germany's center-left Social Democrats, told Der Spiegel it is irrelevant that Darkazanli's targeted assassination was never carried out. "If it can be confirmed, then this was a murder plot," he said. The conservative Christian Democratic Union joined the Social Democrats in calling for an official inquiry.

From Der Spiegel:

Hans-Christian Ströbele, a prominent German Green Party politician, however, said he was unconvinced. "The fact is that the CIA can, for the most part, do whatever it wants here in Germany," the member of parliament said. "The secret prisoner transports after September 11 showed that--and no one dared to do anything about it." Try to imagine the opposite happening, he said. "Imagine if (Germany's federal intelligence agency) the BND were to carry out a hit job via a front company, say in New Orleans. It would be a shocking occurrence," he said...

Ströbele said he would call for the parliamentary control committee to discuss the allegations. He said one also had to ask "where the German intelligence services were." After all, he said, "they are supposed to find out whether other services are romping about here."

In an interview on German TV this week, Darkazanli said he was "speechless" at the story. Ströebele, the Green Party lawmaker, also asked for a probe about what the German government knew about the alleged CIA/Blackwater operation. "It can't be true that they knew nothing," he said.

This brewing scandal in Germany is the latest allegation to surface in what is a clear pattern of the US conducting clandestine rendition and assassination operations within the borders of allied countries. In November, an Italian judge convicted 23 US intelligence operatives in the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street as part of a CIA extraordinary rendition operation. Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, was taken to Egypt, where he said he was tortured.

Posted January 7, 2010 By Peter Schwarz

CIA and mercenaries plotted murder of German citizen

Four years ago in Hamburg, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and mercenary firm Blackwater planned and prepared the assassination of the German-Syrian businessman Mamoun Darkazanli. This is reported by the American magazine Vanity Fair in its January issue. The report has unleashed considerable turmoil in German political circles. It reveals that the policy of targeted killing, the liquidation of alleged terrorists by the US, does not stop at the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen. It is also practiced on the territory of Washington's NATO allies.

The information about the plans to murder Darkazanli can be found in a lengthy article about Erik Prince, the boss and founder of Blackwater, now called XE. Prince founded the company in the mid-1990s with the help of an inheritance worth billions. This former member of the elite US Navy Seals offered to provide specialised training for US military units at the company's premises in North Carolina.

Blackwater's big moment came with the declaration of the "war on terror" by President George W. Bush. The company evolved into a private army, which could be deployed wherever it was too hot for the military or intelligence forces. Between 2001 and 2009, it collected more than $1.5 billion from the US government. In 2008 alone, the firm's revenues amounted to $600 million.

In addition to training troops, Blackwater provides personal security in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, and also carries out the provisioning of US forces in inaccessible areas. Mercenaries employed by the company have repeatedly caused headlines because of their brutality and trigger-happy approach. On March 31, 2004, four Blackwater employees were killed and their bodies later hung from a bridge by an angry crowd in Fallujah; on September 16, 2007, at an intersection in Baghdad, a group of Blackwater bodyguards shot wildly and killed 17 civilians.

Above all, Blackwater plays a key role in the targeted killings of alleged terrorists. The private company hunts down opponents of the US government in countries where the military and intelligence agencies have no access; they participate in air strikes with pilotless drones and organise death squads. The firm works closely with the CIA. The links between the two are very fluid. Prince himself has played a dual role for six years. Officially, he is CEO of Blackwater; unofficially, he is an agent and one of the most important assets of the CIA.

Leading intelligence personnel, such as J. Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center, Enrique Prado, the center's former chief of operations, and Rob Richer, formerly the second-in-command of the agency's clandestine service, have transferred from the CIA to Blackwater.

Blackwater often performs tasks with which official US agencies do not want to be publicly associated for foreign policy or legal reasons. "We were building a unilateral unattributable capability. If it went bad, we weren't expecting the chief of station, the ambassador, or anyone to bail us out," Prince told Vanity Fair.

The Blackwater boss agreed to speak with Vanity Fair because he feels betrayed by the Obama administration. Last summer, the US media reported on the collaboration between the CIA and Blackwater, and about their murderous programme. Prince, who believes a Democratic congressman passed the information to the press, is angry.

The author of the Vanity Fair article, Adam Ciralski, knows something about the CIA, having previously worked for the agency as a lawyer. In addition to Prince's comments, his article also uses other insider information.

According to Ciralski, the assassination plot against Mamoun Darkazanli was developed under a CIA programme aimed at the assassination of leading Al Qaeda members. To this end, the CIA had set up a team of agents whose job description reads: "Find, fix and finish." The responsibility for this programme was then gradually handed over to Blackwater.

Hamburg businessman Darkazanli, a German citizen of Syrian origin, has been under surveillance by the CIA since 1993. His phone number was allegedly found on a terror suspect arrested in Africa. In subsequent years, it was also said to have turned up among European jihadists. In addition, Darkazanli was alleged to have arranged the sale of a ship to Osama bin Laden's terrorist group and to have possessed power of attorney over an account of the Al Qaeda finance chief.

He was also said to have been in contact with the student group in Hamburg that organised the attacks of September 2001. In the summer of 2002, the Chicago Tribune reported that the CIA had tried to recruit Darkazanli as an agent in Hamburg in 1999. At that time, the preparations for the 9/11 attacks were already underway.

Two days after the 2001 attacks, officials from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office searched Darkazanli's apartment in Hamburg. Three weeks later, federal prosecutors opened an investigation against him on suspicion of being involved in terrorism. But this never led to any charges, and the investigation was halted in the summer of 2006 when federal prosecutors could find no specific ties between his business relationships with Al Qaeda leaders and their terrorist objectives.

A Spanish attempt to have Darkazanli extradited failed in the summer of 2005 because Germany's Supreme Court declared the law invalid that would have allowed the extradition of German citizens to other EU countries. Darkazanli, who had spent months in custody pending extradition, was then allowed to go free.

It was under these circumstances that the CIA and Blackwater prepared Darkazanli's assassination. According to Vanity Fair, "they followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down." Neither the German authorities nor the CIA bureau in Germany were allegedly informed about the planned action.

It is unlikely the US intelligence agency regarded the German-Syrian as a serious threat, given the intense surveillance he faced from German and American authorities. One reason for the assassination plot could be that Darkazanli was actually recruited by the CIA in 1999 and knew things that it wanted to cover up. In the end, he survived because the green light never came from above due to a "lack of political will," according to an anonymous CIA source cited by the magazine.

Darkazanli was apparently not the only target on the CIA-Blackwater death squad list. Vanity Fair names another potential victim as the Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, who was alleged to have passed technical know-how about building a nuclear bomb to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

In Germany, the revelations about the assassination plot against Darkazanli have been met with outrage. The Hamburg state prosecutor is considering whether to launch an investigation into conspiracy to commit a crime. The domestic policy spokesman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary group, Dieter Wiefelspütz, said, "If confirmed, it was nothing more than a murder conspiracy," and has demanded an investigation. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) domestic policy expert Wolfgang Bosbach described the accusations as "breathtaking" and said that investigating them was "highly explosive."

However, experience teaches that neither the SPD nor the CDU will seriously challenge the US authorities. Nevertheless, the murder plot against Darkazanli poses a warning. It shows that the policy of targeted killing knows no borders.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US and its allies now routinely kill their opponents with targeted attacks. In Pakistan alone, 700 people have been killed by unmanned US drones in the past year, according to official sources. Just five major al-Qaida and Taliban leaders were killed as a result. For every "terrorist" killed, 140 innocent civilians die.

Even if one ignores the large number of civilians killed, it raises the question of who is a "terrorist" and who decides that. If the decision lies at the discretion of intelligence agents and mercenaries, it opens the door to political caprice. The Israeli government, a pioneer in the field of targeted killing, has systematically liquidated its political opponents in the ranks of the Palestinian national movement on the basis of charges of "terrorism."

Israel, the United States, and increasingly the European governments justify the policy of targeted killing with reference to the "war on terror." In war, their argument runs, it is permitted to kill the enemy, and therefore the liquidation of "terrorists" is justified. But this argument is entirely specious. Wars are fought between states, or in the case of a civil war, between armed organisations, but not against abstract concepts such as "terrorism." If one accepts this argument, all a government needs to do is brand its opponents as "terrorists" in order to murder them, in violation of international law.

In this respect, the murder plot against Darkazanli is a new and sinister phenomenon. If a hit squad comprising CIA agents and Blackwater mercenaries can plot the murder of a German citizen in Hamburg, a man twice set free by the German courts, then it is only a matter of time before similar attacks take place in Paris, London and Tokyo?or in Washington, New York and San Francisco.

Posted January 7, 2010 By The Associated Press

2 ex-Blackwater guards charged with murder

Two former Blackwater contractors were arrested today on murder charges in the shootings of two Afghans after a traffic accident last year, according to an indictment obtained by The Associated Press.

The indictment charges Justin Cannon, 27, and Chris Drotleff, 29, with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges. Both of them are in custody, said Peter Carr, a spokesman with the U.S. attorney's office in Virginia's eastern district.

Both men have said in recent interviews with The Associated Press that they were justified in opening fire on a car that caused an accident in front of their vehicle, then turned and sped toward them after they got out to help.

The indictment says the shooting at a Kabul intersection killed two men. At least one other person was injured.

The military veterans worked for Paravant, a subsidiary of Xe, the company formerly known as Blackwater.

Both Cannon, of Corpus Christi! , Texas., and Drotleff, of Virginia Beach, Va., were fired after the shooting for failing to comply with the terms of their contract.

"My conscience is clear about it, but that doesn't really matter," said Cannon in a recent interview. "If someone's got an agenda, then there's nothing I can do about it."

The investigation opens a new front in the U.S. government's attempt to increase oversight of contractor activities in war zones after a series of problems in Iraq strained relations between Washington and Baghdad.

Several Blackwater contractors had been charged with 14 counts of manslaughter for their role in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. But a judge dropped those charges last week.

In another case, federal prosecutors have told a Seattle attorney they intend to charge another Blackwater contractor in the killing of an Iraqi guard in 2006.

Xe lawyer Peter White had no immediate comment on the indictment.

Posted January 7, 2010 By Stephanie Nebehay

U.N. experts urge Iraq, U.S. to pursue Blackwater case

U.N. human rights experts called on Iraq and the United States on Thursday to ensure that the 2007 killing of at least 14 Iraqi civilians, which has been blamed on Blackwater security guards, be prosecuted.

Iraq said on Monday it would launch lawsuits in U.S. and Iraqi courts against the U.S. security firm for the Baghdad killings, rejecting a U.S. judge's decision last week to throw out the charges.

In a statement, the United Nations working group on the use of mercenaries said the case underscored the need for "credible oversight" of private security companies working for the United States and other governments in war zones.

Baghdad and Washington must cooperate to resolve the killings committed at a Baghdad traffic circle in September 2007, with "those responsible fully held accountable," it said.

The Blackwater incident highlighted the Pentagon's growing use of private forces in war zones and, for Iraqis, came to symbolize what they saw as a disregard for their lives on the part of foreign forces in the country.

Private guards protecting U.S. personnel were given immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts following the 2003 U.S. invasion.

"We respect the independence of the United States judiciary and the requirements for due process, but are very concerned that the recent decision to dismiss the case against Blackwater guards may lead to a situation where no one would be accountable for grave human rights violations," said Shaista Shameem, who chairs the U.N. group of independent experts.

The Iraqi government and victims' families felt that they had no recourse to justice, she added.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said prosecutors had wrongly used statements the guards made to State Department investigators under threat of job loss -- thereby violating their constitutional rights.

The five guards were charged a year ago with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one weapons violation count. The U.N. working group said 17 people had been killed and a further 20 injured.

The guards from Blackwater, which has renamed itself Xe Services, say they fired in self-defense in the incident. But witnesses and victims say the guards, escorting a heavily armed convoy of U.S. diplomats through Baghdad traffic, shot indiscriminately.

"Credible oversight and accountability of private security companies working on the behalf of the United States and other governments remain essential to avoid these alleged violations to be unpunished in future," Shameem said.

The 47-member-state U.N. Human Rights Council has asked the experts to report by September on a possible international treaty to regulate private military and security companies.

A treaty would "provide an avenue of redress to victims," Shameem said.

Posted January 4, 2010 By Dan Kenney

Blackwater Still Gets Away with Murder

This may be the first day of a new year, and the start of a new decade, but it is also a day that marks the continuation of an old sad story of injustice. On New Year's Eve Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against five Blackwater contractors that had been indicted for 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 of attempting to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation. This New Year's Eve gift to Blackwater was bad news for the Iraqi families expecting the American judicial system to deliver justice for the deaths and injuries of their loved ones.

The old story is that once again by using the system to their benefit and with the possible deliberate sabotage on the part of the U.S. Attorney assigned to the case, the contractors accused of shooting innocent unarmed Iraqi citizens may never be brought to court.

Judge Urbana's written 90-page opinion does not dispute the investigations by the Iraqi police, the U.S. Army, and the F.B.I. The Iraqi and U.S. investigators found that the guards of the Raven 23 convoy had indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified assault in the crowded Nisoor Square of Baghdad on September 16, 2007. Witnesses and reports stated some of the victims were shot in the back trying to flee the scene. A nine year old boy riding in the back seat of his father's car was shot in the head and died. None of the investigators were able to find any physical evidence to support the guards' contentions that they had been fired upon. The F.B.I. stated in their report that the Blackwater guards recklessly violated American rules for the use of lethal force. The U.S. military investigators went further saying that all the deaths were unjustified and potentially criminal. Iraqi authorities called the shootings "deliberate murder."

Judge Urbina labeled the misconduct of the trial team, headed by Assistant U.S. attorney Kenneth Kohl, as a "reckless violation of the defendants' constitutional rights," This violation occurred when U.S. Attorney Kohl and Department of justice trial lawyer Stephen Ponticello built their case around the written statements made by the contractors immediately following the shooting. The Judge stated, "In short, the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of defendants' statements or that such use was harmless beyond reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the court must dismiss the indictment against all the defendants."

The Rest of the Story

However in the background section of the opinion it becomes obvious that this violation could have been avoided. Judge Urbina describes in detail the many instances where Kohl and the trial team ignored the directives and warnings of Raymond Hulser, a Deputy Chief in the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division, who was assigned as the "taint attorney." His responsibility was to prevent prosecutors and investigators handling the investigation from using statements that could contaminate the case which could cause it to be dismissed.

On page 82 of the written opinion Judge Urbina points out that the government's attempts to characterize Kohl's failure to heed the warnings and directives of Hulser as a mere "miscommunication" to be "simply implausible."

Judge Urbina writes, "These inconsistent, extraordinary explanations (given in interviews by Kenneth Kohl) smack of post hoc rationalization and are simply implausible."

"The only conclusion," the Judge continued, "the court can draw from this evidence is that Kohl and the rest of the trial team purposefully flouted the advice of the taint team when obtaining the substance of the defendants' compelled statements, and in so doing, knowingly endangered the viability of the prosecution,"

As Rep Jan Schkowsky of Illinois said in the LA Times, "We're going to have to understand how this happened." The Iraqi families and the U.S. citizens that are funding companies like Blackwater, as well as paying for the investigations, have a right to know the motivation behind such reckless misconduct by a seasoned U.S. Attorney. (It is important to note that Kenneth Kohl was also the U.S. attorney assigned to the anthrax case. He was appointed by the Bush administration.)

The Loophole

You may recall Order 17, put in place by Paul Bremmer in 2003, which provided immunity for contractors operating in Iraq. The order was struck down in the latest U.S. Security agreement with Iraq. However the U.S. State department replaced it with the "Hunter Memorandum." Regional Security Officer Mark Hunter authored a memorandum titled "WPPS (Worldwide Personnel Protective Services, a company of Blackwater) On-Duty Discharge of Firearms Reporting Procedures" ("the Hunter Memorandum.") The Hunter Memorandum required all Blackwater personnel involved in a shooting incident to report immediately for debriefing by the State

Department. After the debriefing any employee who discharged his weapon was to be given a sworn statement form attached to the memorandum. The statement that the five contractors signed included this line, "I further understand that neither my statements nor any information or evidence gained by reason of my statements can be used against me in a criminal proceeding, except that if I knowingly and willfully provide false statements or information." This statement is required and an employee may be terminated for failure to sign it. This is commonly referred to as a "Garrity warning" or "Kalkines warning." The Hunter memorandum and the attached Sworn Statement form were standard procedure to be followed after any shooting incident. So this is the loophole which allowed any guard involved in a shooting to avoid accountability for his actions.

This loophole is still in place and you can be sure that it is in Afghanistan as well.

What Next?

It was reported that the five contractors were "overjoyed" and that a "great burden had been lifted from their shoulders." However it was a startling blow for the Iraqi government and citizens. As one Iraqi lawmaker said in a speech to Iraq's parliament, "Ask the Iraqi courts to release all the (Iraqi) defendants sentenced to death for killing Americans in Iraq, as an act of reciprocity with the U.S. judicial system," he said.

An adviser to the Iraqi council of ministers said, "This is very bad for the overall look of the United States outside its borders. It's very important for the Americans to realize that this will work against their interests in Iraq and other places."

Although Judge Urbina's decision would make it difficult to reinstate the original charges the guards could still prosecuted for willfully providing false information in their statements. There is also the possibility that the government will bring obstruction of justice charges against Blackwater managers.

There is also the civil case the Center for Constitutional Rights has in the courts against Blackwater. The Iraqi government said that they will support this lawsuit as well as ask the U.S. Justice Department to review the criminal case.

And the Story Goes On

So the old story goes on. The safety of our soldiers and our citizens put at risk by the careless actions of hired private military and security contractors. The pattern of unaccountability is also continued by providing immunity for all contractors regardless of how murderous their actions may be.

We must ask ourselves and those who represent us, how much longer will we allow those whom we fund to get away with murder in our name.

Posted January 3, 2010 By MATTHEW L. WALD

U.S. Lawyers Knew About Legal Pitfalls in Blackwater Case

The sudden blow to the case against the former Blackwater security guards over a shooting that killed 17 Iraqis and wounded at least 20 may have come as a surprise to the public in Iraq and the United States, but the legal problem that the judge cited Thursday when he threw out the indictments was obvious to American government lawyers within days of the shooting.

The issue was that the guards, as government contractors, were obligated to give an immediate report of what they had done, but the Constitution prevents the government from requiring a defendant to testify against himself, so those statements could not be used in a prosecution.

Less than two weeks after the shootings in Nisour Square in Baghdad in September 2007, lawyers at the State Department, which employed the guards, expressed concern that prosecutors might be improperly using the compulsory reports in preparing a criminal case against them, according to the decision.

The prosecutors were also concerned, even using what they called a "taint team" to try to prevent information in the guards' compulsory statements from influencing the investigation, according to the 90-page ruling by Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington. The judge said the prosecutors had failed to take "common sense precautions" to avoid the problem.

The ruling led to disappointment in the United States as well as in Iraq.

"It is regrettable that the prosecutors didn't have the foresight to be able to deal with this problem before the judge had to deal with it for them," said Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group based in New York that is bringing a civil suit against Blackwater, now named Xe Services, on behalf of the families of the dead and wounded.

Mr. Warren said Friday that he had not yet had time to read the decision, but that for the victims "it sends the wrong message to them about the seriousness with which this government is taking measures of accountability."

A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said Friday that his agency was "considering our options," but would not comment further.

Judge Urbina's decision would make it difficult for prosecutors to reinstate the original charges. Information that the guards were required to give immediately after the shootings was deeply woven into the government's effort to secure the indictments, he wrote.

Winning a new indictment would require the government to prove it was not relying even indirectly on that information, the ruling said. Sometimes the government demonstrates that there is no contamination of the information used to an obtain an indictment by having it "canned," or preserved, in a memorandum completed and dated before the prosecutors are exposed to suspects' compulsory statements, but that was not done in this case, the judge said.

But the judge's decision alludes to at least two routes through which the government could reinstate a prosecution.

Although the specifics of the guards' statements cannot be used against them, the guards could be prosecuted for willfully providing false information in those statements.

In statements, the guards gave detailed information about what kinds of weapons they had used, including a sniper rifle and a grenade, and said they had believed that they were under attack and that they were taking small-arms fire. Investigators did not find physical evidence of an attack by Iraqis, the judge's decision said.

The decision also points out that at one point, the government considered bringing obstruction of justice charges against Blackwater managers. It is not clear whether such charges are still being considered.

The rules limiting the use of the statements, the judge noted, are not intended to protect defendants from conviction, but to guarantee the integrity of the judicial system.

Soon after the government first sought indictments by bringing the case to a grand jury, in late November 2007, prosecutors decided that they had already erred by presenting the jurors with information that came from the off-limits statements.

So they took the case to a second grand jury, a year later, and used transcripts from the witness testimony at the first grand jury, with the tainted information removed.

But in their presentations to the second grand jury, the prosecutors also edited out evidence that suggested that the guards were firing in self-defense, the judge said, and those omissions were improper.

And the evidence presented to the second grand jury was still tainted by the initial statements, Judge Urbina said. Among the ways the guards' inadmissible statements ended up in prosecutors' hands was through television and newspaper reports that quoted from them, the judge said.

In a separate case, federal prosecutors in North Carolina, where the company is based, are investigating whether executives engaged in a broad array of criminal activities, including weapons smuggling, money laundering and tax evasion, according to lawyers and others familiar with the inquiry.

Posted January 2, 2010 By Jeremy Scahill

Fed Judge Gives Blackwater Huge New Year's Gift, Dismisses All Charges In Iraq Massacre

A federal judge in Washington DC has given Erik Prince's Blackwater mercenaries a huge New Year's gift. Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of gunning down 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square in September 2007. Judge Urbina's order, issued late in the afternoon on New Year's Eve is a stunning blow for the Iraqi victims' families and sends a clear message that US-funded mercenaries are above all systems of law-US and international.

In a memo defending his opinion, Urbina cited a similar rationale used in the dismissal of charges against Iran-Contra figure Oliver North-namely that the government violated the rights of the Blackwater men by using statements they made to investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting to build a case against the guards, which Urbina said qualified for "derivative use immunity." Urbina wrote that he agreed that "the government violated [the Blackwater guards'] constitutional rights by utilizing statements they made to Department of State investigators, which were compelled under a threat of job loss." He added that the "government is prohibited from using such compelled statements or any evidence obtained as a result of those statements" to bring indictments.

Urbina concluded: "the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants' statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the court must dismiss the indictment against all of the defendants."

The Nisour Square massacre was the single deadliest incident involving private US forces in Iraq. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and more than twenty wounded.

Posted January 1, 2010 By CNN

Iraq to sue ex-Blackwater guards

Iraq said Friday that it will file a lawsuit against five Blackwater security guards cleared of manslaughter charges in the 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians, an act a government official called murder.

The Iraqi government also will ask the U.S. Justice Department to appeal a federal judge's "unfair and unacceptable" dismissal of the charges Thursday, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

An Iraqi man wounded in the 2007 incident also voiced his anger Friday, saying U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina's dismissal of the charges showed "disregard for Iraqi blood."

Urbina found Thursday that prosecutors wrongly used the guards' own statements against them.

"We were expecting that American justice system is fair and independent," said Hassan Jaber Salman, a lawyer. "It's clear that the justice system in America is unjust and unfair."

Al-Dabbagh said "investigations carried out by specialized Iraqi authorities unequivocally found that the Blackwater guards committed murder and broke use-of-force rules when there was no threat requiring the use of force."

The September 16, 2007, bloodbath in Baghdad's Nusour Square, which also left two dozen wounded, led Iraq's government to place limits on security contractors hired by Blackwater and other contractors. Blackwater has since changed its name to Xe.

The Blackwater employees were guarding a State Department convoy in western Baghdad when the shooting began. The company said its contractors came under attack, but Iraqi authorities called the gunfire unprovoked and indiscriminate.

Urbina found that the government's case was built largely on "statements compelled under a threat of job loss" during a State Department investigation of the shootings, violating the Fifth Amendment rights of the five men charged.

"In their zeal to bring charges against the defendant in this case, the prosecutors and investigators aggressively sought out statements the defendants had been compelled to make to government investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in the subsequent investigation," Urbina wrote in a 90-page decision.

Federal prosecutors "repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors assigned to the case," the judge said.

In the ruling, which followed three weeks of hearings, Urbina said the explanations prosecutors and federal agents offered for using the guards' statements were "all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility."

"In short, the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants' statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt," he wrote.

There was no immediate response to the decision from the Justice Department, which can appeal the ruling or seek new indictments against the men.

The men were guarding a State Department convoy moving through western Baghdad when the shooting began. The company said its contractors came under attack, but Iraqi authorities called the gunfire unprovoked and indiscriminate.

Each of the now-former guards -- Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten -- faced 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. Prosecutors requested that charges against Slatten be dropped in November, but Thursday's ruling dismissed the counts against all five.

"We're obviously pleased at the decision dismissing the entire indictment and are very happy that these courageous young men can begin the new year without this unfair cloud hanging over them," said Slough's lawyer, Mark Hulkower.

A sixth guard involved in the shootings, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty in 2008 to voluntary manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

Posted January 1, 2010 By LIZ ROBBINS

Judge Drops Charges From Blackwater Deaths in Iraq

Claiming prosecutorial misconduct, a federal judge Thursday threw out all charges against four Blackwater Worldwide guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in downtown Baghdad in 2007, a bloody event that had inflamed relations between the United States and Iraq and stoked international anger over the use of private security contractors in a war zone.

In his 90-page decision, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the United States District Court in Washington said that federal prosecutors improperly used sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity to build its case and obtain indictments, and thereby "compromised the constitutional rights of the accused."

In ruling one month before the defendants were to face trial in Washington, Judge Urbina dismissed the case not for its merits, but for the way the government had handled the prosecution, calling the government's explanations for the improper use of statements "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility."

The decision appeared to bring an abrupt end to a case that had been brewing for more than two years. But the Justice Department can still appeal the decision.

"We're still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options," said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman.

The case stemmed from an incident on Sept. 16, 2007, when the Blackwater guards, assigned to a four-vehicle convoy known as Raven 23, drove into a traffic circle at Nisour Square in downtown Baghdad around noon, and opened fire with a sniper rifle, machine guns and grenade launchers.

After the episode, Blackwater officials said that the guards had been responding to fire from insurgents, but prosecutors accused them of firing on unarmed civilians, including many who were shot in their cars while they were trying to flee.

The F.B.I. concluded that at least 14 of the 17 fatal shootings in Nisour Square were unjustified, saying that Blackwater guards recklessly violated American rules for the use of lethal force. Military investigators went further, saying that all the deaths were unjustified and potentially criminal. Iraqi authorities characterized the incident as "deliberate murder."

The government of Iraq had originally wanted the security guards to be tried in Iraq, but Blackwater had obtained an immunity agreement signed by the Coalition Provision Authority, the governing authority installed by American troops after the invasion. Blackwater was at the time under contract to the State Department to provide security for American diplomats in Baghdad.

But an even more specific question of immunity - as it related to testimony the guards gave to State Department investigators - proved to be an insurmountable problem for the Justice Department. It was a problem that lawyers for the government anticipated as long as a year ago when they briefed Congress on the matter.

Judge Urbina dismissed the indictment of the five men who pleaded not guilty to voluntary manslaughter and firearms violations: Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten.

"In their zeal to bring charges against the defendants in this case, the prosecutors and investigators aggressively sought out statements the defendants had been compelled to make to government investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in the subsequent investigation," the Judge wrote.

"In so doing, the government's trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors," Judge Urbina said in his opinion.

Posted December 31, 2009 By David Isenberg

Contractors and Cost Effectiveness

Today, the U.S. military relies on private contractors to the extent that they serve as the equivalent of an American Express credit card. The military literally can't go without them.

However, despite this inextricable relationship, all of the reasons offered in support of contractor use are not credible. Consider the main selling point or claim that PMCs put forth when bidding for contracts: Using the private sector is more cost-effective than using their public sector counterparts.

At first glance it sounds reasonable. After all, private contracting companies are not required to maintain standing forces, pay pensions, or provide benefits, to name just a few responsibilities that the public sector maintains.

Typical is the following statement by Doug Brooks, founder and president of the International Peace Operations Association trade association: "Contractors are cost effective. While the popular perception is of huge salaries for cushy jobs, the reality is that contractors live alongside military personnel and generally cost the government far less in the long run."

In the interest of full disclosure I have known Doug Brooks since he was a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. In the years since that time, I have repeatedly asked him to show me a single empirical, peer reviewed, methodologically sound, academic study confirming that private military or private sector contractors are more cost effective than their public sector counterparts. He has yet to do so.

This is a popular notion once adhered to only by diehard-free market advocates who believe that government is fundamentally inefficient and unproductive.

It also reflects the cumulative effect of military force reductions and the fashionable notion of "core competency," i.e., that one should focus only on what one does best and pay someone else to do the rest. In the Pentagon's case, the core competency is war-fighting.

But whether it is true that contractors are cost effective is at best an open question, the answer to which depends, in part, on what you mean by cost.

While outsourcing can be effective, doing things in-house is often easier and quicker. You avoid the expense and hassle of haggling, and retain operational reliability and control, which is especially important to the military.

Then there is the fact that outsourcing works best when there's genuine competition among suppliers. But while there may be hundreds of private security contractors in Iraq, not all are created equal. For really big contracts, like the U.S. State Department's Worldwide Personal Protective Services Contract, shared by Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy, there are not that many alternatives. That is one reason the State Department was reluctant to fire Blackwater after the September 2007 shootings in Baghdad by Blackwater contractors.

In fact, despite all the claims of its advocated the free market ideology has hardly been confirmed by the evidence.

The market for private security services is only partially competitive, and in some cases (for example in certain areas of logistics) is quasi-monopolistic. The champions of the virtues of privatization and outsourcing with respect to the military generally forget one thing: the Pentagon is as far away from a free market as one can possibly get.

While the free market is undoubtedly a good thing it is no insult to Adam Smith's invisible hand to note that the market for military services is the closest thing to collectivism since the demise of the Soviet Union.

In fact, as P.J. O'Rourke notes in his book on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations:

Smith understood the potential of privatization: Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them. But his experience of the corporations that were contracted to perform British government services -- such as the East India Company, the Halliburton of its day -- left him too skeptical to suggest privatization: "These companies...have in the long-run proved, universally, either burdensome or useless."

In general, the environment surrounding military interventions is not conducive to cost-savings and efficiency. Warfare is usually characterized by secrecy, heavy time constraints and the imperative of victory. There is hardly time for either complex bidding procedures; transparency is lacking, which makes it difficult to assess contract performance. Furthermore, military commanders prepare for worst case scenarios, thus always having a backup (or two or three) at hand. For the military commander the priority is accomplishing the mission, not saving money.

Indeed, even industry insiders acknowledge that the relative value of contracted services is indeterminate. In testimony before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Erik Prince, the founder and head of Blackwater (now Xe Services) was asked about the cost-benefit of using private contractors:

MR. PRINCE: I don't know what those numbers are, sir, but that would be a great fully burdened cost study that Congress could sponsor. They don't have to do the whole thing, just take some key nodes and really study it.

Don't take my word for it. Here is what Prof. Allison Stanger of Middlebury College wrote in her recent book, One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy:

We begin by probing the assertion that the U.S. government is saving money on pensions by hiring private contractors. Some have argued that since the PMCs do not pay pensions but hire on a per-job basis, they generate significant costs saving. But on closer inspection, we find that American PMC employees have all served in the in the military prior to joining the private sector. The U.S. government prefers to employ U.S.-based firms, and most U.S.-based firms prefer to hire American citizens. Since the government will eventually pay a pension to the employees who are American citizens regardless of their employment status upon retirement, the savings in pension payments are not great. To reap any savings, Washington would have to encourage the private military sector to hire foreign nationals--but the conflicts of interests that emerge when non-U.S. citizens are asked to support the American army in a combat zone render this les than prudent. The idea that we save money on pension by relying on contracted security forces is thus difficult to sustain.

Another way for the federal government to save money through privatization is by exploiting the lower labor costs of outsourcing. But is Washington actually paying less money in labor costs for military services? While it is true that contractors do not receive a set annual salary but are hied on an as-needed basis, they also make double or triple what their uniformed counterparts make doing the same job. it is difficult to argue, even with contract personnel hired and let go as needed, that the U.S. government saves money by hiring labor at a significantly higher daily rate.

...

A third potential saving comes from the hiring of already trained employees. If the government does not have to pay to train private sector employees, it saves money. But again, when we look at the employment patterns for U.S.-based firms, this bargain too fails to materialize. If most PMC personnel come from the U.S. military this bargain too fails to materialize. If most PMC personnel come from the U.S. military, then the government bore cost of their training. A security clearance is a marketable asset, yet the American taxpayer paid the screening bill.

Adding it all up, a rough assessment of the market for force's underlying structure reveals that the federal government is effectively paying for the training and retirement of the contractors it hires, all appearances to the contrary, as well as paying double or triple the daily rate for their services. In addition, the government must cover the firm's profits. It is difficult to see where cost saving exist. (pp. 96. 96-97)

The existence and widespread use of private contractors reflect important underlying questions regarding the U.S. role in the world, which the public has chosen not to address, namely the mismatch between U.S. geopolitical ambitions and the resources provided for them. Putting aside all the arguments about presumed cost-effectiveness or organizational flexibility of the private sector, it seems likely that if a nation can't summon public support for its policies, strategies and goals, it probably should revisit its goals. People who want to argue about the use of contractors should begin their critiques by examining the inescapable disconnect between ends and means.

Posted December 30, 2009 By Mike Scarcella

DOJ's David Kris Urges Closed Hearing in Blackwater Case in D.C.

The Justice Department wants to bar the public from a court hearing Jan. 7 in the Blackwater criminal case in federal district court in Washington, saying that the proceeding may result in the disclosure of classified information.

The government filed a motion Dec. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia so that the court can determine the use, relevance and admissibility of classified information in the prosecution of five Blackwater security guards, who are charged in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians.

Much of the Blackwater litigation has been conducted under seal and in closed courtrooms. Earlier this month, Judge Ricardo Urbina said the hearing will be held in camera if Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. certified to the court that the proceeding may result in the disclosure of classified information.

David Kris, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's National Security Division, said today in an affidavit that the Jan. 7 hearing should be held in camera. Kris was acting on behalf of Holder pursuant to the Classified Information Procedures Act. Kris said his request is based on his knowledge of the evidence and based on discussions he has had with other Justice officials.

Lawyers for the Blackwater guards did not immediately file a response to the government's reques that the hearing be held in camera. Urbina did not immediately rule on the government's motion.

In October, Washington Post associate counsel James McLaughlin requested in a letter to the court that Urbina keep open a hearing in the Blackwater case. Urbina rejected the request. Also, a lawyer for one of the guards asked Urbina to hold a status conference in open court to discuss the government's motion to dismiss charges without prejudice. Urbina denied the request.

Posted December 30, 2009 By Mike Papantonio

Erik Prince - Our New Peter Pan

It's easy to read J. M. Barrie's children's story, Peter Pan, and miss the point that it's a tale about more than a man-child's carefree life among pirates and mermaids. The original stage play was titled, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow up. Investigative reporter Adam Ciralsky wrote an expose' about a real life Peter Pan by the name of Erik Prince. Ciralsky's expose' appeared in Vanity Fair Magazine this month, and I got a chance to interview Ciralsky about the qualities of Erik Prince, America's most infamous mercenary. When Erik's father died, he left Erik more than a billion dollars to play with. Those were the good ol' days for Erik before his mercenary company called Blackwater became bogged down in grand jury investigations about issues like bribery and manslaughter. With daddy's money, Erik armed himself with man-child toys that were much more deadly than Peter Pan's fairy dust and long knives. He took daddy's money and bought guns, Black Hawk helicopters, and thousands of acres in North Carolina. From there, he launched his Army for hire. He paid his Blackwater soldiers $600 a day. With taxpayers' money, those soldiers had learned the art of war. The cost to taxpayers for that training is approximately $400,000 per soldier. Prince capitalized on that taxpayer-paid training by recruiting soldiers after their discharge. Then he simply leased those soldiers back to taxpayers at an annual cost of $450,000 a piece. Prince has made a cool 1.5 billion dollars with taxpayer-trained soldiers.

Six of Prince's mercenaries were charged with killing 17 Iraqi civilians in what the Justice Department described as unprovoked and unjustified manslaughter. Most of those civilians were women and children. When that occurred even the Pentagon began asking the obvious question; like what control do we have over Erik's private army? Why are they performing the duties of enlisted soldiers and being paid ten times what an enlisted soldier is paid? Peter Pan was never able to arm his lost boys in Neverland with high-tech tactical weapons. But I suspect if they had had a limitless supply of AK-47's and rocket launchers, everyone from Tiger Lily to Tinker Bell would have lived in a state of terror. One of Erik's most revealing quotes recorded in his Vanity Fair Magazine interview was when he announced that he was going to retire and become a history teacher. Erik's exact words were, "Hey, Indiana Jones taught school too." That is the image Prince holds for himself.

In fact, it is that Prince big adventure, big thrill, big fun life that taxpayers are subsidizing for no good reason. If the U.S. military trained the very people Prince hires, then why are we paying Peter Pan a second time to hire his Neverland team?

The video game industry has made billions selling little boys' video games with titles like, "Call of Duty" and "Modern Warfare." They are games that allow young boys to blow things up and shoot big guns. Nobody dies, and it's inexpensive. Most boys abandon those games by the time they reach adolescence. Erik Prince never did. Why should he when taxpayers continue to fund him and his Lost Boys of Neverland?

Posted December 29, 2009 By SIKANDER SHAHEEN

Black acts of Blackwater

A significant section of Western media believes that the existence of notorious Blackwater is strongly interlinked to the pursuit of those hegemonic and expansionist designs that have emanated from religious prejudice and ethnic bias.

The information available at some renowned Western websites, magazines and newspapers is evident enough to believe the underlying reality that Blackwater, now known as Xe Worldwide, is not just a security company but an organised lethal network that has been entrusted, by its framers, with the task to spread crusade ideology and eliminate Muslims from all over the world. A renowned website quotes a former Blackwater employee, who among the other employees of the same company had sworn affidavits against their employer containing the accusations of weapon smugglings, slaughters and killings of all those former employees of the company who cooperated with US federal investigators against Blackwater to expose numerous atrocities and killings that it carried out over the years.

The employee was quoted as saying about the owner of Blackwater Erik Prince that (he) "Views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe - To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades."

Regarding the ruthless killings of some of the Blackwater employees under unknown circumstances, a US Congress Report termed Blackwater as "being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets." Interestingly, Blackwater and other similar operators working for CIA in Iraq had been given immunity from Iraqi Law as negotiated between the US and Iraqi government. The ruthless killings of civilians in Iraq by Blackwater guards are a horrifying chapter of atrocities indeed.

Jeremy Scahill believes that the top management of Blackwater is the die-hard follower of orthodox crusade philosophy. Scahill describes that Eric Prince has strong connections with orthodox catholic groups, while the Chief Operating Officer of Blackwater, Joseph Schmitz, a former Inspector General of Pentagon, is a staunch follower of 'Christian supremacy.'

Another Western website has recently posted some extracts published in a magazine from the same book of Jeremy Scahill, he writes, "A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counterterrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilise former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying any official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity."

About Blackwater's presence in Pakistan, the website quoted Col. Lawrance Wilkerson who was the Chief of Staff from 2002 to 2005 for United States Secretary of the States, Colin Powell, "Wikerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA."

A former Blackwater executive is also quoted as sharing with a US based magazine, "In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive. "They are running most of their work through TIS (i.e. Total Intelligence Solutions, a subsidiary of Blackwater) because the other two names (Blackwater and Xe) have such a stain on them."

The website further says, "The same source also disclosed that some of the Blackwater personnel work undercover as aid workers and therefore he said "nobody even gives them a second thought". This source had this to say about the Blackwater team in Karachi "In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC (Joints Special Operations Command of the US Government involve with special operations) and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan."

It adds, "The covert JSOC programme with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater's presence in Pakistan is "not really visible, and that's why nobody has cracked down on it," said the source. Blackwater's operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defence contracts. "It's Blackwater via JSOC, and it's a classified no-bid (contract) approved on a rolling basis." The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations centre. 'It's a very rudimentary operation," says the source. 'I would compare it to (CIA) outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It's very bare bones, and that's the point."

The notorious mega contract of over $15 billion, which Blackwater signed with US Department of Defence is believed as a cover to conceal malpractices of Blackwater under the garb of anti-narcotics control. "We interdict. The NIU surgically goes after shipments going to Iran or Pakistan. We provide training to set up roadblocks, identify where drug lords are, and act so as not to impact the community." Jeff Gibson, Vice President, Backwater was quoted as saying in this regard.

Posted December 29, 2009 By Jeremy Scahill

Contractors Watching Contractors

The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR) has hired a private corporation to help prepare government reports for Congress about US government contracts with other corporations in Afghanistan. The massive consulting firm Deloitte and Touche was hired on a one-year contract signed with the US Army's Contracting Center of Excellence in May for $3.7 million. In the end, the contract could be worth up to $7.5 million, according to federal contract data reviewed by The Nation. In 2008, former Republican Congressman Tom Davis was hired by Deloitte as a director. Davis once chaired the powerful House Government Reform Committee.

As part of its work for SIGAR, according to contracts obtained by The Nation, the firm helps prepare the agency's quarterly reports to Congress, assists in preparing Congressional testimony for agency officials and helps develop SIGAR's responses to "questions for the record" from lawmakers.

SIGAR hired Deloitte "as an interim measure while we, as a new organization, built the internal capability we needed to provide the quality reports that the Congress requires," SIGAR spokesperson Susan Phalen told The Nation. "The SIGAR quarterly reports require an extraordinary amount of detail and attention." Phalen downplayed Deloitte's role in preparing Congressional reports, saying they "have assisted the SIGAR staff on certain sections of the quarterly reports."

Deloitte also plays a similar role for several other federal agencies, including preparing reports for the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. TARP was created by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and allows the US Treasury Department to purchase or insure up to $700 billion of "troubled assets." Deloitte also works in a similar capacity for the US Agency for International Development and the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

Danielle Brian, the executive director of the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, sees a direct relationship between Deloitte's increasingly prominent oversight role within the US government and the hiring of former Congressman Davis. "We saw an immediate growth in Deloitte's contracts for oversight functions, especially for special inspectors general, when Davis left the Congress to go work for Deloitte," said Brian. "It's totally predictable. This is the kind of thing that he was encouraging while he was in the Congress. I think this is a real degradation of government." She said Davis's work with Deloitte is the "definition of the revolving door."

SIGAR has come under fire recently from a bipartisan group of senators who have called on President Obama to "commence a comprehensive review" of the agency. "In light of the planned increase in the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, we have serious concerns that SIGAR currently may be unable to perform its mission at a time when the need for aggressive, independent oversight is greater than ever," wrote Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republicans Susan Collins and Tom Coburn on December 8 to President Obama. The lawmakers specifically said that SIGAR has had "significant, ongoing difficulty in recruiting adequate, qualified staff."

The senators also criticized the agency for not fulfilling its role of focusing on "reconstruction contracting," instead conducting reviews of female participation in the Afghan elections, which the senators said is not SIGAR's job. The senators also decried what they called "the lack of audit and investigative reports," pointing out that only "one of the eight audits performed was a contract audit."

According to a "Performance Work Statement" for Deloitte's contract, obtained by The Nation, Deloitte "shall provide all personnel, equipment, tools, materials, supervision, and other items and non-personal services necessary to perform data collection, data analysis, report design, report formation and project management support to ensure timely publication of the quarterly report to be distributed to Congress...to track the status and maintain accountability of specific funds allocated/designated for the reconstruction of afghanistan, and to determine how the funds have been spent."

The firm, according to the work statement, is also responsible for "tracking the oversight activities (Audits and Investigations) of other Government agencies having oversight authority of the relief and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan." The contract specifies that Deloitte personnel must have been granted a "secret security clearance or an Interim Secret clearance from the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office."

"Now we have contractors overseeing the oversight of contractors," said a government oversight official. "It's like a bad '80s movie." Tourang Nazari, a spokesperson for Deloitte, when asked for comment on the firm's work for SIGAR told The Nation, "We do not comment on work we do for clients."

Despite descriptions in the Deloitte contract, SIGAR's Phalen denied that Deloitte plays a central role in SIGAR's communications to Congress, saying "SIGAR staff is fully responsible for the writing and final editing of all SIGAR reports," adding that Deloitte "contractors have assisted SIGAR staff, on a interim basis [and it] is limited to graphics production and the drafting of specific sections of the quarterly reports." She said all audits and investigative reports are done by official SIGAR investigators. POGO's Brian, however, contradicted that. "They're actually writing the copy," she said. "To me the most pure example of what a government person should be doing is communicating between an inspector general and the Congress. The idea you hire an outside contractor to do that is, to me, obscene."

SIGAR was created by President George W. Bush, who appointed its current head, Marine Major General Arnold Fields, in June 2008. SIGAR has thirty auditors in Afghanistan and the United States. Its budget of $23 million seems stunningly low given the extent of government contracting in Afghanistan. According to federal records, the US paid some $6.7 billion to contractors for work in Afghanistan in 2008. That figure does not include contracts in Pakistan over which SIGAR has no official mandate. More than $5 billion has been allocated for Afghanistan reconstruction in the supplemental appropriation of 2009. Meanwhile, according to the most recent Department of Defense census, there are more than 104,000 private contractors on the US government payroll in Afghanistan, a number that is expected to grow as US troop numbers swell.

Posted December 28, 2009 By David Usborne

Blackwater 'used in raids against insurgents'

The CIA was again forced to fend off potentially grave allegations yesterday after claims emerged that for years during the George Bush era it regularly invited operatives from the private security contractor Blackwater to join covert and high-risk anti-insurgency operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even though the North Carolina-based private firm was originally hired merely to provide perimeter security to CIA personnel and operations centres in the countries, former employees are now alleging that over time the relationship between them and the intelligence agency became much deeper.

Those ties evolved to the point where armed security guards provided by Blackwater directly participated between 2004 and 2006 in so-called "snatch and grab" raids aimed at capturing and potentially killing insurgency leaders, The New York Times reported yesterday.

It was the latest in a series of revelations about the murky part played by Blackwater in America's two wars.

Members of Congress have increasingly become alarmed by the implications of what they are learning about Blackwater, notably in regard to questions of accountability. While Congress has direct oversight of the CIA and its operations overseas, that oversight crumbles if some of that work, some of it apparently of the most sensitive nature, is handed over to people who essentially are guns for hire.

The CIA yesterday denied that any line had been crossed in its use of the firm. "This agency, like many others, uses contractors in roles that complement and enhance the skills of our own workforce, just as American law permits," a spokesman, George Little, said in response to the article. However, the current CIA director, Leon Panetta, ordered a review of the agency's relationship with the company in July.

Blackwater, recently rebranded as Xe Services, similarly denied the allegations. "Blackwater USA was never under contract to participate in covert raids with CIA or special operations personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else. Any allegation to the contrary by any news organisation would be false," the spokesman Mark Corallo said.

Founded by Erik Prince, Blackwater was first hired by the US government in early 2002 to guard the CIA station in Kabul after the allied invasion. Before long, however, Blackwater was securing much larger and more lucrative contracts to ensure the safety of US personnel in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of its rapidly expanding corps of fighting men was recruited from the CIA and the military.

It was only after 17 civilians were gunned down by Blackwater employees in a Baghdad square in September 2007 ? which led earlier this year to the cancellation of all its US government contracts in Iraq ? that the nature of the company's relationship with the CIA came under more strenuous scrutiny. A federal grand jury in North Carolina is currently investigating the activities of the company overseas.

The chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, Rush Holt, a Democrat, told the New York Times that "the use of contractors in intelligence and paramilitary operations is a scandal waiting to be examined". He suggested that the use of Blackwater personnel "got way out of hand". The House Intelligence Committee is already investigating claims that the firm also became involved in a secret CIA programme, since abandoned, to track down and kill leaders of al-Qa'ida.

Xe Services also flatly denied a second allegation by the New York Times that Blackwater was also directly involved in the transportation of terror suspects to places for interrogation after they had been captured.

But even the notion that company personnel got sucked into actually taking part in the capture-and-assassination raids is certain to kick up new and difficult questions for the CIA. The New York Times said that it received its information anonymously from five former employees of the company and four former or current US intelligence officials.

Posted December 23, 2009 By Yana Kunichoff

Report Reveals Scope of Government Contracting

According to a new government report, more than 50 percent of the Department of Defense workforces are military contractors and the Obama administration's troop surge in Afghanistan is set to only increase these numbers.

The report, prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the investigative arm of Congress, and released Monday, highlights the internal dealings of the Defense Department with that of the 218,000 contractors, compared to 190,000 uniformed personnel, it employs, and the logistical and administrative issues inherent in dealing with a military campaign through outsourcing.

According to the CRS report, the 30,000 troop increase in Afghanistan is expected to require anywhere from 26,000 to 56,000 contractors as supporting staff.

The use of military contractors, individuals hired on a contractual basis to perform specified tasks, has been part of American military practice since the Revolutionary War, through the cold war and now into the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Since then, advances in warfare and technology have expanded the functions and responsibilities of contractors in military operations," and in December 2008, according to the CRS, Afghanistan reached a record high of contracted employees employed by the Department of Defense in "any conflict in the history of the United States."

The tasks of contractual employees are to "supply base support, construction, security and transportation," as long as none of these fall under the umbrella of "inherently governmental functions," according to the report.

However, the scope of contracting in the United States military has led many to question whether an expanded range of operations is avoidable in the military's current climate.

"It wouldn't surprise me," said Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, in an interview with the Nation about the role of Blackwater, a contracting company, in Pakistan. "Because we've outsourced nearly everything,"

According to the report, military contractors currently make up 47 percent of the workforce in Iraq and 62 percent in Afghanistan. Though absolute levels of contracted employees have declined as troop levels in Iraq declined, the use of security contractors has increased by 38 percent.

Along with accountability for weapons and adequately training military outsource workers, the CRS report says additional pitfalls are possible because "local nationals may not draw a distinction between government contractors and the US military, and the abuses committed by contractors may strengthen anti-American insurgents."

The CRS report cited a comment made by Obama, a strong proponent of the troop surge which will bring the number of contracts up to at least 130,000 in Afghanistan, prior to his appointment as commander in chief: "We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds," he said, "when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors."

Contracting has come under heavy fire following a number of recent incidents. The shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater security guards, the role of contractors in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and the confession by Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, of his company's collaboration with the CIA in covert assassination operations, have all shown the dangers of contracting out. Halliburton, where Dick Cheney was chief executive, won many Defense Department contracts in Iraq.

According to Opensecrets.org, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have received $885,835 from foreign and defense policy contractors between 2005 and 2010, with Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) leading the group at $514, 034 and Bill Nelson following close behind with $107,427 received. McCain and Nelson did not respond to requests for comment.

For FY2007 and the first half of FY2008, the Department of Defense spent $30 billion on contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan - $25 billion to the former nation. Between 2003 and 2007, however, the CRS estimated that $76 billion was spent on contracts in the "Iraq theater," a geographical area comprising Iraq, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Also cited in the report is the frequent misapplication of contracting funds. "The Commission on Wartime Contracting ... reported that managerial shortages and limited oversight of contractors led to potentially unnecessary construction, such as the new $30 million dining facility to be completed a year before U.S. troops were required to leave Iraq, even though a then-recently upgraded dining facility was located nearby."

The issue of contractors has not escaped legislative scrutiny. The Senate Committees on Armed Services, Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the House Committees on Armed Services, Government Oversight and Government Reform and the Judiciary have all held hearings related to security contractors, which make up only 5-10 percent of the contractual workforce.

The report also said that an October 2008 report from the Government Accountability Office said that the Department of Defense's contractor reports were not routinely checked for accuracy or completeness.

In a press release about the Senate Armed Services Committee markup of the National Defense Authorization Bill for FY2009, the committee set aside $21.6 million "for the Army Contracting Agency to improve acquisition planning, solicitation and negotiations."

The committee also said it now "prohibits contractor employees from conducting interrogation of detainees during or in the aftermath of hostilities. The provision has an effective date one year after the date of enforcement, to give the Department of Defense time to comply."

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ad Hoc Committee on Contracting Oversight will hold a public hearing Thursday at 2:00 PM to examine the oversight of contracting in Afghanistan.

Posted December 21, 2009 By Eva Golinger

Blackwater in Colombia

In early 2008, the U.S. Army Missile Command and Space Defense awarded contracts in the amount of 15 billion dollars to a group of private contractors, including Blackwater. The contract, which includes intelligence operations, espionage and reconnaissance, among other things, faces two countries in Latin America, Mexico and Colombia.

Not surprisingly, came the revelation in Ecuador of Washington's role in the illegal invasion of Ecuadorian territory in March 2008. The participation of military and U.S. intelligence agents, then located at the military base of Manta, was initially suspected in the operation that killed persons in a FARC camp. Now an official report from Ecuador confirms this fact. It reaffirms further that where there are military bases used by the U.S. military, action be carried out by Washington - no matter what the rules, laws and regulations of the host country.

The controversial military agreement between Colombia and the United States, signed on Oct. 30, means the largest military expansion in Latin America by Washington. The agreement allows the presence of private contractors to service the needs of Washington agencies in Colombia, with all the same immunity granted to U.S. officials and military. This is not new. Under the agreement of Plan Colombia, Washington used by over 30 contractors for 10 years to perform military and intelligence work and espionage in Colombia. Some of them are the most powerful companies of the military industrial complex, such as DynCorp, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, the Rendon Group, and Raytheon, among others.

Within the new military agreement, the amount of contractors - or mercenaries of war - will increase. The privatization of war and the use of private companies to perform security operations, defense and intelligence, is now the modus operandi of Washington. The Blackwater company is certainly more controversial, now known as Xe Services. During the past eight years, Blackwater has earned over 1.4 billion dollars in contracts from the State Department and Pentagon. Since 2005, Blackwater has also gotten semi-secret contracts with the Department of Homeland Security in the U.S. for security and defense operations within the country, which have been seen as the beginning of the creation of a privatized state police to suppress and control a population that each day is in a more desperate economic situation.

Posted December 10, 2009 By James Risen and Mark Mazzetti

NYT: Blackwater tied to CIA raids

Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.'s most sensitive activities ? clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency between 2004 and 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called "snatch and grab" operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Helped provide security

Separately, former Blackwater employees said they helped provide security on some C.I.A. flights transporting detainees in the years after the 2001 terror attacks in the United States.

The secret missions illuminate a far deeper relationship between the spy agency and the private security company than government officials have previously acknowledged. Blackwater's partnership with the C.I.A. has been enormously profitable for the North Carolina-based company, and became even closer after several top agency officials joined Blackwater. "It became a very brotherly relationship," said one former top C.I.A. officer. "There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency."

George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, would not comment on Blackwater's ties to the agency. But he said the C.I.A. employs contractors to "enhance the skills of our own work force, just as American law permits."

"Contractors give you flexibility in shaping and managing your talent mix ? especially in the short term ? but the accountability's still yours," he said.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Blackwater, said Thursday that the firm was never under contract to participate in clandestine raids with the C.I.A. or with Special Operations personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else.

Blackwater's role in the secret operations raises concerns about the extent to which private security firms, hired for defensive guard duty, have joined in offensive military and intelligence operations.

Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said in an interview that "the use of contractors in intelligence and paramilitary operations is a scandal waiting to be examined." While he declined to comment on specific operations, Mr. Holt said that the use of contractors in such operations "got way out of hand. It's been very troubling to a lot of people."

Under intense criticism

Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, has come under intense criticism for what Iraqis have described as reckless conduct by its security guards, and the company lost its lucrative State Department contract to provide diplomatic security for the United States Embassy in Baghdad earlier this year after a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Blackwater's ties to the C.I.A. have emerged in recent months, beginning with disclosures in The New York Times that the agency had hired the company as part of a program to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda and to assist in the C.I.A.'s Predator unmanned vehicle program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, recently initiated an internal review examining all Blackwater contracts with the agency to ensure that the company was performing no missions that were "operational in nature," according to one government official.

Five former Blackwater employees and four current and former American intelligence officials interviewed for this article would speak only on condition of anonymity because Blackwater's activities for the agency were secret and former employees feared repercussions from the company. The Blackwater employees said they participated in the raids or had direct knowledge of them.

Along with the former officials, they provided few details about the targets of the raids in Iraq and Afghanistan, although they said that many of the Iraq raids were directed against members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The former intelligence officials said that Blackwater's work with the C.I.A. in Iraq and Afghanistan grew out of its early contracts with the spy agency to provide security for the C.I.A. stations in both countries.

In the spring of 2002, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, offered to help the spy agency guard its makeshift Afghan station in the Ariana Hotel in Kabul. Not long after Mr. Prince signed the security contract with Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, then the C.I.A.'s third-ranking official, dozens of Blackwater personnel ? many of them former Navy Seals and Army Delta Force operatives ? were sent to provide perimeter security for the C.I.A. station.

But company's role soon changed dramatically as Blackwater operatives began accompanying C.I.A. case officers on missions, according to former employees and intelligence officials.

A similar progression happened in Iraq, where Blackwater was first hired for "static security" of the Baghdad station. In addition, Blackwater was charged with providing personal security for C.I.A. officers wherever they traveled in the two countries. That meant that Blackwater personnel accompanied the officers even on offensive operations sometimes launched in conjunction with Delta Force or Navy Seals teams.

Role expanded in 2005

A former senior C.I.A. official said that Blackwater's role expanded in 2005 as the Iraqi insurgency intensified. Fearful of the death or capture of one of its officers, the C.I.A. banned C.I.A. officers from leaving the Green Zone in Baghdad without security escorts, the official said.

That gave Blackwater greater influence over C.I.A. clandestine operations, since company personnel helped decide the safest way to conduct the missions.

The former American intelligence officials say that Blackwater guards were only supposed to provide perimeter security during raids, leaving it up to C.I.A. officers and Special Operations military personnel to capture or kill suspected insurgents or other targets.

"They were supposed to be the outer layer of the onion, out on the perimeter," said one former Blackwater official of the security guards. Instead, "they were the drivers and the gunslingers," said one former intelligence official.

But in the chaos of the operations, the roles of Blackwater, C.I.A., and military personnel sometimes merged. Former C.I.A. officials said that Blackwater guards often appeared eager to get directly involved in the operations. Experts said that the C.I.A.'s use of contractors in clandestine operations falls into a legal gray area because of the vagueness of language laying out what tasks only government employees may perform.

P.W. Singer, an expert in contracting at the Brookings Institution, said that the types of jobs that have been outsourced in recent years make a mockery of regulations about "inherently governmental" functions.

"We keep finding functions that have been outsourced that common sense, let along U.S. government policy, would argue should not have been handed over to a private company," he said. "And yet we do it again, and again, and again."

'It was virtually continuous'

According to one former Blackwater manager, the company's involvement with the C.I.A. raids was "widely known" by Blackwater executives. "It was virtually continuous, and hundreds of guys were involved, rotating in and out," over a period of several years, the former Blackwater manager said.

One former Blackwater guard recalled a meeting in Baghdad in 2004 in which Erik Prince addressed a group of Blackwater guards working with the C.I.A. At the meeting in an air hangar used by Blackwater, the guard said, Mr. Prince encouraged the Blackwater personnel "to do whatever it takes" to help the C.I.A. with the intensifying insurgency, the former guard recalled.

But it is not clear whether top C.I.A. officials in Washington knew or approved of the involvement by Blackwater officials in raids or whether only lower-level officials in Baghdad were aware of what happened on the ground.

The new details of Blackwater's involvement in Iraq come at a time when the House Intelligence Committee is investigating the firm's role in the C.I.A.'s assassination program, and a federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating a wide range of allegations of illegal activity by Blackwater and its personnel, including gun running to Iraq. Several former Blackwater personnel said that Blackwater guards involved in the CIA raids used weapons, including sawed-off M-4 automatic weapons with silencers, that were not approved for use by private contractors.

In separate interviews, former Blackwater security personnel also said that they were handpicked by senior Blackwater officials on several occasions to participate on secret flights transporting detainees around war zones. The former Blackwater personnel said that during the flights, teams of about 10 Blackwater personnel provided security over the detainees. "A group of individuals were selected who could manage detainees without the use of lethal force," said one former Blackwater guard who participated in one of the flights.

Intelligence officials deny that the agency has ever used Blackwater to fly high-value detainees in and out of secret C.I.A. prisons that were shut down earlier this year. Mr. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesman, said that company personnel were never involved in C.I.A. "rendition flights," which transferred terrorism suspects to other countries for interrogation.

Copyright © 2009 The New York Times

Posted December 7, 2009 By The Nation

America wants to declare Pak nukes unsafe: Munawar

Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Amir Syed Munawar Hassan has said that the United States through creating anarchy in Pakistan is seeking justification to declare Pakistan?s nuclear arsenal as unsafe.

He said that Black Water is fully active in destabilising Pakistan.

He stated this while replying to questions of newsmen at Quetta Press Club flanked by other JI provincial leaders here on Monday. Responding to a query, he said that though officials were denying reports about presence of Blackwater in Pakistan but there are many evidences of presence of this notorious organisation.

He said a mini-cantonment would be constructed in Islamabad for 1000 US Marines

He said that CIA and FBI were official secret organisations of United States while Blackwater was a US organisation in private sector.

Referring to nuclear weapons of Pakistan, he said US and Blackwater were serious threat to Pak nuclear assets and urged the rulers to counter their conspiracies. JI chief claimed that when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Lahore she was given security cover by Blackwater.

He said that rulers should halt military drive in the country and all issues should be settled through negotiations.

He warned that if serious steps were not taken, this war would engulf other cities including Quetta and Karachi.

To a query, he said that JI was arranging public rallies across the country to apprise the people about the aggression of US against Muslims.

He said that when Israel and India became nuclear powers nobody raised objection but when Pakistan conducted nuclear tests for its security world stood against it and described it as Islamic bomb.

While terming America as a big ?terrorist?, he said that under a well conceived plan America was destabilising Pakistan and creating chaos everywhere to mislead world community that nukes of Pakistan were not secure and these should be given under the control of international community.

Responding to a question about Balochistan, he said that Islamabad was directly responsible for the unrest in Balochistan.

?Five military operations have been carried out in Balochistan and its people have been kept oppressed?, he said, adding, the complaints of Baloch people are genuine which should be solved forthwith.

Replying to a query, he said that involvement of India in destabilising Pakistan and Balochistan could not be ruled out.

To a query, he said that JI was playing an active role in highlighting Balochistan issue.

?JI is the only party which has taken up Balochistan issue at every forum?, he said and demanded that case of assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti should be registered against Pervez Musharraf while FIR of murder of three Baloch leaders in Turbat should be registered against secret agencies and missing persons should be recovered.

Answering a question regarding mid-term elections, he said that mid-term elections could not prove beneficial both for country and its people therefore JI was not supporter any mid-term elections in prevailing situation.

He said that Main Muhammad Nawaz Sharif could not talk about mid-term elections until and unless he got 17th Amendment revoked and ,added, that Zardari was not ready to revoke 17th Amendment because it would provide an opportunity to Nawaz Sharif to demand for mid-term elections.

Posted December 7, 2009 By Jeremy Scahill

Is Erik Prince 'Graymailing' the US Government?

The in-depth Vanity Fair profile of the infamous owner of Blackwater, Erik Prince, is remarkable on many levels--not least among them that Prince appeared to give the story's author, former CIA lawyer Adam Ciralsky, unprecedented access to information about sensitive, classified and lethal operations not only of Prince's forces, but Prince himself. In the article, Prince is revealed not just as owner of a company that covertly provided contractors to the CIA for drone bombings and targeted assassinations, but as an actual CIA asset himself. While the story appears to be simply a profile of Prince, it might actually be the world's most famous mercenary's insurance policy against future criminal prosecution. The term of art for what Prince appears to be doing in the VF interview is graymail: a legal tactic that has been used for years by intelligence operatives or assets who are facing prosecution or fear they soon will be. In short, these operatives or assets threaten to reveal details of sensitive or classified operations in order to ward off indictments or criminal charges, based on the belief that the government would not want these details revealed. "The only reason Prince would do this [interview] is that he feels he is in very serious jeopardy of criminal charges," says Scott Horton, a prominent national security and military law expert. "He absolutely would not do these things otherwise."

There is no doubt Prince is in the legal cross-hairs: There are reportedly two separate Grand Juries investigating Blackwater on a range of serious charges, ranging from gun smuggling to extralegal killings; multiple civil lawsuits alleging war crimes and extrajudicial killings; and Congress is investigating the assassination program in which Prince and his company were central players. "Obviously, Prince does know a lot and the government has to realize that once they start prosecuting him," says Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor and the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "In some ways, graymail is what any good defense lawyer would do. This is something that's in your arsenal."

Perhaps the most prominent case of graymail was by Oliver North when he and his lawyers used it to force dismissal of the most serious charges against him stemming from his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair. In another case, known as Khazak-gate, a US businessman, James Giffen, allegedly paid $78 million in bribes to former Khazakh Prime Minister Nurlan Balgimbayev in an attempt to win contracts for western oil companies to develop the Tengiz oil fields in the 1990s. In 1993, he was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the largest overseas bribery case in history. After Giffen was indicted, he claimed that if he did what he was accused of, he did it in the service of US intelligence agencies. The case has been in limbo ever since.

"This is as old as the hills as a tactic and it has a long track record of being very effective against the government," says Horton. "It's basically a threat to the government that if you prosecute me, I'll disclose all sorts of national security-sensitive information. The bottom line here is it's like an act of extortion or a threat: you do X and this is what I'm going to do." Horton said that the Vanity Fair article was Prince "essentially putting out the warning to the Department of Justice: 'You prosecute me and all this stuff will be out on the record.'"

According to Ciralsky's article, Prince was a "full-blown asset" of "the C.I.A.'s National Resources Division [which] recruited Prince in 2004 to join a secret network of American citizens with special skills or unusual access to targets of interest:"

Two sources familiar with the arrangement say that Prince's handlers obtained provisional operational approval from senior management to recruit Prince and later generated a "201 file," which would have put him on the agency's books as a vetted asset. It's not at all clear who was running whom, since Prince says that, unlike many other assets, he did much of his work on spec, claiming to have used personal funds to road-test the viability of certain operations...

Prince was developing unconventional means of penetrating "hard target" countries--where the C.I.A. has great difficulty working either because there are no stations from which to operate or because local intelligence services have the wherewithal to frustrate the agency's designs. "I made no money whatsoever off this work," Prince contends. He is unwilling to specify the exact nature of his forays. "I'm painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I'm paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket."

"I think that [Prince] will use all of his information and his knowledge of these secret dealings in basically what is an extortion play: 'You come after me, and I'll spill the beans on everything,'" says Horton. "That's the essence of graymail and the Department of Justice will usually get its feathers all ruffled up and they'll say, 'You can't deal with the government like this. This is unfair and improper.' But in the end, it usually works."

In the Vanity Fair article, Prince alleges that he was outed--by whom he does not say, but the implication is that CIA Director Leon Panetta named him in a closed door hearing of the Intelligence Committee last June, and then the name was leaked by one of the attendees of that hearing. Sloan, the former federal prosecutor, said that if what Prince says in the Vanity Fair article about his role in secret CIA programs is true, he has a case that laws were broken in revealing his identity. "I'm not his fan, but he's not wrong. For somebody to leak his identity as a CIA asset clearly merits a criminal investigation," Sloan said. "Whether they should have ever hired Erik Prince or made him into an asset is a separate question. Assuming he really was a CIA asset, basically a spy, an undercover operative, and somebody decided to leak that, that's not acceptable and that is a violation of the same law that leaking Valerie [Plame]'s identity was. If you can't leak one person, you can't leak any person, not just the people you like versus the people you don't like."

While much of the focus in the Vanity Fair story was on Prince's work with the CIA, the story also confirmed that Blackwater has an ongoing relationship with the US Special Forces, helping plan missions and providing air support. As The Nation reported, Blackwater has for years been working on a classified contract with the Joint Special Operations Command in a drone bombing campaign in Pakistan, as well as planning snatch-and-grab missions and targeted assassinations. Part of what may be happening behind closed doors is that the CIA is, to an extent, cutting Blackwater and Prince off. But, as sources have told The Nation, the company remains a central player in US Special Forces operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Prince's choice of Adam Ciralsky to tell his story is an interesting one as well. Ciralsky was a CIA lawyer who in 1997 was suspended under suspicion he was having unauthorized contacts with possible Israeli intelligence agents. Ciralsky vehemently denied the allegations, saying he was the victim of a "witch-hunt" at the Agency. In any case, there is no question that Prince would view Ciralsky through the lens of his own struggle against the CIA. "When I saw the article, the first thing that just leapt off the page was his name. I thought, 'My god, why would he go to Adam?'" said Horton. "And then I read the article and I thought, of course he'd go to Adam. There is this legal theme being developed in the article and Adam, as a lawyer who had dealt with the CIA, fully understands that. I mean I think he fully understood he was going to do a piece that would help Prince develop his legal defense and that's what this is. The amazing thing to me is that Vanity Fair printed it. Do the editors of Vanity Fair not understand what's going on here?"

Posted December 6, 2009 By Dan Kenney

Obama's Shadow Army Continues to Grow in Afghanistan

Now that it is officially Obama's war, one might say it is also Obama's privatized war. When President Obama announced his troop increase in Afghanistan on December 2nd he failed to mention the number of shadow army private military contractors that would be joining them. Even after the 30,000 soldiers arrive on the rugged terrain the total number of U.S. troops will still be less than the number of private contractors in Afghanistan.

The DoD's latest figures on contractors in the country, according to a U.S. Central command spokesperson, is a staggering104,000, an increase of 30,000 over the figure released by the DoD in June of 2009. This amount is also expected to rise as additional U.S. soldiers are deployed. "There will definitely be an increase in the number of contractors," stated David Berteau, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (The total U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan after the 30,000 arrive will be 98,000.)

It is estimated that the largest portion of the private contractors is made up of Afghans, over 78,000. The Central command estimates there are about 16,000 third country nationals and 9,000 U.S. citizen contractors. However, the number of U.S. citizens is difficult to nail down, because the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan says it is more like 14,000.

It is estimated that between 7% and 16% are gun carrying contractors like those that work for Triple Canopy, DynCorp, and Blackwater (Also known as Xe). The privately owned Blackwater Company is under several Federal investigation and they were fired from their Iraq security contract by the U.S. State Department, due in part to a 2007 killing of 17 innocent Iraqi citizens on a Baghdad Square. The shooting was found to be unjustified and unprovoked by the U.S. Justice Department investigation. Six of the Blackwater contractors responsible for the murders are now facing voluntary manslaughter charges and are expected to go to trial in 2010. And in May of this year two Afghan civilians were killed by Xe contractors. Despite all of this Blackwater is still receiving millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars with their contract to provide security for U.S ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and his staff.

Blackwater's aviation division, Presidential Airways, is also employed in Afghanistan to airlift supplies to U.S. troops in remote outposts. It is estimated that Blackwater has made thousands of delivery runs since they were contracted for this service in 2006. The company is also responsible for training Afghan special police units.

An Army Times article entitled, "Trigger-Happy Security Complicates Convoys" points out some of the dangers caused by these private contractors operating in a war zone.

Sean Naylor reporting from Afghanistan states in the article, "Ill-disciplined private security guards (most of them Afghans) escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province, undermining the coalition counterinsurgency strategy here and leading to at least one confrontation with U.S. forces say U.S. Army officers and Afghan government officials." The report states that security guards are also responsible for killing and wounding more than 30 innocent civilians during the past four years in one district alone. The Afghan government's district chief says the men who are hired to protect convoys are heroin addicts armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

Lt. Col. Jeff French, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment and Task Force Legion told the Army Times "They'll start shooting at anything that's moving, and they will kill innocent Afghans, and they will destroy property."

Recently Hamid Karzai promised he would kick out all foreign private security firms and transfer their duties to Afghans within two years. However analysts believe he will be as powerless over these war profiteers as Iraq's Maliki was when he tried to order Blackwater out of his country in 2007.

In addition to undermining the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan the lack of knowledge about how many contractors there are and about how much they are being paid paves the way for much fraud and waste of taxpayer dollars. This fact "permits and invites waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money and undermines the achievement of U.S. mission objectives,' stated Michael Thibault, co-chair of the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting during a November Congressional hearing.

Afghanistan has become the new gold mine for the private military and security companies as they collect hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars while operating without oversight, transparency, or any consequences for their human rights violations.

It truly has become Obama's war, mercenaries and all.

Posted December 2, 2009 By Adam Ciralsky

Erik Prince Speaks Out

Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he's been playing in America's war on terror.

Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater security firm (recently renamed Xe), at the company's Virginia offices. Photograph by Nigel Parry.

Iput myself and my company at the C.I.A.'s disposal for some very risky missions," says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. "But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus." Prince?the founder of Blackwater, the world's most notorious private military contractor?is royally steamed. He wants to vent. And he wants you to hear him vent.

Erik Prince has an image problem?the kind that's impervious to a Madison Avenue makeover. The 40-year-old heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, and a former navy seal, he has had the distinction of being vilified recently both in life and in art. In Washington, Prince has become a scapegoat for some of the Bush administration's misadventures in Iraq?though Blackwater's own deeds have also come in for withering criticism. Congressmen and lawyers, human-rights groups and pundits, have described Prince as a war profiteer, one who has assembled a rogue fighting force capable of toppling governments. His employees have been repeatedly accused of using excessive, even deadly force in Iraq; many Iraqis, in fact, have died during encounters with Blackwater. And in November, as a North Carolina grand jury was considering a raft of charges against the company, as a half-dozen civil suits were brewing in Virginia, and as five former Blackwater staffers were preparing for trial for their roles in the deaths of 17 Iraqis, The New York Times reported in a page-one story that Prince's firm, in the aftermath of the tragedy, had sought to bribe Iraqi officials for their compliance, charges which Prince calls "lies ? undocumented, unsubstantiated [and] anonymous." (So infamous is the Blackwater brand that even the Taliban have floated far-fetched conspiracy theories, accusing the company of engaging in suicide bombings in Pakistan.)

In Hollywood, meanwhile, a town that loves nothing so much as a good villain, Prince, with his blond crop and Daniel Craig mien, has become the screenwriters' darling. In the film State of Play, a Blackwater clone (PointCorp.) uses its network of mercenaries for illegal surveillance and murder. On the Fox series 24, Jon Voight has played Jonas Hodges, a thinly veiled version of Prince, whose company (Starkwood) helps an African warlord procure nerve gas for use against U.S. targets.

But the truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction. For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater's C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the C.I.A.'s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into "denied areas"?places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating?to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies. Prince, according to sources with knowledge of his activities, has been working as a C.I.A. asset: in a word, as a spy. While his company was busy gleaning more than $1.5 billion in government contracts between 2001 and 2009?by acting, among other things, as an overseas Praetorian guard for C.I.A. and State Department officials?Prince became a Mr. Fix-It in the war on terror. His access to paramilitary forces, weapons, and aircraft, and his indefatigable ambition?the very attributes that have galvanized his critics?also made him extremely valuable, some say, to U.S. intelligence. (Full disclosure: In the 1990s, before becoming a journalist for CBS and then NBC News, I was a C.I.A. attorney. My contract was not renewed, under contentious circumstances.)

But Prince, with a new administration in power, and foes closing in, is finally coming in from the cold. This past fall, though he infrequently grants interviews, he decided it was time to tell his side of the story?to respond to the array of accusations, to reveal exactly what he has been doing in the shadows of the U.S. government, and to present his rationale. He also hoped to convey why he's going to walk away from it all.

To that end, he invited Vanity Fair to his training camp in North Carolina, to his Virginia offices, and to his Afghan outposts. It seemed like a propitious time to tag along.

Split Personality

Erik Prince can be a difficult man to wrap your mind around?an amalgam of contradictory caricatures. He has been branded a "Christian supremacist" who sanctions the murder of Iraqi civilians, yet he has built mosques at his overseas bases and supports a Muslim orphanage in Afghanistan. He and his family have long backed conservative causes, funded right-wing political candidates, and befriended evangelicals, but he calls himself a libertarian and is a practicing Roman Catholic. Sometimes considered arrogant and reclusive?Howard Hughes without the O.C.D.?he nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling.

The common denominator is a relentless intensity that seems to have no Off switch. Seated in the back of a Boeing 777 en route to Afghanistan, Prince leafs through Defense News while the film Taken beams from the in-flight entertainment system. In the movie, Liam Neeson plays a retired C.I.A. officer who mounts an aggressive rescue effort after his daughter is kidnapped in Paris. Neeson's character warns his daughter's captors:

If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills ? skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you [don't] let my daughter go now ? I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Prince comments, "I used that movie as a teaching tool for my girls." (The father of seven, Prince remarried after his first wife died of cancer in 2003.) "I wanted them to understand the dangers out there. And I wanted them to know how I would respond."

You can't escape the impression that Prince sees himself as somehow destined, his mission anointed. It comes out even in the most personal of stories. During the flight, he tells of being in Kabul in September 2008 and receiving a two a.m. call from his wife, Joanna. Prince's son Charlie, one year old at the time, had fallen into the family swimming pool. Charlie's brother Christian, then 12, pulled him out of the water, purple and motionless, and successfully performed CPR. Christian and three siblings, it turns out, had recently received Red Cross certification at the Blackwater training camp.

But there are intimations of a higher power at work as the story continues. Desperate to get home, Prince scrapped one itinerary, which called for a stay-over at the Marriott in Islamabad, and found a direct flight. That night, at the time Prince would have been checking in, terrorists struck the hotel with a truck bomb, killing more than 50. Prince says simply, "Christian saved Charlie's life and Charlie saved mine." At times, his sense of his own place in history can border on the evangelical. When pressed about suggestions that he's a mercenary?a term he loathes?he rattles off the names of other freelance military figures, even citing Lafayette, the colonists' ally during the Revolutionary War.

Prince's default mode is one of readiness. He is clenched-jawed and tightly wound. He cannot stand down. Waiting in the security line at Dulles airport just hours before, Prince had delivered a little homily: "Every time an American goes through security, I want them to pause for a moment and think, What is my government doing to inconvenience the terrorists? Rendition teams, Predator drones, assassination squads. That's all part of it."

Such brazenness is not lost on a listener, nor is the fact that Prince himself is quite familiar with some of these tactics. In fact Prince, like other contractors, has drawn fire for running a company that some call a "body shop"?many of its staffers having departed military or intelligence posts to take similar jobs at much higher salaries, paid mainly by Uncle Sam. And to get those jobs done?protecting, defending, and killing, if required?Prince has had to employ the services of some decorated vets as well as some ruthless types, snipers and spies among them.

Erik Prince flies coach internationally. It's not just economical ("Why should I pay for business? Fly coach, you arrive at the same time") but also less likely to draw undue attention. He considers himself a marked man. Prince describes the diplomats and dignitaries Blackwater protects as "Al Jazeera?worthy," meaning that, in his view, "bin Laden and his acolytes would love to kill them in a spectacular fashion and have it broadcast on televisions worldwide."

Stepping off the plane at Kabul's international airport, Prince is treated as if he, too, were Al Jazeera?worthy. He is immediately shuffled into a waiting car and driven 50 yards to a second vehicle, a beat-up minivan that is native to the core: animal pelts on the dashboard, prayer card dangling from the rearview mirror. Blackwater's special-projects team is responsible for Prince's security in-country, and except for their language its men appear indistinguishable from Afghans. They have full beards, headscarves, and traditional knee-length shirts over baggy trousers. They remove Prince's sunglasses, fit him out with body armor, and have him change into Afghan garb. Prince is issued a homing beacon that will track his movements, and a cell phone with its speed dial programmed for Blackwater's tactical-operations center.

Once in the van, Prince's team gives him a security briefing. Using satellite photos of the area, they review the route to Blackwater's compound and point out where weapons and ammunition are stored inside the vehicle. The men warn him that in the event that they are incapacitated or killed in an ambush Prince should assume control of the weapons and push the red button near the emergency brake, which will send out a silent alarm and call in reinforcements.

Black Hawks and Zeppelins

Blackwater's origins were humble, bordering on the primordial. The company took form in the dismal peat bogs of Moyock, North Carolina?not exactly a hotbed of the defense-contracting world.

In 1995, Prince's father, Edgar, died of a heart attack (the Evangelical James C. Dobson, founder of the socially conservative Focus on the Family, delivered the eulogy at the funeral). Edgar Prince left behind a vibrant auto-parts manufacturing business in Holland, Michigan, with 4,500 employees and a line of products ranging from a lighted sun visor to a programmable garage-door opener. At the time, 25-year-old Erik was serving as a navy seal (he saw service in Haiti, the Middle East, and Bosnia), and neither he nor his sisters were in a position to take over the business. They sold Prince Automotive for $1.35 billion.

Erik Prince and some of his navy friends, it so happens, had been kicking around the idea of opening a full-service training compound to replace the usual patchwork of such facilities. In 1996, Prince took an honorable discharge and began buying up land in North Carolina. "The idea was not to be a defense contractor per se," Prince says, touring the grounds of what looks and feels like a Disneyland for alpha males. "I just wanted a first-rate training facility for law enforcement, the military, and, in particular, the special-operations community."

Business was slow. The navy seals came early?January 1998?but they didn't come often, and by the time the Blackwater Lodge and Training Center officially opened, that May, Prince's friends and advisers thought he was throwing good money after bad. "A lot of people said, 'This is a rich kid's hunting lodge,'" Prince explains. "They could not figure out what I was doing."

Today, the site is the flagship for a network of facilities that train some 30,000 attendees a year. Prince, who owns an unmanned, zeppelin-esque airship and spent $45 million to build a fleet of customized, bomb-proof armored personnel carriers, often commutes to the lodge by air, piloting a Cessna Caravan from his home in Virginia. The training center has a private landing strip. Its hangars shelter a petting zoo of aircraft: Bell 412 helicopters (used to tail or shuttle diplomats in Iraq), Black Hawk helicopters (currently being modified to accommodate the security requests of a Gulf State client), a Dash 8 airplane (the type that ferries troops in Afghanistan). Amid the 52 firing ranges are virtual villages designed for addressing every conceivable real-world threat: small town squares, littered with blown-up cars, are situated near railway crossings and maritime mock-ups. At one junction, swat teams fire handguns, sniper rifles, and shotguns; at another, police officers tear around the world's longest tactical-driving track, dodging simulated roadside bombs.

In keeping with the company's original name, the central complex, constructed of stone, glass, concrete, and logs, actually resembles a lodge, an REI store on steroids. Here and there are distinctive touches, such as door handles crafted from imitation gun barrels. Where other companies might have Us Weekly lying about the lobby, Blackwater has counterterror magazines with cover stories such as "How to Destroy Al Qaeda."

In fact, it was al-Qaeda that put Blackwater on the map. In the aftermath of the group's October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, in Yemen, the navy turned to Prince, among others, for help in re-training its sailors to fend off attackers at close range. (To date, the company says, it has put some 125,000 navy personnel through its programs.) In addition to providing a cash infusion, the navy contract helped Blackwater build a database of retired military men?many of them special-forces veterans?who could be called upon to serve as instructors.

When al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. mainland on 9/11, Prince says, he was struck with the urge to either re-enlist or join the C.I.A. He says he actually applied. "I was rejected," he admits, grinning at the irony of courting the very agency that would later woo him. "They said I didn't have enough hard skills, enough time in the field." Undeterred, he decided to turn his Rolodex into a roll call for what would in essence become a private army.

After the terror attacks, Prince's company toiled, even reveled, in relative obscurity, taking on assignments in Afghanistan and, after the U.S. invasion, in Iraq. Then came March 31, 2004. That was the day insurgents ambushed four of its employees in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. The men were shot, their bodies set on fire by a mob. The charred, hacked-up remains of two of them were left hanging from a bridge over the Euphrates.

"It was absolutely gut-wrenching," Prince recalls. "I had been in the military, and no one under my command had ever died. At Blackwater, we had never even had a firearms training accident. Now all of a sudden four of my guys aren't just killed, but desecrated." Three months later an edict from coalition authorities in Baghdad declared private contractors immune from Iraqi law.

Subsequently, the contractors' families sued Blackwater, contending the company had failed to protect their loved ones. Blackwater countersued the families for breaching contracts that forbid the men or their estates from filing such lawsuits; the company also claimed that, because it operates as an extension of the military, it cannot be held responsible for deaths in a war zone. (After five years, the case remains unresolved.) In 2007, a congressional investigation into the incident concluded that the employees had been sent into an insurgent stronghold "without sufficient preparation, resources, and support." Blackwater called the report a "one-sided" version of a "tragic incident."

After Fallujah, Blackwater became a household name. Its primary mission in Iraq had been to protect American dignitaries, and it did so, in part, by projecting an image of invincibility, sending heavily armed men in armored Suburbans racing through the streets of Baghdad with sirens blaring. The show of swagger and firepower, which alienated both the locals and the U.S. military, helped contribute to the allegations of excessive force. As the war dragged on, charges against the firm mounted. In one case, a contractor shot and killed an Iraqi father of six who was standing along the roadside in Hillah. (Prince later told Congress that the contractor was fired for trying to cover up the incident.) In another, a Blackwater firearms technician was accused of drinking too much at a party in the Green Zone and killing a bodyguard assigned to protect Iraq's vice president. The technician was fired but not prosecuted and later settled a wrongful-death suit with the man's family.

Those episodes, however, paled in comparison with the events of September 16, 2007, when a phalanx of Blackwater bodyguards emerged from their four-car convoy at a Baghdad intersection called Nisour Square and opened fire. When the smoke cleared, 17 Iraqi civilians lay dead. After 15 months of investigation, the Justice Department charged six with voluntary manslaughter and other offenses, insisting that the use of force was not only unjustified but unprovoked. One guard pleaded guilty and, in a trial set for February, is expected to testify against the others, all of whom maintain their innocence. The New York Times recently reported that in the wake of the shootings the company's top executives authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi higher-ups in order to buy their silence?a claim Prince dismisses as "false," insisting "[there was] zero plan or discussion of bribing any officials."

Nisour Square had disastrous repercussions for Blackwater. Its role in Iraq was curtailed, its revenue dropping 40 percent. Today, Prince claims, he is shelling out $2 million a month in legal fees to cope with a spate of civil lawsuits as well as what he calls a "giant proctological exam" by nearly a dozen federal agencies. "We used to spend money on R&D to develop better capabilities to serve the U.S. government," says Prince. "Now we pay lawyers."

Does he ever. In North Carolina, a federal grand jury is investigating various allegations, including the illegal transport of assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in dog-food sacks. (Blackwater denied this, but confirmed hiding weapons on pallets of dog food to protect against theft by "corrupt foreign customs agents.") In Virginia, two ex-employees have filed affidavits claiming that Prince and Blackwater may have murdered or ordered the murder of people suspected of cooperating with U.S. authorities investigating the company?charges which Blackwater has characterized as "scandalous and baseless." One of the men also asserted in filings that company employees ran a sex and wife-swapping ring, allegations which Blackwater has called "anonymous, unsubstantiated and offensive."

Meanwhile, last February, Prince mounted an expensive rebranding campaign. Following the infamous ValuJet crash, in 1996, ValuJet disappeared into AirTran, after a merger, and moved on to a happy new life. Prince, likewise, decided to retire the Blackwater name and replace it with the name Xe, short for Xenon?an inert, non-combustible gas that, in keeping with his political leanings, sits on the far right of the periodic table. Still, Prince and other top company officials continued to use the name Blackwater among themselves. And as events would soon prove, the company's reputation would remain as combustible as ever.

Spies and Whispers

Last June, C.I.A. director Leon Panetta met in a closed session with the House and Senate intelligence committees to brief them on a covert-action program, which the agency had long concealed from Congress. Panetta explained that he had learned of the existence of the operation only the day before and had promptly shut it down. The reason, C.I.A. spokesman Paul Gimigliano now explains: "It hadn't taken any terrorists off the street." During the meeting, according to two attendees, Panetta named both Erik Prince and Blackwater as key participants in the program. (When asked to verify this account, Gimigliano notes that "Director Panetta treats as confidential discussions with Congress that take place behind closed doors.") Soon thereafter, Prince says, he began fielding inquisitive calls from people he characterizes as far outside the circle of trust.

It took three weeks for details, however sketchy, to surface. In July, The Wall Street Journal described the program as "an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives." The agency reportedly planned to accomplish this task by dispatching small hit teams overseas. Lawmakers, who couldn't exactly quibble with the mission's objective, were in high dudgeon over having been kept in the dark. (Former C.I.A. officials reportedly saw the matter differently, characterizing the program as "more aspirational than operational" and implying that it had never progressed far enough to justify briefing the Hill.)

On August 20, the gloves came off. The New York Times published a story headlined cia sought blackwater's help to kill jihadists. The Washington Post concurred: cia hired firm for assassin program. Prince confesses to feeling betrayed. "I don't understand how a program this sensitive leaks," he says. "And to 'out' me on top of it?" The next day, the Times went further, revealing Blackwater's role in the use of aerial drones to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders: "At hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan ? the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency."

Erik Prince, almost overnight, had undergone a second rebranding of sorts, this one not of his own making. The war profiteer had become a merchant of death, with a license to kill on the ground and in the air. "I'm an easy target," he says. "I'm from a Republican family and I own this company outright. Our competitors have nameless, faceless management teams."

Prince blames Democrats in Congress for the leaks and maintains that there is a double standard at play. "The left complained about how [C.I.A. operative] Valerie Plame's identity was compromised for political reasons. A special prosecutor [was even] appointed. Well, what happened to me was worse. People acting for political reasons disclosed not only the existence of a very sensitive program but my name along with it." As in the Plame case, though, the leaks prompted C.I.A. attorneys to send a referral to the Justice Department, requesting that a criminal investigation be undertaken to identify those responsible for providing highly classified information to the media.

By focusing so intently on Blackwater, Congress and the press overlooked the elephant in the room. Prince wasn't merely a contractor; he was, insiders say, a full-blown asset. Three sources with direct knowledge of the relationship say that the C.I.A.'s National Resources Division recruited Prince in 2004 to join a secret network of American citizens with special skills or unusual access to targets of interest. As assets go, Prince would have been quite a catch. He had more cash, transport, matériel, and personnel at his disposal than almost anyone Langley would have run in its 62-year history.

The C.I.A. won't comment further on such assertions, but Prince himself is slightly more forthcoming. "I was looking at creating a small, focused capability," he says, "just like Donovan did years ago"?the reference being to William "Wild Bill" Donovan, who, in World War II, served as the head of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the modern C.I.A. (Prince's youngest son, Charles Donovan?the one who fell into the pool?is named after Wild Bill.) Two sources familiar with the arrangement say that Prince's handlers obtained provisional operational approval from senior management to recruit Prince and later generated a "201 file," which would have put him on the agency's books as a vetted asset. It's not at all clear who was running whom, since Prince says that, unlike many other assets, he did much of his work on spec, claiming to have used personal funds to road-test the viability of certain operations. "I grew up around the auto industry," Prince explains. "Customers would say to my dad, 'We have this need.' He would then use his own money to create prototypes to fulfill those needs. He took the 'If you build it, they will come' approach."

According to two sources familiar with his work, Prince was developing unconventional means of penetrating "hard target" countries?where the C.I.A. has great difficulty working either because there are no stations from which to operate or because local intelligence services have the wherewithal to frustrate the agency's designs. "I made no money whatsoever off this work," Prince contends. He is unwilling to specify the exact nature of his forays. "I'm painted as this war profiteer by Congress. Meanwhile I'm paying for all sorts of intelligence activities to support American national security, out of my own pocket." (His pocket is deep: according to The Wall Street Journal, Blackwater had revenues of more than $600 million in 2008.)

Clutch Cargo

The Afghan countryside, from a speeding perch at 200 knots, whizzes by in a khaki haze. The terrain is rendered all the more nondescript by the fact that Erik Prince is riding less than 200 feet above it. The back of the airplane, a small, Spanish-built eads casa C-212, is open, revealing Prince in silhouette against a blue sky. Wearing Oakleys, tactical pants, and a white polo shirt, he looks strikingly boyish.

A Blackwater aircraft en route to drop supplies to U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan in September. Photograph by Adam Ferguson.

As the crew chief initiates a countdown sequence, Prince adjusts his harness and moves into position. When the "go" order comes, a young G.I. beside him cuts a tether, and Prince pushes a pallet out the tail chute. Black parachutes deploy and the aircraft lunges forward from the sudden weight differential. The cargo?provisions and munitions?drops inside the perimeter of a forward operating base (fob) belonging to an elite Special Forces squad.

Five days a week, Blackwater's aviation arm?with its unabashedly 60s-spook name, Presidential Airways?flies low-altitude sorties to some of the most remote outposts in Afghanistan. Since 2006, Prince's company has been conscripted to offer this "turnkey" service for U.S. troops, flying thousands of delivery runs. Blackwater also provides security for U.S. ambassador Karl Eikenberry and his staff, and trains narcotics and Afghan special police units.

Once back on terra firma, Prince, a BlackBerry on one hip and a 9-mm. on the other, does a sweep around one of Blackwater's bases in northeast Afghanistan, pointing out buildings recently hit by mortar fire. As a drone circles overhead, its camera presumably trained on the surroundings, Prince climbs a guard tower and peers down at a spot where two of his contractors were nearly killed last July by an improvised explosive device. "Not counting civilian checkpoints," he says, "this is the closest base to the [Pakistani] border." His voice takes on a melodramatic solemnity. "Who else has built a fob along the main infiltration route for the Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?" It doesn't quite have the ring of Lawrence of Arabia's "To Aqaba!," but you get the picture.

Going "Low-Pro"

Blackwater has been in Afghanistan since 2002. At the time, the C.I.A.'s executive director, A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, responding to his operatives' complaints of being "worried sick about the Afghans' coming over the fence or opening the doors," enlisted the company to offer protection for the agency's Kabul station. Going "low-pro," or low-profile, paid off: not a single C.I.A. employee, according to sources close to the company, died in Afghanistan while under Blackwater's protection. (Talk about a tight-knit bunch. Krongard would later serve as an unpaid adviser to Blackwater's board, until 2007. And his brother Howard "Cookie" Krongard?the State Department's inspector general?had to recuse himself from Blackwater-related oversight matters after his brother's involvement with the company surfaced. Buzzy, in response, stepped down.)

As the agency's confidence in Blackwater grew, so did the company's responsibilities, expanding from static protection to mobile security?shadowing agency personnel, ever wary of suicide bombers, ambushes, and roadside devices, as they moved about the country. By 2005, Blackwater, accustomed to guarding C.I.A. personnel, was starting to look a little bit like the C.I.A. itself. Enrique "Ric" Prado joined Blackwater after serving as chief of operations for the agency's Counterterrorism Center (CTC). A short time later, Prado's boss, J. Cofer Black, the head of the CTC, moved over to Blackwater, too. He was followed, in turn, by his superior, Rob Richer, second-in-command of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service. Of the three, Cofer Black had the outsize reputation. As Bob Woodward recounted in his book Bush at War, on September 13, 2001, Black had promised President Bush that when the C.I.A. was through with al-Qaeda "they will have flies walking across their eyeballs." According to Woodward, "Black became known in Bush's inner circle as the 'flies-on-the-eyeballs guy.'" Richer and Black soon helped start a new company, Total Intelligence Solutions (which collects data to help businesses assess risks overseas), but in 2008 both men left Blackwater, as did company president Gary Jackson this year.

Off and on, Black and Richer's onetime partner Ric Prado, first with the C.I.A., then as a Blackwater employee, worked quietly with Prince as his vice president of "special programs" to provide the agency with what every intelligence service wants: plausible deniability. Shortly after 9/11, President Bush had issued a "lethal finding," giving the C.I.A. the go-ahead to kill or capture al-Qaeda members. (Under an executive order issued by President Gerald Ford, it had been illegal since 1976 for U.S. intelligence operatives to conduct assassinations.) As a seasoned case officer, Prado helped implement the order by putting together a small team of "blue-badgers," as government agents are known. Their job was threefold: find, fix, and finish. Find the designated target, fix the person's routine, and, if necessary, finish him off. When the time came to train the hit squad, the agency, insiders say, turned to Prince. Wary of attracting undue attention, the team practiced not at the company's North Carolina compound but at Prince's own domain, an hour outside Washington, D.C. The property looks like an outpost of the landed gentry, with pastures and horses, but also features less traditional accents, such as an indoor firing range. Once again, Prince has Wild Bill on his mind, observing that "the O.S.S. trained during World War II on a country estate."

Among the team's targets, according to a source familiar with the program, was Mamoun Darkazanli, an al-Qaeda financier living in Hamburg who had been on the agency's radar for years because of his ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to operatives convicted of the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa. The C.I.A. team supposedly went in "dark," meaning they did not notify their own station?much less the German government?of their presence; they then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down. Another target, the source says, was A. Q. Khan, the rogue Pakistani scientist who shared nuclear know-how with Iran, Libya, and North Korea. The C.I.A. team supposedly tracked him in Dubai. In both cases, the source insists, the authorities in Washington chose not to pull the trigger. Khan's inclusion on the target list, however, would suggest that the assassination effort was broader than has previously been acknowledged. (Says agency spokesman Gimigliano, "[The] C.I.A. hasn't discussed?despite some mischaracterizations that have appeared in the public domain?the substance of this effort or earlier ones.")

The source familiar with the Darkazanli and Khan missions bristles at public comments that current and former C.I.A. officials have made: "They say the program didn't move forward because [they] didn't have the right skill set or because of inadequate cover. That's untrue. [The operation continued] for a very long time in some places without ever being discovered. This program died because of a lack of political will."

When Prado left the C.I.A., in 2004, he effectively took the program with him, after a short hiatus. By that point, according to sources familiar with the plan, Prince was already an agency asset, and the pair had begun working to privatize matters by changing the team's composition from blue-badgers to a combination of "green-badgers" (C.I.A. contractors) and third-country nationals (unaware of the C.I.A. connection). Blackwater officials insist that company resources and manpower were never directly utilized?these were supposedly off-the-books initiatives done on Prince's own dime, for which he was later reimbursed?and that despite their close ties to the C.I.A. neither Cofer Black nor Rob Richer took part. As Prince puts it, "We were building a unilateral, unattributable capability. If it went bad, we weren't expecting the chief of station, the ambassador, or anyone to bail us out." He insists that, had the team deployed, the agency would have had full operational control. Instead, due to what he calls "institutional osteoporosis," the second iteration of the assassination program lost steam.

Sometime after 2006, the C.I.A. would take another shot at the program, according to an insider who was familiar with the plan. "Everyone found some reason not to participate," says the insider. "There was a sick-out. People would say to management, 'I have a family, I have other obligations.' This is the fucking C.I.A. They were supposed to lead the charge after al-Qaeda and they couldn't find the people to do it." Others with knowledge of the program are far more charitable and question why any right-thinking officer would sign up for an assassination program at a time when their colleagues?who had thought they had legal cover to engage in another sensitive effort, the "enhanced interrogations" program at secret C.I.A. sites in foreign countries?were finding themselves in legal limbo.

America and Erik Prince, it seems, have been slow to extract themselves from the assassination business. Beyond the killer drones flown with Blackwater's help along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border (President Obama has reportedly authorized more than three dozen such hits), Prince claims he and a team of foreign nationals helped find and fix a target in October 2008, then left the finishing to others. "In Syria," he says, "we did the signals intelligence to geo-locate the bad guys in a very denied area." Subsequently, a U.S. Special Forces team launched a helicopter-borne assault to hunt down al-Qaeda middleman Abu Ghadiyah. Ghadiyah, whose real name is Badran Turki Hishan Al-Mazidih, was said to have been killed along with six others?though doubts have emerged about whether Ghadiyah was even there that day, as detailed in a recent Vanity Fair Web story by Reese Ehrlich and Peter Coyote.

And up until two months ago?when Prince says the Obama administration pulled the plug?he was still deeply engaged in the dark arts. According to insiders, he was running intelligence-gathering operations from a secret location in the United States, remotely coordinating the movements of spies working undercover in one of the so-called Axis of Evil countries. Their mission: non-disclosable.

Exit Strategy

Flying out of Kabul, Prince does a slow burn, returning to the topic of how exposed he has felt since press accounts revealed his role in the assassination program. The firestorm that began in August has continued to smolder and may indeed have his handlers wondering whether Prince himself is more of a liability than an asset. He says he can't understand why they would shut down certain high-risk, high-payoff collection efforts against some of America's most implacable enemies for fear that his involvement could, given the political climate, result in their compromise.

He is incredulous that U.S. officials seem willing, in effect, to cut off their nose to spite their face. "I've been overtly and covertly serving America since I started in the armed services," Prince observes. After 12 years building the company, he says he intends to turn it over to its employees and a board, and exit defense contracting altogether. An internal power struggle is said to be under way among those seeking to define the direction and underlying mission of a post-Prince Blackwater.

He insists, simply, "I'm through."

In the past, Prince has entertained the idea of building a pre-positioning ship?complete with security personnel, doctors, helicopters, medicine, food, and fuel?and stationing it off the coast of Africa to provide "relief with teeth" to the continent's trouble spots or to curb piracy off Somalia. At one point, he considered creating a rapidly deployable brigade that could be farmed out, for a fee, to a foreign government.

For the time being, however, Prince contends that his plans are far more modest. "I'm going to teach high school," he says, straight-faced. "History and economics. I may even coach wrestling. Hey, Indiana Jones taught school, too."

Posted November 27, 2009 by Jeremy Scahill

Why Is the State Department Speaking for JSOC?

Interesting chain of command issues seem to be emerging in the official "denials" being offered about my story in The Nation magazine on Blackwater and the Joint Special Operations Command operations in Pakistan. A few hours before the piece was published, I received a call - unprompted - from the office of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I had not called them. The representative that called would not officially - named and on-the-record - deny the story. Instead, I was offered a comprehensive denial from a "defense official" on "background." The DoD spokesman Geoff Morell was asked about it on Tuesday. He said the appropriate agency to address this was the State Department, but he did characterize the story as "conspiratorial":

REPORTER: Thank you for taking the question. Does the Pentagon have any comment on a report in The Nation today that, puts Blackwater, now Xe Services, firmly at the center of a covert operation in Karachi in Pakistan, from an anonymous source within the military. And my question is -

MR. MORRELL: Yes, I - I -

REPORTER: The question is, you keep denying covert operations in Pakistan, but isn't this yet more evidence of one?

MR. MORRELL: Okay, the best person to address this would be the State Department spokesman, who has already put out a statement, or a correction, basically saying these accusations are entirely false. Okay? But I - for more clarity and more specificity, I urge you to talk to them. As for what we are doing in Afghanistan - or in Pakistan, rather, I think we have been incredibly forthright about this. And we have basically, I think, a few dozen forces on the ground in Pakistan who are involved in a train-the-trainer mission. These are Special Operations Forces. We've been very candid about this. They are - they have been for months, if not years now, training Pakistani forces so that they can in turn train other Pakistani military on how to - on certain skills and operational techniques. And that's the extent of our - our, you know, military boots on the ground in Pakistan. Despite whatever conspiratorial theories that, you know, magazines or broadcast outlets may want to cook up, there is nothing to it. And obviously, we've also made it perfectly clear that we are willing and able and happy to help the Pakistani military in any other ways that they may see fit. But at this point, that's the extent to which they would like our help, in terms of American boots on the ground. And so we are totally respectful of that. And that's what it's limited to at this point. Since when is the State Department spokesman the official spokesperson for JSOC? Since when is the DoS the appropriate party to address allegations regarding US military operations? Nonetheless, the State Department spokesperson, Ian Kelly, was asked about it in the first question at his briefing Tuesday:

REPORTER: Do you have any response to the report in The Nation regarding what it says was a joint operation between the Joint Special Operations Command in Pakistan and Xe Services, nee Blackwater?

MR. KELLY: I do not. I have not seen this article.

REPORTER: So you have no response to that?

MR. KELLY: Well, I don't know. I'm sorry, you've ? I just am not aware of this article. We'll look at it and we'll see if we can get a response for you. On Wednesday, the US embassy in Islamabad issued a "correction" saying that the report was "completely false":

There is no secret operating base in Karachi or anywhere else in Pakistan being run, occupied, or otherwise operated by U.S. military personnel of any command or organization. The article's assertions about U.S. government collusion with Blackwater or any other contracting firm are equally baseless and false.

"U.S. government programs for Pakistan are open and transparent and function in partnership with the Government of Pakistan," said Ambassador Anne W. Patterson. "U.S. personnel and programs in Pakistan have only one purpose - to assist the government and people of Pakistan as they face the complex challenges confronting their nation."

The way in which the US military and the Administration have chosen to "deny" this story raises several issues, but chief among them is this: Why is the US embassy in Islamabad now the appropriate source to confirm or deny clandestine military operations that are coordinated out of a task force in Afghanistan? Moreover, as Col. Lawrence Wilkerson stated clearly in The Nation story, going back years, these JSOC missions were done without the knowledge of the US ambassadors in the countries where they operate and were done outside the traditional military chain of command.

Posted November 24, 2009 By Examiner

President Obama secretly allowing combat operations in Uzbekistan, Blackwater involved

Jeremy Scahill has written an article for the Nation magazine http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill called, Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan. It sources are multiple and Mr. Scahill has good reputation for checking out the validity of the sources he uses. There are many eye opening items but one of the most significant is that the United States is allegedly using a company formerly known as Blackwater to help out combat operations in the country of Uzbekistan. It's bad enough that the president is still allegedly allowing the employment of a company called Blackwater under a new name but this is kind of like the secret bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war where the president at that time knew of and authorized "illegal" bombing in that country.

There are 2 major scenarios: 1.) President Obama is knowingly allowing illegal acts to take place with this company and with the military entity known as the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) because Congress is not being told the truth and because the president is being intimidated with high ranking members of the military or 2.) The president has lost of effective control over certain important operations in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Posted November 23, 2009 By Jeremy Scahill

Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.

Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."

"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."

The Counterterrorism Tag Team in Karachi

The covert JSOC program with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007, according to the military intelligence source. The current head of JSOC is Vice Adm. William McRaven, who took over the post from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC from 2003 to 2008 before being named the top US commander in Afghanistan. Blackwater's presence in Pakistan is "not really visible, and that's why nobody has cracked down on it," said the source. Blackwater's operations in Pakistan, he said, are not done through State Department contracts or publicly identified Defense contracts. "It's Blackwater via JSOC, and it's a classified no-bid [contract] approved on a rolling basis." The main JSOC/Blackwater facility in Karachi, according to the source, is nondescript: three trailers with various generators, satellite phones and computer systems are used as a makeshift operations center. "It's a very rudimentary operation," says the source. "I would compare it to [CIA] outposts in Kurdistan or any of the Special Forces outposts. It's very bare bones, and that's the point."

Blackwater's work for JSOC in Karachi is coordinated out of a Task Force based at Bagram Air Base in neighboring Afghanistan, according to the military intelligence source. While JSOC technically runs the operations in Karachi, he said, it is largely staffed by former US special operations soldiers working for a division of Blackwater, once known as Blackwater SELECT, and intelligence analysts working for a Blackwater affiliate, Total Intelligence Solutions (TIS), which is owned by Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince. The military source said that the name Blackwater SELECT may have been changed recently. Total Intelligence, which is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia, is staffed by former analysts and operatives from the CIA, DIA, FBI and other agencies. It is modeled after the CIA's counterterrorism center. In Karachi, TIS runs a "media-scouring/open-source network," according to the source. Until recently, Total Intelligence was run by two former top CIA officials, Cofer Black and Robert Richer, both of whom have left the company. In Pakistan, Blackwater is not using either its original name or its new moniker, Xe Services, according to the former Blackwater executive. "They are running most of their work through TIS because the other two [names] have such a stain on them," he said. Corallo, the Blackwater spokesperson, denied that TIS or any other division or affiliate of Blackwater has any personnel in Pakistan.

The US military intelligence source said that Blackwater's classified contracts keep getting renewed at the request of JSOC. Blackwater, he said, is already so deeply entrenched that it has become a staple of the US military operations in Pakistan. According to the former Blackwater executive, "The politics that go with the brand of BW is somewhat set aside because what you're doing is really one military guy to another." Blackwater's first known contract with the CIA for operations in Afghanistan was awarded in 2002 and was for work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified "black" operations. "With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above 'secret'--even though you have no business doing so," said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that "do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust," he added. "Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That's exactly what it is: a circle of love." Blackwater, therefore, has access to "all source" reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. "That's how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors," said the source. "We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don't unless they ask."

According to the source, Blackwater has effectively marketed itself as a company whose operatives have "conducted lethal direct action missions and now, for a price, you can have your own planning cell. JSOC just ate that up," he said, adding, "They have a sizable force in Pakistan--not for any nefarious purpose if you really want to look at it that way--but to support a legitimate contract that's classified for JSOC." Blackwater's Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said. The source is not sure when the arrangement with JSOC began, but he says that a spin-off of Blackwater SELECT "was issued a no-bid contract for support to shooters for a JSOC Task Force and they kept extending it." Some of the Blackwater personnel, he said, work undercover as aid workers. "Nobody even gives them a second thought."

The military intelligence source said that the Blackwater/JSOC Karachi operation is referred to as "Qatar cubed," in reference to the US forward operating base in Qatar that served as the hub for the planning and implementation of the US invasion of Iraq. "This is supposed to be the brave new world," he says. "This is the Jamestown of the new millennium and it's meant to be a lily pad. You can jump off to Uzbekistan, you can jump back over the border, you can jump sideways, you can jump northwest. It's strategically located so that they can get their people wherever they have to without having to wrangle with the military chain of command in Afghanistan, which is convoluted. They don't have to deal with that because they're operating under a classified mandate."

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. "That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don't know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan," he said. "So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?"

Pakistan's Military Contracting Maze

Blackwater, according to the military intelligence source, is not doing the actual killing as part of its work in Pakistan. "The SELECT personnel are not going into places with private aircraft and going after targets," he said. "It's not like Blackwater SELECT people are running around assassinating people." Instead, US Special Forces teams carry out the plans developed in part by Blackwater. The military intelligence source drew a distinction between the Blackwater operatives who work for the State Department, which he calls "Blackwater Vanilla," and the seasoned Special Forces veterans who work on the JSOC program. "Good or bad, there's a small number of people who know how to pull off an operation like that. That's probably a good thing," said the source. "It's the Blackwater SELECT people that have and continue to plan these types of operations because they're the only people that know how and they went where the money was. It's not trigger-happy fucks, like some of the PSD [Personal Security Detail] guys. These are not people that believe that Barack Obama is a socialist, these are not people that kill innocent civilians. They're very good at what they do."

The former Blackwater executive, when asked for confirmation that Blackwater forces were not actively killing people in Pakistan, said, "that's not entirely accurate." While he concurred with the military intelligence source's description of the JSOC and CIA programs, he pointed to another role Blackwater is allegedly playing in Pakistan, not for the US government but for Islamabad. According to the executive, Blackwater works on a subcontract for Kestral Logistics, a powerful Pakistani firm, which specializes in military logistical support, private security and intelligence consulting. It is staffed with former high-ranking Pakistani army and government officials. While Kestral's main offices are in Pakistan, it also has branches in several other countries.

A spokesperson for the US State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to US corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny for The Nation that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. "We cannot help you," said department spokesperson David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. "You'll have to contact the companies directly." Blackwater's Corallo said the company has "no operations of any kind" in Pakistan other than the one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to inquiries from The Nation.

According to federal lobbying records, Kestral recently hired former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, to lobby the US government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues "regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States." Noriega was hired through his firm, Vision Americas, which he runs with Christina Rocca, a former CIA operations official who served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 2001 to 2006 and was deeply involved in shaping US policy toward Pakistan. In October 2009, Kestral paid Vision Americas $15,000 and paid a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., an equal amount to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues.

For years, Kestral has done a robust business in defense logistics with the Pakistani government and other nations, as well as top US defense companies. Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive. "Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship," he said. "They've met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for one another." Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater, according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route for the US military in Afghanistan.

According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also integrate with Kestral's forces in sensitive counterterrorism operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry's paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as "frontier scouts"). The Blackwater personnel are technically advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets blurred in the field. Blackwater "is providing the actual guidance on how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral's folks are carrying a lot of them out, but they're having the guidance and the overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams when they're executing the job," he said. "You can see how that can lead to other things in the border areas." He said that when Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. "You've got BW guys that are assisting... and they're all going to want to go on the jobs--so they're going to go with them," he said. "So, the things that you're seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military group came in and raided this house or did this or did that--in some of those cases, you're going to have Western folks that are right there at the house, if not in the house." Blackwater, he said, is paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting services. "That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say, 'Hey, no, we don't have any Westerners doing this. It's all local and our people are doing it.' But it gets them the expertise that Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work."

The military intelligence source confirmed Blackwater works with the Frontier Corps, saying, "There's no real oversight. It's not really on people's radar screen."

In October, in response to Pakistani news reports that a Kestral warehouse in Islamabad was being used to store heavy weapons for Blackwater, the US Embassy in Pakistan released a statement denying the weapons were being used by "a private American security contractor." The statement said, "Kestral Logistics is a private logistics company that handles the importation of equipment and supplies provided by the United States to the Government of Pakistan. All of the equipment and supplies were imported at the request of the Government of Pakistan, which also certified the shipments."

Who is Behind the Drone Attacks?

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths. A drone attack in June killed as many as sixty people attending a Taliban funeral.

In August, the New York Times reported that Blackwater works for the CIA at "hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft." In February, The Times of London obtained a satellite image of a secret CIA airbase in Shamsi, in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, showing three drone aircraft. The New York Times also reported that the agency uses a secret base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to strike in Pakistan.

The military intelligence source says that the drone strike that reportedly killed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, his wife and his bodyguards in Waziristan in August was a CIA strike, but that many others attributed in media reports to the CIA are actually JSOC strikes. "Some of these strikes are attributed to OGA [Other Government Agency, intelligence parlance for the CIA], but in reality it's JSOC and their parallel program of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] because they also have access to UAVs. So when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes." The Pentagon has stated bluntly, "There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan."

The military intelligence source also confirmed that Blackwater continues to work for the CIA on its drone bombing program in Pakistan, as previously reported in the New York Times, but added that Blackwater is working on JSOC's drone bombings as well. "It's Blackwater running the program for both CIA and JSOC," said the source. When civilians are killed, "people go, 'Oh, it's the CIA doing crazy shit again unchecked.' Well, at least 50 percent of the time, that's JSOC [hitting] somebody they've identified through HUMINT [human intelligence] or they've culled the intelligence themselves or it's been shared with them and they take that person out and that's how it works."

The military intelligence source says that the CIA operations are subject to Congressional oversight, unlike the parallel JSOC bombings. "Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that," he says. "Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality." He added, "They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"

In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drone bases, JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan, according to the military intelligence source.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a well-known Pakistani journalist who has served as a consultant for the UN and European Union in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says that the Blackwater/JSOC program raises serious questions about the norms of international relations. "The immediate question is, How do you define the active pursuit of military objectives in a country with which not only have you not declared war but that is supposedly a front-line non-NATO ally in the US struggle to contain extremist violence coming out of Afghanistan and the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan?" asks Zaidi, who is currently a columnist for The News, the biggest English-language daily in Pakistan. "Let's forget Blackwater for a second. What this is confirming is that there are US military operations in Pakistan that aren't about logistics or getting food to Bagram; that are actually about the exercise of physical violence, physical force inside of Pakistani territory."

JSOC: Rumsfeld and Cheney's Extra Special Force

Colonel Wilkerson said that he is concerned that with General McChrystal's elevation as the military commander of the Afghan war--which is increasingly seeping into Pakistan--there is a concomitant rise in JSOC's power and influence within the military structure. "I don't see how you can escape that; it's just a matter of the way the authority flows and the power flows, and it's inevitable, I think," Wilkerson told The Nation. He added, "I'm alarmed when I see execute orders and combat orders that go out saying that the supporting force is Central Command and the supported force is Special Operations Command," under which JSOC operates. "That's backward. But that's essentially what we have today."

From 2003 to 2008 McChrystal headed JSOC, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where Blackwater's 7,000-acre operating base is also situated. JSOC controls the Army's Delta Force, the Navy's SEAL Team 6, as well as the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Air Force's 24th Special Tactics Squadron. JSOC performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and special intelligence missions. Blackwater, which was founded by former Navy SEALs, employs scores of veteran Special Forces operators--which several former military officials pointed to as the basis for Blackwater's alleged contracts with JSOC.

Since 9/11, many top-level Special Forces veterans have taken up employment with private firms, where they can make more money doing the highly specialized work they did in uniform. "The Blackwater individuals have the experience. A lot of these individuals are retired military, and they've been around twenty to thirty years and have experience that the younger Green Beret guys don't," said retired Army Lieut. Col. Jeffrey Addicott, a well-connected military lawyer who served as senior legal counsel for US Army Special Forces. "They're known entities. Everybody knows who they are, what their capabilities are, and they've got the experience. They're very valuable."

"They make much more money being the smarts of these operations, planning hits in various countries and basing it off their experience in Chechnya, Bosnia, Somalia, Ethiopia," said the military intelligence source. "They were there for all of these things, they know what the hell they're talking about. And JSOC has unfortunately lost the institutional capability to plan within, so they hire back people that used to work for them and had already planned and executed these [types of] operations. They hired back people that jumped over to Blackwater SELECT and then pay them exorbitant amounts of money to plan future operations. It's a ridiculous revolving door."

While JSOC has long played a central role in US counterterrorism and covert operations, military and civilian officials who worked at the Defense and State Departments during the Bush administration described in interviews with The Nation an extremely cozy relationship that developed between the executive branch (primarily through Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) and JSOC. During the Bush era, Special Forces turned into a virtual stand-alone operation that acted outside the military chain of command and in direct coordination with the White House. Throughout the Bush years, it was largely General McChrystal who ran JSOC. "What I was seeing was the development of what I would later see in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Special Operations forces would operate in both theaters without the conventional commander even knowing what they were doing," said Colonel Wilkerson. "That's dangerous, that's very dangerous. You have all kinds of mess when you don't tell the theater commander what you're doing."

Wilkerson said that almost immediately after assuming his role at the State Department under Colin Powell, he saw JSOC being politicized and developing a close relationship with the executive branch. He saw this begin, he said, after his first Delta Force briefing at Fort Bragg. "I think Cheney and Rumsfeld went directly into JSOC. I think they went into JSOC at times, perhaps most frequently, without the SOCOM [Special Operations] commander at the time even knowing it. The receptivity in JSOC was quite good," says Wilkerson. "I think Cheney was actually giving McChrystal instructions, and McChrystal was asking him for instructions." He said the relationship between JSOC and Cheney and Rumsfeld "built up initially because Rumsfeld didn't get the responsiveness. He didn't get the can-do kind of attitude out of the SOCOM commander, and so as Rumsfeld was wont to do, he cut him out and went straight to the horse's mouth. At that point you had JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things the executive branch--read: Cheney and Rumsfeld--wanted it to do. This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it. It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier."

Wilkerson said the JSOC teams caused diplomatic problems for the United States across the globe. "When these teams started hitting capital cities and other places all around the world, [Rumsfeld] didn't tell the State Department either. The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, 'Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?' So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him--we rendered him home."

As part of their strategy, Rumsfeld and Cheney also created the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), which pulled intelligence resources from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA for use in sensitive JSOC operations. The SSB was created using "reprogrammed" funds "without explicit congressional authority or appropriation," according to the Washington Post. The SSB operated outside the military chain of command and circumvented the CIA's authority on clandestine operations. Rumsfeld created it as part of his war to end "near total dependence on CIA." Under US law, the Defense Department is required to report all deployment orders to Congress. But guidelines issued in January 2005 by former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone stated that Special Operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations...before publication" of a deployment order. This effectively gave Rumsfeld unilateral control over clandestine operations.

The military intelligence source said that when Rumsfeld was defense secretary, JSOC was deployed to commit some of the "darkest acts" in part to keep them concealed from Congress. "Everything can be justified as a military operation versus a clandestine intelligence performed by the CIA, which has to be informed to Congress," said the source. "They were aware of that and they knew that, and they would exploit it at every turn and they took full advantage of it. They knew they could act extra-legally and nothing would happen because A, it was sanctioned by DoD at the highest levels, and B, who was going to stop them? They were preparing the battlefield, which was on all of the PowerPoints: 'Preparing the Battlefield.'"

The significance of the flexibility of JSOC's operations inside Pakistan versus the CIA's is best summed up by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "Every single intelligence operation and covert action must be briefed to the Congress," she said. "If they are not, that is a violation of the law."

Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan

For months, the Pakistani media has been flooded with stories about Blackwater's alleged growing presence in the country. For the most part, these stories have been ignored by the US press and denounced as lies or propaganda by US officials in Pakistan. But the reality is that, although many of the stories appear to be wildly exaggerated, Pakistanis have good reason to be concerned about Blackwater's operations in their country. It is no secret in Washington or Islamabad that Blackwater has been a central part of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that the company has been involved--almost from the beginning of the "war on terror"--with clandestine US operations. Indeed, Blackwater is accepting applications for contractors fluent in Urdu and Punjabi. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, has denied Blackwater's presence in the country, stating bluntly in September, "Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan." In her trip to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dodged questions from the Pakistani press about Blackwater's rumored Pakistani operations. Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, said on November 21 he will resign if Blackwater is found operating anywhere in Pakistan.

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that Blackwater "provides security for a US-backed aid project" in Peshawar, suggesting the company may be based out of the Pearl Continental, a luxury hotel the United States reportedly is considering purchasing to use as a consulate in the city. "We have no contracts in Pakistan," Blackwater spokesperson Stacey DeLuke said recently. "We've been blamed for all that has gone wrong in Peshawar, none of which is true, since we have absolutely no presence there."

Reports of Blackwater's alleged presence in Karachi and elsewhere in the country have been floating around the Pakistani press for months. Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who rose to fame after his 1997 interview with Osama bin Laden, claimed in a recent interview that Blackwater is in Karachi. "The US [intelligence] agencies think that a number of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are hiding in Karachi and Peshawar," he said. "That is why [Blackwater] agents are operating in these two cities." Ambassador Patterson has said that the claims of Mir and other Pakistani journalists are "wildly incorrect," saying they had compromised the security of US personnel in Pakistan. On November 20 the Washington Times, citing three current and former US intelligence officials, reported that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has "found refuge from potential U.S. attacks" in Karachi "with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service."

In September, the Pakistani press covered a report on Blackwater allegedly submitted by Pakistan's intelligence agencies to the federal interior ministry. In the report, the intelligence agencies reportedly allege that Blackwater was provided houses by a federal minister who is also helping them clear shipments of weapons and vehicles through Karachi's Port Qasim on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The military intelligence source did not confirm this but did say, "The port jives because they have a lot of [former] SEALs and they would revert to what they know: the ocean, instead of flying stuff in."

The Nation cannot independently confirm these allegations and has not seen the Pakistani intelligence report. But according to Pakistani press coverage, the intelligence report also said Blackwater has acquired "bungalows" in the Defense Housing Authority in the city. According to the DHA website, it is a large residential estate originally established "for the welfare of the serving and retired officers of the Armed Forces of Pakistan." Its motto is: "Home for Defenders." The report alleges Blackwater is receiving help from local government officials in Karachi and is using vehicles with license plates traditionally assigned to members of the national and provincial assemblies, meaning local law enforcement will not stop them.

The use of private companies like Blackwater for sensitive operations such as drone strikes or other covert work undoubtedly comes with the benefit of plausible deniability that places an additional barrier in an already deeply flawed system of accountability. When things go wrong, it's the contractors' fault, not the government's. But the widespread use of contractors also raises serious legal questions, particularly when they are a part of lethal, covert actions. "We are using contractors for things that in the past might have been considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention," said Lt. Col. Addicott, who now runs the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. "In my opinion, we have pressed the envelope to the breaking limit, and it's almost a fiction that these guys are not in offensive military operations." Addicott added, "If we were subjected to the International Criminal Court, some of these guys could easily be picked up, charged with war crimes and put on trial. That's one of the reasons we're not members of the International Criminal Court."

If there is one quality that has defined Blackwater over the past decade, it is the ability to survive against the odds while simultaneously reinventing and rebranding itself. That is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA and the State Department despite intense criticism and almost weekly scandals. Blackwater's alleged Pakistan operations, said the military intelligence source, are indicative of its new frontier. "Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we're going to go as a nation that are dangerous," he said. "It's as simple as that."

Posted November 21, 2009 By MATT APUZZO

US to drop shooting case against Blackwater guard

The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday.

The shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. It touched off a string of investigations that ultimately led the State Department to cancel the company's lucrative contract to guard diplomats in Iraq.

Iraqis have said they're watching closely to see how the U.S. judicial system handles the five men accused of unleashing an unprovoked attack on civilians with machine guns and grenades.

A one-paragraph notice filed Friday says only that prosecutors have asked that the case against Nicholas Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., be dropped. The government's detailed request to the court was filed with the judge and with the defendant, but was not made public.

Prosecutors filed the request in a way that allows them to file new charges against Slatten later. There is no indication in the documents whether they intend to. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Friday he could not say whether new charges would be filed.

Slatten's attorney, Thomas Connolly, said he could not comment on the court documents but said Slatten has maintained his innocence all along. Slatten was an Army sniper who served two tours in Iraq before joining Blackwater.

The request could be a bad sign for the government. After the shootings, some guards spoke to investigators under the promise of immunity. Prosecutors have been arguing behind closed doors that the immunity deal did not taint the case. The judge is considering that issue now. Jury selection in the trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 25.

Five guards, all military veterans, face charges. Prosecutors say the shooting was unprovoked but Blackwater says its convoy was ambushed. A sixth pleaded guilty, turned on his former colleagues, and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another.

The case against the remaining four guards is set for trial in February. Prosecutors were aggressive in their charges, using an anti-machine gun law to attach 30-year mandatory prison sentences to the case. And though authorities can't say for sure exactly which guards shot which victims, all five guards are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter.

So far, most of the case has played out behind closed doors. Defense attorneys have argued the FBI improperly built their case using information gathered under the promise of immunity. Investigators say they were careful to build their case only on material gathered independent of the immunity deals.

The trial likely will hinge on whether the Blackwater guards were provoked. Iraqi witnesses say Blackwater fired the only shots. Some members of the Blackwater convoy said they saw gunfire. Others said they didn't. Radio logs of the shooting indicate the guards were fired on.

Prosecutors say the guards was itching for a fight and unleashed a gruesome attack on unarmed Iraqis, including women, children and people trying to escape. The convoy allegedly launched a grenade into a nearby girls' school.

Since the shooting, Blackwater, headquartered in Moyock, N.C., has renamed itself Xe Corp. and has undergone a management upheaval.

Posted November 19, 2009 By KASHIF ALI ABBASI

Another 'Blackwater den' comes to surface

Another house reportedly belonging to notorious Blackwater (XE Worldwide) was exposed in posh sector F-8/3 of the Federal Capital.

The residents of sector F-8, which has become a permanent source of fear and insecurity among the dwellers, informed TheNation that they had informed police and other law enforcement agencies about the suspicious activities of the inhabitants of the said house.

It is relevant to note here that a veteran politician residing in the same street had also lodged complaints with the police high-ups regarding the suspicious activities of the inhabitants of the said house. The politician who enjoyed portfolio of federal interior minister in the previous regime complained that the dwellers of the said house had taken snaps of his house for the purpose best known to them.

The inhabitants of the street informed when the issue of taking snaps of former interior minister's house was brought into the notice of police and other law enforcement agencies, a number of police high-ups visited the area and monitored the activities of the said house. They (locals) said that alleged Blackwater (XE Worldwide) personnel had been living in the house for the last couple of months and they had a number of bulletproof vehicles.

A senior police officer on condition of anonymity informed that the matter was in the notice of police and other law enforcement agencies and an initial report in this regard had been forwarded to the authorities concerned.

A neighbour of the said house requesting anonymity said that only clean-shaven people could be seen getting in and out of the house a couple of months ago but now bearded people were also seen.

When contacted, SSP Tahir Alam Khan said, "I think there are some American nationals who are residing in the said street but police have no information about their suspicious activities and links with Blackwater." He said he was unaware about the presence of Blackwater in sector F-8, adding police would thoroughly probe into the matter and if any suspicious activity was found, authorities concerned would be informed.

Posted November 19, 2009 By the news

Admin admits presence of those working for Blackwater

Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) leader Makhdoom Muhammad Javed Hashmi Thursday said the federal capital?s administration admitted the presence of Dyne Corps working for Blackwater in Islamabad?s areas of Milpur and Suhala.

He said this in the meeting National Assembly?s Standing Committee on Human Rights with MNA Riaz Fitiana chairing.

Hashmi said the accommodation of Dyne Corps near Kahuta is upsetting and a cause of concern for not only the members of the Parliament but also the entire nation.

The committee demanded the government for the immediate release and homecoming of Dr Aafia Siddiqui detained in the US.

Posted November 17th, 2009 By Daniel Tencer

Taliban: Blackwater to blame for Pakistan attacks

The Pakistani arm of the Taliban has denied responsibility for a recent series of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, instead pointing the finger at Xe Services, the security contractor formerly known as Blackwater, as well as the country's own security services.

"The Tehreek-e-Taliban are not responsible for the bombings, but Blackwater and Pakistan's spy agency are behind them," said Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq, according to a translation from Al-Jazeera English.

''The dirty Pakistani intelligence agencies, for the sake of creating mistrust and hatred among people against the Taliban, are carrying out blasts at places like the Islamic university, Islamabad, and the Khyber bazaar, Peshawar,'' the Associated Press quoted Tariq as saying.

The Taliban's new talking point is likely an attempt to capitalize on anti-American conspiracy theories circulating among the Pakistani public.

Posted November 19, 2009 By MARK MAZZETTI and JAMES RISEN

Fine and Inquiry Possible for Blackwater Successor

The international security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide is facing large government fines for unlicensed arms shipments to Iraq, as a key Congressional committee is asking for a separate investigation into whether the company bribed Iraqi officials.

In talks likely to result in millions of dollars in penalties, executives from the company, now known as Xe Services, are negotiating with government regulators over years of violations of export laws. According to government officials and former company employees, many of the violations involve arms shipments to Iraq, to outfit company security guards operating inside the country.

In addition, former company officials say that other penalties could result from violations of licensing requirements for the transfer of other forms of military technology and training expertise to foreign countries.

Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in a letter on Wednesday that his committee was told by a top State Department official that the company had engaged in "broad violations" of export laws and that the unlicensed shipments "went beyond weapons for personal use."

In the letter, Senator Kerry asked the State Department's acting inspector general to begin an investigation into the "continued fitness" of Xe Services to carry out contract work for the State Department. The letter cited a report in The New York Times last week that Blackwater executives had approved of a plan to make secret payments to Iraqi officials after Blackwater employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the company, said, "Only The New York Times would write a story based on a letter from a senator who based his letter on a New York Times story based on the allegations of unnamed sources."

The State Department has terminated most of Xe Services' contracts for work in Iraq, yet continues to pay the company millions of dollars to protect diplomats in Afghanistan. It contends that it has had difficulty finding another company with the experience and the equipment necessary to replace Xe.

The settlement talks over the export violations could result in stiff financial penalties, not criminal charges. However, as the talks continue, federal prosecutors in North Carolina, where Xe is based, are separately intensifying their investigation into a broad array of accusations of criminal activities carried out by company executives, including weapons smuggling, money laundering and tax evasion, according to lawyers and others familiar with the inquiry.

A former Blackwater employee said in an interview that he had spoken to prosecutors in Raleigh about approximately $1 million in payments the company arranged after the deadly Baghdad shooting, in Nisour Square. The payments were intended to silence criticism by Iraqi officials after the shootings and to help secure an operating license for the company, according to former company employees.

Last year, the company issued a press release acknowledging "numerous mistakes" in its adherence to export laws, but said the bulk of the violations had been "failures of paperwork and timeliness while supporting the United States and its allies, not nefarious smuggling or aid to enemies."

The company also announced the creation of a board of outside experts to oversee its compliance with the export regulations.

One member of the board, Asa Hutchinson, a former House member and administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, declined to give details about Xe's compliance status and said he was not privy to the company's negotiations with the government over past violations.

He said that the board reported regularly to the State Department about the company's compliance with export laws.

A spokesman for the Commerce Department, which is working with the State Department in the settlement negotiations, declined to comment on the talks. Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said, "It is department policy not to comment on compliance actions until the matter has been resolved."

The government's investigations into the company's weapons shipments to Iraq have been under way for several years, and so far have led to guilty pleas on criminal charges by two former Blackwater employees, Kenneth Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and Ellsworth Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C.

In January 2008, they were sentenced to three years of probation and $1,000 fines for possession of stolen firearms shipped overseas. The sentences were believed to have been lenient because the men were cooperating with prosecutors on a broader investigation of Blackwater. The company said at the time that the men had been fired in 2005 and that it was Blackwater officials who had turned them in to the authorities.

Prosecutors in North Carolina have reportedly investigated whether some of the weapons shipped to Iraq were sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has long fought Turkey in the hope of gaining an independent Kurdistan. Turkey considers the group a terrorist organization, and Turkish officials reportedly complained to the United States about American weapons seized from the group, prompting an investigation into whether the weapons began with Blackwater.

Posted November 16, 2009 By Gulf News

Time to blacklist Blackwater

The disgraced private military company should not receive any government contracts

The long and blackened history of Blackwater Worldwide - now known as Xe Services - has been further tarnished with revelations that it secretly authorised illegal payments of about $1 million (Dh3.67 million) to Iraqi officials.

The payments were meant to silence their criticisms and buy their support after a 2007 incident in which Blackwater security guards shot dead 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, former company officials have revealed.

While five Blackwater security guards are facing manslaughter charges arising from the fatal shootings, there can be no excusing why this discredited company still continues to do some work for the US State Department on a temporary basis.

The history of this company, the nature of its work, its modus operandi and its shadowy ties to the regular military structure - combined with its comfortable arrangements with the Bush-Cheney administration in the White House - should be enough to warrant that it never receives as must as a postage stamp in support from US Government officials.

There is a fine line between mercenaries and mercenary behaviour, one where security guards act more as a private army without recourse to the normal standard of justice and jurisprudence. There seems to be little doubt that senior officials at Blackwater know where that fine line is, and scuff it with alarming regularity.

Posted November 16, 2009 By ANI

Musharraf approved Blackwaters terror operations in Pak: General Beg

Former Pakistan Army Chief Mirza Aslam Beg has claimed that ex-President Pervez Musharraf had given Blackwater the green signal to carry out its terrorist operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta.

He said that Blackwater was directly involved in the murder of Benazir Bhutto and Lebanese leader Rafiq Hariri.

It is pertinent to note that the foreigners affiliated with the notorious private military contractor Blackwater, whose security company Blackwater was later renamed as Xe Services LLC, arrived in Islamabad during the first week of November.

A wave of fear and insecurity has been felt among residents of the sector due to alleged presence of operatives of Blackwater and the late night movements of suspicious foreigners and some locals clad in suits.

According to frightened residents of the locality, there was fair amount of activity between 11 pm and dawn.

The Nation quoted some residents as saying that that one of the alleged operatives of Blackwater was seen manhandling a local for having a post-dinner stroll.

According to the New York Times August 20, 2009 report by Mark Mazzetti, the Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired contractors from the private security contractor,Blackwater USA, as part of a secret programme to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al-Qaeda.

It has also drawn a controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to give the company an operating licence, the report said.

The newspaper report said that despite publicly breaking with it, the State Department continued to award the company, formerly known asBlackwater, more than 400 million dollars in contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them in Afghanistan and train security forces in anti-terrorism tactics at its remote camp in North Carolina. - ANI

Posted November 13, 2009 By Saad Abedine

Top al Qaeda leader blames Blackwater for Peshawar blasts

A senior al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan has blamed the U.S. security firm formerly known as Blackwater as being behind the recent spate of deadly attacks in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

An audio message said to be from Mustafa Abu Yazid, released Thursday, said Muslims could not have been behind the attacks, because they are fighting to protect the honor and lives of other Muslims.

The Mujahedeen, as Yazid called the militants, target only security forces who are far from civilian gathering places, he said.

"Today, everyone knows what Blackwater and the criminal security contractors are doing after they came to Pakistan with the support of the criminal, corrupt government and its intelligence and security apparatus," Yazid said.

"They are the ones who commit these heinous acts, then accuse the Mujahedeen of their crimes."

Yazid is al Qaeda's commander of operations in Afghanistan and its No. 3 man.

The tape was posted on several Islamist Web sites, known to carry statements from the radical Islamic group.

CNN could not immediately determine the authenticity of the tape.

Blackwater, now known as Xe, is a ready bogeyman for Pakistanis who cite the company's actions in Iraq as evidence of its malevolent intents in their country.

Iraq refused to renew the license of the private security company after its security guards killed 17 civilians two years ago.

Peshawar -- the capital of the North West Frontier Province -- has repeatedly come under attack in recent days. Intelligence officials say the attacks are retaliation against an army offensive to rout militants from their havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

On Tuesday, a suicide car bomber struck a congested traffic circle outside Peshawar, killing at least 26 people -- including children -- and wounding 60 others.

A suicide bombing at a police checkpoint on Peshawar's Ring Road killed at least three people Monday. A suicide car bombing killed 17 people in the city Sunday, including an area mayor.

And on October 28, a massive car bomb tore through the heart of a bustling marketplace in Peshawar, killing at least 100 people and wounding at least 200 others.

Posted November 12, 2009 By NEAL P. GOSWAMI

Vt. lawmakers demand Blackwater investigation

Rep. Peter Welch is asking a U.S. House committee to launch an investigation into a private security firm operating in Iraq after bribery allegations surfaced Wednesday in a media report.

Secret payments

The New York Times reported Wednesday that four former top executives at Blackwater Worldwide, a private security firm now known as Xe Services, authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials after a September 2007 incident in which 17 Iraqi civilians were shot and killed.

The payments were approved in December 2007 as outrage over the killings was growing, according to The Times report. Company officials feared the security firm would be denied permits need to retain its contracts with the U.S. State Department and other private clients that were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

American and Iraqi investigators have said the shootings were not justified.

Responding to The Times report, Welch, a Democrat, who is on a Congressional trip to Pakistan, penned a letter Wednesday asking the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to launch an investigation into the allegations. Welch said the company may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and may have interfered with a grand jury inquiry if the allegations are true.

"Reckless and dangerous"

"Blackwater has earned a reputation as a reckless and dangerous organization," Welch wrote to the committee chairman, Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. "The United States government simply cannot turn a blind eye to such actions."

Welch said the company has been the subject of previous investigations by the committee and another look is warranted. "I strongly urge you to begin a new investigation to determine exactly what happened and whether any laws were broken. Blackwater officials must be held accountable for their actions," he wrote.

Posted November 12, 2009 By JAMES RISEN

Charges Prompt Iraqis to Look Into Blackwater

A senior Iraqi official said Wednesday that he had ordered an investigation into whether top officials of Blackwater Worldwide approved of bribes to Iraqi government officials after shootings by Blackwater guards in 2007 left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

In an interview with CNN, Iraq's interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, said that his ministry was beginning an investigation that was prompted by a report in The New York Times on Tuesday that top Blackwater officials approved cash payments intended to silence criticism and win support for the company after the shootings in Nisour Square in Baghdad.

The Times article reported that former Blackwater executives who learned of the plans said they did not know whether the money was, in fact, delivered to Iraqi officials.

Mr. Bolani said he had asked the appropriate commanders to prepare a report about the accusations and to follow up on the matter, CNN reported.

"My door is open to anyone with any complaints or information about this, and I hope they provide me with any information that may help with the investigation," Mr. Bolani told CNN.

The Times reported that a former Blackwater official said the planned payoffs were intended for officials in the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for approving operating licenses for private security companies working in Iraq. At the time of the Nisour Square shootings, Blackwater provided diplomatic security for the United States Embassy in Baghdad and would have needed the license to continue doing so.