By Spencer Ackerman
If International Development Solutions, a mysterious firm partially owned by Blackwater, has its own independent office, it’s hard to find. A business records search co-locates one of the jackpot winners of a State Department contract worth up to $10 million with Kaseman LLC, the well-connected private security security firm that partnered with Blackwater arm U.S. Training Center to win the contract.
That would suggest International Development Solutions — a company few industry experts have heard of, sporting a generic, Google-resistant name — is yet another front group the company set up to win government contracts while concealing its tainted brand. More of a mystery is why the State Department let the company get away with it. Again.
An earlier version of this story reported on the results of a different business records search that turned up a listing for the company in a residential neighborhood of Washington DC. But since it’s more likely that the firm be headquarted in Virginia with Kaseman — who didn’t return phone calls for this story, like Blackwater — I’m removing information on that house, along with an image of it, and hereby issue a full and frank apology to its owner; IDS; Kaseman; Blackwater/U.S. Training Center; and you, the reader; and a shout-out goes to Scrarcher in comments for calling me out on this.
A months-long investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year found that the Army and Raytheon awarded a multi-million dollar subcontract to a firm called Paravant for the training of Afghan troops. Paravant claimed to have “years” of experience performing such work. As it turned out, Paravant didn’t really exist. “Paravant had never performed any services and was simply a shell company established to avoid what one former Blackwater executive called the ‘baggage’ associated with the Blackwater name as the company pursued government business,” committee chairman Carl Levin said in March.
If you like Paravant, you’ll love International Development Solutions. Very few people seem to be familiar with it. Hill sources didn’t know what it was. Both critics of and advocates for the private-security industry were just as baffled. “I’ve never heard of IDS,” confesses Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations for the Project on Government Oversight, in a typical comment.
All of a sudden, though, International Development Solutions is a major player in the private-security field. Last week, Danger Room broke the story of the State Department including it in an eight-company consortium of merc firms, including industry giants like DynCorp, that will hold its elite contract for protecting diplomats and embassies: the Worldwide Protective Services contract. The official announcement of the award gives absolutely no indication that International Development Solutions is tied to Blackwater; State only disclosed that fact after Danger Room pressed it.
Diligent work by the Senate Armed Services Committee determined a web of names under which Blackwater — renamed Xe last year — did business to avoid such baggage. Among them (deep breath): Total Intelligence Solutions; Technical Defense Inc.; Apex Management Solutions LLC; Aviation Worldwide Services LLC; Air Quest Inc.; Presidential Airways Inc.; EP Aviation LLC; Backup Training LLC; Terrorism Research Center, Inc. All in all, the committee found 33 aliases. International Development Solutions appears to be number 34.
Those other spinoffs are generally up front about the services they offer. Aviation Worldwide Services, for instance, is now part of AAR Corp, which provides cargo services and “specialized aircraft modifications” to the military. Total Intelligence Solutions does threat analysis for corporate clients doing business in dicey parts of the world. Its subsidiary, Terrorism Research Center Inc., offers clients classes in DIY counterterrorism and threat prevention. (A forthcoming module: “How to Identify a Terrorist Cell in Your Jurisdiction.”) By contrast, International Development Solutions doesn’t have much of an online profile.
The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein provided a clue as to how the newcomer might have gotten a foot into the door for the Worldwide Protective Services contract. The board of Kaseman, Blackwater’s partner on the venture, is filled with former State Department, CIA and military notables: State’s one-time anti-terrorism chief Henry Crumpton; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; and retired General Anthony Zinni, to name a few. (The CIA and Blackwater have a looooong history.)
Blackwater has a lot it might reasonably wish to obscure. To wit: High-profile shootings of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan; murder trials; allegations of steroid and cocaine abuse; improper removal of weapons from U.S. weapons depots using the name of a South Park character.
The big question is why the State Department is continuing to do business with this oh-so-classy-group. In the past, government contracting officials have explained that they can’t stop any company that hasn’t been de-certified from federal bidding from seeking contracts. Blackwater, despite everything, somehow has retained its certification.
But that doesn’t explain why State awarded the contract to the Blackwater-tied company. State has always taken notice of the fact that Blackwater has never lost a single diplomat it’s protected. But that sends the implicit message that State considers foreign lives less valuable than American ones — a problematic one for a diplomatic entity to send. The new Worldwide Protective Services contract was, among other things, an opportunity for State to break from the company that caused an international debacle when its guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. State stood by Blackwater — or at least a company that didn’t want the public to know it was Blackwater.
For years, numerous internal reviews and external watchdogs have criticized State for weak oversight over its security contractors — or worse. In March, the New York Times reported that the department’s oversight officials “sought to block any serious investigation” of Nisour Square. After discovering that State failed to correct years’ worth of security violations from the company hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the Project on Government Oversight’s executive director, Danielle Brian, testified last year that the department is “incapable of properly handling a contract.” A former State security official told Mother Jones that a “bigtime revolving door” between the department and the contractors accounts for State’s blase attitude.
“The State Department has supported the Department of Justice investigation and prosecution of this case every step of the way,” reads an official answer the State Department provided when Danger Room asked why it did. “We fully respect the independence and integrity of the U.S. judicial system, and we support holding legally accountable any contractor personnel who have committed crimes.”
But that’s not a substantive answer. What experience does International Development Solutions have with providing security for diplomats in war zones? What makes this unknown company more qualified than at least four other established firms that didn’t win part of Worldwide Protective Services? What sort of due diligence did State perform to ensure that International Development Solutions isn’t another Paravant? State has yet to address any of those questions.
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Privatization of War: Is Blackwater Heading for the Holy Land?
By Spencer Ackerman
Jerusalem: a cauldron of nationalistic and religious acrimony, a persistent flashpoint for global crisis. Exactly where you want to put the world’s most notorious private security firm.
International Development Solutions, a recent joint venture between Blackwater-spinoff U.S. Training Center and a different security company, just received a task order under the State Department’s $10 billion Worldwide Protective Services contract to protect Jerusalem-stationed U.S. diplos. Jeff Stein reports that the bid is as much as $84 million. Israeli drivers, watch out.
But that’s not all. According to Stein, Blackwater — ahem, sorry, Xe Services – isn’t actually part of International Development Solutions anymore. Xe, recently purchased by a surprisingly crunchy group of investors, apparently offloaded U.S. Training Center — although it’s likely that its personnel will continue to train on the same Moyock, North Carolina facilities as Blackwater, and “many of its operatives” are Blackwater people, Stein writes.
If so, it would suggest that Blackwater’s new owners, known as USTC Holdings, meant it when they played down Blackwater’s security tasks. “USTC Holdings, LLC will acquire the Xe companies that provide domestic and international training, as well as security services,” it said in a statement last month. Message: we’re a training company, not a mercenary firm infamous for shooting Iraqi civilians and taking guns intended for Afghan cops.
We’re waiting to hear from USTC Holdings spokespeople precisely what relationship pertains between Xe and International Development Solutions now. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as Jeff’s reporting indicates, there’s still some arrangement between the two — that’s how Blackwater rolls.
On the other hand, if the new owners have really divested themselves of the diplo-guarding business, then it may be the end of an era: Blackwater won’t have any other contracts with State; and it just lost a big police-training contract in Afghanistan to DynCorp. We’ll update when we know more.
Jerusalem: a cauldron of nationalistic and religious acrimony, a persistent flashpoint for global crisis. Exactly where you want to put the world’s most notorious private security firm.
International Development Solutions, a recent joint venture between Blackwater-spinoff U.S. Training Center and a different security company, just received a task order under the State Department’s $10 billion Worldwide Protective Services contract to protect Jerusalem-stationed U.S. diplos. Jeff Stein reports that the bid is as much as $84 million. Israeli drivers, watch out.
But that’s not all. According to Stein, Blackwater — ahem, sorry, Xe Services – isn’t actually part of International Development Solutions anymore. Xe, recently purchased by a surprisingly crunchy group of investors, apparently offloaded U.S. Training Center — although it’s likely that its personnel will continue to train on the same Moyock, North Carolina facilities as Blackwater, and “many of its operatives” are Blackwater people, Stein writes.
If so, it would suggest that Blackwater’s new owners, known as USTC Holdings, meant it when they played down Blackwater’s security tasks. “USTC Holdings, LLC will acquire the Xe companies that provide domestic and international training, as well as security services,” it said in a statement last month. Message: we’re a training company, not a mercenary firm infamous for shooting Iraqi civilians and taking guns intended for Afghan cops.
We’re waiting to hear from USTC Holdings spokespeople precisely what relationship pertains between Xe and International Development Solutions now. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as Jeff’s reporting indicates, there’s still some arrangement between the two — that’s how Blackwater rolls.
On the other hand, if the new owners have really divested themselves of the diplo-guarding business, then it may be the end of an era: Blackwater won’t have any other contracts with State; and it just lost a big police-training contract in Afghanistan to DynCorp. We’ll update when we know more.
Blackwater Subsidiary Flouted German Arms Export Laws
By Cordula Meyer
A subsidiary of the US private security firm Blackwater flouted German arms export law, the US diplomatic cables have revealed. The company, Presidential Airways, didn't want to wait to get the proper export permit, so it simply transported the aircraft to Afghanistan via third countries.
The controversial US private security firm Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services, has mainly been criticized in the past over the use of excessive force in Iraq. Confidential American diplomatic dispatches now show that another company belonging to Blackwater founder Erik Prince exported German military helicopters to Afghanistan with scant regard for German law.
Presidential Airways purchased three SA-330 J "Puma" helicopters in Germany for use in providing logistical support to US forces in Afghanistan. But because it was taking too long to get the necessary German export permit, and its employees didn't want to wait, they simply took the helicopters out of the country in October 2008, first to Britain, and then on to Turkey.
In so doing, Presidential ignored advice from both the German Economics Ministry and the US Office of Defense Cooperation that their actions were illegal under German law. A concerned William Timken, the then US ambassador to Germany, warned the State Department that "the issue could become public in Germany and would take on proportions well beyond the significance of a few helicopters given the widespread public skepticism about Germany's engagement in Afghanistan." He therefore called for the relevant US government agencies "to examine this matter immediately" and to "encourage" Presidential to keep the helicopters in Turkey for the time being.
But Presidential ignored all the warnings and transported the military hardware to Afghanistan via Georgia and Azerbaijan while the German Foreign Ministry was apparently still trying to get cabinet approval for the export of the helicopters. Imagine what would happen, US diplomats in Berlin wrote to Washington, if German companies were to sell American weapons to Iran. Under that scenario, they wrote, "we expect that US authorities would react strongly." They warned of "negative reactions" in the German media.
Presidential Airways was also suspected of conducting secret "extraordinary rendition" flights on behalf of the CIA, taking terror suspects to third countries to be interrogated.
Fingers in Many Pies
The embassy cables show Blackwater has its fingers in many different pies around the globe. Its security experts trained special forces and police units in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Azerbaijan as well as in Afghanistan, where they worked alongside German police trainers. In Chile, Blackwater apparently subcontracted a company called Red Tactica to recruit former Chilean police officers and soldiers, which it then sent to Iraq as mercenaries.
When the Iraqi government withdrew Blackwater's license following the Nisoor Square massacre in 2007, many of the company's employees simply went to other firms. In January 2010, the US Embassy in Baghdad reported that it "understands" that Triple Canopy, a contractor working for the US government, "currently employs several hundred former Blackwater employees," while DynCorp, another private security firm, also employed "dozens of ex-Blackwater employees".
In November 2009, suspicions arose that Blackwater had spent about a million dollars bribing Iraqi officials to ensure that it could remain in the country. At the time, a State Department spokesman claimed he knew nothing about the bribes.
The leaked diplomatic dispatches now reveal, however, that American representatives in Baghdad knew full well about Blackwater's shady dealings, and had attempted to distance themselves from the company a year earlier. The deputy US ambassador in Baghdad even stressed that "under no circumstances could the Embassy approve of or in any way be part of a bribery effort."
A subsidiary of the US private security firm Blackwater flouted German arms export law, the US diplomatic cables have revealed. The company, Presidential Airways, didn't want to wait to get the proper export permit, so it simply transported the aircraft to Afghanistan via third countries.
The controversial US private security firm Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services, has mainly been criticized in the past over the use of excessive force in Iraq. Confidential American diplomatic dispatches now show that another company belonging to Blackwater founder Erik Prince exported German military helicopters to Afghanistan with scant regard for German law.
Presidential Airways purchased three SA-330 J "Puma" helicopters in Germany for use in providing logistical support to US forces in Afghanistan. But because it was taking too long to get the necessary German export permit, and its employees didn't want to wait, they simply took the helicopters out of the country in October 2008, first to Britain, and then on to Turkey.
In so doing, Presidential ignored advice from both the German Economics Ministry and the US Office of Defense Cooperation that their actions were illegal under German law. A concerned William Timken, the then US ambassador to Germany, warned the State Department that "the issue could become public in Germany and would take on proportions well beyond the significance of a few helicopters given the widespread public skepticism about Germany's engagement in Afghanistan." He therefore called for the relevant US government agencies "to examine this matter immediately" and to "encourage" Presidential to keep the helicopters in Turkey for the time being.
But Presidential ignored all the warnings and transported the military hardware to Afghanistan via Georgia and Azerbaijan while the German Foreign Ministry was apparently still trying to get cabinet approval for the export of the helicopters. Imagine what would happen, US diplomats in Berlin wrote to Washington, if German companies were to sell American weapons to Iran. Under that scenario, they wrote, "we expect that US authorities would react strongly." They warned of "negative reactions" in the German media.
Presidential Airways was also suspected of conducting secret "extraordinary rendition" flights on behalf of the CIA, taking terror suspects to third countries to be interrogated.
Fingers in Many Pies
The embassy cables show Blackwater has its fingers in many different pies around the globe. Its security experts trained special forces and police units in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Azerbaijan as well as in Afghanistan, where they worked alongside German police trainers. In Chile, Blackwater apparently subcontracted a company called Red Tactica to recruit former Chilean police officers and soldiers, which it then sent to Iraq as mercenaries.
When the Iraqi government withdrew Blackwater's license following the Nisoor Square massacre in 2007, many of the company's employees simply went to other firms. In January 2010, the US Embassy in Baghdad reported that it "understands" that Triple Canopy, a contractor working for the US government, "currently employs several hundred former Blackwater employees," while DynCorp, another private security firm, also employed "dozens of ex-Blackwater employees".
In November 2009, suspicions arose that Blackwater had spent about a million dollars bribing Iraqi officials to ensure that it could remain in the country. At the time, a State Department spokesman claimed he knew nothing about the bribes.
The leaked diplomatic dispatches now reveal, however, that American representatives in Baghdad knew full well about Blackwater's shady dealings, and had attempted to distance themselves from the company a year earlier. The deputy US ambassador in Baghdad even stressed that "under no circumstances could the Embassy approve of or in any way be part of a bribery effort."
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Blackwater (Xe): The Secret US War in Pakistan
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/5-blackwater-xe-the-secret-us-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 inside and outside Pakistan. The Blackwater operatives also gather 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.
Student Researchers:
Andrew Hobbs, Kelsea Arnold, and Brittney Gates (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluators:
Elaine Wellin and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)
Captain John Kirby, the spokesperson for Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” Meanwhile a defense official 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 are not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”
Blackwater’s founder Erik Prince contradicted this statement in an interview, telling Vanity Fair that Blackwater works with US Special Forces in identifying targets and planning missions, citing an operation in Syria. The magazine also published a photo of a Blackwater base near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
Jeremy Scahill’s military intelligence source said that the previously unreported program is distinct from the CIA assassination program, which 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 US has not declared war—knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the US and Pakistan. In 2006, the two countries 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 US is not supposed to have any active military operations in that country.
Blackwater, which also goes by the names Xe Services and US Training Center, has denied that the company operates in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the US 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. 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 allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces that 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 covert program in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007. The current head of JSOC is Vice Admiral William McRaven, who took over the post from General 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 Scahill’s military source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he adds, 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.”
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.
According to Scahill’s 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.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said.
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.
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, 2009, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The number of strike orders by the Obama administration has now surpassed the number during the Bush era in Pakistan, inciting fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths.
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.”
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.
Blackwater’s ability to survive against odds by reinventing and rebranding itself 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.
Sources:
Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” Nation, November 23, 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill.
Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater Wants to Surge Its Armed Force in Afghanistan,” Antiwar.com, January 20, 2010, http://original.antiwar.com/scahill/2010/01/19/blackwater-wants-to-surge.
David Edwards and Muriel Kane, “Ex-employees Claim Blackwater Pimped Out Young Iraqi Girls,” Raw Story, August 7, 2009.
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 inside and outside Pakistan. The Blackwater operatives also gather 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.
Student Researchers:
Andrew Hobbs, Kelsea Arnold, and Brittney Gates (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluators:
Elaine Wellin and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)
Captain John Kirby, the spokesperson for Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” Meanwhile a defense official 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 are not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.” The Pentagon has stated bluntly, “There are no US military strike operations being conducted in Pakistan.”
Blackwater’s founder Erik Prince contradicted this statement in an interview, telling Vanity Fair that Blackwater works with US Special Forces in identifying targets and planning missions, citing an operation in Syria. The magazine also published a photo of a Blackwater base near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
Jeremy Scahill’s military intelligence source said that the previously unreported program is distinct from the CIA assassination program, which 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 US has not declared war—knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the US and Pakistan. In 2006, the two countries 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 US is not supposed to have any active military operations in that country.
Blackwater, which also goes by the names Xe Services and US Training Center, has denied that the company operates in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the US 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. 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 allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces that 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 covert program in Pakistan dates back to at least 2007. The current head of JSOC is Vice Admiral William McRaven, who took over the post from General 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 Scahill’s military source. Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan, he adds, 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.”
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.
According to Scahill’s 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.” Blackwater’s Pakistan JSOC contracts are secret and are therefore shielded from public oversight, he said.
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.
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, 2009, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The number of strike orders by the Obama administration has now surpassed the number during the Bush era in Pakistan, inciting fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths.
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.”
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.
Blackwater’s ability to survive against odds by reinventing and rebranding itself 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.
Sources:
Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” Nation, November 23, 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill.
Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater Wants to Surge Its Armed Force in Afghanistan,” Antiwar.com, January 20, 2010, http://original.antiwar.com/scahill/2010/01/19/blackwater-wants-to-surge.
David Edwards and Muriel Kane, “Ex-employees Claim Blackwater Pimped Out Young Iraqi Girls,” Raw Story, August 7, 2009.
WikiLeaks cables: Iraq security firms operate 'mafia' to inflate prices
The Rumala oil field, south of Basra: the cables reveal tensions between oil companies, security firms and Baghdad. Photograph: Atef Hassan/Reuters
Halliburton's senior executive in Iraq accused private security companies of operating a "mafia" to artifically inflate their "outrageous prices", according to a US cable.
Written by a senior diplomat in the US's Basra office, the confidential document discloses the tensions between private security firms, oil companies and the Iraqi government as coalition forces withdraw from protecting foreign business interests.
John Naland, head of the provincial reconstruction team in Basra, wrote in January this year that several oil company representatives complained of "unwarranted high prices" given an improving security situation since 2008.
"Halliburton Iraq country manager decried a 'mafia' of these companies and their 'outrageous' prices, and said that they also exaggerate the security threat.
"Apart from the high costs for routine trips, he claimed that Halliburton often receives what he says are 'questionable' reports of vulnerability of employees to kidnapping and ransom. He said that he recently saw an internal memo from their security company which tasked its employees to emphasize the persistent danger faced by IOCs [international oil companies]." Naland wrote.
The memo, written nine months after British troops handed over control of their base in Basra to the US army, does not name the Halliburton manager.
According to the cable, it cost around $6,000 (£3,900) to hire a security firm for four hours in Basra in January. A typical trip would include four security agents, drivers, and three or four armoured vehicles. A recent visit by a member of Iraq's government from Baghdad to Basra and back cost about $12,000 (£7,800), the cable claimed.
Tensions between private security companies and the Baghdad government had increased in Iraq following the decision by the US courts in December 2009 not to prosecute anyone for the Blackwater killings of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in September 2007.
The source for this information was a British security company boss, whose name has been redacted.
"According to [the British national] a China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) security team was stopped in Basrah [sic] city by the Iraqi police in a 'clear attempt to disrupt and cause panic to the clients.' [The British national] said that the Iraqi police stopped the convoy and showed a letter from the Ministry of Interior (MOI) stating that as of January 12, personal security teams now faced a more restrictive weapons regime. The situation was eventually resolved, and the convoy was released, but [the British national] said that this episode could presage a more restrictive posture towards security firms 'in retaliation or the Blackwater verdict'," wrote Naland.
The cable also says that security companies are being encouraged by the Iraqi government and the oil companies to employ more Iraqis and less westerners in frontline jobs.
"According to XXXXXXXXXX, the GOI [government of Iraq] is anxious to 'get rid of all the white faces carrying guns' in their streets," it reads.
Afghan authorities last week arrested a British private security company employee and sentenced him to eight months in jail, the latest move in the government's crackdown on private security firms. Global Strategies Group consultant Michael Hearn was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly failing to register weapons with the government.
Halliburton's senior executive in Iraq accused private security companies of operating a "mafia" to artifically inflate their "outrageous prices", according to a US cable.
Written by a senior diplomat in the US's Basra office, the confidential document discloses the tensions between private security firms, oil companies and the Iraqi government as coalition forces withdraw from protecting foreign business interests.
John Naland, head of the provincial reconstruction team in Basra, wrote in January this year that several oil company representatives complained of "unwarranted high prices" given an improving security situation since 2008.
"Halliburton Iraq country manager decried a 'mafia' of these companies and their 'outrageous' prices, and said that they also exaggerate the security threat.
"Apart from the high costs for routine trips, he claimed that Halliburton often receives what he says are 'questionable' reports of vulnerability of employees to kidnapping and ransom. He said that he recently saw an internal memo from their security company which tasked its employees to emphasize the persistent danger faced by IOCs [international oil companies]." Naland wrote.
The memo, written nine months after British troops handed over control of their base in Basra to the US army, does not name the Halliburton manager.
According to the cable, it cost around $6,000 (£3,900) to hire a security firm for four hours in Basra in January. A typical trip would include four security agents, drivers, and three or four armoured vehicles. A recent visit by a member of Iraq's government from Baghdad to Basra and back cost about $12,000 (£7,800), the cable claimed.
Tensions between private security companies and the Baghdad government had increased in Iraq following the decision by the US courts in December 2009 not to prosecute anyone for the Blackwater killings of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in September 2007.
The source for this information was a British security company boss, whose name has been redacted.
"According to [the British national] a China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) security team was stopped in Basrah [sic] city by the Iraqi police in a 'clear attempt to disrupt and cause panic to the clients.' [The British national] said that the Iraqi police stopped the convoy and showed a letter from the Ministry of Interior (MOI) stating that as of January 12, personal security teams now faced a more restrictive weapons regime. The situation was eventually resolved, and the convoy was released, but [the British national] said that this episode could presage a more restrictive posture towards security firms 'in retaliation or the Blackwater verdict'," wrote Naland.
The cable also says that security companies are being encouraged by the Iraqi government and the oil companies to employ more Iraqis and less westerners in frontline jobs.
"According to XXXXXXXXXX, the GOI [government of Iraq] is anxious to 'get rid of all the white faces carrying guns' in their streets," it reads.
Afghan authorities last week arrested a British private security company employee and sentenced him to eight months in jail, the latest move in the government's crackdown on private security firms. Global Strategies Group consultant Michael Hearn was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly failing to register weapons with the government.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
