Xe Blog

The Cost Risk of Privatizing War

2011-03-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

By Dan Kenney

Co-coordinator of

No Private Armies

March 5, 2011

The Bipartisan Congressional commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan came out with their second Interim Report to Congress on February 24th. This report dispels any doubts about whether privatization is costing taxpayers too much. The Federal reliance on contractors is not only costing too much but billions are being lost to fraud and waste. The report proves that the unprecedented outsourcing that has occurred in these wars needs to be stopped. The â€œCommission believes the United States has come to over-rely on contractors.â€

The Commissionâ€™s conservative estimate is that since October 2001 at least $177 billion has been spent on private contracts and grants to support U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is equivalent to $407,000,000 per Congressional district or $1,505 per U.S. household. Of that misspent amounts run in the tens of billions.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) warned the Commission in January of this year that the entire $11.4 billion for contracts to build nearly 900 facilities for the Afghan National Security Forces is at risk due to inadequate planning. This estimate does not include the waste that has resulted from Afghanistanâ€˜s inability to sustain projects.

In addition to waste there is also the issue of fraud. According to the Association of Fraud Examiners an estimated 7% of revenue is lost to fraud, or $12 billion. Many observers also believe that waste accounts for substantially greater sums than the fraud and abuse.

The Commission conducted more than 900 meetings and briefings, along with a series of trips to Afghanistan and Iraq, and over 19 Commission hearings. After their research they have developed over 30 recommendations for congress and the Obama Administration.

The Obama Administration has been just as silent as the previous administration on this issue privatization. In March of 2009 Obama issued a memo on government contracting in which he stated:

â€œThe Federal Government must have sufficient capacity

to manage and oversee the contracting process from start

to finish, so as to ensure that taxpayer funds are spent wisely

and are not subject to excessive risk.â€

The Obama administration failure to act on this memo however is made evident in a statement made by the Special Inspector General of Afghanistan Reconstruction. Major General Arnold Fields told the Commission in a hearing entitled â€œRecurring Problems in Afghan Constructionâ€ January 24th 2011, â€œWe donâ€™t have enough trained folks within the federal establishment to provide the oversight of the very contractors we are brining on board.â€ When government agencies lack experienced and qualified workers to provide oversight, the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse in contract performances increases exponentially. In some cases contractors are hired to perform the oversight of other contractors for the federal agencies. To this fact the Commission stated, â€œThe Commission firmly believes that contractors need to be managed by military and government civilian personnel. Anything less is unacceptable.â€

During the same January 2011 hearing Secretary of Defense Gates expressed his own concern for the governmentâ€™s â€œlevel of dependencyâ€ on contractors.

â€œAlthough there is historical precedent for contracted support to our military forces, I am concerned about the risks introduced by our current level of dependency, our future total force mix, and the need to better plan for { operational contract support} in the future. . . The time is now-while the lessons learned from recent operations are fresh- to institutionalize the changes necessary to influence a cultural shift.â€

The issue of accountability is also covered in the report. The report states, â€œA serious concern with relying on armed security contractors is a potential gap in legal accountability.â€ This â€œlegal gray zoneâ€ in which these private military contractors operate can lead to diplomatic conflicts with the host nations. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan governments have all demanded private military companies to leave their countries. But this demand has not been met for the very dependency we have touched on earlier. As a nation the U.S. can not operate in Central Asia or any where else without the support of private companies. These present wars have become the most privatized wars in Americaâ€™s history. We have moved into new territory and the Commissionâ€™s report makes it clear that this has been done haphazardly with great consequence to human life and taxpayer money.

Whether Congress listens to the Commissionâ€™s findings is yet to be seen. The report was ignored, coming out during the budget battle, although the connection between the Nationâ€™s deficit and a war that is costing $700 million per week and nearly 50% of that amount going into contracts with over 600 companies operating in these war zones. And now we have the evidence to show that tens of billions of that money is being wasted or stolen. Also at this time of growing attacks on unions, workers, and the middle class in this country under the guise of budget deficits, it seems to be the most responsible choice to draw parallels between this wasting and thievery of public funds by private war profiteers and mercenaries.

In its conclusion the Commission said, â€œIf, on the other hand, the federal government cannot muster the resources and the will to strategically employ, manage, and oversee mission-critical contractors effectively, then it should reconsider using contractors, or reconsider the scope of its mission with a view to trimming them.â€

Now that we have a majority in Congress that is dedicated to the Market solving all problems, and seemingly bent on breaking government down to a postage stamp size capabilities of real oversight, than it seems time for the citizens to call for the passing of the S.O.S. Act. The S.O.S. Act is the Stop Outsourcing Security Act, H.R. 4650, introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky D-IL and into the Senate by Mr. Sanders, I-VT.

The S.O.S. Act calls for the U.S. to phase out use of private military contractors. It seems that given the lack of will in Congress and in this administration to take oversight of these contractors seriously, we should end our use of them. This will be a difficult task given the present climate; it will require a great outpouring of citizen support to make such a cultural change within the Department of Defense, the State Department, and within the intelligence community. (75% of the intelligence agencies activities are performed by private contractors.)

If the resolve and will of the government is missing than this policy change must come from the people. It is after all, our money, the lives of our loved ones, and the future of our nation at risk.

Pakistan arrests US security contractor as rift with CIA deepens

2011-03-02T09:14:00.001-08:00

ISI tells American agency to unmask all its covert operatives after arrest of Aaron DeHaven in Peshawar, over visa expiry

Pakistani authorities have arrested a US government security contractor amid a worsening spy agency row between the countries, with Pakistani intelligence calling on the Americans to "come clean" about its network of covert operatives in the country.

The arrest came at the start of the murder trial of another American held in Pakistan, the CIA agent Raymond Davis.

Peshawar police arrested Aaron DeHaven, a contractor who recently worked for the US embassy in Islamabad, saying that his visa had expired.

Little was known about DeHaven except that his firm, which also has offices in Afghanistan and Dubai, is staffed by retired US military and defence personnel who boast of direct experience in the "global war on terror".

It was unclear whether his arrest was linked to escalating tensions between the Inter-Services Intelligence and the CIA, triggered by the trial of Davis, who appeared in handcuffs at a brief court hearing in a Lahore jail.

The 36-year-old former special forces soldier, whose status as a spy was revealed by the Guardian, refused to sign a chargesheet presented to him by the prosecution, which says he murdered two men at a traffic junction on January 27.

Davis instead repeated his claim of diplomatic immunity â€“ a claim supported by President Barack Obama, who called him "our diplomat".

The press and public were excluded from the hearing in Kot Lakhpat jail, where Pakistani officials have taken unusual measures to ensure Davis's security amid a public clamour for his execution.

The furore has also triggered the most serious crisis between the ISI and the CIA since the 9/11 attacks. A senior ISI official told the Guardian that the CIA must "ensure there are no more Raymond Davises or his ilk" if it is to repair the tattered relationship of trust.

"They need to come clean, tell us who they are and what they are doing. They need to stop doing things behind our back," he said. There are "two or three score" covert US operatives roaming Pakistan, "if not more", he said.

CIA spokesman George Little said that agency ties to the ISI "have been strong over the years, and when there are issues to sort out, we work through them. That's the sign of a healthy partnership".

Pakistani civilian officials warned that the ISI was amplifying fallout from the Davis crisis through selective media leaks to win concessions from the US.

"They're playing the media; in private they're much more deferential to the Americans," said a senior government official, who added that the two agencies had weathered previous disagreements in private.

The crisis has sucked in the military top brass from both countries. On Tuesday, a Pakistani delegation led by General Ashfaq Kayani met US generals, led by Admiral Mike Mullen, at a luxury resort in Oman to hammer out the issues.

The US stressed that it "did not want the US-Pakistan relationship to go into a freefall under media and domestic pressures", according to an account of the meeting obtained by Foreign Policy magazine.

The ISI official agreed that future co-operation was vital. "They need us; we need them," he said. "But we need to move forward in the right direction, based on equality and respect."

The media furore over Davis has fuelled scrutiny of other American security officials in Pakistan and their visa arrangements, and may have led police to Aaron DeHaven in Peshawar on Friday.

DeHaven runs a company named Catalyst Services which, according to its website, is staffed by retired military and defence department personnel who have "played some role in major world events" including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military mission to Somalia and the "global war on terror". Services offered include "full-service secure residences", protective surveillance and armed security.

One prospective customer who met DeHaven last year described him as a small, slightly-built man, who wore glasses and had broad knowledge of Pakistani politics. DeHaven said he had lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for one year, had married a Pakistani woman along the border with Afghanistan, and spoke Pashto fluently.

He said he moved his base from Peshawar to Islamabad last year over suspicions that he worked for Blackwater, the controversial US military contracting firm.

His business partner is listed on company documents as Hunter Obrikat with an address in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Guardian was unable to contact either men at listed numbers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and Dubai.

US embassy spokeswoman Courtney Beale said DeHaven was "not a direct employee of the US government" but added that details could not be confirmed until a consular officer had met him. The arrest is another sign of brittle relations between the two countries.

US officials in Washington argue that Davis is a registered diplomat who should be immediately released under the provisions of the Vienna convention. But that plea has fallen on deaf ears in Pakistan, where the papers have been filled with lurid accounts of the spy's alleged activities, including unlikely accounts of him working with the Taliban and al-Qaida.

The US has also struck some blows in the covert public relations war. After a lull of three weeks, the CIA restarted its drone campaign in the tribal belt last Monday, with near-daily attacks on militant targets since then. "It's their way of showing who's in charge," said a senior Pakistani official.

And at the Oman meeting, Mullen warned Kayani he would apply "other levers" to the Pakistanis if a solution to the case was not found, the official added.

Since Davis's CIA status was revealed, US officials have told Pakistani officials that their best hope is in offering compensation to the families of the two men Davis shot in Lahore. Religious parties, however, have pressured relatives not to accept money.

Meanwhile, the Zardari government says it will settle the issue of Davis's diplomatic status at a court hearing scheduled for 14 March.

Pakistan Trial of CIA Operative Adjourns

2011-02-27T20:18:00.001-08:00

A Pakistani court has adjourned the murder trial of a CIA agent and former Blackwater operative accused in the shooting deaths of two men last month. The Obama administration had insisted Raymond Davis was a diplomat until acknowledging his work for the CIA this week. The United States has called for Davis’s repatriation as a diplomat entitled to diplomatic immunity, but Pakistani authorities are challenging his diplomatic status in court. Davis’s murder trial will continue next week. According to Reuters, two U.S. citizens were quietly withdrawn from Pakistan last month after causing a fatal car accident as they came to Davis’s aid. A police report says the pair struck a Pakistani motorist, only to flee the scene. The Davis case has strained U.S.-Pakistani ties. On Thursday, Pakistan’s main spy agency, the ISI, announced it’s scaling back cooperation with the CIA.

Gadhafi getting help from mercenaries

2011-02-25T09:41:00.000-08:00

TRIPOLI, Libya, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was getting the help of African mercenaries and militiamen to maintain his 40-year rule, witnesses said Wednesday.

The New York Times said thousands of mercenaries and militia were on roads headed for Tripoli, the capital and Gadhafi's stronghold, where Gadhafi appears to be strengthening his forces in anticipation of a decisive stage in the struggle for control of the country.

Opponents in Tripoli said they were making plans for their first organized protest Friday, the Times said.
GALLERY: Protesting Moammar Gadhafi

A growing number of military officers and officials Wednesday said they had broken with Gadhafi over his intentions to bomb and kill Libyan civilians, the report said.
Armed militiamen strafing crowds from the back of pickup trucks killed scores in Tripoli, residents told the Times, and bursts of gunfire extended the reign of terror Wednesday.

Human rights groups say they have confirmed about 300 deaths, though witnesses suggested the number was far larger. Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Italy said there were probably more than 1,000 dead across the country.

Italy is the former colonial power in Libya.

CNN, citing Libya's Quryna newspaper, reported the crew of a Libyan military aircraft Wednesday refused to bomb Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and let the warplane crash in an uninhabited area southwest of the city.

The newspaper said the pilot parachuted out of the Russian-built Sukhoi-22.

CNN said Quryna has switched from reporting regime propaganda to reporting on the protests and casualties.

Al-Jazeera, the Arab cable news channel, said its correspondent reported protesters claiming control of the western city of Misurata. In an Internet statement, army officers in the city vowed "total support for the protesters," the report said.

News outlets reported Benghazi had been taken over by the opposition.

Meanwhile, Italian warplanes were said to be keeping an eye on a stalled Libyan naval vessel off the coast of Malta. Al-Jazeera reported its correspondent in Malta said tensions were rising in Italy over the civil unrest in Libya.

There were rumors in Malta that the vessel had lowered its flags, suggesting its crew was defecting.

Much of the country's east region appeared to be in the hands of protesters, al-Jazeera said.

Meanwhile, the Swedish tabloid Expressen said Libya's recently resigned justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, claims Gadhafi personally ordered the Lockerbie airliner bombing that killed 270 people in 1988.

An al-Jazeera correspondent said there were no officials manning the border when the broadcaster's team crossed into Libya near Tobruk.

Maj. Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, commander of the armed forces in Tobruk, told al-Jazeera his troops had switched sides: "We are on the side of the people."

Earlier, Libyan government officials said the country's former interior minister, who resigned to support anti-government protesters, had been kidnapped.

Abdul Fattah Younis al Abidi told CNN Wednesday he resigned earlier in the week after hearing unarmed civilians were killed in Benghazi, while Libyan state media reported that "gangs" in Benghazi had kidnapped the minister.

Libyan security forces have warned that the people responsible for Abidi's kidnapping "will be chased in their hiding places." Earlier Wednesday, Abidi said he had resigned his post to back protesters who want Gadhafi to end his rule.

"Gadhafi told me he was planning on using airplanes against the people in Benghazi, and I told him that he will have thousands of people killed if he does that," Abidi told CNN in a telephone interview.

He called Gadhafi "a stubborn man" who won't concede.

"He will either commit suicide or he will get killed," the former minister said.

Abidi urged security forces to defect and join the anti-government protesters. A number of security personnel have switched sides, and a growing number of Libyan government and diplomatic officials reportedly have resigned since the protests started Feb.15.

After Gadhafi's second televised speech in two days -- in which he vowed to kill protesters "house by house" -- thousands of his supporters went to the Tripoli's central Green Square, wearing green bandannas and carrying machetes, witnesses said.

"It looks like they have been given a green light to kill these people," one witness said.

Tripoli remained under an information blackout, with no Internet access and intermittent phone service, making independent confirmation of events difficult.

In Tobruk, on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast near the Egyptian border, Libya's historic red, black and green flag -- barred during Gadhafi's reign -- flew over many buildings, The Wall Street Journal said.

Gadhafi, meanwhile, vowed to remain in the country "until the end."

"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr," he said, calling the protesters "cockroaches" and "greasy rats," and blaming the unrest on foreigners, including the United States and al-Qaida.

Condemnations of the crackdown mounted, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the violence as "completely unacceptable."

The U.N. Security Council condemned Libya's use of anti-civilian violence, which it said was a "crime," and called for those responsible to be held accountable.

The League of Arab States condemned what it also called crimes against civilians and suspended Libya as a member until it responded to the people's demands.

In Brussels, the European Union suspended a framework agreement it had been negotiating with Libya.

Governments worked to get tens of thousands of foreigners out of Libya Wednesday, whether by sea or air. At least two oil companies said they were suspending some operations and evacuating workers.

Libya holds Africa's greatest oil reserves, normally exporting 1.2 million barrels a day, mostly to Europe, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

How many Davis-type agents are in Pakistan?

2011-02-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani authorities are trying to figure out the exact number and locations of other Raymond Davis type CIA and Blackwater agents whose main focus, it is feared, is Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

The cold blooded killings in Lahore by Davis has alarmed the Pakistani security agencies, which, according to sources, have started collecting details of all the likes of Raymond Davis, their local moles and their activities in Pakistan.

However, as indicated by the former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi that the issue of the Raymond Davis has been mishandled, the sources said that there are certain elements within the government who are found to be too supportive of Washington than Pakistan.

Sources believe that the number of Davis like CIA and Blackwater agents is high and may be around one hundred. However, there is no exact number available with the authorities. It was General Musharraf who, after 9/11 for perpetuating his dictatorial rule, opened the country’s gates for American agents at the cost of Pakistan’s own security.

In 2009, three Americans along with a Pakistani had tried to trespass into the restricted area of Kahuta but the official security agency deployed at the check post got alerted and intercepted them when they crossed the check post. The Pakistani accompanying these Americans was a retired assistant director of the FIA, who while introducing himself as an FIA officer had managed to free the Americans and returned.

Through this trespassing, according to an official report, the Americans had tried to check the security arrangements for the Kahuta Research Laboratories, one of the leading nuclear sites of Pakistan. “This one incident had a vital role in moving out DynCorp men from the Sihala Police College facility where they were allowed to train the police officials but were found in spying on the country’s nuclear facility,” a source said.

DynCorp, which is a Blackwater like private security agency that works for American CIA outside the United States, was also allowed to operate in sensitive areas, including the Sihala Police College by Musharraf but was pampered by the Interior Ministry of the present government.

Despite alarming intelligence reports about the DynCorp’s activities under the cover of Anti-Terrorism Assistance Programme (ATAP), the Interior Ministry, vide its letter number 1/41/2003-Police dated 29 June 2009, had granted an NoC for import of explosive material by the office of ATAP at the Sihala Police College.

“The NoC was issued without security clearance from intelligence agencies under the US pressure,” a security agency report submitted to the government said, adding that prior to approaching the Interior Ministry, the US Embassy in Islamabad had approached the Ministry of Industries to issue the NoC but the Industries Ministry’s authorities decided that it would be issued subject to the clearance by the ISI and IB.

“The IB sought some clarifications about quantity and type of explosives and detail of courses. Resultantly administration of Police College Sihala requested the Americans running the ATAP camp to provide the required details. However, instead of providing the details, Mr Robert A Clark and Mr Bob of ATAP Camp contacted the US Embassy, which used its influence and managed to get the NoC while bypassing the rules.”

In a similar fashion and following the request of the US Embassy as already reported by The News, the Interior Ministry had issued prohibited bore licenses to DynCorp’s local partner Inter-Risk which, after the media reported the matter, had become a major controversy but no one in the Interior Ministry was touched.

Even now some key elements in the Interior Ministry are said to be favouring Washington in Davis case. The same elements, it is said, are using their influence on the families of the deceased, killed by Davis, to accept dollars from Americans to ensure early release of the American killer.

The role of the Pakistani Embassy in the US is also under scrutiny after the reported issuance of about 400 visas to US citizens in the first two days of the implementation of the controversial visa policy under which the embassy was empowered to issue visas to US officials upto one year without referring the cases to Pakistan.

Growing Anger in Pakistan Over US CIA/Blackwater Killings

2011-02-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

LAHORE, Pakistan - – New revelations about a CIA contractor in custody for shooting two men dead heaped pressure on Pakistan's fragile government Tuesday and exposed burning public mistrust of Washington.

Activists of Pakistan's outlawed religious party Jamaat-ud Dawa shout slogans during a protest against arrested US national Raymond Davis in Lahore on February 18. The unpopular government in Pakistan is under huge pressure from the political opposition not to cave in to US demands to release Davis, with analysts even warning that the case could bring down the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP). (Photo/Arif Ali) Officials in Washington cited by US media reports confirmed the account of a Pakistani intelligence official, who told AFP that Raymond Davis, the American being held in a prison in Lahore city, was working undercover for the CIA.

Washington is pushing hard for Pakistan's authorities to free Davis, arguing that he has diplomatic immunity and backing his claim to have acted in self-defence when he shot the men in a busy city street nearly four weeks ago.

The foreign ministry has so far refused to define Davis's diplomatic status and a Lahore court last week gave the government another three weeks to do so.

The opposition and relatives of the dead men said it was time for the government to come clean with what it knows of Davis and to address suspicions that he also worked for Xe, a US security firm formerly known as Blackwater.

"Davis deserves no pardon... We knew from day one that he was working for the CIA and Blackwater," said Mohammad Waseem, the brother of the deceased Mohammad Faheem.

"People like Davis have a role in terrorist activities in Pakistan. He should be tried and given the death sentence."

The New York Times on Monday reported that Davis was part of a CIA operation tracking Islamist extremists in eastern Pakistan such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, the virulently anti-Indian group blamed for the bloody 2008 siege of Mumbai.

The newspaper said he "worked for years as a CIA contractor, including time at Blackwater Worldwide". It noted that the company has long been seen by Pakistanis "as symbolizing a culture of American gun-slinging overseas".

"Whether he is a Blackwater or CIA agent the facts should be exposed by the federal government because it is their responsibility," said Pervez Rashid, spokesman for the opposition-controlled Punjab government.

Pakistani police say that after the shooting on January 27, they recovered a Glock pistol, four loaded magazines, a GPS navigation system and a small telescope from Davis's car.

A third Pakistani was struck down and killed by a US diplomatic vehicle that came to his assistance. US officials denied Pakistan access to the vehicle and the occupants are widely believed to have left the country.

Right-wing religious group Jamat-e-Islami, which wants Davis to be hanged for murder, said the courts should be left to adjudicate, but that he should also be now tried for espionage.

A lawyer for the three families of the men killed, Asad Manzoor Butt, raised the possibility of fresh espionage charges but said the claims should not affect an ongoing murder case in the courts.

The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as denying that Davis was directly involved in CIA espionage or drone operations, which have killed hundreds of alleged militants in Pakistan's northwest on the Afghan border.

The case complicates relations with the United States, which have already been strained by mistrust over the US-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday told parliamentarians that the two governments would not allow the Davis case to undermine their "mutually beneficial partnership".

But while he said Pakistan was mindful of its international obligations, he insisted the government "will not compromise on Pakistan's sovereignty and dignity".

US Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan last week to express regret and say Davis would face a criminal investigation at home.

Raymond Davis Is CIA Contractor, U.S. Officials Say

2011-02-23T07:32:00.000-08:00

By MATTHEW COLE
Feb. 21, 2011
According to a current senior U.S. official and a senior intelligence consultant who worked with Davis, the 36-year-old American is a former Blackwater contractor who was posted to Lahore as part of the CIA's Global Response Staff, or GRS, a unit of security and bodyguards assigned to war zones and troubled countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Members of the GRS most often accompany CIA case officers, who meet with clandestine sources.

Davis and a group of fellow security officers lived in a safehouse in Lahore. The CIA keeps safehouses for security personnel in an effort to limit the ability for militants to track their movements, the intelligence contractor said.

ABC News was asked by the U.S. government to withhold publication of Davis's affiliation with the CIA, citing fears that disclosure would jeopardize his safety. After several foreign media organizations published parts of his background, the U.S. government rescinded its request to ABC News to embargo the information.

On Jan. 27, Davis left the safehouse and conducted an "area familiarization route," according to the senior U.S. official. He drove through various Lahore neighborhoods for several hours. It was during his route, two U.S. officials say, that Davis stopped at an A.T.M. and possibly drew the attention of two Pakistani men on a motorcycle.

Davis has told the police in Lahore that the two men were attempting to rob him when he fired several rounds from his Glock handgun, hitting them both. The police report says that Davis claimed one of the men had a gun cocked at him. Davis fired multiple rounds from inside his car, killing one man in the street, while the second died later from his injuries.

Davis then called for help from several other CIA security officers who shared his Lahore safehouse, according to a U.S. official and the intelligence consultant. As they arrived near the intersection, they accidentally hit a Pakistani motorcyclist. The motorcyclist later died of his injuries. Davis' colleagues were unable to get to Davis before the police arrested him. They left the scene and returned to their safehouse.

Within hours, they had destroyed all government documents at the safehouse, abandoned it, and retreated to the U.S. consulate for safety. Both have since returned to the U.S., according to a senior U.S. official briefed on the case.

5,500 Mercs to Protect U.S. Fortresses in Iraq

2011-02-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

By Spencer Ackerman

In September 2007, Blackwater guards working for the U.S. State Department killed 17 Iraqis at Baghdad’s Nisour Square, one of the most controversial episodes in the long war there. But State isn’t backing away from its mercs. With American troops scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of the year, the ambassador to Iraq will become a de facto general of a huge, for-hire army — one larger than a U.S. Army heavy combat brigade.

During a Senate hearing today, John Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged the top U.S. civilian and military officials in Iraq to “be careful” about “replacing a military presence with a private mercenary presence.” A report that the committee released yesterday and announced today explained why: the State Department plans to field 5,500 private security contractors to protect up to 17,000 civilians working for the American government in Iraq.

The report barely goes into the composition of the emerging mercenary army, but since State has been so tight-lipped about its plans, it sheds new light on how diplomats will be protected after the military leaves Iraq at the end of the year. A force of 3,650 private security guards will be stationed at the huge Baghdad embassy. (The security firm SOC Inc. has a contract for protecting that embassy worth as much as $974 million.) It’ll be supplemented with mercs at four satellite installations: 600 in the Kurdish capitol of Irbil; 575 in Basra (the report says Baghdad, but it appears to be a misprint); and 335 each at Mosul and Kirkuk.

“Roughly four thousand of these will be third-country nationals serving as static perimeter security for the various installations,” the report states. In the past, private companies have hired non-westerners as guards, as they work cheaper than westerners do.

Non-Americans also make up a large proportion in a ginormous U.S. civilian presence. The Senate report anticipates a whopping “17,000 individuals” working for the Baghdad embassy. Only 650 of them will actually be diplomats, backstopped by “hundreds” of U.S. officials from the Treasury, Justice and Agriculture departments. But they’ll “mostly” be foreign employees “working as life-support and security contractors.” That is, the people who do the laundry, cook the food and clean the messes.

The size of the anticipated private-security force in Iraq is slightly lower than an estimate offered by a State official in June, but it’s much higher than the 2,700 security contractors employed in Iraq right now. And aside from the static security stationed at those five State Department installations, they’ll be operating at the “15 different sites” that State plans on operating, “including 3 air hubs, 3 police training centers… and 5 Office of Security Cooperation sites.”

At today’s hearing, both Amb. James Jeffrey and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of American forces in Iraq, endorsed a 2011 troop withdrawal and a large U.S. diplomatic mission. That leaves State with its merc army to provide protection.

Those contractors will be “registered with the Iraqi authorities,” Jeffrey insisted, and “under the direct supervision of our security personnel,” the State contractor-oversight officials who’ll be “riding in every convoy” — a check against future Nisour Squares.

Who is Raymond Davis?

2011-02-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

Strangely, the more we get to know about the case of Raymond Davis, the less we seem to know. Even more strangely, the fact that the entire incident happened in broad daylight and in front of dozens of witnesses seems is itself confusing the facts rather than adding clarity. Moreover, it seems that no one seems to want to get much clarity either; although different parties may want different parts of the story to ‘disappear.’ The incident was rather eerie and disturbing to begin with; and it continues to become more so.

Here is what one does know. Raymond Davis, a staff member of the US Consulate in Lahore shot two Pakistani men dead on Thursday in a crowded part of Lahore (Mozang Chowk), according to him in self-defense. A US Consulate vehicle that rushed in to ‘rescue’ Mr. David then ran over a third person, who also died. A murder case was then registered against Raymond Davis, who was handed into police custody. A case has also been registered against the driver of the US Consulate vehicle that ran over a third person, but the driver has not yet been apprehended. After a fair deal of scrambling by both US and Pakistani officials on what to do or say, the positions of both have now started becoming clear and they have taken the stance that is usually taken in such cases: the US is asking that Raymond Davis, as a diplomatic functionary, should be handed back to them; Pakistan seems to be responding that the matter is sub judice and should take its course.

Beyond that, there are more questions than answers. For most part, these questions fall into three categories: (1) Questions about who is Raymond Davis? (2) Questions about exactly what happened at Mozang, Lahore? (3) Questions about what should happen now ?

On the first question, earliest reports suggested that Raymond Davis was a “technical adviser” and a “consular” official. More recently, US Embassy officials have described him as a “functionary” of the Embassy assigned to the US Consulate in Lahore and carrying a US Diplomatic passport. Reportedly he was hired at the US Consulate in Lahore as a security contractor from a Florida-based firm Hyperion Protective Consultants. All of this has material relevance to whether he would enjoy diplomatic immunity or not, but even more because of the apprehensions of many Pakistanis that he could be linked to the CIA or to the infamous firm Blackwater (later renamed XE Services).

And that leads squarely to the second question: what exactly was happening at Mozang? Very much in line with the immediate knee-jerk reaction of many Pakistanis, an early commentary by Jeff Stein in The Washington Post seemed to suggest rather fancifully that the shootout could have been a “Spy rendezvous gone bad?” That would be a conspiracy theory, but not an entirely implausible one. Mozang is not a part of town that you would expect too many foreigners, let alone a US official, visiting; and certainly not in what was reportedly a rented private vehicle. And while Pakistan today is clearly an unsafe place, the question of just why an Embassy official was carrying a firearm be wished away. On the other hand, however, Mr. Davis claims that he shot in self defense as the two men on the motorcycle were trying to rob him at gun point. Anyone who knows Pakistan knows all too well that this, too, is entirely possible. TV footage and reports coming immediately after the incident showed one of the young men lying dead with a revolver and wearing an ammunition belt. And certainly, the question of why at least one of the two young men on the motorcycle was carrying a loaded firearm cannot be wished away just because he had “dushmani.” Indeed, serious questions need to be asked about just who the two young men on the motorcycle were, just as they need to be asked about who Raymond Davis is. There just seem to be too many unnecessary weapons in too much proximity in this story. All of the many explanations that are floating around are very disturbing, but also very plausible. Which is exactly why this story is even more dangerous if left unresolved.

Finally, the third question – which is now getting the most attention – about what should happen now. Much is being made – maybe too much – about the Vienna Convention and its implications for diplomatic immunity. Familiar diplomatic games about the minutia of vocabulary are being played and will in most likelihood result in all too familiar results. That is exactly what one would expect in any such situation anywhere. But this is not ‘any‘ situation’; and this is not ‘anywhere‘. This is about US-Pakistan relations: there is just about nothing that the US can say or do which Pakistanis are likely to believe, and there is just about nothing that Pakistan can say or do which Americans are likely to trust. Which is why getting stuck in the intricacies of the Vienna Convention of 1963 is the exact wrong place to get stuck. This is a time for public diplomacy: certainly from the US and maybe even from Pakistan. It is not in America’s interest to be seen to be standing in the way of justice and due process. And it is not in Pakistan’s interest to be seen to conducting a flawed process of justice. There are too many people on the extreme in both countries who will not and cannot to change their opinion and apprehensions about the other. But there are even more people in both countries who could all too easily be swayed to the extremes on distrust if this delicate case is not handled with clarity and transparency by both countries. Doing so will probably bring with it more than just a little diplomatic embarrassment. Not doing so can only bring worse in the tinderbox that is US-Pakistan relations.

Mystery Merc Group Is Blackwater’s 34th Front Company

2011-01-17T16:55:00.000-08:00

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.

The Privatization of War: Is Blackwater Heading for the Holy Land?

2011-01-17T16:43:00.001-08:00

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.

Blackwater Subsidiary Flouted German Arms Export Laws

2011-01-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

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."

Blackwater (Xe): The Secret US War in Pakistan

2011-01-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

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.

WikiLeaks cables: Iraq security firms operate 'mafia' to inflate prices

2011-01-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

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.

Documents expose private security firms

2010-12-28T10:14:00.000-08:00

Recently disclosed documents have spilled the beans on the activities of US security contractors, revealing offenses committed by more than 200 security contract employees in different countries.

The documents obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act highlighted previously kept secret offences committed by personnel working under a broad State Department security services contract in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries between 2004 and 2008.

The security service contracts were shared by private security firms such as DynCorp of Falls Church, Va., Triple Canopy of Reston, Va., and Blackwater Worldwide -- now called Xe Services of Moyock, NC.

Most of the incidents included excessive drinking, drug use, sexual misconduct, and mishandling of weapons -- all of which are considered violations of corporate and US policies.

In one incident on September 9, 2005, five DynCorp International security guards assigned to protect Afghan President Hamid Karzai returned to their compound drunk at 2 in the morning, accompanied by a prostitute.

Less than a week later, three of the same five guards got drunk in the VIP lounge of the Kabul airport while awaiting a flight to Thailand.

Afghanistan's deputy director for elections and a foreign diplomat were also present in the airport lounge.

Such incidents are widely viewed as damaging the US reputation which is already accused of launching a privatized war in the Middle East.

Kabul has confirmed the presence of 52 foreign private security companies, including the notorious American security firm Xe Services.

Karzai has ordered all security companies to be disbanded by the end of this year.

Most of the security contractors are believed to have close ties with Afghan warlords and are also accused of contributing to the rising number of civilian casualties in the country.

Blackwater killings: 'US at fault'

2010-12-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

Private security company, now known as Xe Services, says responsibilty for 2007 Iraq killings lies with US government.

The security company formerly known as Blackwater has told a US federal judge that the US government, and not the company itself, should be held accountable for a 2007 shooting by its contractors that killed 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square in Baghdad.

Lawyers for the company, now known as Xe Services, argued in court on Thursday that Blackwater contractors were essentially acting as employees of the US government because they were providing security to State Department personnel.

The North Carolina-based company and several of its contractors are seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of three people killed in the shooting: Ali Kinani, Abrahem Abed Al Mafraje and Mahde Sahab Naser Shamake. The lawsuit accuses the parties of wrongful death and negligence, and seeks punitive damages.

But attorney Andrew Pincus argued the sensitive nature of providing security in a war zone required the kind of oversight the government normally reserves for its own employees, as opposed to the duties performed by other types of contractors.

'Not food service'

"This isn't food service, where we can sort of leave it to the chefs," he said.

Lawyers for both the plaintiffs and the government disputed the contractors' argument, saying the practical effect of transferring the focus of the lawsuit to the federal government would be its dismissal.

The federal government is exempt from such lawsuits.

Judge Terrence W. Boyle did not immediately rule on the motions in the case, but said the most important issue seems to be whether the government is ultimately responsible for the actions of its contractors.

"If the government can cut the cord and let that drift off into space, that's one world," he said. "But it's a different world if the government has to be held accountable."

In separate motions, lawyers for Blackwater and the contractors argued they cannot be sued by foreigners for something that happened in a foreign country governed by foreign law. They also argue that Iraqi law prohibits such lawsuits.

Prosecutors say the contractors unleashed an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

The five men were initially charged with manslaughter for their role in the 2007 Nisoor Square shooting, which strained relations between Baghdad and Washington.

A year ago, however, a federal judge dismissed those charges, citing missteps by the government.

A sixth contractor, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty in the criminal case.

He filed a separate defense in the civil lawsuit, arguing that the federal court in North Carolina has no jurisdiction to hear the case.

Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services in March, saying its brand had been tarnished by its work in Iraq. The company settled a separate series of federal lawsuits earlier this year connected to the Nisour Square shooting and other controversial incidents in Iraq.

Change in ownership

In addition to the change in name, Xe Services has also sought to distance itself from its controversial founder, Erik Prince.

The former Navy Seal resigned from his post as the company's CEO in March 2009, but stayed on as chairman.

The controversy over allegations of murder and bribery have continued, and the company has been looking for new ownership.

In 2009, Blackwater was barred from Iraqfor "excessive force". US government documents released by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks in October revealed another 14 incidents, in addition to the Nisour Square shooting, in which Blackwater shot at civilians in Iraq.

Despite its record, a front company for Xe was awarded another lucrative contract by the US government in recent months.

Contractors behaving badly mean headaches for US

2010-12-28T10:12:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — At two in the morning on Sept. 9, 2005, five DynCorp International security guards assigned to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's protective detail returned to their compound drunk, with a prostitute in tow. Less than a week later, three of these same guards got drunk again, this time in the VIP lounge of the Kabul airport while awaiting a flight to Thailand.

"They had been intoxicated, loud and obnoxious," according to an internal company report of the incident, which noted that Afghanistan's deputy director for elections and a foreign diplomat were also in the lounge. "Complaints were made regarding the situation." DynCorp fired the three guards.

Such episodes represent the headaches that U.S. contractors can cause in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. They are indispensable to the State Department's mission overseas, handling security, transportation, construction, food service and more. But when hired hands behave badly — or break the law — they cast a cloud over the American presence.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act describe previously undisclosed offenses committed by more than 200 contract employees in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries between 2004 and 2008. They were working under a broad State Department security services contract shared by DynCorp of Falls Church, Va., Triple Canopy of Reston, Va., and the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide — Xe Services of Moyock, N.C.

Most of the infractions, which include excessive drinking, drug use, sexual misconduct, and mishandling weapons, were violations of corporate and U.S. policies that probably went unnoticed by ordinary Afghans and Iraqis. But other offenses played out in public, undermining U.S. efforts in both countries and raising questions about how carefully job candidates are screened.

Despite complaints from foreign capitals about reckless behavior and heavy-handed tactics, U.S. contractors are more important than ever.

In Iraq, the departure of U.S. combat forces has left a security and logistics support vacuum to be filled by the private sector. In testimony to the independent Wartime Contracting Commission in June, a State Department official said as many as 7,000 security contractors — more than double the current number — will be needed to guard the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and other offices across Iraq.

Karzai had to back away from the Friday deadline he had set to ban security contractors after Western diplomats said the move threatened the completion of billions of dollars worth of critical reconstruction projects that need to be protected from insurgent attacks.

In 2009, DynCorp employees working under a separate State Department contract to train Afghan police would be the source of more trouble. A diplomatic report disclosed by the WikiLeaks organization described a panicked Afghan minister urging U.S. officials to stop The Washington Post from running a story about DynCorp workers who had hired an Afghan teenage boy to dance at a company party. Videotape of the event showed more than a dozen DynCorp workers cheering the teenage dancer on as he moved around a single employee sitting on a chair, according to the Post story, which ran in July 2009.

Interior Minister Hanif Atmar claimed the embarrassing publicity could cause a backlash in Afghanistan and "endanger lives."

DynCorp is one of the department's most prominent vendors. More than one-third of the company's $3.1 billion in 2009 revenues came from State Department contracts for armed security, law enforcement training and aviation services, according to the company's latest annual report. The police training contract alone is valued at $651 million.

DynCorp fired four senior managers for the dancing episode, which it said was "culturally inappropriate" and reflected poor judgment by the employees.

"No company can guarantee that their employees will behave perfectly at all times, under all conditions," DynCorp spokeswoman Ashley Burke said. "What we can guarantee is that we will clearly define expectations, train our employees according to those expectations and hold people accountable for their behaviors."

U.S. contractors have sought to improve their reputation through advocacy groups such as the Professional Services Council and the International Stability Operations Association, both based in Washington. In Geneva last month, more than 50 companies that work in war zones signed an international code of conduct to improve openness and accountability.

Ignacio Balderas, Triple Canopy's chief executive officer, said his company will push to ensure the code gains worldwide acceptance "and becomes an integral part of how the industry operates."

But reversing entrenched attitudes isn't easy. In a telling assessment of how U.S. contractors are viewed, Atmar, who Karzai dismissed as interior minister in June, reported that "these contractor companies do not have many friends."

The documents obtained by AP help to show why.

In March 2008, Blackwater guards forced an Afghan soldier to the ground and handcuffed him after he refused to let their vehicle pass through a checkpoint at the Kabul airport because they didn't have proper identification. A 13-page report by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul describes a tense confrontation between the Blackwater personnel and Afghan troops that could have resulted in a gun battle.

The confrontation caused "significant damage" to the embassy's reputation with the Afghan National Army, the report said. The embassy ordered the firing of the two Blackwater guards it said were most responsible.

In early 2006, when U.S. authorities were stressing the importance of cultural sensitivity in Iraq, a Blackwater contractor was openly hostile to Iraqis, according to a company record. During a detail at Iraq's ministry of water, he refused to shake hands with the ministry's chief of security, accusing the Iraqi official of being "part of the (expletive) Mahdi militia," a reference to a paramilitary force loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

A month later, the same employee repeatedly disrupted a class on Iraqi culture, accusing the instructor of "spreading propaganda." He was fired after that for being "unable to act professionally" toward the Iraqis, State Department employees, and co-workers, according to the document.

In March 2005, a fired Blackwater contractor who was in a hotel in Jordan awaiting a flight back to the U.S. ignored a supervisor's order to stay in his room until his plane was ready to leave. He got drunk and fought with several Jordanians, spit at and tore down a picture of Jordan's King Abdullah, and was arrested. Blackwater managers escorted him from the jail to the airport.

Blackwater eventually lost its license to operate as guardian of U.S. diplomats in Iraq after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007.

In a written statement, Xe said it maintains high standards of conduct. When company policy is violated, "disciplinary actions are taken up to and including termination from employment," the company said.

On Friday, the investment group USTC Holdings announced it had bought Xe in a deal that includes the company's training facility in North Carolina. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

More examples of contractor headaches at a glance

2010-12-23T15:28:00.001-08:00

By The Associated Press

-- Documents obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act describe previously undisclosed offenses committed by more than 200 contract employees of the State Department in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries between 2004 and 2008. They were working under a broad security services contract shared by DynCorp of Falls Church, Va.; Triple Canopy of Reston, Va.; and the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide - Xe Services of Moyock, N.C.

Some examples of the offenses:

-In March 2006, two guards working for Triple Canopy were involved a gunfight outside a club called the Soft Lady in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, according to a report of the incident.

They went to the bar to meet friends. In keeping with the club's policy, they locked their weapons inside their vehicle. Once inside, an unknown man with a gun confronted one of the Triple Canopy guards and shot him at least twice before running from the club. The uninjured guard helped his partner to their vehicle outside, where they came under fire "from an unknown number of assailants shooting from behind two parked cars," the report said. The guards now had access to their own weapons and they returned fire. Once they did, the attackers took off.

The injured Triple Canopy guard was taken to the hospital, where he survived, according to the report. Both men were ordered out of the country and barred from working on the security contract for unprofessional conduct and lack of judgment.

-An unidentified weapon was "test fired" by a Blackwater aircraft in January 2005 near the home of an Iraqi official, who is not named in the records describing the incident. U.S. officials in Baghdad ordered the pilot and the aircraft's gunner dismissed. Several months later, however, Fred Piry, then a senior State Department official, reinstated both contractors "after a careful review of the incident." The records don't say what information caused Piry to reverse the earlier decision.

-In March 2008, three DynCorp employees in Iraq were fired after a flare was shot from their vehicle at a truck being driven by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. An inquiry by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad found that the use of the flare was justified in stopping the truck, which was being driven erratically. But the employees were sacked because they initially lied to investigators, claiming they hadn't shot the flare or witnessed anyone else doing so

Blackwater Founder in Deal to Sell Company

2010-12-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and BEN PROTESS

Erik D. Prince, founder of the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, has reached a deal to sell his embattled firm to a small group of investors based in Los Angeles who have close ties to Mr. Prince, according to people briefed on the deal.

Blackwater, now called Xe Services, was once the United States’ go-to contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been under intense pressure since 2007, when Blackwater guards were accused of killing 17 civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad. The company, its executives and personnel have faced civil lawsuits, criminal charges and congressional investigations surrounding accusations of murder and bribery. In April, federal prosecutors announced weapons charges against five former senior Blackwater executives, including its former president.

The sale, which is expected to be announced on Friday, came after the State Department threatened to stop awarding contracts to the company as long as Mr. Prince owned the firm, people involved in the discussions said. These people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the confidential talks. The sale is intended to help shake the stigma associated with its ownership under Mr. Prince.

Yet questions remain about Mr. Prince’s continuing relationship with the company. While he is expected to step down from any management or operational role, he will have a financial interest in the company’s future, according to people briefed on the negotiations. As part of the deal, he will be paid an “earn out,” or a payment that depends on the company’s financial performance over the next several years, these people said.

One of the lead investors in the deal is Jason DeYonker of Forté Capital Advisors, who has a long relationship with Mr. Prince and Blackwater. He helped advise Mr. Prince in his development of Blackwater’s business plan when the company was founded and helped negotiate the company’s first training contracts with United States government agencies and the company’s expansion of its training center in Moyock, N.C. In addition, he managed the Prince family’s money from 1998 to 2002. The other lead investor is Manhattan Growth Partners, a private equity firm in New York.

Exact terms of the deal could not be learned, but people involved in the talks said the transaction was worth about $200 million. Bank of America led the financing of the transaction, these people said.

Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seal who created Blackwater in 1997, put his company up for sale in June and moved his family to Abu Dhabi, court records show. Mr. Prince, who built Blackwater using an inheritance from his family’s Michigan auto parts fortune, stepped aside as Xe’s chief executive in 2009 but has remained chairman until now. Mr. Prince sold the company’s aviation division, Presidential Airways, to the AAR Corporation in March.

The auction for Xe Services has dragged on for months as speculation has swirled about the company’s future and the auction process. Some bidders speculated that Mr. Prince had always favored selling the company to the investor group led by Mr. DeYonker.

The new buyers are hoping to recast the company as a military training organization instead of a private security service. The company’s training center in Moyock has trained more than 50,000 United States government personnel and allied forces. The buyers hope to receive new contracts to train forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, among other locations, especially as the United States withdraws troops and needs to train local forces.

After the sale, the company will continue to be subject to an agreement it reached with the State Department in August. Under the settlement, the company paid $42 million in fines over hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations, permitting it to continue to compete for government contracts.

Wendy Wysong, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance, was appointed as a special compliance officer for Xe Services as a result of the settlement.

James Risen contributed reporting.

America's New Mercenaries

2010-12-21T13:27:00.001-08:00

Tim Shorrock Wed Dec 15, 10:39 pm ET

NEW YORK – As American commanders meet this week for the Afghanistan review, Obama is hiring military contractors at a rate that would make Bush blush. Tim Shorrock on the Blackwater heirs.

Top U.S. commanders are meeting this week to plan for the next phase of the Afghanistan war. In Iraq, meanwhile, gains are tentative and in danger of unraveling.

Both wars have been fought with the help of private military and intelligence contractors. But despite the troubles of Blackwater in particular – charges of corruption and killing of civilians—and continuing controversy over military outsourcing in general, private sector armies are as involved as ever.

Without much notice or debate, the Obama administration has greatly expanded the outsourcing of key parts of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East and Africa, and as a result, for its secretive air war and special operations missions around the world, the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on a new breed of specialized companies that are virtually unknown to the American public, yet carry out vital U.S. missions abroad.

Companies such as Blackbird Technologies, Glevum Associates, K2 Solutions, and others have won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and intelligence contracts in recent years to provide technology, information on insurgents, Special Forces training, and personnel rescue. They win their work through the large, established prime contractors, but are tasked with missions only companies with specific skills and background in covert and counterinsurgency can accomplish.

Some observers fear that the widespread use of contractors for U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa could deepen the secrecy surrounding the American presence in those regions, making it harder for Congress to provide proper oversight.

Even in Iraq, where the U.S. has ended combat operations, the government is "greatly expanding" its use of private security companies, creating "an entirely new role for contractors on the battlefield," Michael Thibault, the co-chairman of the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting, recently warned Congress.

Blackbird, which is staffed by former CIA operatives, is a key contractor in a highly classified program that sends secret teams into enemy territory to rescue downed or captured U.S. soldiers.

Among the companies getting contracts is Blackbird, which is staffed by former CIA operatives, and is a key contractor in a highly classified program that sends secret teams into enemy territory to rescue downed or captured U.S. soldiers.

Glevum, meanwhile, fields a small army of analysts in Iraq and Afghanistan who provide the U.S. military with what the company opaquely describes as "information operations and influence activities."

And K2 is a highly sought-after subcontractor and trainer for the most secretive units of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, including the SEAL team that rescued the crew of the Maersk Alabama from a gang of pirates last year. It is based near the Army's Special Forces headquarters in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was founded by Lane Kjellsen, a former Special Forces soldier.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander of conventional and special forces in the war zones, is using contractors because "he wants an organization that reports directly to him," said a former top aide to the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, the umbrella organization for all Special Forces. "Everyone knows Petraeus can't execute his strategy without the private sector." The former aide spoke on the condition that he not be identified, saying his career could be jeopardized if he went public. The International Security Assistance Force, the general's home command, did not respond to a request for comment.

The use of contractors could become a serious problem if controversies about them are not addressed, a senior British official warned during a recent visit to Washington. Pauline Neville-Jones, the U.K.'s minister of state for security and counterterrorism (and a former executive with QinetiQ PLC, a major intelligence contractor), told an audience at the Brookings Institution that "we have something of a crisis in Afghanistan" partly because of the "largely unregulated private sector security companies performing important roles" there.

The Pentagon's Central Command had nearly 225,000 contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas at last count, doing tasks ranging from providing security to base support. Intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the National Security Agency field thousands more under classified contracts that are not publicly disclosed, but extend into every U.S. military command around the world. (According to reports in The Nation and elsewhere, Blackwater, which is now known as Xe, has contracted to send personnel into Pakistan to fight with the Joint Special Operations Command, although a command spokesman said the reports were "totally wrong.")

In response to a question from The Daily Beast, Neville-Jones said that American and British forces must work out "the operational rules and roles that they have when they are in the frontline." Unless that happens, "We are in danger of getting up against Geneva Convention problems and failure to observe fundamental rules of war."

A spokesman for SOCOM would not say exactly how many people work on its contracts, but did say that between 2001 and 2009, SOCOM's budget has grown from about $3 billion to about $10 billion. Neither SOCOM nor Special Operations forces outsource combat operations, the spokesman said. "About the only contractors Special Operations forces might have with them on operations are interpreters," he said.

However, private contractors are now fulfilling vital functions previously done by the military itself.

Blackbird is a case in point. Based in Herndon, Virginia, a stone's throw from the CIA, Blackbird deploys dozens of former CIA operatives and provides "technology solutions" to military and intelligence agencies. Much of the company's revenue—including a $450 million contract awarded last year by the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command—comes from the deployment of special teams and equipment into enemy territory to rescue American soldiers who have been captured by Taliban or al Qaeda units or have stranded after losing their helicopters in battle.

Until recently, the task of rescuing American soldiers was largely carried out by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. But Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has recommended that the agency's parent command in Virginia be closed. If the recovery agency is shut down, Blackbird would likely pick up the rescue business as it is outsourced. In that case, recovery of captured or stranded American soldiers "won't be a military command anymore; it will be a business," said the former Special Operations command aide (an agency spokesman said, "It's too early to say what will happen.")

Blackbird is run by CEO Peggy Styer, an investor once labeled a "serial defense entrepreneur" by CNN. Last year, she hired Cofer Black, the former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, to a senior position. (Black hired and managed some of the first private operatives to enter Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, and later joined Blackwater.) Perhaps anticipating a pickup in future business, a venture-capital fund launched by Styer and two other Blackbird founders recently raised $21 million on Wall Street. Blackbird did not return phone calls or emails.

Glevum Associates, for its part, has won contracts for controversial intelligence-gathering work.

The Boston-based company was founded in 2006 by Andrew Garfield, a former British intelligence officer with counterinsurgency experience in Northern Ireland. Garfield first gained public notice in 2004, when he was a key player in the Lincoln Group, a defense contractor that became notorious for engaging in a covert psychological operation to plant stories in the Iraqi press that put a positive spin on America and the U.S. war effort in Iraq. (Covert psychological operations are known in the trade as psy-ops.)

Garfield won his first contracts for Glevum as an adviser to the U.S. military in Iraq. Drawing on his experience in Northern Ireland, his company began researching the views of Iraqi citizens toward the U.S. military. At the time, "no one was doing systematic target audience research," he told me in an interview.

Glevum's contribution to counterinsurgency efforts is a trademarked program called "Face-to-face Research Analysis" that combines intelligence collection with polls and interviews, primarily for the Army's Human Terrain System—a system that some American social scientists have described as unethical because information gleaned from anthropological researchers ultimately can be used to kill people.

Garfield denies the charge. The U.S. military, he told me, can't "connect opinions to location." Rather, the military uses his information "to focus their operations the right way and to provide solutions that Afghans would choose." Several experts on the program said it's impossible to divorce it from other—bloodier—counterinsurgency efforts. "HTS has been an intelligence-funded program from the beginning," said John Stanton, a Virginia military analyst who has written extensively about the system.

(Glevum's corporate partners include primary contractors BAE Systems and ManTech International. K2, which declined to comment, also wins much of its classified work as a subcontractor for larger companies such as Boeing and CACI.)

Garfield pushes back against the notion that Glevum Associates bears any resemblance to Blackwater, which became synonymous with corruption and incompetence for a series of incidents that included shooting innocent civilians and smuggling illegal weapons. "Whenever people think of contractors now, they think of Blackwater," said Garfield. "Well, if you hire a cheap plumber, don't be surprised when the plumbing breaks."

Tim Shorrock is a Washington-based investigative journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic, Salon, Mother Jones, The Nation and many other publications at home and abroad. He can be reached through his website at timshorrock.com.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-15/counterinsurgency-outsourcing-americas-new-mercenaries-in-afghanistan-middle-east-africa/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR2

Wendy Wysong

2010-12-21T13:26:00.001-08:00

Wendy Wysong is now responsible for making sure that Blackwater doesn’t continue to illegally export weapons, under a $42 million settlement agreement between the infamous mercenary company and the US State Department.

Wysong is a partner at a top-flight Washington, DC law firm, and an export in arms trade regulations. She also happened to be the US Commerce Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement for several years when Blackwater happened to be—that’s right—illegally exporting weapons.

http://www.warisbusiness.com/2010/12/former-bush-admin-lawyer-will-keep-tabs-on-blackwater/

Residents of quiet desert town up in arms over proposed military training center

2010-12-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

San Diego-based Wind Zero Inc. says the facility would bring much-needed jobs and revenue to cash-strapped Imperial County. Critics say it would upset Ocotillo's peaceful rural atmosphere.

By Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times

For years this tiny desert town in western Imperial County has been a haven for retirees and others who desire a slow and quiet existence.

Howard Kelly, 62, a Vietnam War veteran, moved here to escape the urban noise that triggers his incapacitating post-traumatic stress disorder. Joseph Asciutto, 64, a retired firefighter from San Diego, built a home in this stark landscape he visited as a boy and grew to love, and which he now calmly observes from a lawn chair on his front porch.

Brandon Webb, 36, a former Navy SEAL sniper, was also attracted to this stretch of desert. But for different reasons.

Its remote setting, he said, would make it ideal for his dream of building a sprawling $100-million military and law enforcement training center that would include shooting ranges, live-fire training houses, a commercial racetrack, a heliport and an airstrip. He said the project will provide much-needed jobs and revenue to the cash-strapped county, where the unemployment rate in October hit 29.3%.

"This will put the county on the map" in the law enforcement community, Webb said.

But residents fear the center would upset the rural atmosphere of their desert community — home to about 300 residents — and destroy the peace and quiet they cherish.

"The idea of putting something so ugly and disruptive in a place so quiet and beautiful is offensive," said Susan Massey, a retired teacher and leader of a group of activists who have lobbied against the center since it was proposed in 2006.

The Imperial County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to hold a public hearing Monday on whether to give Webb's San Diego-based company, Wind Zero Inc., approval to begin construction of the 944-acre facility.

Much of the county's law enforcement community has endorsed the project, citing the high cost of sending officers to Riverside County to attend the academy and for other training there. It can cost as much as $38,000 for a single officer, El Centro Police Chief Ed McGinley said.

"All law enforcement agencies in this county can benefit from having a facility with these capabilities," he said.

Wind Zero also hopes to negotiate contracts with the military and federal law enforcement agencies for training at the center when it is completed in 2013, Webb said. Former Navy SEAL colleagues have expressed interest, he added.

If approved, the facility would be built across a dirt road from Kelly's home in the Nomirage area of Ocotillo.

He worries that the noise will make life unbearable. He is particularly concerned about helicopters and the shooting ranges.

"If gunfire goes off," he said, "I come unglued."

If the center is built, Kelly said, he and his wife plan to move from their home of 23 years.

Webb said that helicopter operations would be limited to daylight hours a few days a month and that the shooting ranges would either be indoors or semi-enclosed, "taking the noise issue off the table" in terms of gunfire. He pointed out that the project's environmental impact report concluded that noise in the area already exceeds acceptable levels for residential neighborhoods.

Asciutto, whose home is also across the road from the proposed site, disputes the findings. He said the little noise in the area comes from cars on Interstate 8, which is about a mile away from his home, and from adjacent Highway 98.

Opponents also worry the center could deplete the city's limited water supply.

Although most of the county's residents receive water from the Colorado River via an expansive canal system, Ocotillo relies solely on a natural underground aquifer. The aquifer is fed by scarce rainwater that seeps through the ground. It is unknown how much groundwater is there or what kind of effect the project would have on it, said Noel Ludwig, a hydrologist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

According to plans, the center would use about 65 acre-feet of water annually, or 21,180,341 gallons, nearly twice the amount of water now permitted by the land's residential zoning. A typical family of four uses about 1.5 acre-feet annually, or about 488,776 gallons, said Dave Black, an Imperial County planner.

During construction, Wind Zero would have to follow stringent water-level monitoring and mitigation requirements so as not to deplete the groundwater, Black said.

Officials know the risks but are attracted by the potential jobs the project would bring to a county that routinely has the highest unemployment rate in both California and the nation, Massey said.

The center would generate an estimated 100 full-time jobs and bring in about $500,000 in annual tax revenue, providing an economic boost to the city and county, Webb said. "There's no economy in Ocotillo," he said. "There's nothing out there. There is a gas station and a bar, I think."

About 70% of the workers would be recruited from Imperial and San Diego counties. Some jobs would require specialized skills, and local businesses would be contracted for custodial, security and maintenance positions.

Critics see unsettling similarities between the Wind Zero project and a training and supply facility proposed but then scrapped in San Diego County by the controversial private security firm Blackwater USA, which trains and supplies civilian military personnel for assignments overseas. Some have suggested that Wind Zero is a front for Blackwater — which now operates under the name Xe — or could be sold to it once the project has been approved. Webb dismisses the claims.

Wind Zero has made a commitment to not train mercenaries, Webb said. "Our business philosophy is to train men and women in uniform, not replace them."

Kelly, the Vietnam vet, said there may be a need for such a facility, but Webb should have been more sensitive to those who would be most affected.

"I'm a military man, we need training," he said. "But they don't need to destroy a whole neighborhood to do it."

Panel at ODU weighs ethics of contractors in war zones

2010-11-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

By Bill Sizemore

Xe Services, the security company formerly known as Blackwater, has given the United States a black eye abroad and undermined U.S. claims to uphold the rule of law, a State Department attorney said Wednesday evening.

Virginia Patton Prugh, who works in the department's International Bureau of Counter-Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, spoke at a panel discussion at Old Dominion University on ethical issues raised by the proliferation of private military companies in conflict zones.

"Perhaps our reputation in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places in the world has not been terribly good even before Blackwater, but Blackwater certainly didn't help," Prugh said.

As exhibit A, she pointed to the incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in September 2007, when Blackwater guards killed as many as 17 Iraqi civilians in a fusillade of gunfire. Compounding the tragedy, Prugh said, has been the inability of government prosecutors to hold anyone accountable.

Five of the guards were put on trial for manslaughter but a federal judge dismissed the charges early this year, ruling that some evidence was tainted. The government is appealing.

"All that doesn't translate well to the rest of the world," Prugh said. "What they get is this hypocrisy of the United States teaching the rule of law on the one hand and then effectively giving immunity to their own citizens when they are engaged in criminal conduct. That's the perception, even if it's not the reality."

None of the three panelists offered a ringing defense of Moyock, N.C.-based Xe, but they agreed that private security contractors have a place on the battlefield in an era of overstretched militaries and persistent world conflict.

"Nisoor Square was a horribly tragic incident," said J.J. Messner, director of the International Stability Operations Association, a trade group to which Xe once belonged. "But we do have to deal with human nature and we do have to deal with the realities of conflict zones. "

Deane-Peter Baker, an assistant professor of philosophy at the U.S. Naval Academy, said the problem is that international law has not kept pace with the changing nature of warfare.

"There's no intrinsic reason why we should reject the employment of contracted combatants," he said.

The discussion was sponsored by ODU's Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com

Blackwater/Xe Flees Jo Daviess County, But Training Continues

2010-11-14T09:19:00.000-08:00

By Dan Kenney
Co-Coordinator of No Private Armies
Nearly four years ago citizens joined together in a small church near Mt. Carroll Illinois forming No Private Armies/ Clearwater to Stop Blackwater. The citizens group worked for four years to get Blackwater, now Xe, to leave Illinois. The last major demonstration held at the Blackwater/Xe training site in northwest Illinois occurred April 27th 2009 and resulted in 22 arrests.
Blackwater was once the largest and most powerful mercenary company in the U.S. making over $1 billion in U.S. contracts. But now beleaguered with lawsuits, and having undergone massive changes in the company’s administration the sole owner of Blackwater, Eric Prince has moved out of the country and put the company up for sale.
The Galena Gazette reports http://galenagazette.com/index.asp that Blackwater/Xe as of October 1st 2010 no longer has a financial interest in the Jo Daviess’ County facility. It is now a private business locally owned and operated. According to the current business owner Eric Davis, who was the manager of the site for Blackwater since 2007, “Blackwater is currently in the process of moving their equipment that still remains back to North Carolina.”
In 2009 Blackwater changed the name of their training facilities to U.S. Training Center. They still operate two training facilities one in San Diego and the other in Moyock North Carolina. Blackwater also owns and operates a mobile training unit that travels the country training law enforcement.
The facility on Skunk Hallow Road twenty miles south of Stockton, Illinois has been renamed North American Weapons and Tactical Training Center. The new company is owned by Impact Training Group. Mr. Davis, former U.S. military, reports that all of the full and part-time instructors are former law enforcement. The company’s Facebook page states: ‘Impact Training Group offers the finest and most comprehensive firearms and tactics instruction available.”
The NAWTTC also offers, “a unique training experience that can accommodate any of your training requirements or needs. Whether you or your unit wishes to rent our ranges, participate in IMPACT’s training courses, or just learn basic fundamentals of marksmanship give us a call and we’ll make the arrangements.”
The North American Weapons Group joins the many other companies that have sprung up around America over the past decade. These companies have moved in to capitalize on the growing trend to outsource the training of local law enforcement and military. Over the past two years I have been contacted by citizens in California, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan concerned about start-up Blackwater want-a-bes.
It is good to know Blackwater was not able to make sufficient profit to continue to operate a training facility in northwest Illinois. However the fight against the outsourcing of America’s security continues. Currently contractors out number American soldiers in Afghanistan, where there are 206,000 private contractors performing many tasks, and in Iraq where 177,000 contractors remain. Over 40,000 of these contractors are armed and may engage in combat. In the first six months of 2010 contractor casualties outnumbered those of US soldiers; there is an increasing reliance on mercenaries to carry out American operations as US troops are brought home.
We are witnessing the largest transfer of combat fighting and security work from public hands to private in the history of our country. We are also witnessing the privatization of war by multi-billion dollar companies such as Dyncorp and Blackwater and hundreds of others like them. Some 600 private companies are profiting off of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is reported that nearly half of every tax dollar spent in these conflicts goes to a for profit military contracting company.
Senator Levine after a trip to Afghanistan stated clearly recently one of the dangers this privatization process presents:
“The reliance on private security contractors in Afghanistan too often empowers local warlords and powerbrokers who operate outside the Afghan government’s control. There is even evidence that some security contractors work against coalition forces, creating the very threat that they are hired to combat. Not only do these contractors threaten the security of our troops, but they put the success of our mission at risk –”
If American citizens want their security provided by soldiers who take an oath to uphold and protect our constitution and have strong allegiance to our country then we need to remain vigilant of what is happening to our security and what is happening to the way we conduct our wars. We also need to be watchful of how and by whom our local law enforcement is being trained.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said US private security firms, including Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater, are being behind terrorism

2010-11-06T21:03:00.001-07:00

At a press conference in Kabul, Karzai said that US security companies have been behind explosions that have claimed the lives of women and children.

The Afghan president added that they have caused "blasts and terrorism" in different parts of Afghanistan over the past months.

The Afghan president said his administration cannot even distinguish between the bomb blasts carried out by US security firms and those of the Taliban militants.

"In fact we don't yet know how many of these blasts are by Taliban and how many are carried out by them (US security companies)."

Blackwater has been involved in the murder of several Afghan citizens over the past years. The company has also been struggling with a trail of legal cases and civil lawsuits, including one for killing 17 Iraqi civilians during a Baghdad shootout in 2007.

Earlier in June, the CIA reportedly admitted that Blackwater had been loading bombs on US drones that target suspected militants in neighboring Pakistan.

The Afghan president has also pointed out that American private security firms are corrupt and have fueled nine years of war.

"Deals under the name of private security companies are cut in the hallways of American government buildings. It involves 1.5 billion dollars," he said.

Karzai has accused security companies of running what he called an economic mafia based on crooked contracts.

"The money, 1.5 billion dollars, is being distributed there (in the United States) on Blackwater [sic] and this and that."

The developments come as the notorious Blackwater has been awarded a five-year State Department contract worth up to USD 10 billion for operations in Afghanistan.

In August, Karzai ordered all security firms to disband before the end of the year.

Some diplomats and military officials say Karzai has been under intense pressure to reconsider his decision.

However, Karzai says he is steadfast in his decision to dissolve foreign security firms in the country despite US pressure to reconsider the decision.

The private companies are said to be in charge of providing security for foreign officials and embassies as well as development projects in Afghanistan.

Karzai has blamed mercenaries for civilian deaths and corruption in the troubled region.

NOW IN CONTROL -- THE INDEPENDENT PRIVATE CONTRACTOR MILITARY

2010-10-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

By Marti Hiken and Luke Hiken

A funny thing happened on the way to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The U.S. military became privatized. Private contractors, i.e. mercenaries, are now the predominant military force comprising the armamentarium of the United States. In effect, private contractors supplanted the U.S. military as the primary decision-makers and fighting force of the U.S. government.

Private contractors were the saving grace to the need for more troops to fight overseas in multiple countries as well as to staff the multitude of U.S. bases on foreign soil. Very comfortably and conveniently they eliminated the need for a draft and all the problems associated with the selective service. What the American people did not consider is the more-or-less secret, diminishing power of the U.S. government over its own fighting forces.

As law professor Steven Schooner was asked in an interview, “Is there any danger of the military becoming overly dependent on the private sector?” he answered, “There’s no question that the military has become overly dependent on the private sector. When I was a young Army officer, as I learned the military doctrine, … the military relied on contractors on the battlefield only to the extent that they could fight without the contractors. That’s simply no longer the case in the United States military. The United States military can no longer fight effectively without contractors on the battlefield, and that has to be an item of great concern both to commanders and to the public. If we are faced with a legitimate foe that could in fact compete with us in terms of competence on the battlefield … this pervasive presence of contractors could be potentially disastrous.[1]

Every year the federal government spends half a trillion dollars on contracts for goods and services from private companies. The total workforce of those companies -- including workers not on federal contracts -- accounts for 22 percent of American workers, according to David Madland, director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress.[2]

There is no way of knowing the total count of all private contractors. The estimate in June of this year is that there are around 200,000 service members in both Iraq and Afghanistan.[3]

There were over 200,000 DOD private contractors alone in 2009, comprising 53% of the DOD’s workforce in Iraq and Afghanistan.[4] In 3rd quarter FY 2010, USCENTCOM reported approximately 224,433 contractor personnel working for the DOD in the USCENTCOM AOR (Area of Responsibility).[5] Even the casualty list for this year exceeds the deaths of military ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.[6]

By mercenaries, we mean hired soldiers outside of any military chain of command. They can act independently of the U.S. military under the direction of their employer, and their allegiance is not to the U.S. government. They are motivated by private gain. They are usually not citizens or residents where these conflicts take place.

There is a lack of public information on the terms regarding the contracts including their costs and the standards governing hiring and performance. Without this information, how can the corporations and the contracts be documented or evaluated?[7]

In addition, there are factors that make it impossible to know how many contractors there are and how they are used. One is that the number of casualties of private contractors remains unknown. By contracting with private contractors who were former special operation forces and who end up working for corporations, the U.S. is able to deny any official “military” presence in a country, even though there might be as many as 100,000 hired mercenaries there.

Mercenary casualties should be reported more accurately. “It’s extremely likely that a generation ago, each one of these contractors deaths would have been a military death,” Schooner said. “As troop deaths have fallen, contractor deaths have risen. It's not a pretty picture …. I'm not accusing either the Bush or the Obama administration of intentionally deceiving the public, but when a president applauds a reduction in military deaths but fails to acknowledge the contractor personnel now dying in their place, someone isn't telling the whole story.” [8]

As to their role in Afghanistan, most recently, Mr. Karzai summed it up best when he lashed out in public, accusing U.S.-funded private security companies of killing people and looting homes and shops. “They violate the law, they kill people, the people get attacked and the civilians get killed by these private security companies,” he said. [9]

Of grave concern, given the change to the military effort, is the question of who has control over the individual armed forces of all these troops operating under different U.S. agencies and corporations. Ultimately, it is possible the president has lost control as commander-in-chief of the military forces of the United States. Can the commander-in-chief fire privatized soldiers? Has the U.S. military itself lost control of troops engaged in armed combat and other maneuvers when privatized soldiers outnumber GIs and are beholden to the dictates of separate and independent corporations?

Who is in charge of operations involving independent contractors? Is the DOD, the Pentagon, other governmental departments or agencies, the president, or the corporations? One thing is certain, the American people, the majority of whom are opposed to these wars, who are supposed to be in charge, are not. Likewise, the Karzai government is not. The fact is the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of State, the CIA, and USAID, etc., all employ private contractors in foreign countries.

The State Department has steadily increased its use of private contractors over the last 23 years to provide protection overseas, i.e. providing perimeter security to U.S. diplomatic and consular posts; providing worldwide personal protective services, providing bodyguards and static guards for buildings and other infrastructure; deterring visa and passport fraud, overseeing worldwide training and assistance programs in anti-terrorism; providing a courier service for the Department; and, providing a wide range of protective services for the Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN and foreign dignitaries visiting the U.S.[10]

One wonders if full transparency were revealed concerning the number and role of State Department forces involved in the war effort stateside and overseas wouldn’t by itself show that the U.S. State Department has under its command an army operating independently from the U.S. military and commander-in-chief.

The breadth of the private contractor problem boils down to this: Take the example of a United States corporation that still operates on U.S. soil and manufactures tanks for the DOD to use in Pakistan. On the floor of the factory, a worker, who works on building the tanks, rapes a fellow worker, a woman. In fact, there’s a long history in this corporation of sexual harassment, including rape. There is no doubt that the corporation can fire the individual responsible for the crime. However, can the DOD or president of the United States fire the worker? The president, furious by the illicit activity and the fact that the corporation does nothing to quell the abuse, marches into the factory headquarters and tells the CEOs that they must fire the worker. The corporation owners and bosses say no, letting the president know in no uncertain terms that he has no jurisdiction over the workers in their plant. So, the president marches over to the Pentagon and orders his Secretary of Defense to end the contract with the corporation. The Secretary informs the president that it and the State Department have a contract with Pakistan to build the tanks and can’t break it. Besides, without this corporation manufacturing this type of tank, there would be no tanks in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

One thing is certain and that is that an employee can be fired by the corporation (s)he works for -- and there will be no striking, picketing, collective bargaining or disrupting production.

The problems that arise with using contractors rather than the U.S. military forces have been well documented: “ [the] shortcomings with this new system [are]: how a failure to coordinate among contractors, coalition forces and Iraqi troops, as well as a failure to enforce rules of engagement that bind the military, endangered civilians as well as the contractors themselves. The military was often outright hostile to contractors, for being amateurish, overpaid and, often, trigger-happy.”[11]

There are significant jurisdictional questions that remain:

- What happens when commanders in the field have no control over the private contractors working in various countries?

- Who controls the drone battlefield when special operation forces and independent corporations run their own ops?

- What happens when the communications during a battle or at any time bypass the members of the U.S. military and instead passes to another department under the Executive Branch, such as the State Department?

- What happens when individual heads of governmental departments and agencies issue orders to commanders on the field? This would include the private, individual armed forces of the Department of Defense, State Department, CIA and other agencies.

Who, exactly, maintains the jurisdiction within the U.S. government to fire individual private contractors when hired by corporations? When the use of private contractors is under no single government department or branch of government, the jurisdictional questions remain ambiguous, untested, undefined, unregulated, and unlawful. The following is a partial list of the military’s assertion of authority over mercenaries/private contractors. It ranges from the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 (MEJA) or the SMTJ - Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction of the U.S. (Title 18 U.S.C., Section 7), to the Coalition Provisional Authority Orders (CPAs) and their own judicial systems, to DOD Instructions (e.g. DOD 5525.11 -- Criminal Jurisdiction Over Civilians Employed By or Accompanying the Armed Forces Outside the United States, Certain Service Members, and Former Service Members), to the UCMJ and Inspectors General and the Defense Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), to U.S federal courts, to international laws of armed conflict, to Memoranda of Understanding – agreements between the DOD and State Department that coordinate the movement of PSCs (private security contractors) throughout a foreign country.[12]

Have there been prosecutions? Peter Singer, the author of “Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry,” states that no contractor has been prosecuted for misbehavior in Iraq. There have been some civil lawsuits, for example, the families of the four Blackwater guards killed in Fallujah are suing for wrongful death.[13]

Human Rights First reports, “Over the last several years, scores of well-documented reports of serious abuse by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, both in the context of interrogations and in the use of excessive and often lethal force in various security operations, have not been prosecuted. Through February 2006, only 20 cases of alleged detainee abuse by contractors are known to have been assigned within the DOJ for investigation; only two more cases involving abuse of local nationals are known to have been assigned for department investigation, the most recent of which is the September 2007 Blackwater Nisoor Square shooting in Baghdad. And since military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq began, only one contractor has been tried for violence or abuse towards local nationals. In contrast, to date more than 60 U.S. military personnel have been court-martialed in connection with the deaths of Iraqi citizens and more are under investigation.” [14]

All of these questions are up for grabs and as Jeremy Scahill writes, “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.’”[15]

As Scahill summarizes the situation:

“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 [Joint Special Operations Command]. ‘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.’"

“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.

“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?’”[16]

The Congressional Research Service (8-25-20) reports:

“Contractors working with the Department of State or the U.S. military (or with any of the coalition forces) in Iraq are non-combatants who have no combat immunity under international law if they engage in hostilities, and whose conduct may be attributable to the United States. Section 552 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for FY2007 (P.L. 109-364) makes military contractors supporting the Armed Forces in Iraq subject to court-martial, but due to constitutional concerns, it seems more likely that contractors who commit crimes in Iraq would be prosecuted under criminal statutes that apply extraterritorially or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or by means of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA). Generally, Iraqi courts do not have jurisdiction to prosecute contractors without the permission of the relevant member country of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq. Some contractors including those with the State Department, may remain outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, civil or military, for improper conduct in Iraq.” [17]

Certainly, the ambiguity can serve a political purpose when the U.S. government needs justification for a war effort: “This arrangement, the former executive [at Blackwater] 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.”[18]

It also can serve the purpose of increasing military funding, increasing the coffers of the many U.S. corporations involved in these wars, and surrendering the decision-making concerning who dies and how in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nevertheless, the ambiguity surrounding the relationship among the different players involved in making war, i.e. the U.S. military, the executive and judicial branches of government, corporations and their private independent contractors/mercenaries, is bad and illegal policy and practice.

Neither the executive branch of government nor the Pentagon wishes to acknowledge the political independence of the massive number of mercenaries fighting abroad under our name, but when push comes to shove, these private contractors constitute an “army” beholden only to the CEOs who hire them.

____________________

Marti Hiken is the director of Progressive Avenues. She is the former associate director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and former chair of the National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force. She can be contacted at info@progressiveavenues.org, 415-702-9682.

The Progressive Avenues website is updated regularly: www.progressiveavenues.org

Luke Hiken is a former supervising attorney at the California Appellate Project, and has handled many courts-martial over the years.

End – End- End

[1] Steven Schooner, Private Warriors, Frontline, 6-21-05, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/interviews/schooner.html

[2] “Sweatshop Army -- Why does the Pentagon use low-road companies to feed and clothe our troops?” 9-2-10, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=sweatshop_army

[3] Bowers, Chris, “U.S. withdrawal from Iraq on schedule, but total number of troops overseas the same (for now),” 6-1-10, Open Left, http://openleft.com/diary/18926/us-withdrawal-from-iraq-on-schedule-but-total-number-of-troops-overseas-the-same-for-now

[4] CRS Summary, Schwartz, Moshe, “DOD Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Background and Analysis, 12-14-09, http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:bbDx-uHmHzAJ:www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40764.pdf+total+number+of+private+contractors+in+Iraq+%26+Afghanistan&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESirgvzEFkqkk3uz1juX5iCxw9G2EUaHYk7MmTIp90j8sa7F7WcYPGabql2uyJicGl6rRfyJWYgJYx94TLNpGdOSGAwvIuH3dq_VvJnG80csUfnPjIkMWsqp-a9y3KoaBfUM27eF&sig=AHIEtbQcZUyNjxXoQSDE0uPkcBsezxnQbg

[5] Chatterjee, Pratap, “Danger Zone Jobs,” Overseas Civilian Contractors, 10-27-10, http://civiliancontractors.wordpress.com/category/iraq-2/

[6] Miller, T. Christian, “This Year, Contractor Deaths Exceed Military Ones in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Overseas Civilian Contractors, ProPublica Disposable Army, 9-23-10, http://civiliancontractors.wordpress.com/

[7] See Taylor, Marisa, “U.S. can’t account for cash to rebuild,” McClatchy Newspapers, 10-27-10, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/10/27/102724/us-cant-untangle-billions-sent.html

[8] id., Miller, T. Christian

[9] Partlow, Joshua, “Karzai delays expulsion of security groups,” 10-27-10, Financial Times Asia-Pacific

[10] Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress, p. 7, Order Code RL32419, “Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues,” Updated 8-25-08, Elsea, Jennifer K., Legislative Attorney, Schwartz, Moshe, Analyst in Defense Acquisition Policy, and Nakamura, Kennon H., Analyst in Foreign Affairs, http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:iZI7eD0HJi4J:www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32419.pdf+Can+the+U.S.+President+fire+civilian+private+contractors&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiuBSgDPhzRGBjT7U0kX-jw-1t6xUdmBtE66lvPWEA6hqjE3IMUKzqJHG_KUipCIsTBtldhHDb7rOv-w2_K7BGLfsCedSrgao6PA6BQBG3OuVUaZ5vovUAgGjEAO7sXCY91xEW4&sig=AHIEtbQO47tfzHdyY8usfGF3-0-0y69GJA ; and updated 9-9-08: http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL32419_20080929.pdf

(See also: Department of Defense Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Background and Analysis, Moshe Schwartz, Specialist in Defense Acquisition, 7-2-10, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40764.pdf

[11] James Glanz and Andrew W. Lehren, “Use of Contractors Added to War’s Chaos in Iraq,” NYT, World Section, 10-24-10

[12] For a listing of other management and oversight DOD sources, see Political Vel Craft, Veil of Politics, “Obama Increases Military/Mercenary Contractor Presence by 23% in Iraq and 29% in Afghanistan,”

http://politicalvelcraft.org/2009/09/21/obama-increases-militarymercenary-contractor-presence-by-23-in-Iraq-and-29-in-afghanistan/

[13] Private Warrior, Frontline, Frequently Asked Questions, 6-21-05, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/faqs/

[14] Department of Justice Continues to Ignore Violent Crimes Committed By Private Security Contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan, 1-16-08,

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/etn/2006/alert/195/

[15] Scahill, Jeremy, “Blackwater: Company Non Grata in Pakistan,” 11-26-09, Alaiwah!, http://alaiwah.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/blackwater-in-pakistan/

[16] Scahill, Jeremy, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” The Nation, 11-23-01, http://www.thenation.com/article/secret-us-war-pakistan

[17] id., CRS, Summary, p. 2

[18] Scahill, Jeremy, “The Secret US War in Pakistan, The Nation, 11-23-01

Baghdad to investigate role of Blackwater in deaths

2010-10-29T06:38:00.001-07:00

By Patrick Cockburn

The Iraqi government says that it will investigate whether employees of the Blackwater security company were involved in hitherto undisclosed killings that emerged from the Wikileaks documents.

In addition to a notorious case in Baghdad in 2007, when Blackwater guards killed 17 and wounded 18 civilians, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism says that it has discovered a further 14 cases when Blackwater personnel allegedly opened fire on civilians. The information comes from the war logs made public by Wikileaks and allegedly shows that a further 10 civilians were killed and seven wounded by Blackwater, a US-based private security company now known as Xe. In one third of cases, the Blackwater guards were protecting US diplomats under a $465m (£300m) contract when they opened fire.

The war logs reveal repeated cases when they shot at civilian vehicles that came close to their convoys, on one occasion even shooting dead the driver of an ambulance who had attended the scene of a bomb attack.

Sunni politicians in Baghdad say that the US military reports confirm and give credibility to their claims over the years that members of their community were being tortured by Shia-dominated security forces.

Iraq Body Count says that the 400,000 Wikileak war logs show that an additional 15,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed in addition to the 107,000 in the group's database, which was built up from published sources. From the start of the war in 2003, the US military claimed that it did not have statistics on how many Iraqi civilians were being killed or injured. The aim of this was apparently to try to undermine protests against civilian loss of life as had happened in Vietnam.

The American and British governments both sought to play down civilian casualties in Iraq, claiming that only four out of 18 Iraqi provinces had a high level of violence. The Pentagon did ultimately admit that civilian deaths peaked at between 3,500 and 4,000 in a single month in December 2006.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/baghdad-to-investigate-role-of-blackwater-in-deaths-2115636.html

Killing Reconciliation

2010-10-29T06:37:00.001-07:00

By Jeremy Scahill

**************
"They broke down the doors of our house. My father was in one room, and we were in another. We don't know exactly when the US soldiers entered our house, we just know that they took our father and killed him. They killed our father outside our house, a short ways away. We don't know if they killed him from a helicopter or if commandos killed him."

***************
On March 26, 2009, Mullah Sahib Jan, a militant Taliban imam from the Mohammed Agha district in Afghanistan's Logar province, walked into the office of the Independent National Reconciliation Commission, the main body encouraging the Taliban to lay down their weapons and work with the government. He was escorting fifty Taliban fighters who, he said, had committed to ending their fight against the Afghan government and entering the process of integration. To the government, Sahib Jan was a shining example of how reconciliation with the Taliban is supposed to work. But less than a year later, the former militant's story would stand as a devastating symbol of how the actions of US Special Operations Forces are sabotaging the very strategy for reaching a political settlement that US officials claim to support.

Throughout Afghanistan, large billboards line the major roads encouraging Taliban fighters to do what Sahib Jan did—reconcile with the government. The billboards show red silhouettes of Kalashnikov-carrying Taliban fighters walking across a line, after which they transform into civilians and join white silhouettes of unarmed Afghans dressed in traditional garb. The message is clear: lay down your weapons and rejoin the family.

When Sahib Jan walked into the reconciliation office, he publicly announced that he and his Taliban colleagues had agreed to work with the government on a peace process after the commission assured him that it would restrict US-led NATO forces from conducting night raids and killing civilians. "If the killing and arrests of people were not stopped," he said, "we would withdraw our support to the government and the foreign forces."

Reconciliation officials in Logar province say that making allies out of figures like Sahib Jan is the centerpiece of their work. Logar and its neighboring provinces, Paktia, Wardak and Ghazni, contain a strong presence of not only the Taliban but also the Haqqani network, the insurgent group portrayed by US officials as having the closest ties to Al Qaeda and a cozy relationship with Pakistan's ISI spy organization. Logar is also home to several tribes that say they have spent the past two years trying to make peace. A crucial part of this, they say, is building enough trust with the Taliban to make a serious case for ending their insurgency. Soon after his initial trip to the reconciliation office, Sahib Jan left his calling as an imam and took a position as a religious adviser to the reconciliation commission. As part of his work, reconciliation officials say, he traveled to hardcore Taliban areas.

"He was preaching to the Taliban, encouraging them to come to the government, telling the fighters there were a lot of benefits to laying down their arms," says Mohammed Anwar, director of Logar's reconciliation commission and an adviser to a local tribal council. Council officials credit Sahib Jan with putting Taliban fighters on the road to reconciliation.

But on the morning of January 14, Sahib Jan's bullet-riddled body lay on the ground outside his family's mud-brick compound in Logar's Safed Sang village. According to local officials and his family, he was killed in a night raid by US Special Operations Forces. "At 1 or 1:30 in the morning, US soldiers pulled up to the gas station in front of our house. We were sleeping in our rooms at that time," recalls Sahib Jan's 18-year-old son, Haider. "They broke down the doors of our house. My father was in one room, and we were in another. We don't know exactly when the US soldiers entered our house, we just know that they took our father and killed him. They killed our father outside our house, a short ways away. We don't know if they killed him from a helicopter or if commandos killed him."

According to Haider, US forces entered the compound with ladders and corralled the men into one room, where they handcuffed and blindfolded them. They moved the women to a separate room. "They tied all of our hands and roughed us up a little bit. They were beating us with both weapons and their hands," recalls Haider. "I was tied up from 1 or 1:30 in the morning until 6 in the morning." The family says that during the raid much of their property was damaged or destroyed. As Sahib Jan's sons were tied up, they had no idea of their father's fate until the Afghan translator appeared with US soldiers. They showed them a picture and said, "This is the man we killed."

"It was my father," Haider recalls. The soldiers then escorted the surviving men of the family to their father's body, where they saw about six bullets in it. With that, the Americans left; they have never contacted the family since.

"We have checked our logs and with our units that conduct these types of mission profiles. There is no record of the operation," US Lt. Commander Thomas Porter wrote in an e-mail to The Nation. But an eyewitness to the raid named Azmuddin, who works at the gas station in front of Sahib Jan's home, says, "US forces told me the next morning that they killed him because he had shot at them." Azmuddin says the morning after the raid he was arrested by US forces and taken to the classified Tor Prison, or "black jail," for fifteen days before being locked up at the Bagram prison for four months. In response to NATO's statement, government officials in Logar reacted angrily and swore that Sahib Jan was killed by US forces.

"There was a false report claiming that Sahib Jan was a Taliban, and the Americans conducted a night raid and killed him even though he had been working with us for months," says Anwar, the head of Logar's reconciliation commission. "During the entire time he worked with us, he hadn't participated in any attacks against the government. He worked with us as a religious adviser. Only the US soldiers know why they killed Sahib Jan. We don't know why." The local district chief, Abdul Hameed, says US forces carried out the raid without the cooperation of provincial security personnel. Anwar says that when he tries to contact US forces about these deadly incidents, they won't let him on their base, and the guards always tell him the appropriate officials are too busy or not there.

Officials at the reconciliation office point to several night raids over the past year, which they say targeted former Taliban who entered the process of reconciliation, as devastating to their work. "We are trying to build bridges between the Taliban and the government and trying to find jobs for them. We are working to get them decent housing in return for leaving the Taliban," says Anwar. "We are also trying to ensure that once they turn themselves in, they are not arrested again. How can we encourage reconciliation in good faith in the face of these American raids against the very people who agree to disarm?"

Meanwhile, US and NATO officials proclaim that the Taliban are on the ropes and will eventually be forced to make a deal. "The insurgency is under pressure, under pressure like never before in Afghanistan," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on October 22. "Our aim for this year was to regain the momentum. Now we have it." In recent weeks, such rhetoric has been bolstered by a flurry of reports about senior Taliban officials engaging in direct talks with the Karzai government, and US officials portray Washington as open to some form of a political settlement. But there is an enormous disconnect between the image projected by the US and Afghan governments and reality. On the ground the Taliban seem to be gaining traction and increasing membership despite, or perhaps because of, intensified US targeted-killing operations and night raids.

Two senior officials of the former Taliban government have told The Nation that the Taliban will not engage in any meaningful talks until foreign troops are expelled from Afghanistan and that reports that the Taliban are engaged in serious negotiations are false. "There is nothing going on, no negotiations between the Taliban and the Americans or the Taliban and the [Afghan] government," says Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as the Taliban government's ambassador to Pakistan, in an interview at his home in Kabul. He says if anyone claiming to be Taliban is negotiating, they are essentially nobodies to the movement. "There was no 'peace meeting' because the Taliban reject it."

Privately, US officials have acknowledged that reports in US media outlets of senior Taliban negotiating are propaganda aimed at sowing dissent among the Taliban leadership. "This is a psychological operation, plain and simple," a US official with firsthand knowledge of the Afghan government's strategies told the McClatchy news service. "Exaggerating the significance of it is an effort to sow distrust within the insurgency."

The story of Sahib Jan raises a complicated question: was he really an influential Taliban figure? A current Taliban commander from Kunduz told The Nation that there is no evidence of the reconciliation program's success and that rural people are sometimes used as pawns in a game to elevate the status of tribal leaders with the Afghan government by "reconciling" Taliban fighters. "These are people who are just getting salaries from foreign powers or Afghan officials. You and I just invent a group and give them turbans and weapons and they go and say, We are Talibs and we surrender," says the Taliban commander, who goes by the nom de guerre Salahuddin. It is not clear whether Sahib Jan was an example of this, but in terms of public perception in Logar, that is irrelevant. What is not in dispute is that he publicly announced he was a Taliban mullah on the path to reconciliation and was killed in a night raid ten months later.

The US strategy seems to be to force the Taliban to the table through a fierce killing campaign. According to the US military, over a ninety-day period this past summer, US and coalition Special Operations Forces killed or captured more than 2,900 "insurgents," with an estimated dozen killed a day. Between July 4, when Gen. David Petraeus assumed command in Kabul, and early October, according to the military, US and Afghan Special Operations Forces killed more than 300 Taliban commanders and more than 900 foot soldiers in 1,500 raids. "This is precisely the kind of pressure we believe will lead to reconciliation and reintegration" of the Taliban, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said recently.

Zaeef, the former senior Taliban official, who spent four years in Guantánamo prison, confirmed that the American targeted-killing campaign of Taliban leaders has been successful, but he believes that the strategy will backfire for both the US and Afghan governments. "If these people, important, known people, disappear from the [Taliban] movement, what will happen? Who should [the Afghan government] make a dialogue with?" he asks. "The fighting will not stop. I know the new generation is more extremist than the last generation. The new generation will not listen to anyone. This is a dangerous thing. It will be bad for the Americans, but it will be worse for the people of Afghanistan."

Evidence of this can be found in a recent incident in Paktia province, when the Taliban leadership in Quetta, Pakistan, sent a representative to "reprimand a group of young commanders who were breaking the organization's rules," according to veteran Afghanistan journalist Anand Gopal. "But the defiant young commanders killed the cleric. While such incidents are still isolated, the danger is that as the Taliban undergo a massive demographic change in the coming years, this trend will accelerate, and the ability of Quetta to enforce decisions on its rank and file will be diminished."

Zaeef says the night raids and the targeted killings are strengthening the Taliban and inspiring more people "to become extremist against the Americans." US political and military leaders, he says, "are thinking, 'When we scare the people, they should be quiet.' But this is a different nation. When you are killing one person, four or five others rise against you. If you are killing five people, twenty, at least, are rising against you. When you are disrespecting the people or the honor of the people in one village, the whole village becomes against you. This is creating hatred against Americans."

The US killing of civilians, combined with a widely held perception that the Afghan government exists only for facilitating the corruption of powerful warlords, drug dealers and war criminals, is producing a situation in which the Taliban and the Haqqani network are gaining support from the Pashtun heartland in communities that would not otherwise be backing them. Since 2005, when Zaeef was released from Guantánamo, "the Taliban have become stronger," he says. "Are the Taliban coming from the sky?" Zaeef asks. "No, it's new people."

Zaeef and Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister, insist that the Taliban is still the umbrella under which all of the insurgent forces operate. But at the same time they acknowledge that smaller, localized militias not loyal to Mullah Mohammed Omar or the Quetta-based Taliban leadership are popping up more and more. "By killing leaders, the war will not come to an end, but on the contrary, things will get worse, which will give birth to more leaders," says Muttawakil. "Many people might not like Taliban but join them because they are being harassed by powerful Afghans or foreigners and want to get revenge." Many of these newer insurgents live in rural areas of Afghanistan and, for now, fight in their own communities rather than as part of a cohesive national rebellion. "The nature of this kind of war is that it starts from the rural areas, as it started against the Soviet Union. Gradually the war spreads to district centers and then to the center of small provinces," Muttawakil says. "The war has started in rural areas and gradually will spread to big cities."

On a practical level, the discontent in those rural areas with the corruption of the Afghan government and the consistent killing of civilians by US forces is raising the prospect that Afghans offering assistance to the Afghan government and NATO forces—such as allowing safe passage to key supply convoys—may withdraw that support.

* * *

One community leader in Logar, Hajji Showkatt, works with a network of tribal leaders across Logar and its neighboring provinces who broker complex deals with the Taliban and Haqqani network forces to refrain from attacking oil and supply convoys headed to and from Kabul. Part of this involves paying bribes to the Taliban, but the deals also rely on assurances from Showkatt and the reconciliation commission to insurgent forces that they are working to end the night raids and arrests.

In the weeks leading up to Sahib Jan's killing, Logar officials say, there had been three other night raids in the area. Sahib Jan's killing was the final straw. "At the funeral everyone was so emotional when we took his body to be buried. We cursed the Americans," Showkatt says. In response, local people—not aligned with the Taliban—attacked an oil convoy, blowing up more than a dozen trucks, according to local officials. The scorched earth left by the attack can still be seen on the highway running through Logar. "Here is the bottom line: the US is conducting actions that are killing innocent people," Showkatt says. "The Taliban use this as propaganda and say to the people, 'This is what America is about.' It makes them more powerful."

Showkatt, who fought as a mujahedeen against the Soviets, continues to protect supply convoys for the United States and Afghan governments along key routes, but he says that this is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Showkatt and other leaders say they cannot guarantee they will continue to offer convoy protection. "In the mujahedeen times, we stopped all of the Russian convoys in this area," Showkatt boasts.

"We fought the Russians when they were here and we expelled them," adds Showkatt's friend Azrat Mohammed, a former mujahedeen commander from Logar. "Americans are not stronger than the Russians. If they continue with these actions, disrespecting our women, killing the wrong people, inshallah, we will rise up to defeat them too."

Throughout the Pashtun heartland of southern Afghanistan, police officials and civilians alike tell stories about personal grudges being settled through death by US night raids, where false intelligence is deliberately passed on to NATO forces to get a rival or enemy killed or captured.

Mohammed is living in a refugee camp in Pakistan, he says, for that very reason. He says he has been warned he is on a list for kill or capture. "I am too afraid to even sleep in my own home at night, so I spend most of my time in the camps in Pakistan. I am afraid the Americans will kill me," he says. "The way the Americans rely on bad intelligence to target people like me, the night raids we keep witnessing, the arrests and the torture and the killing is all making me want to pick up a weapon again. We are not by our nature against the government, but what they are doing is encouraging people to rise up against them."

In Afghanistan, Taliban commanders are fond of characterizing their fight to expel the United States and its allies with the phrase, "You've got the clocks, we've got the time." While US leaders are struggling to define what victory would look like in Afghanistan, the forces they are fighting are not. "We have two goals: freedom or martyrdom," says Taliban commander Salahuddin. "If we do not win our freedom, then we'll die honorably for its cause." The continuing US targeted-killing campaign and renewed airstrikes ordered by General Petraeus seem only to be further weakening the already fragile Karzai government. In plain terms, the United States' own actions in Afghanistan seem to be delivering the most fatal blows to its counterinsurgency strategy and its goal of winning hearts and minds. "I think that the Americans are already defeated in Afghanistan, they are just not accepting it," says former Taliban official Zaeef.

"If the US pulls out, my heart will be very sad because there will be a civil war," says Asif Mohammed, a young driver who escorts supply convoys to Kabul. "If they stay, they will continue killing our women and children." In the end, there could be the worst of both worlds: an escalation in raids by US Special Operations Forces, with their heavy toll on civilians, and a failed counterinsurgency campaign incapable of stopping a civil war.

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/155622/killing-reconciliation

Iraq war logs: military privatisation run amok

2010-10-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

Pratap Chatterjee
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 October 2010 13.00 BST

The Wikileaks Iraq war logs bring to light previously unknown incidents involving military contractors like Blackwater, acting with legal immunity, which resulted in deaths of civilians during the occupation of Iraq. Photograph: Gervasio Sanchez/AP

Shortly after 10am on 14 May 2005, a convoy of private security guards from Blackwater riding down "Route Irish" – the Baghdad airport road – shot up a civilian Iraqi vehicle. While they were at it, the Blackwater men fired shots over the heads of a group of soldiers from the 69th Regiment of the US Army before they sped away heading west in their white armoured truck. When the dust cleared, the Iraqi driver was dead and his wife and daughter were injured.

A terse, 57-word dispatch in the Iraq war logs published by Wikileaks is the first public evidence of the shooting, as recorded by the US military.

The incident is one of several dozen "escalation of force" incidents involving private security companies in Iraq – which is military parlance for an unwarranted attack, almost all of which have never been previously reported. Blackwater, the company from Moyock, North Carolina, is responsible for about half of the attacks, closely followed by Erinys, a British private security company registered in the Virgin Islands, which seems to have an unusually high number of vehicle crashes.

On my four visits to Iraq in the last seven years, I learned quickly to steer clear of the fast-moving vehicles belonging to these private security companies. The men – sporting identical reflective wrap-around sunglasses, bullet-proof jackets – would aim their high-powered assault rifles and shout "Imshi" ("Move") at any vehicle that came within a 50m perimeter. Sometimes, they would throw plastic water bottles to shock pedestrians into staying away.

Easily the best-known private security company is Blackwater (recently renamed Xe), which rocketed to fame three years ago when four company security guards, escorting a convoy of US state department vehicles en route to a meeting in western Baghdad, opened fire in Nisour Square in Baghdad killing 17 Iraqi civilians. Yet, a query of the Iraq war logs for "Blackwater" or "Nisour Square" turns up nothing, at first.

In this failure to identify what is probably the most notorious carnage of Iraqi civilians, the strengths and weakness of the military reporting process (and, by association, Wikileaks) become startlingly clear. Had the media not reported this incident, there would be no way to identify the company or the location in which this massacre took place. Initially, I wondered: was it possible that the soldier who recorded the incident made a mistake or that the record was erased?

Eventually, I tracked down the incident by trying a few other methods. It is easy to see why I missed the record: there is no mention of the company, or the location, and even the death toll is incorrectly recorded as nine, suggesting that the Pentagon casualty record is incomplete.

Human rights investigators know this problem only too well. Media reports are often incomplete and government reports are sometimes deliberately vague. They are just a starting point from which painstaking research is needed to build up a true picture of what has happened.

Quite possibly, there were many more incidents in which civilians were injured, or even killed, which were never reported. Some of the reports may have been altered before they were entered into the military system. But given the other records that I found, at the very least, Wikileaks has revealed that Blackwater and other private security companies are guilty of many more injuries and killings than the media have previously reported.

Today, there as many as 40,000 armed private security contractors working in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to data collected by Commission on Wartime Contracting staff during the first quarter of 2010.

Some of them are ill-paid ex-soldiers from countries like Sierra Leone who make just $250 a month; others are former US soldiers, who are paid $500 or more per day. These men are often doing the very same jobs that soldiers once did – like guard duty – but with a lot less accountability.

Until quite recently, these men with guns were untouchable: they were protected from any kind of prosecution by Coalition Provisional Authority Order No 17, issued by Paul Bremer, the US diplomat charged with running Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

For example, Andrew J Moonen, a Blackwater employee, who has been accused of killing a guard assigned to an Iraqi vice-president on 24 December 2006, was spirited out of the country and has never faced charges in Iraq. Nor have the five men accused of opening fire in Nisour Square: Donald Ball, Dustin Laurent Heard, Evan Shawn Liberty Nicholas Abram Slatten and Paul Alvin Slough. Lawsuits in the US have also failed.

Blackwater and Erinys were not the only ones who acted with seeming impunity. Perhaps the most egregious incident occurred on 28 May 2005, when the US Marines came under fire from four white Ford pickup trucks and a grey Excursion sports utility vehicle "recklessly driving through Fallujah traveling west – and firing sporadically at vehicles".

The shooters worked for Zapata Engineering, one of five companies originally hired under a $200m contract to supervise the destruction and storage of US military ammunition worldwide. They were paid well for this work: each company manager earned an average of $275,000 a year, under their contract.

Eventually, one of the Zapata vehicles ran over a spike strip in the road near a guard house under the control of the US Marines. The Marines placed 19 Zapata employees under arrest.

At the time, Lawrence Peter, the director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, told my colleague David Phinney at CorpWatch:

"I can say without a shadow of a doubt that there is no company named Zapata that is a licensed private security company under the terms of CPA Memorandum 17. I do not know under what legal authority those men thought they were operating, but it was not in keeping with the law of Iraq nor consistent with what professional, responsible and law-abiding private security companies are doing here."

But Iraqis cannot tell which of these companies are licensed and which are not. Technically, they could complain to the military or raise the matter with yet another private military company named Aegis Defence from Britain, which was in charge of monitoring the movements of fellow private security contractors, under a $293m contract issued in June 2004. Yet Aegis hardly inspired confidence – one of their employees caused an uproar when he uploaded a video of security contractors shooting at Iraqis, with an Elvis Presley soundtrack to match.

Things got even worse when the Washington Post published an article about yet another security company named Triple Canopy, in which team leader Jacob C Washbourne was quoted as saying: "I want to kill somebody today."

Today, the Pentagon says that the random shootings are a thing of the past. In May 2008, an Armed Contractor Oversight Bureau (ACOB) was set up (pdf) by the US government in Iraq. Unfortunately, there is no website or any other public way to contact this important body.

Perhaps the most worrying news about private military contractors came on 18 August 2010, when the New York Times revealed that the US government was planning to double the number of private security contractors in Iraq:

"Defending five fortified compounds across the country, the security contractors would operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress, the officials said."

It's not just Iraqis who are worried. At a hearing in congress on 23 September 2010, Michael Thibault, co-chair of the commission on wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan and a former senior Pentagon auditor, said that he was troubled by the fact that the state department had very little experience to oversee this civilian surge in Iraq:

"(I)t is not clear that it has the trained personnel to manage and oversee contract performance of a kind that has already shown the potential for creating tragic incidents and frayed relations with host countries."

Courtesy Wikileaks, we now know that many more deadly shootings have taken place by these unregulated private security contractors than we knew of before. Given this new knowledge, it is time that we demand an inquiry into the privatisation of the military. Right now, the prime facie evidence is that it has considerably increased the number of unnecessary violent incidents, while reducing military discipline and accountability and costing taxpayers a bundle.

• Editor's note: the incident detailed at the top of this article occurred in 2005, not 2004, as was originally stated; all other details are correct, and the article was amended at 12:00 on 24 October 2010.

Rogue security companies threaten US gains in Afghanistan war

2010-10-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer
posted October 21, 2010 at 2:03 pm EDT

Washington —
Since its Revolutionary days, the American military has been no stranger to the use of paid help – from carpenters to ditch diggers – to wage war. By 1965 in Vietnam, the practice of relying on private defense companies became widespread enough within the Pentagon that Business Week dubbed it a "war by contract."

In Afghanistan, the use of private contractors has reached record levels. A 2010 Congressional Research Service report found that they now make up 60 percent of the Defense Department's workforce. With fewer US soldiers than contractors throughout the war-torn country, the Pentagon is more dependent on private defense contractors than ever in its history.

Contractors bring in fuel and food for American soldiers in Afghanistan along what many consider to be one of the most complex and treacherous supply chains in the history of modern warfare. They keep installations running, guard key NATO bases, and train Afghan police.

IN PICTURES: On base in Kandahar

Yet there is a growing chorus of warnings from both within the US military and on Capitol Hill that the Pentagon's dependence on contractors is undermining its own war efforts. A Senate Armed Services Committee investigation this month further concluded that the widespread use of contractors puts at risk the US exit strategy of training Afghan security forces – Afghan soldiers and police routinely leave the service to take more lucrative jobs with private defense companies.

The Senate investigation also turned up mounting evidence to suggest that largely unmonitored Pentagon contracts with private security companies – half of which are Afghan-owned – may also be lining the pockets of Taliban insurgents who agree not to attack convoys in exchange for cash.

"If you want to know the driving force of corruption in Afghanistan, it's not Afghan culture," warns Anthony Cordesman, a security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It's American contracting."

The Pentagon is beginning to grapple with the complexity of fixing what many now recognize as a deeply broken system. Though reforms are difficult to implement and come with their own risks, a failure to act now, say some US officials, may risk the entire US mission in Afghanistan.

Some contracting problems have long been apparent to US officials. One of them is that some Defense Department contract money goes to warlords who run classic pay-for-protection rackets with their own private militias. What is also clear is that the attrition rate for legitimate Afghan security forces remains as high as 130 percent in some units.

"We get them trained up and certified, and the contractors hire them for more money," says T.X. Hammes, a retired Marine Corps colonel who served in Iraq and is now a fellow with the Center for Strategic Research at the National Defense University.

The delay in addressing a lack of oversight surrounding contractors who may also have ties to the Taliban has had consequences, Mr. Cordesman argues. The recent Senate Armed Services Committee report, for example, reflects concerns "that are seven or eight years old." Efforts to address them have been "extraordinarily slow" to take hold, he adds. "Time and again you have created risk to American soldiers. You have almost certainly caused Americans to be killed or wounded – and you have essentially strengthened the enemy."

Without greater controls on contracting dollars, "you have created a threat that is almost as great as the insurgency," he says. "And that is a government that has so many forces corrupting it that it can't win the support of the people."

The Pentagon is increasingly aware of this point and has begun to take a particularly hard look at its reliance on private security firms, which account for roughly 16 percent of all contractors, totaling more than 26,000 personnel operating in Afghanistan.

"We have absolutely no quality control of the people we're putting in these jobs," says Mr. Hammes, who recently completed a study on the strategic impact of contractors in war zones. "And we're authorizing them to use deadly force in the name of the United States."

Citing precisely this point, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced in August that he wants many private security companies – including Blackwater – out of the country by year's end. But the enforcement of this decree remains unclear.

US officials, who continue to negotiate the matter behind the scenes, publicly say that while they agree with the spirit of the decree, the time line is unrealistic. Critics charge that it is an effort by Mr. Karzai tap into the profits of these lucrative companies by consolidating government control over them – a charge Karzai denies.

For his part, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has recently issued a set of guidelines in an effort to improve the contracting process, recommending that the US military use its intelligence resources to investigate Afghan companies vying for Defense Department contracts.

US military officials have also increased pay for Afghan security force trainees in an effort to compete with private security companies. Now they are wrestling with how to more effectively distribute troops to improve security along the highways. "You wouldn't spend the money to hire security along some of these roads if you didn't have to," says one senior US military official in Kabul who is not authorized to speak to the press. "That's one of the things we're looking at."

The Pentagon has also begun relaxing "double dipping" prohibitions – in which Pentagon officials earning pensions after 20 years of service must give the pensions up in order to return to work – in hopes of deploying more contracting specialists to Afghanistan.

"At a time when there's a real deficit of these guys in the theater, it could induce them to come to work," says Richard Fontaine, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. "It's eminently sensible."

More difficult will be making tough choices about which paid contractors pose long-term threats to the US mission. "I mean, paying the Taliban is a really bad idea, but if you stop paying them tomorrow, you put convoys at greater risk," says Mr. Fontaine.

One widespread suggestion is to have senior US military officials making the decisions about which private security companies should be hired to do the jobs, rather than junior troops in charge of contracting. "It's one thing to say we shouldn't pay these guys protection money," Fontaine adds, "but the implications are something only someone at a high level can determine."

"Let's not be childish about this – it's impossible to eliminate corruption," adds Cordesman. "But it is possible to put more pressure on warlords to be more effective and less corrupt." This might involve "shifting money to rivals to put pressure on them," he says. "Money is a tremendous tool as well as a corrupting force if you use it properly."

Ultimately cutting off warlords may actually be feasible, given time. For now, that might mean having more patience with less-connected contractors. "You may not get the same speed of reaction you do if you contract with the enemy," says Cordesman, "but the lasting impact is to build up exactly the capabilities we want at the local level."

Efforts to Prosecute Blackwater Are Collapsing

2010-10-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against Blackwater Worldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by a legal obstacle of the government’s own making.

In the most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department on Monday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J. Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to an Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006. Justice officials said that they were abandoning the case after an investigation that began in early 2007, and included trips to Baghdad by federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents to interview Iraqi witnesses.

The government’s decision to drop the Moonen case follows a series of failures by prosecutors around the country in cases aimed at former personnel of Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services. In September, a Virginia jury was unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of two former Blackwater guards accused of killing two Afghan civilians. Late last year, charges were dismissed against five former Blackwater guards who had been indicted on manslaughter and related weapons charges in a September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square in Baghdad, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.

Interviews with lawyers involved in the cases, outside legal experts and a review of some records show that federal prosecutors have failed to overcome a series of legal hurdles, including the difficulties of obtaining evidence in war zones, of gaining proper jurisdiction for prosecutions in American civilian courts, and of overcoming immunity deals given to defendants by American officials on the scene.

“The battlefield,” said Charles Rose, a professor at Stetson University College of Law in Florida, “is not a place that lends itself to the preservation of evidence.”

The difficulty of these cases also illustrates the tricky legal questions raised by the government’s increasing use of private contractors in war zones.

Such problems clearly plagued the Moonen case. In the immediate aftermath of the Christmas Eve shooting, Mr. Moonen was interviewed, not by the F.B.I., but by an official with the Regional Security Office of the United States Embassy in Baghdad, the State Department unit that supervised Blackwater security guards in Iraq.

Mr. Moonen’s lawyer, Stewart Riley, said that his client gave the embassy officials a statement only after he was issued a so-called Garrity warning — a threat that he might lose his job if he did not talk, but that he would be granted immunity from prosecution for anything he said.

The legal warning and protection given to Mr. Moonen were similar to warnings that embassy officials later gave to Blackwater guards involved in the Nisour Square case. In each case, the agreements presented an obstacle to prosecution in the United States. In effect, the Blackwater personnel were given a form of immunity from prosecution by the people they were working for and helping to protect.

“Once you immunize statements, it is really hard to prosecute,” said Andrew Leipold, a law professor at the University of Illinois. “In the field, the people providing the immunity may value finding out what happened more than they do any possibility of prosecution. But that just makes any future prosecution really very hard.”

Justice Department officials declined to comment Wednesday about specific Blackwater cases. But the department has appealed the dismissal of the Nisour Square case, and a new trial has been scheduled for next March in the Virginia murder case after a mistrial was declared. And Justice officials noted that the government had had a number of successful prosecutions against contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including several for sexual assaults and other violent crimes. More than 120 companies have been charged by the Justice Department for contract fraud and related crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, officials said.

Still, a Justice official who spoke on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that the government had faced tough obstacles. “There are substantial difficulties in prosecuting cases committed in war zones,” the official said. “There’s problems with the availability of witnesses, availability of evidence, and the quality of the evidence. You also have claims of self-defense, which are generally difficult, although not insurmountable.”

And self-defense is a more compelling argument in war zones, where many people are routinely armed.

One problem in the Moonen case, for example, was that while Mr. Moonen admitted in his statement to the embassy official that he did shoot the Iraqi guard, he asserted that he had done so in self-defense. The guards in the Virginia case also said that they shot in self-defense when they believed they were facing an attack from insurgents. In the Nisour Square case, the five Blackwater guards who were charged also claimed that they shot only after they believed they were under attack.

Jurisdictional problems also plague the Blackwater cases. Since the Blackwater guards were working under a contract with the State Department, they did not fall under the laws that govern contractors working for the Defense Department overseas. Contractors for the Defense Department are subject to criminal prosecution under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, but it has never been clear whether the law can be applied to contractors for the State Department, like Blackwater. Those contractors generally have greater protections because of the possibility that they might be engaged in fighting.

Until last year, foreign contractors also had immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law, so the Blackwater guards were operating in a legal vacuum, noted Eric Jensen, a law professor at Fordham University. “I would be concerned as a prosecutor that even if you got past the immunization, and the problems with witnesses and evidence, that you may not even have a law that supports the prosecution of a Department of State contractor,” Mr. Jensen said. “Congress has tried to address this, but it’s still a live question.”

Mr. Riley cited these reasons in a letter he wrote in April 2009 to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. about the case and also noted that he believed the government had considered indicting Mr. Moonen to placate the Iraqi government. In a letter sent to Mr. Riley on Monday, notifying him that they were dropping the case, prosecutors also indicated that they would have difficulty proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt, particularly in overcoming Mr. Moonen’s claims that he shot in self-defense.

Meanwhile, the government said that the United States ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, had to notify the Iraqi government of the decision, and also provided government officials a letter to be given to the family of the shooting victim, Raheem Saadoun. This year, Mr. Saadoun’s family dropped a civil lawsuit against Mr. Moonen and Blackwater after receiving a financial settlement.

Machines of War: Blackwater, Monsanto, and Bill Gates

2010-10-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

14.10.2010 01:52

Silvia Ribeiro
La Jornada

A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater's Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State "security services," that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.

Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training - for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater.

One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant.

Contacted by Scahill, the Monsanto executive Kevin Wilson declined to comment, but later confirmed to The Nation that they had hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and 2009, according to Monsanto only to keep track of "public disclosure" of its opponents. He also said that Total Intelligence was a "totally separate entity from Blackwater."

However, Scahill has copies of emails from Cofer Black after the meeting with Wilson for Monsanto, where he explains to other former CIA agents, using their Blackwater e-mails, that the discussion with Wilson was that Total Intelligence had become "Monsanto's intelligence arm," spying on activists and other actions, including "our people to legally integrate these groups." Total Intelligence Monsanto paid $ 127,000 in 2008 and $ 105,000 in 2009.

No wonder that a company engaged in the "science of death" as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.

Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of "philanthropy." Another association that is not surprising.

It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of "market competition" of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.

Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really "donating" anything, but instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions. On the contrary, their "donations" finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world. What a coincidence, former Secretary of Health Julio Frenk and Ernesto Zedillo are advisers of the Foundation.

Like Monsanto, Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the "Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa" (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM). To this end, the Foundation hired Robert Horsch in 2006, the director of Monsanto. Now Gates, airing major profits, went straight to the source.

Blackwater, Monsanto and Gates are three sides of the same figure: the war machine on the planet and most people who inhabit it, are peasants, indigenous communities, people who want to share information and knowledge or any other who does not want to be in the aegis of profit and the destructiveness of capitalism.

* The author is a researcher at ETC Group

Exclusive: Blackwater Wins Piece of $10 Billion Mercenary Deal

2010-10-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

By Spencer Ackerman

Never mind the dead civilians. Forget about the stolen guns. Get over the murder arrests, the fraud allegations, and the accusations of guards pumping themselves up withsteroids and cocaine. Through a “joint venture,” the notorious private-security firm Blackwater has won a piece of a five-year State Department contract worth up to $10 billion, Danger Room has learned.

Apparently, there is no misdeed so big that it can keep guns-for-hire from working for the government. And this is despite a 2008 campaign pledge from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ban the company from federal contracts.

Eight private security firms have won State’s giant Worldwide Protective Services contract, the big Foggy Bottom partnership to keep embassies and their inhabitants safe. Two of those firms are longtime State contract holders DynCorp and Triple Canopy. The others are newcomers to the big security contract: EOD Technology, SOC, Aegis Defense Services, Global Strategies Group, Torres International Services and International Development Solutions LLC.

Don’t see any of Blackwater’s myriad business names on there? That’s apparently by design.

Blackwater and the State Department tried their best to obscure their renewed relationship. As Danger Room reported Wednesday, Blackwater did not appear on the vendors’ list for Worldwide Protective Services. And the State Department confirms that the company, renamed Xe Services, didn’t actually submit its own independent bid.

Instead, they used a blandly named cut-out, “International Development Solutions,” to retain a toehold into State’s lucrative security business. No one who looks at the official announcement of the contract award would have any idea that firm is connected to Blackwater.

Blackwater’s “affiliate U.S. Training Center is part of International Development Solutions (IDS), a joint venture with Kaseman,” according to an official State Department statement to Danger Room. “This joint venture was determined by the Department’s source-selection authority to be eligible for award.”

Last year, a Blackwater subdivision, the Blackwater Lodge and Training Center, changed its name to U.S. Training Center. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-Michigan) blasted Blackwater in February for setting up shell companies in order to keep winning government security contracts despite its infamy.

According to State’s statement, the contracting process for the new Worldwide Protective Services deal included a “review” to ensure that companies met “minimum criteria” for eligibility. “This review included a process to determine whether any offerors had been suspended or debarred from the award of federal contracts,” it said. Despite Blackwater guards killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, killing two Afghan civilians on a Kabul road in 2009, and absconding with hundreds of unauthorized guns from a U.S. military weapons depot in Afghanistan using the name of a South Park character, federal contracting authorities have never suspended or debarred Blackwater.

It’s not yet clear what the U.S. Training Center–International Development Solutions–Kaseman “joint venture” will do for the State Department. Worldwide Protective Services is actually a bundle of contracts in one, each governing specific duties for a firm to handle in a given country. Only two of those component contracts have been awarded so far.

One of them is to guard the huge U.S. embassy in Baghdad. That’s gone to SOC, which has ousted Triple Canopy, the incumbent security provider (which will still be part of the overall Worldwide Protective Services deal). If SOC remains the contract holder in Baghdad for the full five years — there’s an annual review — it stands to make nearly $974 million.

But because that so-called “task order” is specifically for on-site security around the gates of the Baghdad embassy, it’s not clear if SOC will also provide the 6,000 to 7,000 security guards the State Department estimates it needs to protect diplomats on the move around Iraq or its other outposts around the country. Last year, the Iraqi government barred Blackwater from doing business in Iraq in response to Nisour Square. But it’s not clear whether this new “joint venture” is eligible to operate in Iraq.

The other task order issued under Worldwide Protective Services is to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. That contract’s gone to EOD Technology, a global firm which has in the past guarded the British and Canadian embassies in the Afghan capital. And that means ArmorGroup North America — last seen with its guards taking tequila shots out of each others’ butts and engaging in extracurricular sex trafficking — has lost a contract worth nearly $274 million over five years.

According to a different statement from the Department of State, the new Worldwide Protective Services contract comes with new safeguards to prevent abuse. Those include mandatory cultural awareness training, the addition of interpreters on all protection missions, financial penalties for poor performance, and a formal ban on alcohol. (Yes — after years of alcohol-related contractor incidents.) Despite these new protections, the department still sees fit to continue business with the most infamous member of the private-security world.

Mystery Merc Group Is Blackwater’s 34th Front Company [Updated]

2010-10-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

By Spencer Ackerman

UPDATE: If International Development Solutions, a mysterious firm partially owned by Blackwater, has its own independent office, it’s hard to find. A business recordssearch 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? [UPDATE] State has yet to address any of those questions.

Afghanistan begins disbanding private security firms

2010-10-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan has begun disbanding private security companies operating in the country, shutting down eight firms and seizing over 400 weapons, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

The move is part of President Hamid Karzai's ambitious plan to take over all Afghan security responsibilities from foreign troops by 2014.

Since Karzai's decree in August, a plan has been drawn up for the process which is expected to be complete by the end of the year, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. The United Nations and NATO-led International Security Assistance force had given it their support, he added.

"The interior ministry is implementing this plan with seriousness and decisiveness," he told a regular briefing.

The first targets are illegal armed groups operating as private security firms, companies with temporary permits and those who provide security escorts for foreign forces and have been engaged in criminal acts and security breaches.

The government has already closed down an Afghan security firm with 75 employees, and several smaller groups which provided security escorts for convoys, Bashary said.

Firms are exempt whose guards work inside compounds used by foreign embassies and international businesses and aid and charitable organizations.

General David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said late last month that Karzai was also prepared to allow companies operating from some fixed sites, including power plants, to continue their work.

"The plan is arranged in a such a manner that it does not create a security gap, yet at the same time (we can) dismantle the private security companies," Bashary said.

Employees from the firms can join the Afghan security forces if they wish, he added.

IRRITATION SORUCE, COMPETING FOR CONTRACTS WORTH BILLIONS

Bashary said he did not have an estimate of the total number of firms, but there were 52 registered with the government, half of them foreign.

Kabul estimates that up to 40,000 Afghans are employed by these firms, seen as a parallel security operations outside government control. Their heavily armed guards forcing a route through traffic is a common sight on Afghan streets.

Many Afghans see them as operating with impunity, and they have been accused of a series of killings, crimes and scandals, but have rarely been convicted.

Karzai's government tried unsuccessfully last year to register the firms, find out the amount of arms they had and where they came from, and how much money the industry was worth, an Afghan security source has said.

The U.S. State Department said last year it would review its use of contractors at overseas embassies after a scandal over sexual hazing by security guards at its Kabul mission.

When Karzai issued the deadline for the closure of the firms in August, the Pentagon called the deadline "very challenging" but said Washington would work with Kabul and seek to improve oversight and management of private security firms.

(Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Jonathan Thatcher)

US Businessman: Blackwater Paid Me to Buy Steroids and Weapons on Black Market for its Shooters

2010-09-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

By Jeremy Scahill

A Texas businessman who has worked extensively in Iraq claims that Blackwater paid him to purchase steroids and other drugs for its operatives in Baghdad, as well as more than 100 AK47s and massive amounts of ammunition on Baghdad's black market. Howard Lowry, who worked in Iraq from 2003-2009, also claims that he personally attended Blackwater parties where company personnel had large amounts of cocaine and blocks of hashish and would run around naked. At some of these parties, Lowry alleges, Blackwater operatives would randomly fire automatic weapons from their balconies into buildings full of Iraqi civilians. Lowry described the events as a "frat party gone wild" where "drug use was rampant." Lowry says he was told by Blackwater personnel that some of the men using the steroids he purchased were on the security detail of L. Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Lowry also claims that Blackwater's owner, Erik Prince, tried to enlist his help to win contracts for Blackwater with the Iraqi government using an off-shore security company, Greystone, which Prince owns. The purpose, Lowry says, was to conceal Greystone's relationship to Blackwater.
Lowry made his statements in a deposition on September 10 as part of a whistleblower lawsuit brought by two former Blackwater employees. The suit was filed in 2008 by former employees Brad and Melan Davis. They allege that Blackwater tried to bill the US government for a prostitute for its men in Afghanistan and for strippers in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The lawsuit claims that Prince personally benefitted from alleged fraud. The Nation obtained Lowry's deposition from publicly available court filings.
Blackwater, Lowry alleges, paid for the steroids using company funds and the purchases were coordinated by Blackwater's Iraq country manager. "Not only did I purchase the pharmaceuticals," Lowry said in his deposition, "but I was also given money and asked to acquire syringes and other forms or modes of injection as well." Lowry said that Blackwater used him to purchase the drugs and other devices because, unlike Blackwater personnel, he could move freely and discreetly around Baghdad. Lowry says he personally witnessed several Blackwater operatives injecting themselves with steroids.
Lowry says in the deposition that he was a close friend of Jerry Zovko, one of the four Blackwater men killed in the infamous ambush in Fallujah, Iraq in March 2004. Zovko, Lowry says, "provided me tremendous insight into the company and confirmed that the use of steroids and human growth hormone, testosterone, were pretty endemic to them and almost companywide." Lowry said that it was a "wide-ranging problem, and this included individuals that were on [L. Paul] Bremer's personal detail." Bremer was guarded by Blackwater when he ran the CPA from 2003-2004. Lowry says he would purchase the drugs for Blackwater "by the case," adding, "It was as large a quantity as I could get, which was usually a case." He said that the "volume I was being asked to purchase on a daily basis was going up substantially as time went on."
Lowry also claims that he purchased a wide variety of weapons, ammunition and armor for Blackwater on the black market in Baghdad. "I purchased no less than a hundred AK47s for Blackwater personnel to keep them safe," Lowry says. Such purchases, he says he believed, were necessary because Blackwater was not adequately arming its personnel.
Lowry also describes instances of Blackwater personnel firing randomly at Iraqi pedestrians and into buildings for no apparent reason. He details one night where several Blackwater operatives were at his hotel drinking until 5am. When they left, Lowry says, they fired their weapons at random as they drove off. Lowry describes parties that he says some Blackwater personnel would throw at the al Hamra hotel in Baghdad that he says were like "a frat party" with rampant drug use:
One of the suites would be absolutely packed with gentlemen running around with either no clothes on, no shirt on. It was like a frat party gone wild. Drug use was rampant. There was cocaine all on the tables. There were blocks of hash, and you could smell it in the air…walking up to the door.
Lowry described one party where "there was a pile of cocaine that one Blackwater person had estimated to be over an ounce of coke." Lowry said, "to me, considering the job that these gentlemen are doing…at that time [they] were protecting the US ambassador, Ambassador Bremer, seemed a little bit out—well, beyond out of control. And these parties were a weekly ritual." Lowry alleges that at these parties on several occasions Blackwater personnel would pull out AK47s and go out onto the balcony and "would just spray the building next door, which housed Iraqi civilians."
Lowry also says that he had several meetings with Erik Prince where Prince asked him for assistance in winning contracts with the Iraqi government for an off-shore company Prince owns called Greystone. It is registered in Barbados. Lowry, who says he knew the Iraqi Interior and Defense Ministers "very well," claims Prince wanted to offer the Iraqi government Greystone's training and security services. Lowry says that Prince stated "very clearly" to him that Greystone was "set up to deflect any liability, future liability, that he may have with respect to any weapons sales or any bodily harm or anything else, contract issues with both the US and the Iraqi governments." Lowry claims the Iraqis were aware of Greystone's connection to Blackwater and "detested" the companies.
Lawyers representing the self-exiled Blackwater owner have asked a federal judge in Virginia for a protective order against the tenacious lawyer who took Lowry's deposition. For years, attorney Susan Burke has pursued Prince and Blackwater with a string of civil lawsuits. In August, Burke flew to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where Prince and his family have relocated, to conduct a seven-hour deposition of Prince in connection to the whistleblower claim she filed on behalf of the former Blackwater employees. After the deposition ended on August 23, according to Burke, Prince threatened to "come after" her.
Soon thereafter, Prince's lawyers declared the entirety of the transcript of Prince's deposition to be confidential material and asserted that it should be sealed. Prince's attorneys filed papers in the case asking the judge to allow Prince and his lawyers to classify any information or documents Prince provides or any information or documents Burke obtains from Prince or Blackwater as "confidential" and therefore barred from public dissemination. Prince's lawyers have also asked that all documents they provide in the case be destroyed or returned within 120 days of the conclusion of the case.
Prince's lawyers have alleged that Burke intends to use the media to embarrass Prince and to litigate her case outside of court and have asked for a "gag order" against her and the other attorneys litigating the case. Burke, in her court filing, points out that the actions of Prince and his companies have generated tremendous publicity and attention. Burke writes:
Defendant Prince and his companies create the media stir by their own actions. Indeed, their misconduct has led to a series of indictments, charging letters from the State Department, and criminal trials. Indeed, Defendant Prince seeks publicity that serves his own ends. He voluntarily participated in a Vanity Fair interview, pressing his view that anyone who criticizes his misconduct must have a "political agenda." Defendant Prince voluntarily cooperated with a book about his life, called Master of War. In the book, he voluntarily revealed, among other things, that he fathered a child out of wedlock and cheated on his wife who was dying of cancer.
On September 22, Burke filed a motion opposing the gag order and what she sees as Prince's attempt to "seal everything." In her motion, Burke reveals that she provided the US State Department with a transcript of the deposition for review of potentially classified material. A State Department contracting official wrote, "As contracting officer I do not require any redactions to the subject transcript of the Erk Prince deposition before it is made publicly available."
In arguing against a gag order, Burke writes that media coverage results in witnesses coming forward who will "be helpful in showing the jury that [her clients'] claims of widespread fraud and misconduct have merit." To support her argument, Burke cited Howard Lowry, whom she says contacted her after seeing media reports on Prince and Blackwater.
Lowry says he contacted Burke "because I believe there is a tremendous lack of moral and business ethics on behalf of the owner of the company and, I believe, companywide." He added, "Because of that, I feel that numerous families of individuals of Blackwater employees that have been killed on the job are not getting the true story."

Blackwater/Xe cells conducting false flag terrorist attacks in Pakistan

2010-09-28T09:03:00.001-07:00

A Washington-based investigative journalist- Wayne Madsen- has claimed that a CIA contractor firm- XE Services- formerly Blackwater, has been carrying out false flag terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

"WMR has learned from a deep background source that Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, has been conducting false flag terrorist attacks in Pakistan that are later blamed on the entity called Pakistani Taliban," The News quoted Madsen, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), and the National Press Club, as saying.

"However, it is Xe cells operating in Karachi, Peshawar, Islamabad and other cities and towns that have, according to our source who witnessed the US-led false flag terrorist operations in Pakistan. Bombings of civilians is the favoured false flag event for the Xe team and are being carried out under the orders of the CIA," he claimed, adding that the source was now under threat from the FBI and CIA for revealing facts about the false flag operations in Pakistan.

Earlier this year, Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) had claimed that "intelligence sources in Asia and Europe are reporting that the CIA contractor firm XE Services, formerly Blackwater, has been carrying out false flag terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sinkiang region of China, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, in some cases with the assistance of Israeli Mossad and Indian RAW personnel. "

He also stated that although the Pakistan Taliban had taken responsibility for the recent bomb attack of a pro-Palestine Shia rally in Quetta that killed 54 people, it was "actually carried out by one of the Xe covert cells in the country, acting in concert with the CIA, Israeli Mossad, and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)."

Madsen said that the ultimate goal of those cells was "to destabilize Pakistan to the point where it has no choice but to allow the Western powers to secure its nuclear weapons and remove them from the country, in a manner similar to the procurement by the West of South Africa's nuclear weapons, prior to the stepping down of the white minority government in the early 1990s." (ANI)

http://www.sananews.net/english/2010/09/20/blackwater-conducting-terrorist-attacks-in-pakistan-report/

Blackwater/Xe cells conducting false flag terrorist attacks in Pakistan

2010-09-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Sep 16, 2010, 00:22

(WMR) -- WMR has learned from a deep background source that Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater, has been conducting false flag terrorist attacks in Pakistan that are later blamed on the entity called “Pakistani Taliban.”
Only recently did the US State Department designate the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, a terrorist group. The group is said by the State Department to be an off-shoot of the Afghan Taliban, which had links to “Al Qaeda” before the 9/11 attacks on the United States. TTP’s leader is Hakimullah Mehsud, said to be 30-years old and operating from Pakistan’s remote tribal region with an accomplice named Wali Ur Rehman. In essence, this new team of Mehsud and Rehman appears to be the designated replacement for Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri as the new leaders of the so-called “Global Jihad” against the West.
However, it is Xe cells operating in Karachi, Peshawar, Islamabad and other cities and towns that have, according to our source who witnessed the U.S.-led false flag terrorist operations in Pakistan. Bombings of civilians is the favored false flag event for the Xe team and are being carried out under the orders of the CIA.
However, the source is now under threat from the FBI and CIA for revealing the nature of the false flag operations in Pakistan. If the source does not agree to cooperate with the CIA and FBI, with an offer of a salary, the threat of false criminal charges being brought for aiding and abetting terrorism looms over the source.
The Blackwater/Xe involvement in terrorist attacks in Pakistan have been confirmed by the former head of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), General Hamid Gul, according to another source familiar with the current Xe covert operations. In addition, Pakistani ex-Army Chief of Staff, General Mirza Aslam Beg, reportedly claimed that while serving as president, General Pervez Musharraf approved Blackwater carrying out terrorist operations in Pakistan. Blackwater has been accused of smuggling weapons and munitions into Pakistan.
Earlier this year WMR reported that ”intelligence sources in Asia and Europe are reporting that the CIA contractor firm XE Services, formerly Blackwater, has been carrying out ‘false flag’ terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sinkiang region of China, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, in some cases with the assistance of Israeli Mossad and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) personnel . . . A number of terrorist bombings in Pakistan have been blamed by Pakistani Islamic leaders on Blackwater, Mossad, and RAW. Blackwater has been accused of hiring young Pakistanis in Peshawar to carry out false flag bombings that are later blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. One such bombing took place during the Ashura procession in Karachi last month. The terrorist attacks allegedly are carried out by a secret Blackwater-XE/CIA/Joint Special Operations Command forward operating base in Karachi. The XE Services component was formerly known as Blackwater Select, yet another subsidiary in a byzantine network of shell and linked companies run by Blackwater/Xe on behalf of the CIA and the Pentagon. On December 3, 2009, the Pakistani newspaper Nawa-i-Waqtreported: ‘Vast land near the Tarbela dam has also been given to the Americans where they have established bases for their army and air forces. There, the Indian RAW [Research and Analysis Wing] and Israeli Mossad are working in collaboration with the CIA to carry out extremist activities in Pakistan.’”
The bombing of a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan last December was blamed on the TTP but may have actually involved the covert Xe/CIA program to stage false flag attacks and something went drastically wrong with the operation that resulted in the deaths of seven CIA personnel, including the Khost station chief. The TTP was also linked to the failed Times Square “bombing” last May.
Responsibility for the recent bomb attack of a pro-Palestine Shi’a rally in Quetta that killed 54 people was claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, but it was actually carried out by one of the Xe covert cells in the country, acting in concert with the CIA, Israeli Mossad, and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The ultimate goal is to destabilize Pakistan to the point where it has no choice but to allow the Western powers to secure its nuclear weapons and remove them from the country in a manner similar to the procurement by the West of South Africa’s nuclear weapons prior to the stepping down of the white minority government in the early 1990s.
WMR has been informed that any American, whether or not he or she holds a security clearance, is subject to U.S. national security prohibitions from discussing the U.S.- sponsored terrorist attacks in Pakistan. In one case, a threat was made against an individual who personally witnessed the Xe/CIA terrorist operations but is now threatened, along with family members.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2010 WayneMadenReport.com

Blackwater's Black Ops

2010-09-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

by Jeremy Scahill

Over the past several years, entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation. Officials from Total Intelligence, TRC and Blackwater (which now calls itself Xe Services) did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this article.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the "intel arm" of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

Governmental recipients of intelligence services and counterterrorism training from Prince's companies include the Kingdom of Jordan, the Canadian military and the Netherlands police, as well as several US military bases, including Fort Bragg, home of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and Fort Huachuca, where military interrogators are trained, according to the documents. In addition, Blackwater worked through the companies for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the US European Command.

On September 3 the New York Times reported that Blackwater had "created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq." The documents obtained by The Nation reveal previously unreported details of several such companies and open a rare window into the sensitive intelligence and security operations Blackwater performs for a range of powerful corporations and government agencies. The new evidence also sheds light on the key roles of several former top CIA officials who went on to work for Blackwater.

The coordinator of Blackwater's covert CIA business, former CIA paramilitary officer Enrique "Ric" Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their "deniability" as a "big plus" for potential Blackwater customers, according to company documents. The CIA has long used proxy forces to carry out extralegal actions or to shield US government involvement in unsavory operations from scrutiny. In some cases, these "deniable" foreign forces don't even know who they are working for. Prado and Prince built up a network of such foreigners while Blackwater was at the center of the CIA's assassination program, beginning in 2004. They trained special missions units at one of Prince's properties in Virginia with the intent of hunting terrorism suspects globally, often working with foreign operatives. A former senior CIA official said the benefit of using Blackwater's foreign operatives in CIA operations was that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."

While the network was originally established for use in CIA operations, documents show that Prado viewed it as potentially valuable to other government agencies. In an e-mail in October 2007 with the subject line "Possible Opportunity in DEA—Read and Delete," Prado wrote to a Total Intelligence executive with a pitch for the Drug Enforcement Administration. That executive was an eighteen-year DEA veteran with extensive government connections who had recently joined the firm. Prado explained that Blackwater had developed "a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations." He added, "These are all foreign nationals (except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer 'play' on the street), so deniability is built in and should be a big plus."

The executive wrote back and suggested there "may be an interest" in those services. The executive suggested that "one of the best places to start may be the Special Operations Division, (SOD) which is located in Chantilly, VA," telling Prado the name of the special agent in charge. The SOD is a secretive joint command within the Justice Department, run by the DEA. It serves as the command-and-control center for some of the most sensitive counternarcotics and law enforcement operations conducted by federal forces. The executive also told Prado that US attachés in Mexico; Bogotá, Colombia; and Bangkok, Thailand, would potentially be interested in Prado's network. Whether this network was activated, and for what customers, cannot be confirmed. A former Blackwater employee who worked on the company's CIA program declined to comment on Prado's work for the company, citing its classified status.

In November 2007 officials from Prince's companies developed a pricing structure for security and intelligence services for private companies and wealthy individuals. One official wrote that Prado had the capacity to "develop infrastructures" and "conduct ground-truth and security activities." According to the pricing chart, potential customers could hire Prado and other Blackwater officials to operate in the United States and globally: in Latin America, North Africa, francophone countries, the Middle East, Europe, China, Russia, Japan, and Central and Southeast Asia. A four-man team headed by Prado for countersurveillance in the United States cost $33,600 weekly, while "safehouses" could be established for $250,000, plus operational costs. Identical services were offered globally. For $5,000 a day, clients could hire Prado or former senior CIA officials Cofer Black and Robert Richer for "representation" to national "decision-makers." Before joining Blackwater, Black, a twenty-eight-year CIA veteran, ran the agency's counterterrorism center, while Richer was the agency's deputy director of operations. (Neither Black nor Richer currently works for the company.)

As Blackwater became embroiled in controversy following the Nisour Square massacre, Prado set up his own company, Constellation Consulting Group (CCG), apparently taking some of Blackwater's covert CIA work with him, though he maintained close ties to his former employer. In an e-mail to a Total Intelligence executive in February 2008, Prado wrote that he "recently had major success in developing capabilities in Mali [Africa] that are of extreme interest to our major sponsor and which will soon launch a substantial effort via my small shop." He requested Total Intelligence's help in analyzing the "North Mali/Niger terrorist problem."

In October 2009 Blackwater executives faced a crisis when they could not account for their government-issued Secure Telephone Unit, which is used by the CIA, the National Security Agency and other military and intelligence services for secure communications. A flurry of e-mails were sent around as personnel from various Blackwater entities tried to locate the device. One former Blackwater official wrote that because he had left the company it was "not really my problem," while another declared, "I have no 'dog in this fight.'" Eventually, Prado stepped in, e-mailing the Blackwater officials to "pass my number" to the "OGA POC," meaning the Other Government Agency (parlance for CIA) Point of Contact.

What relationship Prado's CCG has with the CIA is not known. An early version of his company's website boasted that "CCG professionals have already conducted operations on five continents, and have proven their ability to meet the most demanding client needs" and that the company has the "ability to manage highly-classified contracts." CCG, the site said, "is uniquely positioned to deliver services that no other company can, and can deliver results in the most remote areas with little or no outside support." Among the services advertised were "Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence (human and electronic), Unconventional Military Operations, Counterdrug Operations, Aviation Services, Competitive Intelligence, Denied Area Access...and Paramilitary Training."

The Nation has previously reported on Blackwater's work for the CIA and JSOC in Pakistan. New documents reveal a history of activity relating to Pakistan by Blackwater. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto worked with the company when she returned to Pakistan to campaign for the 2008 elections, according to the documents. In October 2007, when media reports emerged that Bhutto had hired "American security," senior Blackwater official Robert Richer wrote to company executives, "We need to watch this carefully from a number of angles. If our name surfaces, the Pakistani press reaction will be very important. How that plays through the Muslim world will also need tracking." Richer wrote that "we should be prepared to [sic] a communique from an affiliate of Al-Qaida if our name surfaces (BW). That will impact the security profile." Clearly a word is missing in the e-mail or there is a typo that leaves unclear what Richer meant when he mentioned the Al Qaeda communiqué. Bhutto was assassinated two months later. Blackwater officials subsequently scheduled a meeting with her family representatives in Washington, in January 2008.

Through Total Intelligence and the Terrorism Research Center, Blackwater also did business with a range of multinational corporations. According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto—the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seeds—hired the firm in 2008–09. The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with Kevin Wilson, Monsanto's security manager for global issues.

After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives, including to Prince and Prado at their Blackwater e-mail addresses. Black wrote that Wilson "understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name.... Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for." Black added that Total Intelligence "would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto." Black also noted that Monsanto was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater "could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally." Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto's "generous protection budget" but would eventually become a line item in the company's annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.

Reached by telephone and asked about the meeting with Black in Zurich, Monsanto's Wilson initially said, "I'm not going to discuss it with you." In a subsequent e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010. He denied that he and Black discussed infiltrating animal rights groups, stating "there was no such discussion." He claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto "with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites." Wilson asserted that Black told him Total Intelligence was "a completely separate entity from Blackwater."

Monsanto was hardly the only powerful corporation to enlist the services of Blackwater's constellation of companies. The Walt Disney Company hired Total Intelligence and TRC to do a "threat assessment" for potential film shoot locations in Morocco, with former CIA officials Black and Richer reaching out to their former Moroccan intel counterparts for information. The job provided a "good chance to impress Disney," one company executive wrote. How impressed Disney was is not clear; in 2009 the company paid Total Intelligence just $24,000.

Total Intelligence and TRC also provided intelligence assessments on China to Deutsche Bank. "The Chinese technical counterintelligence threat is one of the highest in the world," a TRC analyst wrote, adding, "Many four and five star hotel rooms and restaurants are live-monitored with both audio and video" by Chinese intelligence. He also said that computers, PDAs and other electronic devices left unattended in hotel rooms could be cloned. Cellphones using the Chinese networks, the analyst wrote, could have their microphones remotely activated, meaning they could operate as permanent listening devices. He concluded that Deutsche Bank reps should "bring no electronic equipment into China." Warning of the use of female Chinese agents, the analyst wrote, "If you don't have women coming onto you all the time at home, then you should be suspicious if they start coming onto you when you arrive in China." For these and other services, the bank paid Total Intelligence $70,000 in 2009.

TRC also did background checks on Libyan and Saudi businessmen for British banking giant Barclays. In February 2008 a TRC executive e-mailed Prado and Richer revealing that Barclays asked TRC and Total Intelligence for background research on the top executives from the Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) and their potential "associations/connections with the Royal family and connections with Osama bin Ladin." In his report, Richer wrote that SBG's chair, Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, "is well and favorably known to both arab and western intelligence service[s]" for cooperating in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Another SBG executive, Sheikh Saleh bin Laden, is described by Richer as "a very savvy businessman" who is "committed to operating with full transparency to Saudi's security services" and is considered "the most vehement within the extended BL family in terms of criticizing UBL's actions and beliefs."

In August Blackwater and the State Department reached a $42 million settlement for hundreds of violations of US export control regulations. Among the violations cited was the unauthorized export of technical data to the Canadian military. Meanwhile, Blackwater's dealings with Jordanian officials are the subject of a federal criminal prosecution of five former top Blackwater executives. The Jordanian government paid Total Intelligence more than $1.6 million in 2009.

Some of the training Blackwater provided to Canadian military forces was in Blackwater/TRC's "Mirror Image" course, where trainees live as a mock Al Qaeda cell in an effort to understand the mindset and culture of insurgents. Company literature describes it as "a classroom and field training program designed to simulate terrorist recruitment, training, techniques and operational tactics." Documents show that in March 2009 Blackwater/TRC spent $6,500 purchasing local tribal clothing in Afghanistan as well as assorted "propaganda materials—posters, Pakistan Urdu maps, etc." for Mirror Image, and another $9,500 on similar materials this past January in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

According to internal documents, in 2009 alone the Canadian military paid Blackwater more than $1.6 million through TRC. A Canadian military official praised the program in a letter to the center, saying it provided "unique and valid cultural awareness and mission specific deployment training for our soldiers in Afghanistan," adding that it was "a very effective and operationally current training program that is beneficial to our mission."

This past summer Erik Prince put Blackwater up for sale and moved to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. But he doesn't seem to be leaving the shadowy world of security and intelligence. He says he moved to Abu Dhabi because of its "great proximity to potential opportunities across the entire Middle East, and great logistics," adding that it has "a friendly business climate, low to no taxes, free trade and no out of control trial lawyers or labor unions. It's pro-business and opportunity." It also has no extradition treaty with the United States.

State Department details Blackwater violations of U.S. laws

2010-09-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The company formerly known as Blackwater violated U.S. export control laws nearly 300 times, ranging from attempts to do business in Sudan while that country was under U.S. sanctions to training an Afghan border patrol official who was a native of Iran, the State Department said Monday.

The alleged violations were spelled out in documents released Monday by the State Department as part of a $42 million settlement with Blackwater that will allow the company, now known as Xe Services LLC, to continue receiving U.S. government contracts.

The agreement appears to spell the end of a three-and-a-half-year, multi-agency federal probe into Xe Services' unauthorized exports of defense technologies and services. While elements of the case were presented to a federal grand jury, the company and its currently serving officers have avoided criminal prosecution.

The State Department said Monday that Xe Services' alleged violations, while widespread, "did not involve sensitive technologies or cause a known harm to national security." Additionally, it said, they took place while Xe "was providing services in support of U.S. government programs and military operations abroad."

Under the agreement with the U.S. government, the Moyock, N.C., company was levied a $42 million fine, but Xe is allowed to use $12 million of that to strengthen the company's export control compliance programs. Xe won't be barred from further U.S. government contracts, and a government policy of denying most of the firm's export control applications, in place since December 2008, will be lifted.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Blackwater founder Erik Prince, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Prince recently moved to the United Arab Emirates, and has put Xe Services up for sale.

McClatchy first reported in June that Xe Services and the U.S. government were negotiating a multimillion-dollar fine to settle allegations that it violated laws regulating the export of defense equipment and know-how overseas. The article detailed Blackwater's extensive efforts to secure business in southern Sudan at a time when the country was under U.S. sanctions for its sponsorship of terrorism.

A 41-page State Department document released Monday provides some new details about Blackwater's Sudan plans and provides a peek into the secretive company's training of foreign military personnel around the globe.

For example, an October 2006 Blackwater proposal to the south Sudanese government called for the company to provide military training to individuals who held citizenship in both Sudan and neighboring Uganda, but "would be deemed Ugandans for training purposes." Blackwater obtained Ugandan passports for the prospective trainees from the south Sudanese government.

At the time, Sudan was under U.S. sanctions, but Uganda wasn't.

Most of the 288 violations of export control laws cited in the document involve Blackwater providing unauthorized military or security training to foreign nationals or failing to vet adequately the backgrounds of those it was training. The concern is that U.S. enemies could benefit inadvertently from such training.

Persons trained by Blackwater under a U.S. government contract to train the Afghan Border Police included "one (who) was born in Pakistan and the other in Iran, a proscribed country," the document says.

Blackwater provided military training to security forces in almost every corner of the globe, often without proper authorization from the U.S. government, the documents show. Countries that received those services included Azerbaijan, Canada, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Niger, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Blackwater also violated firearms regulations on numerous occasions, the documents allege. In one case, it diverted weapons intended for use in supporting U.S. military operations in Iraq to the company's private contracts in that country.

The company "did not fully cooperate" during the first 18 months of the State Department investigation, which began in February 2007, and made several false statements to the government that it later revised, the documents said.

Blackwater Won Contracts Through a Web of Companies

2010-09-05T10:05:00.001-07:00

By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released a chart that identified 31 affiliates of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. The network was disclosed as part of a committee’s investigation into government contracting. The investigation revealed the lengths to which Blackwater went to continue winning contracts after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007. That episode and other reports of abuses led to criminal and Congressional investigations, and cost the company its lucrative security contract with the State Department in Iraq.

The network of companies — which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens — allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities, said former Blackwater officials, who, like the government officials, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that it was worth “looking into why Blackwater would need to create the dozens of other names” and said he had requested that the Justice Department investigate whether Blackwater officers misled the government when using subsidiaries to solicit contracts.

The C.I.A.’s continuing relationship with the company, which recently was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security at agency bases in Afghanistan, has drawn harsh criticism from some members of Congress, who argue that the company’s tarnished record should preclude it from such work. At least two of the Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the agency, according to interviews with a half dozen former Blackwater officials.

A C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said that Xe’s current duties for the agency were to provide security for agency operatives. Contractors “do the tasks we ask them to do in strict accord with the law; they are supervised by C.I.A. staff officers; and they are held to the highest standards of conduct” he said. “As for Xe specifically, they help provide security in tough environments, an assignment at which their people have shown both skill and courage.”

Congress began to investigate the affiliated companies last year, after the shooting deaths of two Afghans by Blackwater security personnel working for a subsidiary named Paravant, which had obtained Pentagon contracts in Afghanistan. In a Senate hearing earlier this year, Army officials said that when they awarded the contract to Paravant for training of the Afghan Army, they had no idea that the business was part of Blackwater.

While Congressional investigators have identified other Blackwater-linked businesses, it was not the focus of their inquiry to determine how much money from government contracts flowed through the web of corporations, especially money earmarked for clandestine programs. The former company officials say that Greystone did extensive work for the intelligence community, though they did not describe the nature of the activities. The firm was incorporated in Barbados for tax purposes, but had executives who worked at Blackwater’s headquarters in North Carolina.

The former company officials say that Erik Prince, the business’s founder, was eager to find ways to continue to handle secret work after the 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisour Square and set up a special office to handle classified work at his farm in Middleburg, Va.

Enrique Prado, a former top C.I.A. official who joined the contractor, worked closely with Mr. Prince to develop Blackwater’s clandestine abilities, according to several former officials. In an internal e-mail obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Prado claimed that he had created a Blackwater spy network that could be hired by the American government.

“We have a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations,” Mr. Prado wrote in the October 2007 message, in which he asked another Blackwater official whether the Drug Enforcement Administration might be interested in using the spy network. “These are all foreign nationals,” he added, “so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.”

It is not clear whether Mr. Prado’s secret spy service ever conducted any operations for the government. From 2004 to 2006, both Mr. Prado and Mr. Prince were involved in a C.I.A. program to hunt senior leaders of Al Qaeda that had been outsourced to Blackwater, though current and former American officials said that the assassination program did not carry out any operations. Company employees also loaded bombs and missiles onto Predator drones in Pakistan, work that was terminated last year by the C.I.A.

Both Mr. Prince and Mr. Prado declined to be interviewed for this article.

The company is facing a string of legal problems, including the indictment in April of five former Blackwater officials on weapons and obstruction charges, and civil suits stemming from the 2007 shootings in Iraq.

The business is up for sale by Mr. Prince, who colleagues say is embittered by the public criticism and scrutiny that Blackwater has faced. He has not been implicated in the criminal charges against his former subordinates, but he has recently moved his family to Abu Dhabi, where he hopes to focus on obtaining contracts from governments in Africa and the Middle East, according to colleagues and former company officials.

After awarding Blackwater the new security contract in June, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, publicly defended the decision, saying Blackwater had “cleaned up its act.”

But Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she could not understand why the intelligence community had been unwilling to cut ties to Blackwater. “I am continually and increasingly mystified by this relationship,” she said. “To engage with a company that is such a chronic, repeat offender, it’s reckless.”

It is unclear how much of Blackwater’s relationship with the C.I.A. will become public during the criminal proceedings in North Carolina because the Obama administration won a court order limiting the use of classified information. Among other things, company executives are accused of obtaining large numbers of AK-47s and M-4 automatic weapons, but arranging to make it appear as if they had been bought by the sheriff’s department in Camden County, N.C. Such purchases were legal only if made by law enforcement agencies.

But defense lawyers say they hope to argue that Blackwater had a classified contract with the C.I.A. and wanted at least some of the guns for weapons training for agency officers.

Another False Ending

2010-09-01T11:49:00.001-07:00

By BILL QUIGLEY and LAURA RAYMOND

Another false ending to the Iraq war is being declared. Nearly seven years after George Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, President Obama has just given a major address to mark the withdrawal of all but 50,000 combat troops from Iraq. But, while thousands of US troops are marching out, thousands of additional private military contractors (PMCs) are marching in. The number of armed security contractors in Iraq will more than double in the coming months.

While the mainstream media is debating whether Iraq can be declared a victory or not there is virtually no discussion regarding this surge in contractors. Meanwhile, serious questions about the accountability of private military contractors remain.

In the past decade the United States has dramatically shifted the way in which it wages war – fewer soldiers and more contractors.

Last month, the Congressional Research Service reported that the Department of Defense (DoD) workforce has 19% more contractors (207,600) than uniformed personnel (175,000) in Iraq and Afghanistan, making the wars in these two countries the most outsourced and privatized in U.S. history.

According to a recent State Department briefing to Congress’s Commission on Wartime Contracting, from now on, instead of soldiers, private military contractors will be disposing of improvised explosive devices, recovering killed and wounded personnel, downed aircraft and damaged vehicles, policing Baghdad’s International Zone, providing convoy security, and clearing travel routes, among other security-related duties.

Worse, the oversight of contractors will rest with other contractors. As has been the case in Afghanistan, contractors will be sought to provide “operations-center monitoring of private security contractors (PSCs)” as well as “PSC inspection and accountability services.”

The Commission on Wartime Contracting, a body established by Congress to study the trends in war contracting, raised fundamental questions in a July 12, 2010 “special report” about the troop drawdown and the increased use of contractors:

“An additional concern is presented by the nature of the functions that contractors might be supplying in place of U.S. military personnel. What if an aircraft-recovery team or a supply convoy comes under fire? Who determines whether contract guards engage the assailants and whether a quick-reaction force is sent to assist them? What if the assailants are firing from an inhabited village or a hospital? Who weighs the risks of innocent casualties, directs the action, and applies the rules for the use of force?

“Apart from raising questions about inherently governmental functions, such scenarios could require decisions related to the risk of innocent casualties, frayed relations with the Iraqi government and populace, and broad undermining of U.S. objectives.”

We’d like to pose an additional question to the ones listed above: when human rights abuses by private military contractors occur in the next phase of the occupation of Iraq, which certainly will happen, what is the plan for justice and accountability?

This massive buildup of contractors in Iraq takes place at a time when the question of contractor immunity – or impunity - is at a critical point.

In one example, since 2004 our organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights, has been demanding- in US courts and through advocacy- that private military contractors who commit grave human rights abuses be held accountable. Contractors have responded by claiming something known as the “government contractor defense,” arguing that because they were contracted by the US government to perform a duty they shouldn’t be able to be held liable for any alleged violations that occurred while purportedly performing those duties – even when the alleged violations are war crimes. Contractors also argue that the cases CCR has brought raise “political questions” that are inappropriate for the courts to consider. These technical legal arguments have been the focus of human rights lawsuits for years – and so far the question of the contractors’ actual actions have not been reviewed by the federal courts.

One case that should be watched closely this fall is Saleh v. Titan, a case brought by CCR and private attorneys against CACI and L-3 Services (formerly Titan), two private military contractors who military investigations implicated as having played a part in the torture at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers throughout Iraq.

Saleh v. Titan was filed six years ago on behalf of Iraqis who were tortured and otherwise seriously abused while detained and currently includes hundreds of plaintiffs, including many individuals who were detained at the notorious “hard site” at Abu Ghraib. The plaintiffs in Saleh v. Titan, many of whom still suffer from physical and psychological harm, are simply seeking their day in court, to tell an American jury what happened to them.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed the case last September and the Supreme Court will be deciding whether or not to take the case this fall. This and a handful of other cases will signal how civil lawsuits on behalf of those injured or killed by contractors will be handled in US courts –and decide whether victims of egregious human rights violations will obtain some form of redress and whether contractors who violate the law will be held accountable or be granted impunity.

And how will human rights abuse by contractors be handled by criminal prosecutors in the coming years? Given its track record, it is safe to say that Iraqi civilians cannot count on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute many contractor abuse cases. The DOJ was given an “F” by Human Rights First in their 2008 report Ending Private Contractor Impunity: Report Cards on the U.S. Government Response since Nisoor Square. The DOJ has never pursued criminal prosecutions for contractor involvement in the crimes of Abu Ghraib; something CCR still demands today.

Iraq’s Parliament signed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in 2008 which gave it the power to prosecute some US contractors who commit crimes against Iraqi civilians. We can all hope Iraq’s justice system will be able to overcome the political challenges involved in prosecuting US companies or US contractors and other foreigners in Iraq’s courts. But even that will not stop the common practice of contractor companies simply pulling their employees out of the country when a crime happens.

With these fundamental questions left unanswered and legal loopholes left open, thousands more armed contractors will soon be filing into Iraq, onto the streets where Iraqis work, study and go about their everyday lives.

As Senator, Obama called for less dependence on private military contractors and for accountability when they committed human rights abuses. He told Defense News in 2008 that he was “troubled by the use of private contractors when it comes to potential armed engagements.” Senator Clinton co-sponsored legislation to phase out the use of security contractors in war zones.

As President, Obama pretends the occupation of Iraq is ending with the withdrawal of combat troops while he and Secretary of State Clinton quietly hire a shadow army to replace them.

For more information about Saleh v. Titan, please see: http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/saleh-v-titan

Bill Quilgley and Laura Raymond work at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Contact Bill at quigley77@gmail.com and Laura at lauraraymond21@gmail.com

Blackwater Provided 'Unauthorized' Training in Colombia

2010-08-30T08:18:00.001-07:00

Posted by Erin Rosa - August 24, 2010 at 8:10 pm
US State Department Claims Blackwater Corporation Gave Military Training in Colombia Without Agency's Permission
Blackwater, a corporation that specializes in providing military-style training and support to other businesses and governments, recently entered into a $42 million civil settlement with the State Department this month after the agency found that the company violated international arms trafficking and export regulations no less than 288 times.
The settlement is mainly focused on the company's business dealings in Iraq and Afghanistan, but within a 41-page document (PDF) of the State Department's findings on the case, the agency also claims that Blackwater provided at least one unauthorized military training in Colombia in 2005, allegedly in violation of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
According to the findings, Blackwater (which changed its name to Xe Services in 2009 after earning an ugly reputation for its mercenary work in Iraq) provided “military training to foreign persons from Colombia” before “obtaining required authorizations” through the State Department.
The company failed to get approval of what is called a DSP-5 license, which specifies key details (PDF) about trainings that are to be conducted abroad, the findings say. This fact was not confirmed by the State Department until the agency sent out "disclosure requests" to Blackwater in October 2008, according to the State Department document. Such a license would describe the location and subject of the training.
What is known is that the 2005 training was related to an agreement between Blackwater and the agency in Colombia, where “foreign persons were trained and deployed as third-country nationals in support of a contract with the US Department of State.” Blackwater responded to the State Department by stating that the training was held without the agency's permission due to a “general misunderstanding” over licensing, although the department notes that there were many violations committed while Blackwater was “servicing US Government programs or providing training to US allies.”
Also in the document, under the heading “Unauthorized export of technical data and provision of defense services involving Military/Security training (conducted internationally),” the State Department goes into more detail about the training, stating that “between April 2005 and May 2005” Blackwater “without authorization provided security training to Colombian foreign persons.”
The details of this “unauthorized” training are made more disturbing when considering how the Colombian military and paramilitaries in the country continue to participate in well-documented human rights abuses, including assassinations, massacres, and political intimidation, mostly by using the drug war or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC in Spanish initials) guerillas as an excuse.
There were “aggravating factors in determining what charges to pursue” according to the agency document, including the findings that Blackwater's “historic inability to comply with ITAR controls were systemic failings,” when considering “the frequency and nature of [the company's] violations.”
In other words, the revelation that Blackwater was actively training forces in Colombia, and the fact that the company allegedly went rogue on the State Department to provide an unauthorized military training to unspecified forces in Colombia, raises more serious human rights questions for a corporation that is still considered to be one of the US government's top contractors.

Foreign mercs must leave, Karzai says

2010-08-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called on the United States and its allies to stop supporting private security companies, saying the activities of these firms aggravate the country's problems.

Karzai made the remarks in Kabul on Saturday during a visit to the Afghan Civil Service Institute, which is training thousands of civil servants in the capital and across the nation to bolster the capacity of the Afghan government, AP reported.

“To help strengthen the Afghan government, the US and NATO should eliminate private security companies,” Karzai said, adding that their presence is "intolerable" since they have created a security structure that undermines the police and the army.

"Afghan or foreign companies, there are some 30,000 to 40,000 people in these security companies," he noted.

"They have created security problems for us, whoever is working in these private security companies, they are not working for the benefit of Afghan national interests… If they really want to be at the service of Afghans, they should join the Afghan National Police," Karzai added.

"Very urgently and seriously we want... the foreigners to stop creating private security companies," the Afghan president said, adding, "we cannot tolerate these companies, which are like a parallel structure with our forces. We cannot have police, army and — at the same time — another force as private security companies."

Kabul has confirmed the presence of 52 foreign private security companies in Afghanistan, including the notorious US security firm Xe Services LLC — formerly known as Blackwater.

Private security guards are operating in the country with absolutely no supervision by the Afghan government.

Karzai had earlier accused foreign security contractors of operating like militias, saying that the firms are only worsening the security situation in Afghanistan.

Most of the security contractors are believed to have close ties with Afghan warlords and have been accused of being partly responsible for the rise in civilian casualties in the country.

In the June 4 edition of The Wall Street Journal, it was reported that Xe's most recent government contract tasked the group with protecting CIA bases in Afghanistan.

The report was confirmed at the end of June by Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta during a TV interview, the newspaper wrote.

Blackwater/Xe mercs were hated by the Iraqis during their time in that country because they were able to kill many civilians with impunity.

Over the past few months, public opinion has been turning against the war in the United States and other countries, and thus US President Barack Obama's upbeat assessments about progress in the Afghan war will probably not go down well at home or abroad.

The death toll for US service members stationed in Afghanistan reached 66 for the month of July 2010, making it the deadliest month for US troops deployed in the Central Asian nation since the conflict began in October 2001.

Buying Blackwater

2010-07-27T18:34:00.000-07:00

By Jody Ray Bennett for ISN Security Watch

Earlier this month, Xe Services, LLC, the latest re-branded name of the company that was once known as Blackwater Worldwide, announced that the company was up for sale. The announcement that Xe was seeking new ownership came somewhat as a surprise to industry insiders both in favor of and critical of the company, especially considering Blackwater’s seemingly amazing ability to withstand the yearly toll of accidents, mishaps and misconduct that has since earned it a highly negative reputation throughout the world.

While the specific reason for the decision to sell has not been given, founder, owner and former CEO Erik Prince said in an interview with the Associated Press that “Performance doesn't matter in Washington, just politics,” and cited the constant criticism of the company as one factor that moved him to the decision.

But much of the criticism of Blackwater that developed over the years was not unwarranted. Indeed, the timeline of the company’s activities that earned Prince millions is generously peppered with events that, in return, earned his company a reputation as an extremely secretive, wildly aggressive, profit-motivated, scandalous private military that had become too entrenched in US national security.

All 'merc'-andise must go!

With the announcement of the sale, Xe has since opened two retail stores, which could be an attempt to sell off the remainder of its commercial merchandise to the public. At the Blackwater Pro Shop, one can purchase everything from Blackwater logo-clad hats, t-shirts, pilsner glasses and mousepads to glock holsters, various knives and rifles that can be customized.

Aside from its retail merchandise, however, the fate of Xe’s other companies remain unclear. Prince still owns the US Training Center, a collection of three training compounds throughout the US. It also manages Greystone, Ltd, a division of Blackwater used to attract foreign clients and recruit foreign personnel. Prince also owns a host of other companies such as Total Intel Solutions, an intelligence-gathering firm, and according to one report, also owns “a construction company, Raven Development and Paravant, which has been used as a shell company to win training contracts in Afghanistan.”

A former Blackwater executive told ISN Security Watch that Total Intelligence Solutions was “shut down” sometime at the end of May or beginning of June of this year because it was “not profitable.”

In a Vanity Fair article published last December—a piece regarded by some as a form of graymail—Prince stated he once entertained the idea of deploying “a ship—complete with security personnel, doctors, helicopters, medicine, food and fuel—[to be stationed] off the coast of Africa to provide ‘relief with teeth’ to the continent’s trouble spots or to curb piracy off Somalia.” The next month, Xe’s only maritime ship, the McArthur, was put up for sale in Spain at a discount of $3.7 million.

Two months later, Xe sold its aviation division, Aviation Worldwide Services, to AAR Corp for $200 million, “despite a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by families of three soldiers killed in Afghanistan, when one of the company's helicopters slammed into a mountainside in 2004.” A report at MarketWatch.com noted that “An Army investigation of the crash blamed it on ‘poor navigation and decision-making,’ according to press reports at the time.”

According to a former company executive, Blackwater tried to sell at least one-third of its holdings as far back as 2007 when it was in negotiations with investment giant, Cerberus; eventually talks stagnated and the purchase never occurred. Some industry experts, however, are not surprised. In a post on his website’s message board, journalist and traveler Robert Young Pelton, who was once embedded with Blackwater contractors in Baghdad, commented, “Erik has always been trying to sell Blackwater, even before [the Nisour Square shootings] killed that idea.”

“The sale was inevitable,” the former executive told ISN Security Watch, later explaining that once Prince and former CEO Gary Jackson stepped down, leadership and management of the company took a nosedive. Jackson and four other former company executives were indicted last April on felony weapons charges from a 2008 raid that found the officials had taken part in activities to hide gifts of weapons to the king of Jordan.
“There was no hope it was going to survive,” the former employee told ISN Security Watch, “The business is worth maybe one-fifth of what it once was.” According to the source, Prince’s decision to sell occurred approximately eight months ago when “the bankers started coming around for their money.”

Take the money and run

The former executive went on to explain to ISN Security Watch that Xe’s most likely buyers would include Cerberus, technology giant AECOM, or even large land developers, one of which has reportedly made an offer to Prince to buy the land upon which the US Training Centers sit.

Since the announcement that Xe was being placed on the market, it was revealed that Prince is planning a move to the United Arab Emirates. Earlier this month, a report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation wrote, “If Prince's rumored future move is linked to concerns over possible indictment, the United Arab Emirates would be an interesting choice for a new home—particularly because it does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.”

Essentially, the UAE would be a perfect place for Prince to move if there were concerns that actions could be taken against him by US prosecutors, or even to “liquidate major holdings so he can move his money offshore […] in advance of possible claims by victims of Blackwater violence.” Blackwater has previously moved funds offshore through Prince’s Greystone, a “wholly-owned offshore company.”

Prince’s book titled We Are Blackwater was set for release in 2008 but was delayed for unknown reasons. He is reportedly gearing up to release a book this fall.

Jody Ray Bennett is a freelance writer and academic researcher. His areas of analysis include the private military and security industry, the materialization of non-state forces and the transformation of modern warfare

BLACKWATER, US MILITARY WORKING FOR TALIBAN DRUG LORDS

2010-06-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 27 June 2010 10:20

According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, Maulvi Fazaluallah is spotted residing in Kamdesh district of Nooristan along with 300 militants and other middle level Commanders. These finding also disclose that Maulvi Fazlullah had remained under treatment in a medical facility under US troops in Bagram airbase before he returned to Kamdesh district.

The Daily Mail’s findings indicate further that it is the same area where US troops vacated their posts with the intention of allowing the fleeing Pakistani militants space to regroup. His escape was made possible with the active support of the Afghan intelligence, financially supported by Indian Intelligence agency R&AW and executed by the operatives of Xe-Services while the Xe-Services also work for the Afghan drug mafia and warlords.

The Daily Mail’s investigations further reveal that similarly, the other militant Commander of Tehrik Taliban Pakistan Qari Hussain surfaced in Afghanistan soon after the launching of operation “Rah-e-Nijat” . These findings reveal that the Blackwaters or the Xe-Services even used the choppers to evacuate the top militant to Afghanistan. According to credible sources in South Waziristan (Pakistan’s tribal area) who requested not to be named, few helicopters were seen entering Pakistan territory from neighbouring Afghan province of Paktia, close to Pak-Afghan border which landed on Pakistani soil and evacuated Qari Hussain and a few others, then departed immediately towards Afghanistan. Some other sources have also reported spotting foreign helicopters in the area while the locals, when contacted also confirmed to have witnessing landing, take off and flying of helicopters in the aerial direction of the bordering Afghan province of Paktika and Paktia. A notable of Makeen (Resident), Abdul Samad Khan who attended local Jirga in area close to the border and stayed there for a few days, revealed that since start of military operation in South Waziristan, the helicopters traffic of USA/Afghan Government had increased manifold in the war zone for unknown reasons.

It is worth mentioning here that the US troops vacated posts in Paktika at the crucial time when operation “Rah-e-Nijat” was progressing well, again thus allowing fleeing militants space on Afghan soil to regroup and escape capture.

DAILY MAIL: BLACKWATER, US MILITARY WORKING FOR TALIBAN DRUG LORDS

January 23, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff · 33 Comments

BLACKWATER/XE ACCUSED OF COMPLICITY IN TERRORISM AND WAR AGAINST US TROOPS

TOP TALIBAN MILITANTS RECEIVE MEDICAL CARE AT BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE

From Sabrina Elkhani & Steve Nelson

Introduction and Editorial note: Gordon Duff, Senior Editor Veterans Today

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been briefed by the Pakistani Military High Command that they are being overwhelmed by highly trained and extremely well armed militants in the border regions and terrorists operating across the country. We have been told by the highest sources that Blackwater/Xe and other US based mercenary groups have been actively attacking police, military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan as part of operations under employment of the Government of India and their allies in Afghanistan, the drug lords, whose followers make up the key components of the Afghan army.

Investigations referenced in the Pakistan Daily Mail by abrina Elkani and Steve Nelson indicate that, rather than hunt terrorists who have been killing Americans, these groups have actually taken key militant leaders into Afghanistan where they are kept safe and even offered medical treatment by the United States military. Years ago, we all heard the rumor that Osama bin Laden had received care at a US hospital in Qatar after leaving Sudan to take over what we claim was the planning of 9/11. FBI transcripts verify that bin Laden, according to testimony by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was working for the US at that time and had maintained contact with his CIA handlers through the fateful summer of 2001.

The Army of Pakistan has been regularly capturing advanced weapons of Indian manufacture from militants in the border region. India maintains 17 “consular” camps inside Pakistan, near the border, adjacent to Blackwater facilities, falsely designated as CIA or USAID stations. Pakistan claims these operations train Taliban soldiers and terrorists for operations against civilian targets in Pakistan. Thousands have died in Pakistan over recent months during these attacks. Pakistan also contents these same groups are, not only fighting the Pakistan military but the Americans as well.

General Stanley McChrystal had withdrawn American forces from key areas in Afghanistan across from enemy held regions under attack by the Army of Pakistan. We are now told that this allowed those areas to become safe havens for forces formerly operating in Pakistan, who are now enjoying the freedom and hospitality of, not only Afghanistan but are being ignored by the NATO forces in the region.

The untold story is the massive complicity of Americans with their private airline, now suspected in yet another war, not Vietnam, not Central America/Iran Contra but Afghanistan, for a third time, of smuggling narcotics. The pattern is impossible to ignore.

Read the list of accusations. Note that many of them have been corroborated from 5 or more sources already:

From Sabrina Elkhani & Steve Nelson

NKabul—While the Pakistan government continues to deny that the infamous private army of the United States, known as the Blackwaters or the Xe Services, Islamabad would defiantly be having no answer if questioned that in that case, how is it always possible for deeply injured, half dead commanders of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan etc, manage to be evacuated safely to US-run military facilities in Afghanistan after being hit hard back in the tribal belts of Pakistan and started resurfacing in the country where thousands of US led NATO/ISAF troops are apparently engaged in “Hot Pursuit” of the same militant elements, at least two such cases have recently surfaced, reveal the findings of The Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail’s findings reveal that at least 2 most wanted militant, being persuaded by the Pakistan Defence Forces in the tribal belt that connects the nuke powered Pakistan with the war ravaged Afghanistan, after being badly hit by the Pakistani troops, managed to get evacuated to Afghanistan in very safe and composed manner.

The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that the 2 Most Wanted militant Commanders including Maulvi Fazlullah and Qari Hussain were earlier reported to have been seriously injured during Pakistan Army’s anti militancy operation, code-named “Operation Rah-e-Rast” and their hideouts were destroyed by law enforcing agencies in Swat, were secretly taken to Afghanistan by the operatives of Blackwater’s or the Xe-Service and have recently surfaced in Afghanistan.

According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, Maulvi Fazaluallah is spotted residing in Kamdesh district of Nooristan along with 300 militants and other middle level Commanders. These finding also disclose that Maulvi Fazlullah had remained under treatment in a medical facility under US troops in Bagram airbase before he returned to Kamdesh district.

The Daily Mail’s findings indicate further that it is the same area where US troops vacated their posts with the intention of allowing the fleeing Pakistani militants space to regroup. His escape was made possible with the active support of the Afghan intelligence, financially supported by Indian Intelligence agency R&AW and executed by the operatives of Xe-Services while the Xe-Services also work for the Afghan drug mafia and warlords.

The Daily Mail’s investigations further reveal that similarly, the other militant Commander of Tehrik Taliban Pakistan Qari Hussain surfaced in Afghanistan soon after the launching of operation “Rah-e-Nijat” . These findings reveal that the Blackwaters or the Xe-Services even used the choppers to evacuate the top militant to Afghanistan. According to credible sources in South Waziristan (Pakistan’s tribal area) who requested not to be named, few helicopters were seen entering Pakistan territory from neighbouring Afghan province of Paktia, close to Pak-Afghan border which landed on Pakistani soil and evacuated Qari Hussain and a few others, then departed immediately towards Afghanistan. Some other sources have also reported spotting foreign helicopters in the area while the locals, when contacted also confirmed to have witnessing landing, take off and flying of helicopters in the aerial direction of the bordering Afghan province of Paktika and Paktia. A notable of Makeen (Resident), Abdul Samad Khan who attended local Jirga in area close to the border and stayed there for a few days, revealed that since start of military operation in South Waziristan, the helicopters traffic of USA/Afghan Government had increased manifold in the war zone for unknown reasons.

It is worth mentioning here that the US troops vacated posts in Paktika at the crucial time when operation “Rah-e-Nijat” was progressing well, again thus allowing fleeing militants space on Afghan soil to regroup and escape capture.

The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that the Xe-Services were also tasked to evacuate many RAW sponsored militants from the Balochistan province of Pakistan and all these “evacuated” militants and separatists are being dubbed as “missing people” by their families and courts back in Pakistan. These findings indicate that around three thousand, “evacuated” Pakistanis are being trained further by the operatives of RAW and the personnel of India’s Military Intelligence that are present in Afghanistan for more than five years. These findings further elaborate that RAW’s Special Operations Division Chief Chhota Rajan is personally supervising the training and facilitation process. These findings indicate that the evacuated militants are later reorganized and trained further at different camps that are being run under the joint supervision of Chhota Rajan and a senior Indian MI officer with the rank of Major General.

CIA hires Xe, formerly Blackwater, to guard facilities in Afghanistan, elsewhere

2010-06-26T10:51:00.001-07:00

By Jeff Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer

The CIA has hired Xe Services, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, to guard its facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to an industry source.

The previously undisclosed CIA contract is worth about $100 million, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deal, which is classified.

"It's for protective services . . . guard services, in multiple regions," the source said.

Two other security contractors, Triple Canopy and DynCorp International, put in losing bids for the CIA's business, the source said.

The revelation comes only a day after members of a federal commission investigating war-zone contractors blasted the State Department for granting Xe a new $120 million contract to guard U.S. consulates under construction in Afghanistan.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano stopped short of confirming the contract, saying only that Xe personnel would not be involved in operations.

"While this agency does not, as a rule, comment on contractual relationships we may or may not have, we follow all applicable federal laws and regulations," Gimigliano said.

The spokesman added: "We have a very careful process when it comes to procurement, and we take it seriously. We've also made it clear that personnel from Xe do not serve with the CIA in any operational roles."

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Erik Prince, chairman of the board at Xe and owner of Prince Group -- which owns Xe -- said the firm had no comment.

"Blackwater has undergone some serious changes," said a U.S. official who is familiar with the deal and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it freely.

"They've had to prove to the government that they're a responsible outfit. Having satisfied every legal requirement, they have the right to compete for contracts. They have people who do good work, at times in some very dangerous places. Nobody should forget that, either."

The firm, based in Moyock, N.C., has been fighting off prosecution and lawsuits since a September 2007 incident in Baghdad, when its guards opened fire in a city square, allegedly killing 17 unarmed civilians and wounding 24.

Two weeks ago, Prince announced that he was putting the company on the block. A spokeswoman said "a number of firms" are interested in buying but declined to elaborate.

US: Manslaughter case against Blackwater guards should have gone forward

2010-06-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

By The Associated Press

There was more than enough untainted evidence to justify a trial for five Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court.

In court papers seeking to reinstate criminal charges, the department asserted that some of the evidence tainted by immunized statements in the case was harmless and did not justify scuttling the manslaughter charges against the guards.

In December, a federal judge dismissed the case against the security guards, who had opened fire on a crowded Baghdad street. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq.

In the filing released Wednesday by the appeals court, the government said the judge who dismissed the charges lost sight of the key question of whether the defendants' testimony given under a grant of immunity from prosecution was actually used against them.

Is Blackwater's Erik Prince Moving to the United Arab Emirates?

2010-06-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Scahill

Sources close to Blackwater and its secretive owner Erik Prince claim that the embattled head of the world's most infamous mercenary firm is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Middle Eastern nation, a major hub for the US war industry, has no extradition treaty with the United States. In April, five of Prince's top deputies were hit with a fifteen-count indictment [1] by a federal grand jury on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Among those indicted were Prince's longtime number-two man, former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, former vice presidents William Matthews and Ana Bundy and Prince's former legal counsel Andrew Howell.

The Blackwater/Erik Prince saga took yet another dramatic turn last week, when Prince abruptly announced [2] that he was putting his company up for sale.

While Prince has not personally been charged with any crimes, federal investigators and several Congressional committees clearly have his company and inner circle in their sights. The Nation learned of Prince's alleged plans to move to the UAE from three separate sources. One Blackwater source told The Nation that Prince intends to sell his company quickly, saying the "sale is going to be a fast move within a couple of months."

Mark Corallo, a trusted Prince advisor and Blackwater spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the allegation that Prince is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates. "I have a policy on not discussing my client’s personal lives—especially when that client is a private citizen," Corallo, who runs his own crisis management and PR firm [3], said in an e-mail to The Nation. "It is nobody’s business where Mr. Prince (or anyone else) chooses to live. So I’m afraid I will not be able to confirm any rumors."

A source with knowledge of the federal criminal probe into Blackwater's activities told The Nation that none of Prince's indicted colleagues have flipped on Prince since being formally charged, but rumors abound in Blackwater and legal circles that Prince may one day find himself in legal trouble. Former Blackwater employees claim they have provided federal prosecutors with testimony about what they allege is Prince's involvement in illegal activity.

If Prince's rumored future move is linked to concerns over possible indictment, the United Arab Emirates would be an interesting choice for a new home—particularly because it does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. "If Prince were not living in the US, it would be far more complicated for US prosecutors to commence an action against him," says Scott Horton [4], a Columbia University Law lecturer and international law expert who has long tracked Blackwater. "There is a long history of people thwarting prosecutors simply by living overseas." The UAE, Horton says, is "definitely a jurisdiction where Prince could count on it not being simple for the US to pursue him legally."

The UAE is made up of seven states, the most powerful among them being Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Since 9/11, they have emerged as hubs for the US war industry. "Global service providers" account for some three-quarters of Dubai's GDP, while oil represents only 3 percent. "They have established themselves as the premiere location in the Middle East for offshore banking and professional services," says Horton, who has legal experience in the UAE. "If you have connections to the royal families, then the law doesn't really apply to you. I would be very surprised if Erik Prince does not have those kinds of connections there."

As a matter of policy the Justice Department will not discuss possible investigations of people who have not yet been charged with a crime.

Two former employees made serious allegations against Prince last August in sworn declarations [5] filed as part of a civil lawsuit against Prince and Blackwater. One former employee alleged that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into Iraq on his private planes. A four-year employee of Blackwater, identified in his declaration as "John Doe #2," stated that "it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." He also stated that "Mr. Prince feared, and continues to fear, that the federal authorities will detect and prosecute his v! arious criminal deeds," adding: "On more than one occasion, Mr. Prince and his top managers gave orders to destroy emails and other documents. Many incriminating videotapes, documents and emails have been shredded and destroyed."

John Doe #2's identity was concealed in the sworn declaration because he "fear[s] violence against me in retaliation for submitting this Declaration." He also alleged, "On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence." Doe #2 stated in his declaration that he provided the information contained in his statement "in grand jury proceedings convened by the United States Department of Justice."

Prince is also facing civil lawsuits brought by Iraqi victims of Blackwater. Among these is a suit filed in North Carolina by the family of 9-year-old Ali Kinani [6]. Kinani's family alleges he was shot in the head and killed by Blackwater operatives in the infamous Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007. Earlier this year, Prince claimed [7] he was spending $2 million a month in legal fees and on what he described as a “giant proctological exam” by nearly a dozen federal agencies.

Even if prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to charge Prince with a crime, because of the classified nature of some of Blackwater and Prince's work for the CIA and other agencies of the US government, prosecuting him could prove challenging. Prince has deep knowledge of covert US actions that the US government or military may not want public, which could be revealed as part of a potential defense Prince could offer. Blackwater—and Prince specifically—long worked on the CIA's assassination program.

Some observers believe that Prince has already engaged in "graymail [8]" by revealing some details of his classified work for the CIA and military, specifically in a January 2010 article [7] in Vanity Fair, written by a former CIA lawyer. Graymail is 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.

After Jackson and the other former Blackwater executives were indicted, their lawyers claimed [9] that the US government approved of their conduct. "All of this was with the knowledge of, the request of, for the convenience of, an agency of the US government," Jackson's lawyer Ken Bell told the judge during a bond hearing in April. Bell did not reveal which agency he was referring to and did not answer questions from reporters.

The latest developments in the Blackwater story come after a two-year campaign by Blackwater to rebrand itself [10] as "Xe Services" and the "US Training Center." In March 2009, Prince announced [11] he was stepping down as CEO of the company, though he has remained its sole owner. While Blackwater continues to be a significant player in US operations in Afghanistan under the Obama administration—working for the State Department, Defense Department and CIA—it is facing increased scrutiny [12] on Capitol Hill and continued pressure from the Justice Department.

On June 11, federal prosecutors filed a massive brief in their appeal of last year's dismissal [13] by a federal judge of manslaughter charges against the Blackwater operatives alleged to be the "shooters" at Nisour Square. In the brief, prosecutors asked that the indictment of the Blackwater men be reinstated. Meanwhile, two other Blackwater operatives were indicted [14] in January on murder charges [15] stemming from a shooting in Afghanistan in May 2008. Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee has called on the Justice Department [16] to investigate Blackwater's use of a shell company, Paravant, to win training contracts in Afghanistan.

Blackwater has been spending heavily this year on lobbyists—particularly Democratic ones. In the first quarter of 2010, the company spent more than $500,000 [17] for the services of Stuart Eizenstat [18], a well-connected Democratic lobbyist who served in the Clinton and Carter administrations. Eizenstat heads the international practice for the powerhouse law and lobbying firm Covington and Burling.

Prince sold [19] Blackwater's aviation division earlier this year for $200 million. In announcing last week that the rest of Blackwater was up for sale, the company said in a statement [20] that Blackwater's "new management team has made significant changes and improvements to the company over the last 15 months, which have enabled the company to better serve the US government and other customers, and will deliver additional value to a purchaser." While Blackwater has tried to shed the Blackwater name in many aspects of its business, the company has recently opened a series of Blackwater "Pro-Shop" retail stores [21], offering merchandise bearing the Blackwater name and original logo. Among the items for sale: pink Blackwater baby onesies [22], Blackwater pint glasses [23], Blackwater beach towels [24] and, of course, rifles [25].

In a speech in January [26], obtained by The Nation, Prince said that he intends to publish a book this fall. He was originally slated [27] to come out with a book in June 2008 with the title We Are Blackwater.

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/blackwaters-erik-prince-moving-united-arab-emirates
Links:
[1] http://www.justice.gov/usao/nce/press/2010-apr-16_2.html
[2] http://www.thenation.com/blog/blackwater-sale
[3] http://www.corallocomstock.com/
[4] http://harpers.org/subjects/NoComment
[5] http://www.thenation.com/article/blackwater-founder-implicated-murder
[6] http://www.thenation.com/article/blackwaters-youngest-victim
[7] http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/blackwater-201001?printable=true
[8] http://www.thenation.com/article/erik-prince-graymailing-us-government
[9] http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/04/22/448778/blackwater-exec-blames-feds.html
[10] http://www.alternet.org/blogs/waroniraq/126863/
[11] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/mercenary-king-erik-princ_b_171105.html
[12] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030803706.html
[13] http://www.thenation.com/article/federal-judge-dismisses-all-charges-ira! q-massacre
[14] http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/January/10-crm-011.html
[15] http://rebelreports.com/post/322008047/two-blackwater-guards-arrested-by-fbi-on-murder-charges
[16] http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=322765
[17] http://www.thenation.com/blog/bipartisan-mercs-blackwater-hires-powerful-democratic-lobbyist
[18] http://www.cov.com/seizenstat/
[19] http://www.thenation.com/blog/mercenary-owners-they-are-changin-sort
[20] http://www.wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1974791
[21] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/retail-guns-for-hire-blackwater-opens-storefronts/
[22] http://proshop.blackwaterusa.com/Babys-Onesies-P1781.aspx
[23] http://proshop.blackwaterusa.com/BW-Pint-Glass-P1507.aspx
[24] http://proshop.blackwaterusa.com/BW-Beach-Towel-P1747.aspx
[25] http://proshop.blackwaterusa.com/bw15.aspx
[26] http://www.thenation.com/blog/secret-erik-prince-tape-exposed
[27] http://ww! w.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24834

A Blackwater by Any Other Name Is Still a Blackwater

2010-06-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

David Isenberg

Yesterday's news, announced initially in a report from the Associated Press, that Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is being put up for sale tempts me to modify the old cliché, when the going gets tough, the tough sell out. Of course, I don't really believe that. In fact, it would be grossly unfair.

There is a lot to be said about Blackwater and yes, much of it is unflattering, and a fair amount of that is true. But it is also true that over the years that much of what has been said and written about Blackwater and other private security contractors is grossly inaccurate, biased, misleading, and legally libelous, i.e. jackbooted thugs, mercenaries, Christian crusaders, et cetera.

Someday, a dispassionate and objective reporter or academic will sift through the mountains of paperwork that are doubtlessly stored in various government archives and give us a real history of how Blackwater operated, what contracts it had, who it worked for, what its people did right and wrong. To date we don't have this; only hysterical screeds masquerading as investigative reporting.

At this point a lot of questions remain unanswered. It's not clear if all of Blackwater's branches are up for sale or just its security and training business. One of the most lucrative parts, Presidential Airways, was sold earlier this year for $200 million.

Also unknown is what will happen to Blackwater's contracts for the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command. Jeremy Scahill of The Nation writes that, "Prince has shifted some of Blackwater's clandestine work to companies he does not own but which are run by former Blackwater executives or allies. Among these are Blackbird Technologies, which now employs former Blackwater executive J. Cofer Black (former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center) and Constellation Consulting, which is run by former Blackwater executive Enrique "Ric" Prado, a veteran of the CIA's paramilitary division, the Special Operations Group." And it unclear whether Blackwater will seek to sell its remaining parts as a package or a la carte.

Another interesting question is who might buy Blackwater? CNN reports that:

With most of Xe's revenue dependent upon a few large public entities that are subject to public pressure, its future contracts and revenues can easily be threatened, notes Aswath Damodaran, a professor of finance at NYU's Stern School of Business. "If I ran a public company, I would not touch Blackwater with a ten-foot pole," he said. "The danger to my other businesses from contamination would be way too high.

One exception would be a large strategic buyer that is engaged in similar high-risk fields and that could find value in subsuming Xe Services into its ranks. For instance, DynCorp (DCP), which had over $3 billion in revenue in 2009 and just reported more than $1 billion in quarterly revenue, is an active competitor in Xe Services' main business areas. Buying Xe Services would further increase DynCorp's manpower and give the company access to additional contracts, such as the lucrative DOD narcotics intervention contract, for which it was not pre-qualified.
...

The Carlyle Group, which owns several defense contractors, including United Defense Industries, could be a buyer. But Cerberus [see below for more on Cerberus], with $23 billion under management, seems to fit the bill especially nicely. Since it plans to take control of DynCorp, and already runs IAP Worldwide, which provides logistical support for the Pentagon, Cerberus will have a deep bench of capable management at its disposal.

What can we learn from the news? For starters, like it or not, dealing with the media is a critical part of your work. Companies that don't answer questions quickly and fully allow critics to get away with making all sorts of wild charges which are endlessly repeated in the echo chamber known as the Internet. Admittedly, this is not always the fault of the companies. Many contracts stipulate that queries about a company's work can only be answered by the client, which is often the U.S. government, and it is not anxious to answer questions. Still, the no comment policy only hurts companies and they need to be far more active in engaging with the media.

As an example of why this is important consider, as MarketWatch reported that two years ago, Cerberus Capital Management turned down a chance to invest in the company when it was still called Blackwater. Though no reason was given, it was speculated that the reclusive private-equity firm shied away from the unwanted attention that would have come with such a purchase.

Given that Cerberus is now in the process of acquiring DynCorp International, another private military and security contractor, it couldn't have been the prospect of acquiring such a firm in and of itself that bothered Cerberus. Rather it was Blackwater's reputation.

A corollary to this is that rebranding doesn't work. As we all know Blackwater changed its name in the aftermath of the September 2007 incident in which Blackwater contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians at Nisoor Square in Baghdad during a firefight. By that time, rightly or wrongly, Blackwater was widely viewed as a sort of corporate pig. The name change was seen as putting lipstick on a swine. It did not help. Xe Services was still seen as Blackwater.

Another lesson is that companies really need to have a business model from the very beginning. It was always a bit unclear what was Erik Prince's [Blackwater's founder] real motivation was. Yes, to be sure, it was to make money. But he had scads of money to begin with. Many thought that he simply thought it was a cool thing to do. That may be fine for an Internet startup but when you are talking about a company involved in military issues, as in periodically killing people and destroying things, you need to be as serious as a heart attack.

Finally, Blackwater/Xe Services or whatever it is called in the future is unlikely to be filing for Chapter 7 relief. It simply is too important to the U.S. government and holds too many contracts worth a lot of money. That alone guarantees someone will be buying it, even if the government has to provide an incentive.

The Nation: Blackwater For Sale

2010-06-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

by Jeremy Scahill

After nearly a decade of working overtly and covertly for the US government across the globe, the infamous mercenary firm Blackwater is apparently for sale. The company made the announcement in a brief statement Monday followed by an even briefer statement from the company's owner, Erik Prince. "Performance doesn't matter in Washington, just politics," Prince said.

Blackwater's statement does not make clear if all of Blackwater's various entities are up for sale or just its security and training business, which currently operates under the names Xe Services and the US Training Center. Prince also owns a private intelligence company, Total Intelligence Solutions, an offshore mercenary operation, Greystone Limited, a construction company, Raven Development and Paravant, which has been used as a shell company to win training contracts in Afghanistan. Prince sold his aviation division earlier this year for $200 million.

In announcing Blackwater was for sale, the company stated Monday: "Xe's new management team has made significant changes and improvements to the company over the last 15 months, which have enabled the company to better serve the US government and other customers, and will deliver additional value to a purchaser."

The most interesting aspect of this story is what will happen to Blackwater's clandestine/covert work for the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command. The OGA (Other Government Agency) division of Blackwater has gone by different names over the years. Among these are: Blackwater SELECT, Blackwater PTC and, most recently XPG. It was this division of the company that Blackwater used for its role in the US drone bombing campaign. XPG holds a classified contract to provide security at seven US Special Forces sites along the Afghan/Pakistan border, for which Blackwater is paid $17,000 a day. Additionally, Prince has boasted that Blackwater controls four Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan, including the closest US facility to Pakistan's border. Prince has also bragged that Blackwater runs a counter-narcotics force that has called in NATO air strikes in Afghanistan against suspected drug sites.

After 9-11, Prince set up what amounted to small CIA assassination teams that operated in various countries across the globe, including in Germany. In some cases, Prince says he personally bankrolled the operations, giving the Bush administration an ultimate plausible deniability machine. Evidence of Blackwater's ongoing involvement with, and access to, highly sensitive US operations was clear when two Blackwater operatives were killed in December 2009 when the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, was bombed by a Jordanian double agent. The CIA believed that its personnel were meeting with a "golden goose" of intelligence who had recently met with Al Qaeda's number-two man, Ayman al Zawahiri.

I have heard from sources that over the past two years, Prince has shifted some of Blackwater's clandestine work to companies he does not own but which are run by former Blackwater executives or allies. Among these are Blackbird Technologies, which now employs former Blackwater executive J. Cofer Black (former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center) and Constellation Consulting, which is run by former Blackwater executive Enrique "Ric" Prado, a veteran of the CIA's paramilitary division, the Special Operations Group. Prado was instrumental in setting up the Blackwater-CIA assassination program.

There is no doubt Erik Prince maintains deep contacts within the US military and intelligence community, but the Blackwater name is mud. Despite the rebranding efforts, Blackwater has remained Blackwater. The sale of the company would undoubtedly represent the end of an era. But Blackwater did not rise to prominence in a vacuum and it did not create the demand for the kinds of forces and services it offers. Even if Erik Prince leaves the mercenary game, Blackwater will continue on—almost certainly under a different name and, it seems, new ownership. The type of clandestine operations and top-tier special forces operators Blackwater has provided to the US government and military will be in increasing demand in the years ahead, particularly as the Obama administration expands the operations of US special forces globally. The bottom line is that there are a finite number of top-level operators and Blackwater employed a lot of them.

I have heard from Congressional sources that the Obama administration is not enthusiastic about its ongoing relationship with Blackwater, but that the company provides services and personnel the White House has determined it cannot live without—particularly in Afghanistan. In that way, the sale of Blackwater would benefit the Obama administration.

Discrete Interventions

2010-06-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

www.german-foreign-policy.com

The scandal caused by the planned dispatching of more than 100 German mercenaries to Somalia, is further evidence of the expansion of German private security companies. The CEO of the Asgaard German Security Group (based in Telgte, close to Muenster in North Rhine Westphalia) has confirmed that the company plans to dispatch a triple-digit sized group of armed personnel to Somalia to support a local warlord, who has declared himself the country's president. Whereas the German foreign ministry dissociates itself from the action, demands are growing in the West that alternatives be sought considering the policies of the EU and the USA toward Somalia to be fruitless. Activities of security companies, such as Asgaard, are intensifying abroad. They are cooperating on a regular basis with several foreign business associations, such as the German-Africa Business Association or the German-Iraqi Business Association (MIDAN), protecting German personnel in war and crisis zones. Berlin's Federal College for Security Studies is closely observing the development of this private industry of repression, which, according to its president, allows interventions that are "much less noticeable" than the usual military deployments.

Full Battle Gear

As the CEO of the German security company "Asgaard German Security Group" confirmed, the company plans to dispatch a triple-digit size group of armed personnel to Somalia. Asgaard had already declared in December 2009 that in Somalia, they will accomplish "wide-ranging and exclusive tasks" on behalf of the self-proclaimed president of the country. The activities range "from strategic consulting and planning for security to operational implementation and execution of all measures" necessary "to ensure safety and restore peace." "Training measures" and combating piracy are among these.[1] Not least of all, they will be engaged - in full battle gear - in militarily providing security for persons, property and convoys, according to the CEO.[2] Armed combat is not to be ruled out. The Somali employer declared that, under certain circumstances, the German mercenaries could also be "ordered to fight" alongside his militia.

Exploring Alternatives

The political conditions of their planned deployment of mercenaries remain unclear. For years, Germany and the EU have been supporting the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia, which also enjoyed the backing of the USA. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[3]) The Asgaard mercenaries' Somali employer, Galadid Abdinur Ahmad Darman has refused to recognize the TFG's legitimacy, declaring himself, in 2003, president of Somalia. He lives in exile, but apparently has control over militia in Somalia. Until now, Darman has not received international recognition. The United Nations claims to have information to the effect that he has provided access to Somalia for foreign companies and has counterfeited money, while his militia is accused of attacking independent journalists. A dubious agency ("SOMA-MEDIA" with a telephone number in the vicinity of Cologne) is making publicity for Darman, naming on their press releases the same contact person as the "Asgaard German Security Group". Whether the Asgaard has an official German green light is unknown. As a matter of fact, a growing number of voices - particularly in the USA - are considering the years of support of the so-called TFG to be fruitless and are demanding that alternatives be explored. For example the influential Council on foreign Relations, headquartered in New York declared that a new approach to Somalia should be pursued.[4]

Business Risks

Regardless of the concrete significance of the plans for mercenaries in Somalia, the Asgaard affair has once again pointed to the expansion of German private security companies (PSCs). Asgaard declared that it has been in business since 2004, maintaining a subsidiary in Nigeria and is in the process of preparing another. BA Enterprises (formerly Bodyguard Academy [5] with headquarters in Luebeck) is running a Nigerian subsidiary. BA Enterprises is among the cooperation partners of the German-Iraqi Business Association. German companies seeking to expand to the Iraq market are also being supported by other PSCs, among them the Result Group (based in Grünwald, close to Munich).[6] The Result Group is also a cooperation partner of the German-African Business Association, for which it provides "behavior and security training". The business association explains that "the very promising business opportunities" are "in numerous African countries, often linked to considerable security risks for the representatives of foreign companies." During training, the Result Group has the participants practice, among other things, how to "behave in the event of criminal attacks and political unrest."[7]

Preference for Combat Units

The Asgaard scandal also demonstrates the very close proximity between private security companies and official agencies of repression. Asgaard's prerequisites for applicants include at least four years of regular military service, with a "preference for combat or special unit experience." The Result Group is directed by a veteran of the SEK Special Weapons and Tactics unit of the German police and has other members who are not only veterans of the special German federal anti-terrorist GSG-9 police unit and the German military's KSK elite special forces unit, but also veterans of the German BND foreign secret service.[8] The CEO of the mercenary Asgaard company is an NCO of the German military reserves In Muenster, Sergeant Major Thomas Kaltegärtner, who, on the official internet portal of the local reserves unit gives the Asgaard contact address.

Much Less Noticed

The proximity between private security companies and official repressive state organs reflects the interests with which Berlin's planers are carefully observing the development of the private industry of repression. The Federal College for Security Studies, in particular, which sees itself as the hub of the German "strategic community,"[9] has for several years been closely observing the "privatization of the security sector". Its President, Ret. Lt. Gen. Kersten Lahl, praised, as usual, the advantages of the privatization of warfare,[10] which not only provides more cost efficiency and greater flexibility, but also a much more discrete management in regards to the mercenaries. "In democratic societies each military engagement is (...) very controversially discussed and (...) eyed with suspicion" according to Lahl. The president of the college considers that "the activities of private companies" are comparatively "much less noticed." "In this way, the political structures will be relieved of an element of pressure in decision-making and even of some of the responsibility." Therefore private security companies are deliberately opening possibilities for military forces to be deployed in situations, where deployment of the German Bundeswehr would be politically unfeasible - such as in Somalia.

[1] Sicherheit in Somalia unter deutscher Leitung; Presse-Mitteilung der Asgaard German Security Group vom 16.12.2009
[2] Deutsche Söldner für Bürgerkrieg in Somalia; www.tagesschau.de 22.05.2010
[3] see also Interests of the Superpowers and Soldaten für Somalia
[4] United States Should Pursue New Approach to Somalia, Argues CFR Report; www.cfr.org 10.03.2010
[5] see also Expanding Periphery
[6] see also Sicherheitsberatung
[7] see also Zivil-militärische Netzwerke
[8] see also Sicherheitsberatung
[9] see also Strategic Community
[10] "Aktuell 2008". Privatisierung im Sicherheitssektor. Einführungsvortrag des Präsidenten der Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik GenLt a.D. Kersten Lahl am 5. September 2008 in Berlin

DoD Investigating Nine Cases of "Terrorism-Related Acts" by US Military and Contractors?

2010-06-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Scahill

Buried within the new Department of Defense Inspector General's report, "Contingency Contracting: A Framework for Reform [1]," is the eye-opening revelation that the Defense Criminal Investigative Service has nine open investigations into alleged "Terrorism-Related Acts" by "U.S. contractor personnel, U.S. Military, Government personnel." No other details are provided. DCIS is the criminal investigative agency working for the DoD's Inspector General.

I called the IG's office and asked them for information on these nine "terrorism-related" cases. "When it comes to individual cases or ongoing investigations, they're not going to comment on that," a spokesperson told me.

The "terrorism-related" investigations are part of more than 220 open investigations in DCIS's "Global War on Terror Investigations." Many of these relate to bribery, false claims, theft and export violations. DCIS agents have federal law enforcement authority and have authority to make arrests.

I have asked the Inspector General's office in writing to provide any details on the terrorism investigations and will update this post if I receive a response.

Meanwhile, in a not shocking revelation, the IG report also documents how private contractors working for US Special Forces have been allowed to "perform inherently governmental functions:"

"Specifically, management and contracting personnel allowed contractors to administer task orders, determine what supplies or services the Government required, and approve contractual documents. The contractors performing inherently governmental functions did not identify themselves as contractors. For example, in 3 of 46 task orders, valued at approximately $18 million, contractors working for the Special Operations Forces Support Activity signed contractual documents as a Special Operations Forces Support Activity representative. In addition, contracting personnel took direction and implemented contract changes from contractors working for their customers. These conditions occurred because the Special Operations Forces Support Activity lacked internal controls and standard operating procedures on the performance of inherently governmental functions. As a result, Special Operations Forces Support Activity may not have correctly administered and protected the best interests of the Government for approximately $82 million in task orders issued under the Special Operations Forces Support Activity contracts."

Pentagon Seeks Private Contractor to Move Weapons Through Pakistan/Afghanistan

2010-05-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Scahill | May 25, 2010

The United States military is in the process of taking bids from private war contractors to secure and ship massive amounts of US military equipment through sensitive areas of Pakistan into Afghanistan where it will then be distributed to various US Forward Operating Bases and other facilities. According to the contract solicitation [1] [PDF], "There will be an average of 5000" import shipments "transiting the Afghanistan and Pakistan ground lines of communication (GLOC) per month, along with 500 export shipments." The solicitation states that, "This number may increase or decrease due to US military transportation requirements," adding, "The contractor must maintain a constant capability to surge to any location within Afghanistan or Pakistan" within a 30-day period. Among the duties the contractor will perform is "intelligence, to include threat assessments throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan."

And while it seems the US is trying to put a Pakistani or Afghan face on the work, the terms of the contract mandate that US personnel will be involved with inherently risky and potentially lethal operations. Among the firms listed [2] by the Department of Defense as "interested vendors" are an Afghan firm tied to a veteran CIA officer and run by the son of Afghan defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, and a Pakistani firm with links to Blackwater.

Perhaps most striking about this US military contract solicitation is the admission by the military that contractors are being used for shipping and guarding military hardware as a run-around to the current official policy of the US and Pakistan governments that the US military does not conduct operations in Pakistan. "Due to current limitations on having US military presence in Pakistan and threat levels precluding US Military active involvement with the contractor 'outside the wire' in Afghanistan, the contractor must be proactive at identifying appropriate methods for obtaining the necessary in-transit visibility information," according to the contract solicitation.

Many of the companies that have currently expressed interest in the contract are registered as Pakistani or Afghan businesses. It is well established that the US military depends on Pakistani and Afghan intermediaries to pay off [3] the Taliban and other resistance groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan to allow safe passage of US military hardware and other supplies, meaning the US is effectively funding both sides of the war. As my colleague Aram Roston reported [3] last year for The Nation, "US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents." Other US military sources have told me the number might be as high as 20 percent.

The current contracting arrangement for which the DoD is soliciting bids is essentially a more formalized way of doing the same thing. But while the contractor may place a Pakistani or Afghan stamp on the paper trail and allow the US and Pakistan to deny that US personnel are involved, the security language of the solicitation actually mandates that US personnel work the operations.

According to the solicitation, the contractor must provide personnel "capable of facilitating, coordinating, obtaining, and reporting critical movement control data and information from the appropriate US government personnel at multiple locations." The personnel must "have the ability to obtain necessary identification... to gain access to base camps within Afghanistan without escort." Most importantly, "Personnel must have a valid US Secret Security Clearance." That level of clearance--"Secret"-- cannot be issued to a foreign citizen, meaning that the contract actually necessitates US citizens working on the contract, presumably in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This arrangement is not new. In fact, this is precisely the arrangement I reported on last year for The Nation (See: "The Secret US War in Pakistan" [4]). According to Blackwater and US military sources, US military shipments were being protected on a contract with 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. A former senior Blackwater executive with experience in Pakistan told me that Kestral subcontracted to Blackwater and that "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." Blackwater, he said, was 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," according to the former Blackwater executive.

All of this is consistent with the US military's current contract solicitation. What's more, Kestral is listed as an "interested vendor" on the current DoD contract. According to federal lobbying records, Kestral has 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. Since late 2009, Kestral has paid Vision Americas and a Vision Americas-affiliated firm, Firecreek Ltd., at least $60,000 to lobby on defense and foreign policy issues.

Another company that is listed as an "interested vendor" is NCL Holdings. "What NCL Holdings is most notorious for in Kabul contracting circles," according to Roston's reporting [3] for The Nation in November, "is the identity of its chief principal, Hamed Wardak. He is the young American son of Afghanistan's current defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, who was a leader of the mujahedeen against the Soviets." Roston reported that NCL's advisory board included Milton Bearden, "a well-known former CIA officer. Bearden is an important voice on Afghanistan issues; in October he was a witness before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Senator John Kerry, the chair, introduced him as 'a legendary former CIA case officer and a clearheaded thinker and writer.' It is not every defense contracting company that has such an influential adviser." Bearden is no longer listed on NCL's website [5] as a member of the advisory board. Roston reported that in Afghanistan, "NCL, operating on a $360 million contract from the US military, and owned by the Afghan defense minister's son, is paying millions per year from those funds to a company [Watan Risk Management] owned by President Karzai's cousins, for protection." In a letter [6] to a US Congressional committee after Roston's story was published, NCL denied the allegations.

The bulk of the work in protecting US military shipments through Pakistan and Afghanistan is done for the military's Surface Deployment and Distribution Command [7], which, according to the SDDC website [8], "support[s] the transportation management of freight such as tanks, fuel, ammunition, combat vehicles, food and other commodities to locations within CONUS [Continental United States] and throughout the world." According to the Afghanistan/Pakistan solicitation, the contractor will transport and secure "SDDC and other US military-sponsored shipments entering Pakistan via Karachi or Port Qasim (all terminals) and entering Afghanistan via the Chaman, Torkham, Hairaton, Sher Khan, and / or Towraghandi border crossings (import) and exiting Afghanistan and Pakistan via the aforementioned nodes (export). Additional entry and exit nodes may be added at the discretion of the US Government."

Once the contractor takes control of the military shipments, at "predestinated locations" throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan, the contractor is required to deliver reports back to the US military's contracting command. These include "ports, border crossings, official and unofficial checkpoints and rest stops, and final destinations / base camps within the OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) theater of operations."

Many of these shipments will come into Pakistan through the Ports of Karachi and Qasim and the military lists the following as potential additional areas through which shipments would pass:

In Pakistan: Quetta, Peshawar, Torkham, and Chaman.
In Afghanistan: Torkham, Chaman, Hairaton, Kabul (Supreme / Camp Phoenix / Afghan National Army-Afghan National Police Depots, Jalalabad, Bagram, Shank, Sharona, Salerno, Kandahar, and Bastion / Leatherneck.
The solicitation essentially leaves oversight of the shipments to a combination of technology and self-policing. RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are placed on the cargo and the contractor is required to document the movement of the shipments using Hand Held Interrogator devices throughout the trip. Though they sound ominous, the HHIs are mobile devices commonly used in austere locations to transmit data. "Due to restrictions on the military presence at key logistical locations in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the solicitation states, "quality assurance on... shipments is problematic. Therefore, the contractor must document and report any deficiencies found." According to the solicitation, "Common violations" include: failure to properly secure cargo, failure to take proper measures to prevent damage, and improper use of US Government equipment."

Read the contract solicitation here [1] [PDF]

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/pentagon-seeks-private-contractor-move-weapons-through-pakis tanafghanistan
Links:
[1] http:// http://s3.amazonaws.com/thenation/pdf/pakistan-logistics-watermark.pdf
[2] https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=3eb262d38cd1717ff5853b5778510755&tab=ivl&tabmode=list&subtab=list&subtabmode=list&=
[3] http://www.thenation.com/print/article/how-us-funds-taliban
[4] http://www.thenation.com/article/secret-us-war-pakistan
[5] http://www.nclholdings.com/about/board-of-advisors
[6] http://www.nclholdings.com/news-events/4/59-statement-of-hamed-l-wardak&Itemid=40
[7] http://www.sddc.army.mil/Public/Home
[8] http://www.sddc.army.mil/public/Global Cargo Distribution/

Blackwater's CEO: We Are Fighting "Barbarians" in the Middle East

2010-05-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

by Jake Horowitz

Ever wonder what's inside the mind of the world's most powerful private military contractor? Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, seldom makes public appearances. The few times he's made speeches in public, he has attempted to ban journalists from attending and prevented audience members from recording or videotaping his remarks.

Fortunately, The Nation's investigative sleuth Jeremy Scahill has managed to obtain a rare audio recording of a recent private speech delivered by Prince at the University of Michigan this past January.

The result is an absolutely stunning window into the worldview of the man who somehow continues to secure billions of dollars of the American taxpayers' money by winning government contracts to fight the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Pakistan.

In front of an audience of ROTC commanders and cadets, military veterans, and entrepreneurs, Prince delivered a speech entitled, "Overcoming Adversity: Leadership at the Tip of the Spear," in which the Blackwater CEO touched on a range of issues associated with the fight against terrorism and America's military involvement in the Middle East. Fortunately, Scahill was able to place a contact inside the meeting, who managed to capture Prince's remarks by clandestinely recording the speech underneath his seat.

I'd strongly encourage you to listen to the recording, as there are simply too many troubling statements to take up here. But here are some of the highlights lowlights:

- When asked whether he was concerned whether Blackwater's secretive mercenary operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan stood outside the bounds of protection under the Geneva Conventions, Prince dismissively replied, "absolutely not because the people we are fighting are barbarians and they crawled out of a sewer." (Note: In acknowledging that Blackwater is indeed operating in Pakistan, Prince seems to have backtracked on his prior statements, as well as those of the Obama administration and the Pakistani government). Speaking in gross and offensive generalizations, Prince tarnished all of the people of the Middle East with the same brush, remarking that "They are [all] there to kill us," and "they have a 1200 AD mentality. They don't even know where Geneva is, let alone that there was a convention there."

- Prince suggested that Iran is "at the absolute dead center ... of badness" and charged that the Iranian government was trying to acquire nuclear weapons as part of a "master plan to stir up and organize a Shi'a revolt through the whole region." In order to reverse this spread of Iranian influence, Prince proposed that the U.S. government hire Blackwater to be deployed as a private army in Yemen, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. He suggested that using private contractors to roll-back Iran's "sinister hand" would be cost-effective, politically expedient, and would allow for a "very, very small, very light footprint."

- Prince also proposed sending in Blackwater troops to fight "terrorists" in the oil-rich nation of Nigeria, to counter the growing influence of "criminal syndicates" that are "stealing" oil and using the revenue to "fund terrorist organizations." He failed to mention that the presence of multinational U.S-based oil corporations on Nigerian soil — and the human rights abuses and pollution associated with these companies' business operations — have sparked much of the opposition throughout the country.

- Prince cited instances in which Blackwater forces operating in Afghanistan resupplied a U.S. military unit, and even called in U.S. military airstrikes near the Pakistan border, because there is too much "lawyering" involved with the U.S. military chain of command.

Prince's culturally-imperialistic statements reflecting his Christian-crusader mentality — in which Blackwater represents a force of unparalleled "good" fighting a barbaric, anti-modern, and homogenous people of "evil" — are profoundly unsettling, raising serious questions about why the Obama administration continues to employ his company in Iraq and the Af-Pak region. But, Prince's contentions that Blackwater has in various instances superseded the military chain of command by calling in airstrikes and resupplying U.S. military convoys sound an even louder alarm — confirming that private military contractors are able to operate unilaterally, with little oversight, and above the rules of warfare.

Given Blackwater's egregious track record on compliance with international law — take the Iraqi Nisour Square massacre as just one example — the possibility of a Blackwater "A-Team" patrolling the streets of San'a, Riyadh, Lagos, or Mogadishu is altogether unacceptable and should make you quiver.

Fortunately, we can prevent this from happening. Join the effort to tell Congress to stop outsourcing our security to Blackwater and other private military contractors operating outside the bounds of international law. Don't allow this company to continue to secure lucrative government contracts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Blackwater's makeover

2010-05-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

By Jia Lynn Yang, writer
May 17, 2010: 6:11 AM ET
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/17/news/companies/blackwater_makeover.fortune/index.htm#comme nts

(Fortune) -- Blackwater wants you to forget everything you've ever heard about it: The 2007 shootings at Nisour Square in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead, the allegations of bribery and weapons violations, the relations with Iraqis that deteriorated so badly the company was kicked out of the country altogether. A year ago the military contractor adopted a new name, Xe (pronounced zee, and short for the inert gas xenon), and a new CEO, Joseph Yorio.

But has Blackwater really changed? Controversial founder Erik Prince, chairman and sole owner of the company, insists he has turned over all the company's operations to Yorio, a former Green Beret and shipping executive. Yet the company's problems -- including its reputation for arrogance and cutting corners in the field -- won't go away overnight.

Since leaving Iraq, the company has returned to its roots, training military and law enforcement officers. That's how Blackwater began in 1997, when Prince opened a huge training facility in Moyock, N.C. ("Blackwater" is a reference to the dark swampy water that runs throughout the compound.) Now the company is in the running to win a $1 billion contract to train Afghanistan's national police force, a job so important that it could determine how long the U.S. military remains in that country.

The contract in Afghanistan, which the Pentagon will award early next year, could go a long way in improving Xe's financial outlook. Yorio tells Fortune the company lost half its revenue when it left Iraq. (The private company won't disclose figures, but sources say at its peak Blackwater had annual sales north of $1 billion.)

But its reputation continues to take hits. In May, five former employees were charged with weapons violations, and Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, held hearings earlier this year pinpointing reckless behavior by the company under its subcontract to train the Afghan National Army. Levin has also sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it should consider Blackwater's past problems in Afghanistan as it decides whether to award the company a new contract to train the country's police.

Yorio acknowledges the challenges he faces in running a tarnished business, but he says the changes at Xe aren't just cosmetic: a new compliance officer who used to work at the State Department now vets all Xe projects to make sure employees follow government rules and protocols.

The upshot: Xe wants to reinvent itself into what founder Prince calls "a normal, regular business." (Competitors in the training business include DynCorp and Triple Canopy.) But if the company succeeds in winning the $1 billion contract in Afghanistan, Prince should expect more intense scrutiny. He should know better than anyone: there's nothing normal or regular about working in a war zone.

U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts

2010-05-17T10:04:00.001-07:00

By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation.

Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group of former Central Intelligence Agency officers and retired Special Operations troops into the region to collect information — some of which was used to track and kill people suspected of being militants. Many portrayed it as a rogue operation that had been hastily shut down once an investigation began.

But interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials and businessmen, and an examination of government documents, tell a different a story. Not only are the networks still operating, their detailed reports on subjects like the workings of the Taliban leadership in Pakistan and the movements of enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan are also submitted almost daily to top commanders and have become an important source of intelligence.

The American military is largely prohibited from operating inside Pakistan. And under Pentagon rules, the army is not allowed to hire contractors for spying.

Military officials said that when Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in the region, signed off on the operation in January 2009, there were prohibitions against intelligence gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan. The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region, and information that could be used for “force protection,” they said.

Some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to morph into traditional spying activities. And they pointed out that the supervisor who set up the contractor network, Michael D. Furlong, was now under investigation.

But a review of the program by The New York Times found that Mr. Furlong’s operatives were still providing information using the same intelligence gathering methods as before. The contractors were still being paid under a $22 million contract, the review shows, managed by Lockheed Martin and supervised by the Pentagon office in charge of special operations policy.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that the program “remains under investigation by multiple offices within the Defense Department,” so it would be inappropriate to answer specific questions about who approved the operation or why it continues.

“I assure you we are committed to determining if any laws were broken or policies violated,” he said. Spokesmen for General Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, declined to comment. Mr. Furlong remains at his job, working as a senior civilian Air Force official.

A senior defense official said that the Pentagon decided just recently not to renew the contract, which expires at the end of May. While the Pentagon declined to discuss the program, it appears that commanders in the field are in no rush to shut it down because some of the information has been highly valuable, particularly in protecting troops against enemy attacks.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expanded role of contractors on the battlefield — from interrogating prisoners to hunting terrorism suspects — has raised questions about whether the United States has outsourced some of its most secretive and important operations to a private army many fear is largely unaccountable. The C.I.A. has relied extensively on contractors in recent years to carry out missions in war zones.

The exposure of the spying network also reveals tensions between the Pentagon and the C.I.A., which itself is running a covert war across the border in Pakistan. In December, a cable from the C.I.A.’s station chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Pentagon argued that the military’s hiring of its own spies could have disastrous consequences, with various networks possibly colliding with one another.

The memo also said that Mr. Furlong had a history of delving into outlandish intelligence schemes, including an episode in 2008, when American officials expelled him from Prague for trying to clandestinely set up computer servers for propaganda operations. Some officials say they believe that the C.I.A. is trying to scuttle the operation to protect its own turf, and that the spy agency has been embarrassed because the contractors are outperforming C.I.A. operatives.

The private contractor network was born in part out of frustration with the C.I.A. and the military intelligence apparatus. There was a belief by some officers that the C.I.A. was too risk averse, too reliant on Pakistan’s spy service and seldom able to provide the military with timely information to protect American troops. In addition, the military has complained that it is not technically allowed to operate in Pakistan, whose government is willing to look the other way and allow C.I.A. spying but not the presence of foreign troops.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, dismissed reports of a turf war.

“There’s no daylight at all on this between C.I.A. and DoD,” he said. “It’s an issue for Defense to look into — it involves their people, after all — and that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Pentagon has used broad interpretations of its authorities to expand military intelligence operations, including sending Special Operations troops on clandestine missions far from declared war zones. These missions have raised concerns in Washington that the Pentagon is running de facto covert actions without proper White House authority and with little oversight from the elaborate system of Congressional committees and internal controls intended to prevent abuses in intelligence gathering.

The officials say the contractors’ reports are delivered via an encrypted e-mail service to a “fusion cell,” located at the military base at Kabul International Airport. There, they are fed into classified military computer networks, then used for future military operations or intelligence reports.

To skirt military restrictions on intelligence gathering, information the contractors gather in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas is specifically labeled “atmospheric collection”: information about the workings of militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan or about Afghan tribal structures. The boundaries separating “atmospherics” from what spies gather is murky. It is generally considered illegal for the military to run organized operations aimed at penetrating enemy organizations with covert agents.

But defense officials with knowledge of the program said that contractors themselves regarded the contract as permission to spy. Several weeks ago, one of the contractors reported on Taliban militants massing near American military bases east of Kandahar. Not long afterward, Apache gunships arrived at the scene to disperse and kill the militants.

The web of private businesses working under the Lockheed contract include Strategic Influence Alternatives, American International Security Corporation and International Media Ventures, a communications company based in St. Petersburg, Fla., with Czech ownership.

One of the companies employs a network of Americans, Afghans and Pakistanis run by Duane Clarridge, a C.I.A. veteran who became famous for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Mr. Clarridge declined to be interviewed.

The Times is withholding some information about the contractor network, including some of the names of agents working in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A spokesman for Lockheed said that no Pentagon officials had raised any concerns about the work.

“We believe our subcontractors are effectively performing the work required of them under the terms of this task order,” said Tom Casey, the spokesman. “We’ve not received any information indicating otherwise.” Lockheed is not involved in the information gathering, but rather administers the contract.

The specifics of the investigation into Mr. Furlong are unclear. Pentagon officials have said that the Defense Department’s inspector general is examining possible contract fraud and financial mismanagement dating from last year.

In his only media interview since details of the operation were revealed, with The San Antonio Express-News, Mr. Furlong said that all of his work had been blessed by senior commanders. In that interview, he declined to provide further details.

Officials said that the tussle over the intelligence operations dated from at least 2008, when some generals in Afghanistan grew angry at what they saw as a paucity of intelligence about the militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan who were regularly attacking American troops.

In October of that year, Mr. Furlong traveled to C.I.A. headquarters with top Pentagon officials, including Brig. Gen. Robert H. Holmes, then the deputy operations officer at United States Central Command. General Holmes has since retired and is now an executive at one of the subcontractors, International Media Ventures. The meeting at the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center was set up to inform the spy agency about the military’s plans to collect “atmospheric information” about Afghanistan and Pakistan, including information about the structure of militant networks in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Mr. Furlong was testing the sometimes muddy laws governing traditional military activities. A former Army officer who sometimes referred to himself as “the king of the gray areas,” Mr. Furlong played a role in many of America’s recent adventures abroad. He ran psychological operations missions in the Balkans, worked at a television network in Iraq, now defunct, that was sponsored by the American government and made frequent trips to Kabul, Eastern Europe and the Middle East in recent years to help run a number of clandestine military propaganda operations.

At the C.I.A. meeting in 2008, the atmosphere quickly deteriorated, according to some in attendance, because C.I.A. officials were immediately suspicious that the plans amounted to a back-door spying operation.

In general, according to one American official, intelligence operatives are nervous about the notion of “private citizens running around a war zone, trying to collect intelligence that wasn’t properly vetted for operations that weren’t properly coordinated.”

Shortly afterward, in a legal opinion stamped “Secret,” lawyers at the military’s Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Fla., signed off on a version of Mr. Furlong’s proposed operations, adding specific language that the program should not carry out “inherent intelligence activities.” In January 2009, General Petraeus wrote a letter endorsing the proposed operations, which had been requested by Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan at the time.

What happened after that money began flowing to Afghanistan remains a matter of dispute. General McKiernan said in an interview with The Times that he never endorsed hiring private contractors specifically for intelligence gathering.

Instead, he said, he was interested in gaining “atmospherics” from the contractors to help him and his commanders understand the complex cultural and political makeup of the region.

“It could give us a better understanding of the rural areas, of what people there saying, what they were expressing as their needs, and their concerns,” he said.

“It was not intelligence for manhunts,” he said. “That was clearly not it, and we agreed that’s not what this was about.”

To his mind, he said, intelligence is specific information that could be used for attacks on militants in Afghanistan.

General McKiernan said he had endorsed a reporting and research network in Afghanistan and Pakistan pitched to him a year earlier by Robert Young Pelton, a writer and chronicler of the world’s danger spots, and Eason Jordan, a former CNN executive. The project, called AfPax Insider, would have been used a subscription-based Web site, but also a secure information database that only the military could access.

In an interview, Mr. Pelton said that he did not gather intelligence and never worked at the direction of Mr. Furlong and that he did not have a government contract for the work.

But Mr. Pelton said that AfPax did receive reimbursement from International Media Ventures, one of the companies hired for Mr. Furlong’s operation. He said that he was never told that I.M.V. was doing clandestine work for the government.

It was several months later, during the summer of 2009, when officials said that the private contractor network using Mr. Clarridge and other former C.I.A. and Special Operations troops was established. Mr. Furlong, according to several former colleagues, believed that Mr. Pelton and Mr. Jordan had failed to deliver on their promises, and that the new team could finally carry out the program first envisioned by General McKiernan. The contractor network assumed a cloak-and-dagger air, with the information reports stripped of anything that might reveal sources’ identities, and the collectors were assigned code names and numbers.

Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. Barclay Walsh contributed research.

Secret Erik Prince Tape Exposed

2010-05-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Scahill

Erik Prince, the reclusive owner of the Blackwater empire, rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban journalists from attending and forbids recording or videotaping of his remarks. On May 5, that is exactly what Prince is trying to do when he speaks at DeVos Fieldhouse as the keynote speaker for the "Tulip Time Festival" in his hometown of Holland, Michigan. He told the event's organizers no news reporting could be done on his speech and they consented to the ban. Journalists and media associations in Michigan are protesting this attempt to bar reporting on his remarks.

Despite Prince's attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater. The people of the United States have a right to media coverage of events featuring the owner of a company that generates 90% of its revenue from the United States government.

In the speech, Prince proposed that the US government deploy armed private contractors to fight "terrorists" in Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, specifically to target Iranian influence. He expressed disdain for the Geneva Convention and described Blackwater's secretive operations at four Forward Operating Bases he controls in Afghanistan. He called those fighting the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan "barbarians" who "crawled out of the sewer." Prince also revealed details of a July 2009 operation he claims Blackwater forces coordinated in Afghanistan to take down a narcotrafficking facility, saying that Blackwater "call[ed] in multiple air strikes," blowing up the facility. Prince boasted that his forces had carried out the "largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history." He characterized the work of some NATO countries' forces in Afghanistan as ineffectual, suggesting that some coalition nations "should just pack it in and go home." Prince spoke of Blackwater working in Pakistan, which appears to contradict the official, public Blackwater and US government line that Blackwater is not in Pakistan.

Prince also claimed that a Blackwater operative took down the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W Bush in Baghdad and criticized the Secret Service for being "flat-footed." He bragged that Blackwater forces "beat the Louisiana National Guard to the scene" during Katrina and claimed that lawsuits, "tens of millions of dollars in lawyer bills" and political attacks prevented him from deploying a humanitarian ship that could have responded to the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunami that hit Indonesia.

Several times during the speech, Prince appeared to demean Afghans his company is training in Afghanistan, saying Blackwater had to teach them "Intro to Toilet Use" and to do jumping jacks. At the same time, he bragged that US generals told him the Afghans Blackwater trains "are the most effective fighting force in Afghanistan." Prince also revealed that he is writing a book, scheduled to be released this fall.

The speech was delivered January 14 at the University of Michigan in front of an audience of entrepreneurs, ROTC commanders and cadets, businesspeople and military veterans. The speech was titled "Overcoming Adversity: Leadership at the Tip of the Spear" and was sponsored by the Young Presidents' Association (YPO), a business networking association primarily made up of corporate executives. "Ripped from the headlines and described by Vanity Fair magazine, as a Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier and Spy, Erik Prince brings all that and more to our exclusive YPO speaking engagement," read the event's program, also obtained by The Nation. It proclaimed that Prince's speech was an "amazing don't miss opportunity from a man who has 'been there and done that' with a group of Cadets and Midshipmen who are months away from serving on the 'tip of the spear.'" Here are some of the highlights from Erik Prince's speech:

Send the Mercs into Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria

Prince painted a global picture in which Iran is "at the absolute dead center... of badness." The Iranians, he said, "want that nuke so that it is again a Persian Gulf and they very much have an attitude of when Darius ran most of the Middle East back in 1000 BC. That's very much what the Iranians are after." [NOTE: Darius of Persia actually ruled from 522 BC-486 BC]. Iran, Prince charged, has a "master plan to stir up and organize a Shia revolt through the whole region." Prince proposed that armed private soldiers from companies like Blackwater be deployed in countries throughout the region to target Iranian influence, specifically in Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia. "The Iranians have a very sinister hand in these places," Prince said. "You're not going to solve it by putting a lot of uniformed soldiers in all these countries. It's way too politically sensitive. The private sector can operate there with a very, very small, very light footprint." In addition to concerns of political expediency, Prince suggested that using private contractors to conduct such operations would be cost-effective. "The overall defense budget is going to have to be cut and they're going to look for ways, they're going to have to have ways to become more efficient," he said. "And there's a lot of ways that the private sector can operate with a much smaller, much lighter footprint."

Prince also proposed using private armed contractors in the oil-rich African nation of Nigeria. Prince said that guerilla groups in the country are dramatically slowing oil production and extraction and stealing oil. "There's more than a half million barrels a day stolen there, which is stolen and organized by very large criminal syndicates. There's even some evidence it's going to fund terrorist organizations," Prince alleged. "These guerilla groups attack the pipeline, attack the pump house to knock it offline, which makes the pressure of the pipeline go soft. they cut that pipeline and they weld in their own patch with their own valves and they back a barge up into it. Ten thousand barrels at a time, take that oil, drive that 10,000 barrels out to sea and at $80 a barrel, that's $800,000. That's not a bad take for organized crime." Prince made no mention of the nonviolent indigenous opposition to oil extraction and pollution, nor did he mention the notorious human rights abuses connected to multinational oil corporations in Nigeria that have sparked much of the resistance.

Blackwater and the Geneva Convention

Prince scornfully dismissed the debate on whether armed individuals working for Blackwater could be classified as "unlawful combatants" who are ineligible for protection under the Geneva Convention. "You know, people ask me that all the time, 'Aren't you concerned that you folks aren't covered under the Geneva Convention in [operating] in the likes of Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan? And I say, 'Absolutely not,' because these people, they crawled out of the sewer and they have a 1200 AD mentality. They're barbarians. They don't know where Geneva is, let alone that there was a convention there."

It is significant that Prince mentioned his company operating in Pakistan given that Blackwater, the US government and the Pakistan government have all denied Blackwater works in Pakistan.

Taking Down the Iraqi Shoe Thrower for the 'Flat-Footed' Secret Service

Prince noted several high-profile attacks on world leaders in the past year, specifically a woman pushing the Pope at Christmas mass and the attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, saying there has been a pattern of "some pretty questionable security lately." He then proceeded to describe the feats of his Blackwater forces in protecting dignitaries and diplomats, claiming that one of his men took down the Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at President Bush in Baghdad in December 2008. Prince referred to al-Zaidi as the "shoe bomber:"

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"A little known fact, you know when the shoe bomber in Iraq was throwing his shoes at President Bush, in December 08, we provided diplomatic security, but we had no responsibility for the president's security--that's always the Secret Service that does that. We happened to have a guy in the back of the room and he saw that first shoe go and he drew his weapon, got a sight picture, saw that it was only a shoe, he re-holstered, went forward and took that guy down while the Secret Service was still standing there flat-footed. I have a picture of that--I'm publishing a book, so watch for that later this fall--in which you'll see all the reporters looking, there's my guy taking the shoe thrower down. He didn't shoot him, he just tackled him, even though the guy was committing assault and battery on the president of the United States. I asked a friend of mine who used to run the Secret Service if they had a written report of that and he said the debrief was so bad they did not put it in writing."

While the Secret Service was widely criticized at the time for its apparent inaction during the incident, video of the event clearly showed another Iraqi journalist, not security guards, initially pulling al-Zaidi to the floor. Almost instantly thereafter, al-Zaidi was swarmed by a gang of various, unidentified security agents.

Blackwater's Forward Operating Bases

Prince went into detail about his company's operations in Afghanistan. Blackwater has been in the country since at least April 2002, when the company was hired by the CIA on a covert contract to provide the Agency with security. Since then, Blackwater has won hundreds of millions of dollars in security, counter-narcotics and training contracts for the State Department, Defense Department and the CIA. The company protects US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and other senior US officials, guards CIA personnel and trains the Afghan border police. "We built four bases and we staffed them and we run them," Prince said, referring to them as Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). He described them as being in the north, south, east and west of Afghanistan. "Spin Boldak in the south, which is the major drug trans-shipment area, in the east at a place called FOB Lonestar, which is right at the foothills of Tora Bora mountain. In fact if you ski off Tora Bora mountain, you can ski down to our firebase," Prince said, adding that Blackwater also has a base near Herat and another location. FOB Lonestar is approximately 15 miles from the Pakistan border. "Who else has built a [Forward Operating Base] along the main infiltration route for the Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?" Prince said earlier this year.

Blackwater's War on Drugs

Prince described a Narcotics Interdiction Unit Blackwater started in Afghanistan five years ago that remains active. "It is about a 200 person strike force to go after the big narcotics traffickers, the big cache sites," Prince said. "That unit's had great success. They've taken more than $3.5 billion worth of heroin out of circulation. We're not going after the farmers, but we're going after the traffickers." He described an operation in July 2009 where Blackwater forces actually called in NATO air strikes on a target during a mission:

"A year ago, July, they did the largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history, down in the south-east. They went down, they hit five targets that our intel guys put together and they wound up with about 12,000 pounds of heroin. While they were down there, they said, 'You know, these other three sites look good, we should go check them out.' Sure enough they did and they found a cache--262,000 kilograms of hash, which equates to more than a billion dollars street value. And it was an industrialized hash operation, it was much of the hash crop in Helmand province. It was palletized, they'd dug ditches out in the desert, covered it with tarps and the bags of powder were big bags with a brand name on it for the hash brand, palletized, ready to go into containers down to Karachi [Pakistan] and then out to Europe or elsewhere in the world. That raid alone took about $60 million out of the Taliban's coffers. So, those were good days. When the guys found it, they didn't have enough ammo, enough explosives, to blow it, they couldn't burn it all, so they had to call in multiple air strikes. Of course, you know, each of the NATO countries that came and did the air strikes took credit for finding and destroying the cache."

December 30, 2009 CIA Bombing in Khost

Prince also addressed the deadly suicide bombing on December 30 at the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. Eight CIA personnel, including two Blackwater operatives, were killed in the bombing, which was carried out by a Jordanian double-agent. Prince was asked by an audience member about the "failure" to prevent that attack. The questioner did not mention that Blackwater was responsible for the security of the CIA officials that day, nor did Prince discuss Blackwater's role that day. Here is what Prince said:

"You know what? It is a tragedy that those guys were killed but if you put it in perspective, the CIA has lost extremely few people since 9/11. We've lost two or three in Afghanistan, before that two or three in Iraq and, I believe, one guy in Somalia--a landmine. So when you compare what Bill Donovan and the OSS did to the Germans and the Japanese, the Italians during World War II--and they lost hundreds and hundreds of people doing very difficult, very dangerous work--it is a tragedy when you lose people, but it is a cost of doing that work. It is essential, you've got to take risks. In that case, they had what appeared to be a very hot asset who had very relevant, very actionable intelligence and he turned out to be a bad guy... That's what the intelligence business is, you can't be assured success all the time. You've got to be willing to take risks. Those are calculated risks but sometimes it goes badly. I hope the Agency doesn't draw back and say, 'Oh, we have to retrench and not do that anymore,' all the rest. No. We need you to double down, go after them harder. That is a cost of doing business. They are there to kill us."

Prince to Some NATO Countries in Afghanistan: 'Go Home'

Prince spoke disparagingly of some unnamed NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan, saying they do not have the will for the fight. "Some of them do and a lot of them don't," he said. "It is such a patchwork of different international commitments as to what some can do and what some can't. A lot of them should just pack it in and go home." Canada, however, received praise from Prince. "The Canadians have lost per capita more than America has in Afghanistan. They are fighting and they are doing it and so if you see a Canadian thank them for that. The politicians at home take heavies for doing that," Prince said. He did not mention the fact that his company was hired by the Canadian government to train its forces.

Prince also described how his private air force (which he recently sold) bailed out a US military unit in trouble in Afghanistan. According to Prince, the unit was fighting the Taliban and was running out of ammo and needed an emergency re-supply. "Because of, probably some procedure written by a lawyer back in Washington, the Air Force was not permitted to drop in an uncertified drop zone... even to the unit that was running out of ammo," Prince said. "So they called and asked if our guys would do it and, of course, they said, 'Yes.' And the cool part of the story is the Army guys put their DZ mark in the drop zone, a big orange panel, on the hood of their hummer and our guys put the first bundle on the hood of that hummer. We don't always get that close, but that time a little too close."

Blackwater: Teaching Afghans to Use Toilets

Prince said his forces train 1300 Afghans every six weeks and described his pride in attending "graduations" of Blackwater-trained Afghans, saying that in six weeks they radically transform the trainees. "You take these officers, these Afghans and it's the first time in their life they've ever been part of something that's first class, that works. The instructors know what they're talking about, they're fed, the water works, there's ammunition for their guns. Everything works," Prince said. "The first few days of training, we have to do 'Intro to Toilet Use' because a lot of these guys have never even seen a flushed toilet before." Prince boasted: "We manage to take folks with a tribal mentality and, just like the Marine Corps does more effectively than anyone else, they take kids from disparate lifestyles across the United States and you throw them into Parris Island and you make them Marines. We try that same mentality there by pushing these guys very hard and, it's funny, I wish I had video to show you of the hilarious jumping jacks. If you take someone that's 25 years old and they've never done a jumping jack in their life--some of the convoluted motions they do it's comical. But the transformation from day one to the end of that program, they're very proud and they're very capable." Prince said that when he was in Afghanistan late last year, "I met with a bunch of generals and they said the Afghans that we train are the most effective fighting force in Afghanistan."

Prince also discussed the Afghan women he says work with Blackwater. "Some of the women we've had, it's amazing," Prince said. "They come in in the morning and they have the burqa on and they transition to their cammies (camouflage uniforms) and I think they enjoy the baton work," he said, adding, "They've been hand-cuffing a little too much on the men."

Hurricane Katrina and Humanitarian Mercenaries

Erik Prince spoke at length about Blackwater's deployment in 2005 in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, bragging that his forces "rescued 128 people, sent thousands of meals in there and it worked." Prince boasted of his company's rapid response, saying, "We surged 145 guys in 36 hours from our facility five states away and we beat the Louisiana National Guard to the scene." What Prince failed to mention was that at the time of the disaster, at least 35% of the Louisiana National Guard was deployed in Iraq. One National Guard soldier in New Orleans at the time spoke to Reuters, saying, "They (the Bush administration) care more about Iraq and Afghanistan than here... We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq." Much of the National Guard's equipment was in Iraq at the time, including high water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators.

Prince also said that he had a plan to create a massive humanitarian vessel that, with the generous support of major corporations, could have responded to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis across the globe. "I thought, man, the military has perfected how to move men and equipment into combat, why can't we do that for the humanitarian side?" Prince said. The ship Prince wanted to use for these missions was an 800 foot container vessel capable of shipping "1700 containers, which would have lined up six and a half miles of humanitarian assistance with another 250 vehicles" onboard. "We could have gotten almost all those boxes donated. It would have been boxes that would have had generator sets from Caterpillar, grain from ADM [Archer Daniels Midland], anti-biotics from pharmaceutical companies, all the stuff you need to do massive humanitarian assistance," Prince said, adding that it "would have had turnkey fuel support, food, surgical, portable surgical hospitals, beds cots, blankets, all the above." Prince says he was going to do the work for free, "on spec," but "instead we got attacked politically and ended up paying tens of millions of dollars in lawyer bills the last few years. It's an unfortunate misuse of resources because a boat like that sure would have been handy for the Haitian people right now."

Outing Erik Prince

Prince also addressed what he described as his outing as a CIA asset working on sensitive US government programs. He has previously blamed Congressional Democrats and the news media for naming him as working on the US assassination program. The US intelligence apparatus "depends heavily on Americans that are not employed by the government to facilitate greater success and access for the intelligence community," Prince said. "It's unprecedented to have people outed by name, especially ones that were running highly classified programs. And as much as the left got animated about Valerie Plame, outing people by name for other very very sensitive programs was unprecedented and definitely threw me under the bus."

The Al Capone Solution for the Blackwater Problem

2010-05-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

By David Isenberg
Author, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq

Despite years of arguing, the state of legal frameworks for private military companies remains unclear. This is for a variety of reasons; using inapplicable laws, such as those for old style mercenaries, questions of jurisdiction, lack of resources, and questions of political will.
To try and clarify the existing, confusing, legal status quo a number of news laws and amendments to existing laws, both nationally and internationally, have been proposed in recent years. Some are undoubtedly beneficial, while others are yet to be tested by inevitable appeals.

But just when one thinks that everything that can be proposed has been along comes a new idea. As the saying goes, out of the mouths of babes. In this case the babe is André M. Penálver, a student at Cornell University Law School.

He writes in the current issues of the Cornell University Law Review:

In the aftermath of the Nisour Square tragedy, in which seventeen Iraqi civilians died as a result of actions by Blackwater USA, a security contractor, the United States was confronted with a loophole in its criminal law. While the responsible Blackwater guards would face stiff penalties under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for any accounting fraud committed abroad, there was no obvious criminal statute that would cover the senseless act of violence in Nisour Square. With the growth of military contractors specifically and the spread of globalization generally, violent acts by corporations proliferate.
This note aims to show that a criminal statute with extraterritorial jurisdiction is the proper solution to the Blackwater problem and the plague of corporate human rights abuses abroad. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) already holds corporations criminally liable for accounting and bribery crimes committed overseas. Congress need only amend the FCPA to address a larger scope of crimes, including human rights abuses, to hold corporations such as Blackwater responsible for their actions. That our statutes make a crime of a corporation's over- seas accounting fraud but not overseas murder is an absurdity that demands change.

His note "Corporate Disconnect: The Blackwater Problem and The FCPA Solution" is doubtful about the ability of international law to address the issue of legal accountability for PMC. He writes a solution rooted in international law is also problematic. "First, there is the ongoing debate over whether international law really is law at all. International law lacks the backing of a legislature, an executive body, and a judiciary with compulsory jurisdiction. These qualities have led some to conclude that international law is more 'positive morality' than law."

And, even if international law is law, there is another concern in finding a forum to apply it. Even if international law did provide all the necessary tools to address something like the Blackwater problem, it does not address whether the United States would ever subject itself or its citizens to such an international criminal trial. To date, the United States has resolved not to let the International Criminal Court try its citizens.

Congress cites the lack of constitutional protections available in the ICC. This same concern would apply to any international tribunal; thus, one could conclude that the United States would not fully cooperate with any international criminal court.

The situation is little better in U.S. courts. In practice, American judges give short shrift to international law in their courtrooms. Using the many rules available under the doctrine of "judicial provincialism," judges may find ways to prevent a hearing on international law cases, to prevent international law from providing the rule of decision in a case, or to hinder the proper handling of international law.

Even if U.S. judges decide to use international law in their decisions, supplanting domestic law with international law raises yet another constitutional concern.

Penálver also explains why recent efforts, such as the amended Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act is inadequate. He writes:

Although MEJA offers a "significant expansion of American criminal law over crimes committed on foreign soil," and although the United States has attempted to indict the Blackwater guards under MEJA, it is not a clear solution to the problem at hand for three reasons.
First, and most importantly, MEJA would only apply to the individual guards: Blackwater USA itself cannot be prosecuted under MEJA. Second, it remains to be seen whether a conviction of the guards is even possible: the government's initial indictment under MEJA has been dismissed.

To date, there has been only one successful prosecution of a contractor under MEJA, and this involved child pornography.

Moreover, MEJA has never applied to contractors working for the State Department, as with the Blackwater guards at Nisour Square. Third, a prosecution under MEJA will not likely clarify the law in the least. If there is a prosecution under MEJA, it will be by twisting the statute into a "an unprecedented use of the law," likely producing protracted, technical arguments aimed at scuttling the case well before a jury has the opportunity to evaluate the guards' actions." Criminal law deserves more clarity than this extension of MEJA can provide. Finally, setting aside this dubious application of MEJA, it would certainly not address any of the other human rights abuses that corporations commit overseas.

Using the FPCA offers certain advantages. It is unique in its extraterritorial jurisdiction. The FCPA applies to issuers, domestic concerns, and -- since 1998 -- "any person." As applied to U.S. issuers and persons, there is no requirement of a territorial nexus between the corrupt act and the United States.

The FCPA may reach foreign agents and employees who have little contact with the United States. Likewise, the FCPA could create liability for a domestic concern through the actions of one of its foreign agents, even if that agent has no contact with the United States.

And unlike the case with MEJA the Justice Department and the SEC have enforced the FCPA with frequency and severity. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of investigations by the SEC, and both the SEC and DOJ have sought larger penalties.

In 2004, for the first time, the SEC required a company to disgorge profits of unlawful FCPA activities; that practice is now routine.

More proactively, corporate self-monitoring to ensure FCPA compliance has increased, as has voluntary disclosure arising from corporations' internal investigations.

While the FCPA landscape continues to evolve, all signs point to heightened scrutiny and graver consequences for violators.

In other words, there is nothing like the threat of taking away a corporation's profits to get its attention. This is somewhat akin to convicting Al Capone for tax evasion instead of murder.

According to Penálver, "The power of private corporations that governments have wrestled with for centuries takes on new importance in the context of globalization. While powerful governments such as the United States have learned to manage the world's largest corporations, globalization puts giant interstate corporations into contact with relatively weaker states that have little experience in dealing with the accompanying problems."

To put this in proper context Penálver notes that the modern state is just one of several types of corporations. He writes:

"There have been times that states have been so weak, or business corporations have been so strong, that such corporations have supplanted the state altogether. Not long after Hobbes articulated the source of a state's power, private corporations posed their first challenge to state authority. Beginning in the seventeenth century, European trading monopolies operating in India, North America, and Africa formed the foundations of private empires.

Those monopolies include such historic brand names as the East India Company, Hudson Bay Company, and the British South Africa Company.

However, for the FPCA to be used in regard to PMC it will need to be amended so that corporate law is as much concerned with murder as accounting fraud.

For all the FCPA's success in combating bribery, it is also the source of a conundrum. Although Congress enacted the FCPA to prevent "ethically repugnant" behavior by corporations, the Act ignores human rights abuses while throwing the book at corporate fraud. Had Blackwater officials knowingly changed the figures in its accounting books, the corporation would face a fine of up to $25,000,000 and its employees could spend up to twenty years in jail. But as it happens, because Blackwater guards wrongfully killed seventeen civilians and undermined U.S. interests in Iraq, they and their corporation find them-selves in a legal loophole with no certain criminal liability.
It is not hard to see the disconnect in U.S. extraterritorial law. While U.S. law severely punishes the relatively harmless act of accounting fraud, it offers no remedy for a corporation's acts of brutal violence.

Penálver believes that all that is presently necessary to address human rights abuses by corporations such as Blackwater is political will. Congress could remedy the problem by expanding the scope of the FCPA.

He concludes;

Much of the necessary language may come from existing domestic and international legal concepts. Substantively, Congress could seek to create criminal liability for corporations that aid and abet or perpetrate a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity. Congress could define such terms by looking to the language of international law, particularly the Nuremberg Principles. First, crimes against peace are the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment" of any of the same. Second, war crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity." Third, crimes against humanity are "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts occur in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.