Senator warns against $1B deal with Blackwater

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer – Thu Mar 4, 10:30 pm ET

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blackwater, headquartered in Myock, N.C., changed its name to Xe Services after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

Mark Corallo, a company spokesman, said Xe Services agrees with Levin that the Pentagon should carefully review its past performance when deciding future contracts.

"We are confident that Xe's record of service in training thousands of security personnel in Afghanistan demonstrates the company's strong record of supporting critical U.S. government initiatives in Afghanistan, which are essential to advancing the United States national interest," he said in an e-mailed statement.

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

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

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

Corallo said the contracting officials were aware that Paravant was a Blackwater subsidiary.

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

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

DynCorp has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office, alleging that the approach is "procedurally and legally flawed," according to company vice president Donald Ryder.

Xe has been shifting its work to training, aviation and logistics after the September 2007 incident at Nisoor Square in Baghdad. Its security guards were accused of killing 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

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US court reinstates Blackwater Iraq shooting case22 Apr 2011 16:05

Source: reuters // Reuters


* At issue shooting that killed 14 Iraqis in 2007

* Appeals court rules judge wrongly interpreted the law

* U.S. Justice Department pleased by ruling

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge erred in dismissing all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007, an appeals court ruled on Friday.

The unanimous three-judge panel reinstated the charges and sent the case back to the judge for more proceedings, handing a victory to the U.S. Justice Department in a high-profile prosecution dating to 2008.

The five guards were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count over a Baghdad shooting that outraged Iraqis and strained ties between the two countries.

The shooting occurred as the private security firm's guards escorted a heavily armed four-truck convoy of U.S. diplomats through the Iraqi capital on Sept. 16, 2007. The guards, U.S. military veterans, were responding to a car bombing when gunfire erupted at a crowded intersection.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled in December 2009 that prosecutors violated the defendants's constitutional rights and the case was tainted by use of statement the guards made to State Department investigators under a threat of job loss.

The appeals court reversed that ruling that the indictment of the guards had been improperly obtained through the use of their compelled statements. It ruled Urbina wrongly interpreted the law.
The appeals court sent the case back to Urbina to determine what evidence, if any, the government presented had been tainted and whether it was harmless.

The defendants -- Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten -- were employed by Blackwater Worldwide, which is now known as Xe Services.

Prosecutors have dismissed the charges against Slatten.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said, "We're pleased with the ruling and are assessing the next steps."

The government had argued that whatever knowledge prosecutors and investigators may have had of the defendants' statements to the State Department, they did not make improper use of them in building their case.

A sixth Blackwater guard pleaded guilty to charges of voluntary manslaughter and attempt to commit manslaughter, and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. (editing by Bill Trott)

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Blackwater founder builds foreign force in UAE -NYT

15 May 2011 12:02

Source: reuters // Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has hired the founder of private security firm Blackwater Worldwide to set up an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The Times said it obtained documents that showed the unit being formed by Erik Prince's new company Reflex Responses with $529 million from the UAE would be used to thwart internal revolt, conduct special operations and defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from attack.

The newspaper said the decision to hire the contingent of foreign troops was taken before a wave of popular unrest spread across the Arab world in recent months, including to the UAE's Gulf neighbours Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

The UAE itself has seen no serious unrest. Most of its population is made up of foreign workers.

Blackwater, which once had lucrative contracts to protect U.S. officials in Iraq, became notorious in the region in 2007 when its guards opened fire in Baghdad traffic, killing at least 14 people in what the Iraqi government called a "massacre".

One former Blackwater guard pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges in those killings, and a U.S. court reinstated charges against five others last month. Prince has since sold the firm, which changed its name to Xe. The firm denies wrongdoing.

The newspaper said the Emirates, a close ally of the United States, had some support in Washington for Prince's new project, although it was not clear if it had official U.S. approval.

Two UAE government officials contacted by Reuters declined immediate comment on the New York Times report, and the U.S. embassy in the UAE also had no immediate comment. It was not possible to locate Prince for comment.

The Times quoted a U.S. official who was aware of the programme as saying: "The Gulf countries, and the U.A.E. in particular, don't have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner told The Times the department was investigating to see if the project broke any U.S. laws. U.S. law requires a licence for American citizens to train foreign troops.

Toner also pointed out that Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, had paid $42 million in fines in 2010 for training foreign forces in Jordan without a licence, the Times said.

According to former employees of the project and U.S. officials cited by the Times, the troops were brought to a training camp in the UAE from Colombia, South Africa and other countries, starting in the summer of 2010.

They were being trained by retired U.S. military, and former members of German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, the Times said.

Prince had insisted the force hire no Muslims, because they "could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims", the paper said.

Former employees also told the newspaper the Emirates hoped the force could be used to counter any threat from Iran, which the Arab states in the Gulf consider a foe.

Although The Times said the documents it obtained did not mention Erik Prince, former employees had told the newspaper he had negotiated the contract with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Emiriati officials had proposed expanding the force to a brigade of several thousand if the first battalion was successful, the newspaper said. (Additional reporting is by Mahmoud Habboush)

(World Desk, Americas +1 202 898 8457)

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Pakistan expels British counter-terrorism trainers

27 Jun 2011 11:18

Source: reuters // Reuters

(Changes sourcing of some information)

By Chris Allbritton

ISLAMABAD, June 27 (Reuters) - Pakistan has told Britain to pull out some of its military trainers, in what appears to be the latest sign of strained relations with the West after last month's killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops.

Pakistan's military faces its most severe crisis in decades following the May 2 raid in which the al Qaeda leader was killed on Pakistani soil by foreign soldiers.

"The UK has been asked to withdraw some of its training support teams on a temporary basis by the Pakistani government in response to security concerns," British High Commission spokesman in Islamabad, George Sheriff, told Reuters on Monday.

He said the Pakistan authorities had warned about "security concerns" but he did not elaborate.

The British-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism quoted the British Defence Ministry as confirming the withdrawal of at least 18 military advisers who were helping train a poorly equipped paramilitary force, the Frontier Corps, in counter-terrorism.

Since the May 2 raid, Pakistan has been keen to demonstrate its independence from its Western sponsors and has also drastically scaled back the number of military trainers from its main backer, the United States.

The number of U.S. trainers has been reduced to less than 50 from about 120, Pakistani and American officials have said.

The reductions are a sign of a strained alliance that Washington still sees as critical to its success in the war in neighbouring Afghanistan as well as the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Islamabad, intensified U.S. questions about Pakistan's possible role in sheltering militants.

The army still enjoys high approval ratings in Pakistan, but its critics blame it for cultivating Islamist militants in the past for use against arch-rival India, who are now increasingly slipping out of its control and turning on Pakistani authorities.

Human rights groups have accused the Frontier Corps of abuses in Baluchistan province, where a decades-long separatist insurgency is simmering.

Pakistani newspapers have reported at least 170 Baluch nationalists have disappeared and five unarmed Chechens were shot to death in May at a checkpost in the provincial capital, Quetta. The government says it is investigating.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that the British trainers had been based near Quetta in Baluchistan at a British-funded base, working alongside six American advisers training batches of 360 recruits in 12-week courses. == Mercenaries used by Bush, now fighting Obama’s secret wars Blackwater (Xe): The Secret US War in Pakistan by Andrew Hobbs, Brittney Gates, Kelsea Arnold According to a bipartisan commission report released to the U.S. Congress in February 2011, the heavy reliance on private security companies in current contingency operations, begun during the Bush Administration, has effectively surged under President Barack Obama, raising use-of-force issues and creating a gap in legal accountability. Private contractors flying under the radar are being used on an unprecedented scale to perform the dirty work for the U.S. military involving a myriad of human rights violations, as described in this article addressing the situation in Pakistan. Voltaire Network | 24 July 2012 Español U.S. mercenaries of the Blackwater private security company, today rebaptized as Xe to escape its dirty past of massacring civilians during the occupation of Iraq to bolster U.S. military operations. The mercenaries then embedded by George W. Bush within the U.S. military state apparatus are still deployed today by the Obama administration to wage its secret wars, meaning that nothing has changed. 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. 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Second interim report to Congress: At What Risk? Correcting Over-reliance on Contractors in Contingency Operations" [Pdf]; Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, February 24, 2011. Andrew Hobbs Brittney Gates Kelsea Arnold #5 on the 2011 list of Top Censured Stories, this article was first published on 2 October 2010. Faculty Evaluators: Elaine Wellin and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University) Sources: Jeremy Scahill, “The Secret US War in Pakistan,” Nation, November 23, 2009, . Jeremy Scahill, “Blackwater Wants to Surge Its Armed Force in Afghanistan,” Antiwar.com, January 20, 2010, David Edwards and Muriel Kane, “Ex-employees Claim Blackwater Pimped Out Young Iraqi Girls,” Raw Story, August 7, 2009. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USA: The Hyperreality of a failing corporate media system Project Censored 2010 Selection This author's articles This author's articles This author's articles Voltaire, international edition Focus News in Brief Controversies Diplomatic Wire