James Risen and Mark Mazzetti have a piece in the New York Times (posted online yesterday) about Blackwater, the rogue private security contracting company that lost its State Department contract in Iraq after a shooting spree by Blackwater employees that killed 17 unarmed civilians in Baghdad. Risen and Mazzetti report that in the years after that incident, which occurred in September 2007, Blackwater set up dozens of offshore shell companies so they could continue to get lucrative government contracts:
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.
[…]
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.
The Baghdad killings obviously happened under the previous administration, which had already, at that point, been paying Blackwater many millions to provide security and all kinds of other logistical services for years, although Blackwater’s reputation for being a bunch of rogue, trigger-happy mercenaries was already well-known. However, that does not, and cannot, explain why the U.S. government is continuing to give what is essentially a criminal outfit millions of dollars in taxpayer money, almost two years after George W. Bush left office. It’s inexplicable and unconscionable, and when you read Leon Panetta’s defense of Blackwater’s above-mentioned new contract with the C.I.A. in Afghanistan — Blackwater has “cleaned up its act” — or C.I.A. public relations flack Paul Gimigliano’s bland statement of support for Blackwater (to which he refers by the company’s new name, “Xe”), it’s enough to make you sick:
… 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.”
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