Eideard

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 said 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…

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…”

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…

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 license for American citizens to train foreign troops…

Toner also pointed out that Blackwater had paid $42 million in fines in 2010 for training foreign forces in Jordan without a license, 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.

I feel strong enough about American history to have nothing but distaste for mercenaries. Hiring on to kill whomever your paymaster chooses isn’t what professional soldiering has ever been about – at root and cause. Not in centuries.

Differing political contexts certainly made some armies seem like mercenaries – especially when dropped into a foreign land to support an unpopular government; but, control over those armies, recruitment, history still differed from mercenary troops.

Bush’s bubba Bremer with his Blackwater bodyguards
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The private security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide, long plagued by accusations of impropriety, has reached an agreement with the State Department for the company to pay $42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations.

The violations included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for Taiwanese police officers, according to company and government officials familiar with the deal.

The settlement, which has not yet been publicly announced, follows lengthy talks between Blackwater, now called Xe Services, and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges.

Don’t slap their wrist too hard. The Obama administration continues to employ these gangsters.

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A firm affiliated with the former Blackwater security company has been awarded a contract to provide protection to U.S. consulates and diplomats in the Afghan cities of Herat and Mazar-e Sharif, a U.S. State Department official has confirmed.

The official said U.S. Training Center got the contract on Friday. It is part of Xe, the new name of Blackwater Worldwide.

Blackwater became the target of widespread outrage in Iraq after its contractors were involved in the September 2007 shooting at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square that left 17 civilians dead and 24 wounded, straining relations between Iraq and the United States.

The deal is a one-year contract with an option to extend up to 18 months. If the contract is fulfilled for that entire period, it would be more than $120 million.

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois, said on Saturday she was “extremely disappointed” over the deal and that the former Blackwater shouldn’t be receiving more U.S. contracts.

“This is a company whose cowboy-like behavior has not only resulted in civilian deaths; it has also jeopardized our mission and the safety of U.S. troops and diplomatic personnel worldwide. Instead of punishing Blackwater for its extensive history of serious abuses the State Department is rewarding the company with up to $120 million in taxpayer funds,” she said in a statement.

The congresswoman has introduced legislation that would phase out the use of private security contractors.

“Though the name Blackwater has become synonymous with the worst of contractor abuses, the bigger problem is our dangerous reliance on such companies for the business of waging war.”

Sooner or later, the easy rationale for the Obama Administration – things at the departmental level are still being run by Bush leftovers – will have to run out.

Responsibility for stupidity like this will have sit alongside Obama and Hillary at one of their press conferences. Presuming someone from the Washington Press Corps will ask the question.

The Iraqi interior minister has said he expelled 250 former employees of the US security firm Blackwater, whose guards were charged with killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad…

Making the announcement on Thursday, Jawad Bolani, the interior minister, said: “We have sent an order to 250 former Blackwater employees, who today are working with other security companies in Iraq, to leave the country in seven days and we have confiscated their residence permits.

“All of those concerned were notified four days ago and so they have three days to leave. This decision was made in connection with the crime that took place at Nisur Square.”

Bolani was referring to an incident at the busy Baghdad square in September 2007, when five guards employed by Blackwater were accused of killing 14 unarmed Iraqis in a gun and grenade attack, and wounding 18 others.

In another development, the Washington Post newspaper reported on Thursday that a husband and wife who once worked for Blackwater said – in newly unsealed court records – that they had personal knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and charging the government for personal and inappropriate items whose real purpose was hidden.

The paper quoted the couple as saying they witnessed “systematic” fraud on the company’s security contracts with the state department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the homeland security department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Old George W. did us a real service hiring these creeps on a juicy no-bid contract.

Oh, they kept a hooker on the payroll in Afghanistan – part of their Morale Welfare Recreation budget.

The United States plans to appeal a federal judge’s dismissal of charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of killing 17 people in Baghdad in 2007, Vice President Joe Biden announced Saturday.

Speaking at a joint appearance with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Baghdad, Biden said he was “disappointed” with the ruling, and that the Justice Department would file the appeal next week.

“The United States is determined to hold accountable anyone who commits crimes against the Iraqi people,” Biden told reporters.

The September 2007 shootout in Baghdad’s Nusoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and two dozen wounded. The killings led Iraq’s government to slap limits on security contractors hired by Blackwater, now known as Xe, and other firms…

Last month, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina found that…the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Each of the now-former guards — Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten — faced 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and one count of using a firearm in the commission of a violent crime.

One of the critical examples of change offered by the Obama administration over the Cheney-Bush crime syndicate.

The Dems in Congress who hadn’t the backbone to oppose a Republican fiefdom are still there. But, now, at least, there is some leadership to direct their limpid commitment to history’s advance.

Bashir Ahmed Bilour

PESHAWAR: A senior minister from the NWFP Bashir Ahmed Bilour on has confirmed the presence of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, in the NWFP.

Bilour further disclosed that not only do Blackwater officials exist in the NWFP, they have also been imparting training to Pakistanis…

Meanwhile, the Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira also acknowledged the presence of US security agencies in Pakistan after several months of denial.

Earlier on Thursday, US Defense Secretary also admitted during an interview with a private television channel that Blackwater and DynCorp have been operating inside Pakistan.

Government officials in Pakistan end up walking a skinnier tightrope than their peers in Afghanistan or Iraq. Their predecessors relied on populist anti-US and anti-NATO agitprop for so many years that when the other shoe dropped – and sectarian fundamentalists came after them, as well – a little truth-telling of necessary alliances with the West only exacerbates grassroots hatred.

The North Carolina security contractor Blackwater Worldwide has changed its name to Xe, a company memo says. Company President Gary Jackson said in a memo that the company has been reorganizing for several months to “create unique brand identities for its products and services,”

As part of its rebranding, the company is jettisoning the name Blackwater and its red-and-black bear-claw logo.

Blackwater was involved in several controversies over its security work in Iraq on behalf of the U.S. government. There were high-profile investigations into alleged gun smuggling and the shooting of civilians in Baghdad.

Robert Passikoff, president of the New York marketing research firm Brand Keys Inc., said “There’s an old saying about brands: ‘When you can’t change the product, you change the packaging.’”

Sleazy bastards. The right-wing politicians in bed with them could care less about the name. They’ll still roll over and spout greenbacks whenever they’re asked.

Iraq will not renew the licence of US security firm Blackwater, which was involved in an 2007 incident in which at least 14 civilians were killed. An interior ministry spokesman said the US embassy had been told it will have to use another security company.

Five former Blackwater guards have gone on trial in the United States over the killings in Baghdad. They have pleaded not guilty to killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others by gunfire and grenades…

After the incident, the Iraqi government pressed Washington to withdraw Blackwater from the country, but the security firm’s contract was renewed in 2008.

A new US-Iraqi security agreement gives Baghdad the authority to determine which Western security companies operate in the country.

A US embassy official confirmed it had received the Iraqi decision, and said US officials were working with the Iraqi government and its contractors to address the “implications of this decision”.

Heavens to Murgatroyd. The Iraqi government not only wants to make decisions without approval from the Pentagon and U.S. State Department, they think they have the right to disagree with our policies.

What is this? Sovereignty?

Five former Blackwater security guards, indicted in a 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead, will surrender to the FBI on Monday, a source has told CNN…

Two people with knowledge of the case said Friday that a sixth security guard is in plea negotiations.

The exact charges handed up by a federal grand jury this week were not revealed, because the indictment remains under court seal. It could be made public by Justice Department officials Monday.

Charges under consideration included murder and assault.

Muddying the case are assurances of immunity initially given to the guards by State Department Diplomatic Security Agents, who were investigating the incident before the FBI tried to interview them when it took over the investigation…

The State Department renewed Blackwater’s contract this year over strong objections from the Iraqi government.

Crooks – hiring gangsters – to protect flunkys. They all should end up doing hard time.

The Justice Department sent six Blackwater Worldwide security guards target letters as part of a probe into a September shooting incident in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqis.

The Blackwater guards are caught up in the investigation of shootings that took place in September when a Blackwater team arrived in several vehicles at an intersection in Baghdad. Shooting erupted, leaving numerous Iraqis dead and wounded.

Attributing its information to three sources close to the case, the Washington Post said any charges would be brought against the guards under federal law…

Target letters often are a prelude to indictment…

Presidential elections are less than three months away, now. The goon in the White House, the so-called Justice Department, the Republican Party want to look like they’re capable of at least one responsible act in Iraq – beforehand.