Posts Tagged ‘Xe’
Thugs “formerly known as Blackwater” paying $42 million fine
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.
Blackwater is back and working for Obama in Afghanistan
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.
Iraq expels 250 ex-Blackwater staff – fraud exposed stateside!
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.
Blackwater operatives training Pakistanis – Oops!
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.
A mercenary thug by any other name…
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.
