From the category archives:

Blackwater

Policing Afghanistan

March 23, 2010

At TomDispatch, Pratap Chatterjee writes:
The Pentagon faces a tough choice: Should it award a new contract to Xe (formerly Blackwater), a company made infamous when its employees killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007, or to DynCorp, a company made infamous in Bosnia in 1999 when some of its employees were caught trafficking young girls [...]

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Marjah: Success for the military, hell for the residents

February 27, 2010

At GlobalPost, Jean MacKenzie and Mohammad Ilyas Dayee write:
The dusty squares of Marjah are empty; there is no life, the soul of the place seems to have disappeared. Those residents who are left cower in their homes, afraid of bullets or mines if they venture out, even for food.
“It is a small picture of Doomsday,” [...]

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Iraq orders former Blackwater security guards out

February 12, 2010

The Associated Press reported:
Iraq has ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations, the interior minister said Wednesday.
The order comes in the wake of a U.S. judge’s dismissal of criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were accused in [...]

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What would Erik Prince advise?

February 8, 2010

The New York Times reports:
An Iraqi militant group said it had abducted an American contractor, a day after the United States military reported that a contractor had been missing since Jan. 23. It would be the first reported kidnapping of an American in a year in Iraq.
The militant group posted a video to back up [...]

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Biden says U.S. will appeal Blackwater case dismissal

January 24, 2010

Biden says U.S. will appeal Blackwater case dismissal
By Anthony Shadid, New York Times, January 24, 2010
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. promised Iraqi leaders on Saturday that the United States would appeal the dismissal of manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security contractors involved in a deadly shooting here that has inflamed anti-American tensions.
Mr. Biden, [...]

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Iraqis say they were forced to take Blackwater settlement

January 11, 2010

Iraqis say they were forced to take Blackwater settlement
By Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2010
Several victims of a 2007 shooting involving American private security guards employed by the firm formerly known as Blackwater alleged Sunday that they were coerced into reaching settlements, and they demanded that the Iraqi government intervene to have the [...]

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Blackwater and the Khost bombing: Is the CIA deceiving Congress (yet again)?

January 7, 2010

Blackwater and the Khost bombing: Is the CIA deceiving Congress (yet again)?
By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, January 6, 2010
A leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has told The Nation that she will launch an investigation into why two Blackwater contractors were among the dead in the December 30 suicide bombing at [...]

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CIA reportedly ordered Blackwater to murder 9/11 suspect

January 5, 2010

CIA reportedly ordered Blackwater to murder 9/11 suspect
By Diana Sweet, Raw Story, January 5, 2010
In 2004, the CIA sent a team from the private security firm Blackwater, now Xe, to Hamburg to kill an alleged al Qaeda financier who was investigated for years by German authorities on suspicion of links to al Qaeda, according to [...]

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Iraqis express dismay over Blackwater ruling

January 2, 2010

Iraqis express dismay over Blackwater ruling
By Raheem Salman and Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2010
Cars breezed by the trimmed green hedges and flowers of Baghdad’s Nisoor Square on Friday, while pedestrians strolled past billboards of smiling men and women promoting national elections. Little trace was left of the September 2007 day when Blackwater [...]

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Blackwater guards tied to secret CIA raids

December 11, 2009

Blackwater guards tied to secret CIA raids
By James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, December 11, 2009
Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to [...]

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Erik Prince: tycoon, contractor, soldier, spy

December 4, 2009

Erik Prince: tycoon, contractor, soldier, spy
By Adam Ciralsky, Vanity Fair, January, 2010
“I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions,” says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under [...]

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Blackwater’s secret war in Pakistan

November 24, 2009

Blackwater’s secret war in Pakistan
By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, November 23, 2009
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 [...]

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Fine and inquiry possible for Blackwater successor

November 19, 2009

Fine and inquiry possible for Blackwater successor
By Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, New York Times, November 19, 2009
The international security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide is facing large government fines for unlicensed arms shipments to Iraq, as a key Congressional committee is asking for a separate investigation into whether the company bribed Iraqi officials.
In talks [...]

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