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BLACKWATER  /XE

Facts on Blackwater and the private security industry Here are some facts about the company and private security contractors:   WHAT IS BLACKWATER? * Blackwater is one of the biggest security contractors in Iraq. It employs more than 1,000 people there and is responsible for guarding U.S. diplomats and Embassy security. * Its distinctive small black helicopters hover above Baghdad and its armed vehicles shadow convoys of senior officials through the city's streets. * Blackwater USA consists of nine business units, ranging from canine to parachute units, maritime security and the manufacture of custom armoured vehicles. WHERE DOES IT OPERATE?: * As well as Iraq, it operates in Afghanistan and has also had domestic contracts, such as guarding and policing New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. * Based in Moyock, North Carolina, it says it is "the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world." WHO RUNS IT?: * The secretive company was founded in 1997 by former Navy SEALs Erik Prince and Al Clark. * Clark has since left but media-shy CEO Prince -- a right-wing billionaire Christian -- has made substantial donations to Republican politicians. WHO ARE THE SECURITY CONTRACTORS?: * Salaries -- reportedly as high as $1,000 a day -- attract troops and ex-Special Forces personnel from countries such as Bosnia, the Philippines, Israel and Chile. Tens of thousands have streamed in since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. WHAT IS THEIR ROLE IN IRAQ?: * They have duties once performed by armed forces such as airport and border security. Other contractors cook soldiers' meals, do their laundry and drive truck convoys. HOW MANY CONTRACTOR CASUALTIES HAVE THERE BEEN?: * At least 647 contractors were killed between March 1, 2003, and Sept. 30, 2006. WHAT'S THE WIDER TREND?: * The "privatizing war" trend has been accelerating steadily since the end of the Cold War, when the United States and former adversaries began cutting back professional armies. * The contractors' murky status as civilians in war zones has led to concern in the military over how they fit into the chain of command. CRITICS AT HOME AND ABROAD: * Critics say hired security are paid mercenaries. Many Iraqis believe they operate outside the law with little accountability either to the Iraqi government or U.S. military. Sources: Reuters,

Monsanto Now Owns Blackwater (Xe)   A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater’s Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State “security services,” that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.

April 21th 2013

Exclusive: Court Docs Reveal Blackwater’s Secret CIA Past     It was the U.S. military’s most notorious security contractor—but it may also have been a virtual extension of the CIA. But the most noteworthy thing about the largely failed prosecution wasn’t the outcome. It was the tens of thousands of pages of documents—some declassified—that the litigation left in its wake. These documents illuminate Blackwater’s defense strategy—and it’s a fascinating one: to defeat the charges it was facing, Blackwater built a case not only that it worked with the CIA—which was already widely known—but that it was in many ways an extension of the agency itself.

Marsh 17th 2013

Ex-Blackwater to teach US spies survival skills       The Pentagon has awarded Academi, the security company previously known as Blackwater, part of a $20 billion five year contract to train military intelligence agents. It comes despite the firm earlier being fined by a US court for illegal arms trade. The US Defense Intelligence Agency announced on Thursday that it would hire six private security companies, including Academi, for the contract. The contractors are to train agents “before they leave on overseas deployments, to provide them with a foundation of hard and soft skills relevant to living and working in hostile and austere environments,” the document says

September 24 th 2012

Blackwater admits to facts behind 17 federal charges   The government security contractor formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide has admitted to the key facts behind 17 federal criminal charges, including illegal exports and unauthorized possession of automatic weapons, as part of an effort to end a long-running investigation into the firm's conduct. Blackwater, now known as Academi LLC, agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine on top of a $42 million settlement it reached earlier regarding civil arms export violations. "Today’s proceedings conclude a lengthy and complex investigation into a company which has provided valuable services to the United States Government, but which, at times, and in many ways, failed to comply with important laws and regulations concerning how we as a country interact with our international allies and adversaries,” U.S. Attorney Thomas Walker said in a statement. “Compliance with these laws is critical to the proper conduct of our defense efforts and to international diplomatic relations. This prosecution is an important step to ensuring that our corporate citizens comply with these rules in every circumstance.”

August 9th 2012

Blackwater illegally paid millions in taxpayer money   For half a decade, American taxpayers unknowingly spent millions of dollars every year to fund private security agency Blackwater’s so-called “democracy building” missions in Iraq. A new report completed by the US State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General shines light on a travesty involving the massive misuse of public funds.

July 17th 2012

It was a CIA Operation: Ex-Blackwater Executives Finger CIA in Weapons Trial   Five ex-Blackwater executives, facing federal firearms charges in connection with a gift of weaponry to a Middle Eastern monarch, have come up with a new explanation for how it occurred: It was a CIA operation. In court papers filed last month in Raleigh, the defendants say the gift of five guns to King Abdullah II of Jordan during a royal visit to Blackwater’s Moyock, N.C., headquarters in March 2005 was requested, directed and authorized by the Central Intelligence Agency. Attorneys for the five have filed declarations from two retired CIA officials, including a former Jordan station chief, who say they are familiar with the circumstances of the king’s visit and would be willing to testify about it. The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

July 17th 2012

War Under Table: Ex-Blackwater mercs in Syria 'backed by US'

January 14th 2012

Setting the Record Straight: Did Monsanto Really Buy Blackwater (Xe)?   There has been a great deal of publicity over the potential purchase of Blackwater (now known as Academi, and Xe before that) by mega corporation Monsanto. While the two seem to be a great match, as they both fail to consider the morality and consequence of their actions, it seems that Monsanto is only involved with Blackwater in infiltrating activist groups who are opposed to the biotech giant — an operation quite sinister enough. The truth of the matter is that Academi (Blackwater) was purchased by private investors, and the heavily sourced article written by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation actually says nothing about Monsanto buying Blackwater

January 14th 2012

2nd ex-Blackwater contractor gets 30 months for manslaughter   A second former Blackwater contractor was sentenced to prison for involuntary manslaughter Monday in the 2009 shooting death of a civilian in Afghanistan. Justin Cannon of Corpus Christi, Texas, was sentenced to 30 months by U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar. A Virginia Beach man, Christopher Drotleff, received a 37-month sentence earlier this month for his actions in the same incident. The two were charged with murder and convicted of the lesser charge in March after an earlier trial ended in a hung jury. They are the first contractors for the Moyock, N.C.-based security company now known as Xe Services to get prison time for killing a civilian in a war zone. Rejecting defense attorneys' plea for a lesser punishment, Doumar said the sentence was meant to send a message - especially to Xe. "They have a responsibility to hire individuals who they feel are capable of following orders and not going off on some tear," he said.

June 30th 2011

Ex-Blackwater/Xe workers file $60M class action lawsuit   Xe Services, the security and training company formerly known as Blackwater, faces a $60 million class-action lawsuit for allegedly depriving its workers of employee benefits to which they are entitled. The lawsuit was filed this week in federal court in Washington on behalf of more than 3,000 people who have done security work for the company in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since 2001. It alleges that the Moyock, N.C.-based company improperly classified the workers as independent contractors rather than employees and failed to pay Social Security taxes, contribute to state unemployment funds or provide health, disability or pension plans. "Billions of dollars are lost each year to the federal treasury as well as to individuals due to misclassification of employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying lawful taxes, withholding, and plan benefits," the lawsuit says.

June 13th 2011

Real-Life Mercenaries to Star in Blackwater, the Videogame

June 8th 2011

Former Blackwater officials form corporate spying group   The people that operated Blackwater and the military's pre-9/11 data mining operation Able Danger have a new project: corporate spying services for Fortune 500 companies. Their new company is called Jellyfish Intelligence. "Our organization is not going to be controversial," Jellyfish CEO and former Blackwater senior executive Keith Mahoney insisted. The Jellyfish mission is "to protect human lives and their business interests throughout the world," the firm's website claims. "Operation Jellyfish is an innovative, private sector initiative designed by a team of former military and intelligence operatives, chief executives and corporate strategists offering private intelligence services to CEOs and senior executives of multinational corporations," the group claimed. A marketing document promises Jellyfish has "figures inside key circles... including within the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, clerical circles in Iran, and tribal leaderships on the Pakistani side of the [Afghanistan-Pakistan] border region." "The Able Danger days, that’s like 1,000 years ago," Chief Technology Officer J.D. Smith said.

May 15th 2011

A new Blackwater in Libya? The UK government has floated the idea of employing private security firms in Libya to help bolster revolutionary forces fighting the regime of Muammar Qaddafi. Defense experts and military officials raised the idea after high-ranking NATO officials including Secretary General Andres Fogh Rasmussen admitted that “there is no military solution to the conflict in Libya,” and that the crisis should be settled through politics. Western powers, including the US, Britain and France, which spearheaded attempts at the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya as part of resolution 1973, had from the beginning sought to topple the Qaddafi regime, but their calculations proved wrong after the forces inside the country they are supporting, failed to consolidate their grip on the positions they had captured from pro-Qaddafi troops. Furthermore, the financial costs of the west's interference in Libya have put much more burden on the countries involved whose economies are already melting down as a result of the global downturn. The British government, as one of the masterminds behind the Libya invasion, is floating raw proposals in its attempt to get rid of the quagmire it has created for itself. The idea of private security contractors is already so much unpopular that it might ignite another barrage of strong criticism at the No 10 Downing Street in London. Private security firms' international image was severely tarnished when it was revealed the US security contractor Blackwater Worldwide committed serious crimes and abuses in Iraq, including killing civilians

April 13th 2011

Afghanistan lets Blackwater stay despite shakeup of security contractors   Blackwater looks set to survive an Afghan government clampdown on mercenaries after Hamid Karzai was forced by his western partners to abandon a complete disbandment of private security companies. Under plans to be announced by the Afghan government this month many security contractors, whom Karzai regards as being little better than militias, will be allowed to continue operating for another year. As part of a complex new transition strategy the government is giving them until 21 March 2012 before most security for development projects is taken over by the Afghan Public Protection Force. The APPF is a government security service intended to assume control over the country's hugely lucrative commercial security industry, which employs around 30,000 guards.

March 9th 2011

US govt appeals to reopen Blackwater case   WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US appeals court met behind closed doors Tuesday as the government appealed a judge's decision to clear five former guards with security company Blackwater of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007. The three appeals court judges agreed to a request from all sides for the hearing into the controversial case to be closed to the public. A ruling is not expected for three months. Charges against the Blackwater employees were dismissed last year, when a judge ruled US prosecutors violated the guards' rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department probe.

February 9th 2011

Excessive force claim is denied by security firm Blackwater's president   THE former president of the security firm Blackwater has denied in sworn testimony that the company's contractors regularly used excessive force in Iraq or that officials falsified travel documents. Gary Jackson said in a deposition for a civil lawsuit in December that he believes both claims were false. Two former Blackwater employees, Brad and Melan Davis, have accused the company's workers of using extreme force and improperly invoicing for travel costs. Blackwater has since changed its name to Xe Jackson declined to answer several questions during the deposition, exercising his constitutional right not to incriminate himself. Jackson's lawyers advised him to refuse to answer when questions came close to the scope of a criminal case against him.

February 1th 2011

'US embassy official Blackwater agent'   Pakistani media say the US embassy official charged with the murder of two Pakistani citizens is an agent for the notorious security firm, Blackwater. The US official identified by police as Raymond Davis shot dead two men riding on a motorcycle in Lahore on Thursday in what he claimed was self-defense during an attempted robbery. A third Pakistani was run over and killed in the incident after being hit by a US consulate vehicle rushing to the scene to the American's aid. The US embassy in Islamabad has confirmed the man involved was a consular official and says it is carrying out an investigation. Trying to avoid an anti-American reaction, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Thursday that Washington will fully cooperate with Pakistani authorities and will explain about the incident to the Pakistani people.

January 29th 2011

Blackwater’s Prince building mercenary force with apartheid-era ‘hit squad’ officer   The northeast African country of Somalia has been one of the world's most notorious failed states for more than two decades. Its current government has been pushed out of most of the country's territory and now controls a fraction of the capital city, and high-seas piracy off the country's coast has been the scourge of shipping companies for years. But for Erik Prince, founder of the notorious security contractor formerly known as Blackwater, that's not a reason to flee the country -- it's a financial opportunity. According to news reports published Thursday, Prince has partnered with an African-based security company, Saracen International, to win security contracts from the Somali government that would see the mercenaries fight the on-land part of the war against Somali high-seas pirates, and would also go after al-Shabab, the Islamist militant group that has the Somali government cornered in parts of Mogadishu, the capital

January 22th 2011

Karzai: Blackwater behind terrorism   Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said US private security firms, including Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater, are being behind terrorism in the country.At a press conference in Kabul, Karzai said that US security companies have been behind explosions that have claimed the lives of women and children. The Afghan president added that they have caused "blasts and terrorism" in different parts of Afghanistan over the past months. The Afghan president said his administration cannot even distinguish between the bomb blasts carried out by US security firms and those of the Taliban militants. "In fact we don't yet know how many of these blasts are by Taliban and how many are carried out by them (US security companies)."Blackwater has been involved in the murder of several Afghan citizens over the past years. The company has also been struggling with a trail of legal cases and civil lawsuits, including one for killing 17 Iraqi civilians during a Baghdad shootout in 2007.

October 27h 2010

Erik Prince Blackwater & XE Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy   Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he’s been playing in America’s war on terror.

October 25h 2010

US Justice Department abandons murder case against Blackwater contractor   The US Justice Department said Monday it would not seek charges against Andrew J. Moonen. The Blackwater Worldwide military contractor had been accused of killing a guard assigned to an Iraqi vice president on December 24, 2006. The government’s abandonment of the case against Moonen is the latest instance in which security guards working with Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, have been allowed to walk free after committing brutal crimes against the Iraqi and Afghan population. Other prosecutions of Blackwater personnel have been blocked due to immunity deals struck with the accused. Moonen, 30, a former army paratrooper, was the primary suspect in the Christmas Eve 2006 killing of Raheem Saadoun, a 32-year-old father of two and one of the body guards of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi.

October 24h 2010

Machines of War: Blackwater, Monsanto, and Bill Gates A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater's Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State "security services," that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.

October 17th 2010

Exclusive: Blackwater Wins Piece of $10 Billion Mercenary Deal   Never mind the dead civilians. Forget about the stolen guns. Get over themurder arrests, the fraud allegations, and the accusations of guards pumping themselves up with steroids and cocaine. Through a “joint venture,” the notorious private-security firm Blackwater has won a piece of a five-year State Department contract worth up to $10 billion, Danger Room has learned. Apparently, there is no misdeed so big that it can keep guns-for-hire from working for the government. And this is despite a 2008 campaign pledge from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ban the company from federal contracts. Eight private security firms have won State’s giant Worldwide Protective Services contract, the big Foggy Bottom partnership to keep embassies and their inhabitants safe. Two of those firms are longtime State contract holders DynCorp and Triple Canopy. The others are newcomers to the big security contract: EOD Technology, SOC, Aegis Defense Services, Global Strategies Group, Torres International Services and International Development Solutions LLC. Don’t see any of Blackwater’s myriad business names on there? That’s apparently by design. Blackwater and the State Department tried their best to obscure their renewed relationship. As Danger Room reported Wednesday, Blackwater did not appear on the vendors’ list for Worldwide Protective Services. And the State Department confirms that the company, renamed Xe Services, didn’t actually submit its own independent bid. Instead, they used a blandly named cut-out, “International Development Solutions,” to retain a toehold into State’s lucrative security business. No one who looks at the official announcement of the contract award would have any idea that firm is connected to Blackwater

October 4th 2010

Walt Disney, Monsanto discovered among Blackwater’s hidden clients   Almost three years ago exactly -- Sept. 17, 2007 -- a cadre of guards from the security firm then known as Blackwater shot and killed 17 Iraqis at a public plaza in Baghdad. The company, long in the public eye, has been known for brutal tactics and as a mercenary for the US State Department in countries where the US has boots on the ground. What hasn't been known, however, is that the same company was handling intelligence ops for publicly-traded US companies. Atop the list is Monsanto, the biotech giant, who The Nation's Jeremy Scahill revealed Wednesday accepted a proposal through a Blackwater subsidiary which "offer[ed] to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm." Monsanto doesn't stand alone. Through a network of 30 subsidiaries and shell corporations, Blackwater-linked entities provided "intelligence, training and security services" to a cache of major multinational firms, including: Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents Scahill obtained.

September 29th 2010

Rampant drug use, random gunfire at Blackwater’s Baghdad parties: claim Blackwater founder threatened to 'come after' lawyer pursuing allegations: claim Blackwater employees in Baghdad held wild parties featuring large amounts of cocaine and hash, where armed personnel would sometimes fire randomly at nearby buildings housing Iraqi civilians, says a former contractor for the security company. Howard Lowry, a Texas businessman who worked in Iraq from 2003 to 2009, made the allegations in testimony he gave in a whistleblower trial aimed at Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater. "I feel that numerous families of individuals of Blackwater employees that have been killed on the job are not getting the true story," Lowry said in the deposition, which was obtained by The Nation's Jeremy Scahill. Scahill reports that Lowry alleges he bought at least 100 AK47 machine guns for Blackwater guards on Baghdad's black market, as well as large quantities of steroids

September 24th 2010

Blackwater used alias to win contracts   The company which gained notoriety for killing unarmed civilians in Iraq, now uses shell affiliates to seize government businesses, The New York Times reported on Friday. According to the paper, at least three of these fake subsidiaries have won deals with the US Army and the CIA. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has urged the Justice Department to investigate whether Blackwater has misled the government when using dummy offshoots to obtain government contracts, according to the Times. Levin's committee has come to realize that Blackwater has done everything to win lucrative government contracts despite criminal charges and criticism rooted in the 2007 bloody incident in Iraq.

September 6th 2010

Blackwater created shell companies   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The security company Blackwater Worldwide formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government business after the company faced strong criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, The New York Times reported. The newspaper said Friday that it was unclear how many of the created companies got American contracts but that at least three of them obtained work with the U.S. military and the CIA. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has asked the Justice Department to see whether Blackwater misled the government when using the subsidiaries to gain government contracts, according to the Times. It said Levin's committee found that North Carolina-based Blackwater, which now is known as Xe Services, went to great lengths to find ways to get lucrative government work despite criminal charges and criticism stemming from a 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. A committee chart outlines the web of Blackwater subsidiaries. Messages left late Friday with spokespeople for the Michigan Democrat and Xe were not immediately answered.

September 5th 2010

Obama Administration Keeping Blackwater Armed and Dangerous in Afghanistan

June 22th, 2010

DAILY MAIL: BLACKWATER, US MILITARY WORKING FOR TALIBAN DRUG LORDS     Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been briefed by the Pakistani Military High Command that they are being overwhelmed by highly trained and extremely well armed militants in the border regions and terrorists operating across the country. We have been told by the highest sources that Blackwater/Xe and other US based mercenary groups have been actively attacking police, military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan as part of operations under employment of the Government of India and their allies in Afghanistan, the drug lords, whose followers make up the key components of the Afghan army

June 22th, 2010

Secret Erik Prince ( Blackwater )Tape Exposed   Erik Prince, the reclusive owner of the Blackwater empire, rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban journalists from attending and forbids recording or videotaping of his remarks. On May 5, that is exactly what Prince is trying to do when he speaks at DeVos Fieldhouse as the keynote speaker for the "Tulip Time Festival" in his hometown of Holland, Michigan. He told the event's organizers no news reporting could be done on his speech and they consented to the ban. Journalists and media associations in Michigan are protesting this attempt to bar reporting on his remarks. Despite Prince's attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater. The people of the United States have a right to media coverage of events featuring the owner of a company that generates 90% of its revenue from the United States government

June 22th, 2010

Blackwater: Knights of Malta in Iraq    Blackwater is more than just a “private army”, much more than just another capitalist war-profiteering business operation. It is an army operating outside all laws, outside and above the US Constitutionand yet is controlled by people within and outside our government whose allegiance is primarily to the foreign Vatican state. In other words, Blackwater is a religious army serving the Pope in Rome through the Order of Malta, which is itself considered under international law, as a sovereign entity with special diplomatic powers and privileges. Like Blackwater, the Order of Malta is “untouchable” because it is at the heart of the elite aristocracy. The Knights of Malta is not merely a “charitable organization”. That’s just an elaborate front, as should become clear to you later. As the name Sovereign Military Order of Malta confirms, it is a military order based on the crusader Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem and is interwoven with Freemasonry. Most people have never even heard of SMOM, much less that it is a part of Freemasonry. But that is the way the aristocratic elite like it.

June 22th, 2010

BlackWater coming to a disaster near you.

June 22th, 2010

Blackwater Guards Immune Under Law, Pentagon Says   The U.S. Defense Department concluded in 2007 that Blackwater Worldwide contractors can’t be prosecuted under federal law for a shooting incident in Iraq that left 17 civilians dead. In a letter to North Carolina Representative David Price, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said contractors are subject to prosecution under federal law for alleged misconduct committed overseas only when they are working for the Pentagon or supporting its mission. Blackwater was working for the State Department when the September 2007 incident took place in Baghdad. The company was “not engaged in employment that was in support of the DoD mission,” England said in a letter to Price on Dec. 14, 2007.

June 22th, 2010

Blackwater back in action

June 22th, 2010