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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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June 16th,
2009 - Audit Finds That U.S. Overpaid Blackwater |
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Audit Finds That U.S.
Overpaid Blackwater By Yochi J. Dreazen Wall Street Journal June 16, 2009 Washington - A government
audit found that the State Department overpaid the contract-security firm
once known as Blackwater Worldwide by tens of millions of dollars because the
company failed to properly staff its teams in Iraq. The report didn't identify
any specific security breaches, but it said the State Department should have
withheld at least $55 million in payments to the company because of the
shortfalls. The audit by the Special
Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and the State Department's
Inspector General said the firm didn't employ enough guards, medics, marksmen
and dog handlers to fully man the teams, which were responsible for
protecting the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and other high-level officials. The failure to consistently
field the right numbers of guards endangered the U.S. officials whom the
company was being paid to protect, the report concluded. "We believe the full
manning of protective details is important to the safety of the principal
being protected, as well as to the members of the protective details,"
the audit noted. "Insufficient manning exposed the department to
unnecessary risk." The audit also found that
Blackwater, which this year changed its name to Xe, sometimes overcharged for
airfare to and from Iraq and failed to properly account for some equipment
received from the U.S. government. Anne Tyrell, a company
spokeswoman, said it had been "fully compliant with the terms and
conditions of the contract." Ms. Tyrrell said the company believed it
was entitled to all of the disputed $55 million. Officials in the State
Department's Diplomatic Security office, which oversaw the contract, referred
questions to the department's Bureau of Administration, which declined to
comment. The audit is the latest
report to raise questions about Blackwater, which was for years the best
known Western contractor in Iraq. Under the new name, Xe, the company is
seeking new contracts worth tens of millions of dollars in Afghanistan for
services ranging from training Afghan personnel to flying cargo for the U.S.
military. Blackwater wound down its
Iraq operations earlier this year, after the Iraqi government refused to
renew its operating license because of a 2007 shooting incident involving one
of its security teams in which 17 Iraqis died. In December, U.S. prosecutors
charged five former Blackwater guards with manslaughter and weapons charges
for their alleged roles in the incident. Families of several of the dead
Iraqis have also sued Blackwater in federal court seeking financial
compensation. The company also faces civil
and criminal scrutiny stemming from the alleged killing of an Iraqi guard by
a Blackwater employee inside Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone on
Christmas Eve 2006. In Afghanistan, four U.S.
contractors affiliated with Xe are under U.S. military investigation in the
shooting of a civilian vehicle in Kabul last month, wounding at least two
Afghan civilians. The company has said it is
cooperating with the investigations into all three incidents but denied
responsibility. When the five former guards were indicted in December, the
company said it didn't believe "criminal violations occurred" but
that the men should be held accountable for any wrongdoing. The company fired
the guard involved in the Christmas Eve shooting, fined him thousands of
dollars and sent him back to the U.S. Last month, the company said
it terminated the contracts of all four of the guards involved in the Kabul
shooting. External link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124511068419617063.html |