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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 30th,
2009 - Blackwater Tapped Foreigners on Secret CIA Program |
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Blackwater Tapped
Foreigners on Secret CIA Program By Adam Goldman & Pamela Hess Associated Press August 30, 2009 Washington - When the CIA
revived a plan to kill or capture terrorists in 2004, the agency turned to
the well-connected security company then known as Blackwater USA. With Blackwater's lucrative
government security work and contacts arrayed in hot spots around the world,
company officials offered the services of foreigners supposedly skilled at
tracking terrorists in lawless regions and countries where the CIA had no
working relationships with the government. Blackwater told the CIA that
it "could put people on the ground to provide the surveillance and
support - all of the things you need to conduct an operation," a former
senior CIA official familiar with the secret program told The Associated
Press. But the CIA's use of the
private contractor as part of its now-abandoned plan to dispatch death squads
skirted concerns now re-emerging with recent disclosures about Blackwater's
role. The former senior CIA
official said he had doubts during his tenure about whether Blackwater's
foreign recruits had mastered the necessary skills to pull off such a
high-stakes operation. Blackwater's later hiring of several senior CIA
officials who were involved in or aware of the secret program, including one
of the men who ran the operation, showed the blurred lines of using a private
contractor for such a highly classified and dangerous project. While Blackwater won the
government's confidence by handling security and training operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan, the 2004 decision by CIA officials to entrust the North
Carolina-based company with such a sensitive overseas operation struck some
former agency officials as highly unusual. "The question remains:
Why do we need Blackwater?" said Charles Faddis, a former department
chief at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center who retired in 2008 and was not
involved in the secret program. "I remain mystified. This is
quintessential CIA work. You wonder what it means that the CIA has to rely on
Blackwater? Why are we still funding the CIA?" The former senior CIA
official who had knowledge of the program explained that "you wouldn't
want to have American fingerprints on it." The former official and
several other current and former officials spoke on the condition of
anonymity because the information remains classified. Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke
did not respond to questions seeking comment. Blackwater altered its
corporate name to Xe Services after a series of use-of-force controversies,
including a September 2007 shooting in Baghdad by five company security
guards that left 17 civilians dead. The former senior CIA
official said that close to a dozen Blackwater "surrogates" were
recruited to join the death squad program. The recruits, the former official
said, were not told they were working for the CIA. The official did not know
how Blackwater found them. The program reportedly cost
millions of dollars over an eight-year span. A precise figure is not
available because of the agency's classified budget. The operation had several
lives under four successive CIA directors: George Tenet started the program
during the Bush administration, but canceled it, another former CIA official
said, because there were too many risks involved. The operation was revived
under Tenet's successor, Porter Goss, who ran the agency from 2004 to 2006.
Michael Hayden, who served from 2006 to 2009, downgraded the program to
intelligence-gathering only. Leon Panetta, the current director, killed the
operation in June. The former senior CIA
official said that after the death squad project was revived under Goss in
2004, there were serious questions about whether Blackwater's operatives had
demonstrated the ability to conduct clandestine surveillance and maintain
fictitious identities with credible-appearing faked documents. Their need to provide
rock-solid cover stories was essential, the former official said, adding that
they had to have a "damn good reason to be there." A spokesman for Goss
declined comment. The former senior CIA
official said that during his tenure it was unlikely that the Blackwater
recruits would have been involved directly in the mechanics of the killings.
Instead, they were learning how to spy on targets and operate discreetly. The trainees never got a
chance to prove themselves. They were never provided a target and no
operation was ever approved. CIA spokesman George Little said the program
yielded no successes. The CIA started planning for
its death squad project shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The
agency wanted the ability to target terrorists at close range, providing an
alternative to air strikes that ran the risk of accidentally killing
civilians. Another former senior
intelligence official said the use of Blackwater was not the only plan
considered to kill or capture terrorists. Blackwater long has had a
close and intertwined relationship with the CIA. Several senior agency
leaders have taken up positions with the company. Among them were J. Cofer
Black, once the head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, who would have had
operational involvement with the secret plan in the early 2000s. Others
included Robert Richer, a former deputy director for operations, and Alvin B.
Krongard, a former CIA executive director. Another Blackwater hire was
Enrique "Ric" Prado, a former operations chief at the
Counterterrorism Center. Prado ran the death squad program when it was
started up under Tenet, three former intelligence officials said. According to one former
official, Jose A. Rodriquez Jr., who ran the CIA's clandestine service and
was instrumental in reviving the program, reached out to Prado, then working
at Blackwater. The two men had previously worked together in Latin America
and then at the Counterterrorism Center, the former officials said. After joining Blackwater,
according to The New York Times, Prado was involved in the 2004 negotiations
between Blackwater officials and the CIA over its involvement in the death
squad operation. According to the Times report, Prado, who at one point was
Blackwater's vice president of special programs, worked with Erik Prince,
Blackwater's founder, to sign agreements with the CIA to participate in the
program. Prado did not return
messages left at his home or with his business partner, Joseph E. Fluet. The
pair recently formed The Constellation Consulting Group, an international
intelligence and security firm based in northern Virginia. At the time that Blackwater
began working with the CIA on the death squad operation in 2004, the CIA had in
place a long-standing policy mandating that senior officials leaving the
agency could not go to work for private firms for a year after their
departure. In 2007, Hayden toughened requirements for the entire agency,
mandating an 18-month hold on security clearances for all departing employees
who leave prior to retirement. Scott Amey, general counsel
for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group in Washington, said
"the revolving door is a very accepted practice" between government
and private industry, but added that "to be able to bring people in from
the CIA, there is a possibility that it gives you a competitive advantage in
receiving awards from that agency." When Panetta terminated the
CIA's death squad program in June, he informed congressional intelligence
committees about its existence in an emergency briefing. The House Intelligence
Committee is investigating whether the CIA broke the law by not quickly informing
Congress about the secret program. Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jUYIQzuMD55oCy3UG7v6wITLOBewD9ADAC700 |