Documentation of the killings civilians by the U.S. mercenary firm "Blackwater" in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/DOD/iraq_II/blackwater.htm en Sun, 26 Dec 2010 16:13:55 +0100 contact@expose-the-war-profiteers.org Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:16:15 +0100 4 5 6 7 8 administrator@expose-the-war-profiteers.org FeedForAll v2.0 (2.0.1.5) http://www.feedforall.com
"[...] Prepared Statement By Senator Carl Levin

"President Obama has said that a primary objective of our effort in Afghanistan is to strengthen Afghanistan’s government and security forces so that they can take the lead in securing their nation. The President has ordered the deployment of approximately 30,000 additional U.S. troops to help achieve our goals in Afghanistan.

"While most attention has understandably been focused on those 30,000 troops, attention also needs to be paid to the thousands of contractor personnel who are operating in Afghanistan. From training Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to guarding our forward operating bases, contractor personnel are performing missioncritical tasks. According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), in the last quarter of fiscal year 2009 alone, the number of Department of Defense (DOD) contractor personnel increased by 30,000, bringing the total number in Afghanistan to more than 100,000.

"While we distinguish between American servicemembers and contractor personnel, Afghan civilians often do not. As John Nagl and Richard Fontaine of the Center for New American Security put it: ‘local populations draw little or no distinction between American troops and the contractors employed by them; an act committed by one can have the same effect on local or national opinion as an act carried out by the other.’

"In the fight against the Taliban, the perception of Afghans is crucial. As General Stanley McChrystal said in August of last year ‘the Afghan people will decide who wins this fight, and we ... are in a struggle for their support.’ If we are going to win that struggle, we need to know that our contractor personnel are adequately screened, supervised, and held accountable - because in the end the Afghan people will hold us responsible for their actions.

"Most contractor personnel act responsibly and within the rules to help us execute the mission, often at great risk to their own safety. Today’s hearing, however, will explore contract activities which fell far short of our requirements.

"In the fall of 2008, a company called Paravant entered into a subcontract with Raytheon Technical Services Company to perform weapons training for the Afghan National Army (ANA). The statement of work governing Paravant’s performance was developed by the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) and contracted out by the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office Simulation Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) to Raytheon.

"Paravant was created in 2008 by Erik Prince Investments (the company which is now named Xe). I’m going to use the names ‘‘Blackwater’’ and ‘‘Paravant’’ interchangeably. I do that for clarity as there is no meaningful distinction between the two. At the time Paravant was awarded its one and only subcontract, it had no employees.

"In Afghanistan, the company operated under Blackwater’s license and shared a bank account with Blackwater. Former Paravant Vice President Brian McCracken reported to Blackwater personnel. According to Mr. McCracken, Raytheon paid Blackwater for services rendered by Paravant and Paravant relied on Blackwater for its billing. Paravant and Blackwater were ‘one and the same,’ according to Mr. McCracken, and he added, Paravant was only created to avoid the ‘baggage’ associated with the Blackwater name.

"It has been widely reported that on May 5, 2009, Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff, two men working for Paravant in Afghanistan, fired their weapons, killing two Afghan civilians and injuring a third. In reviewing the Army’s investigation of the incident, then-CSTC-A Commanding General Richard Formica said that it appeared that the contractor personnel involved had ‘violated alcohol consumption policies, were not authorized to possess weapons, violated use of force rules, and violated movement control policies’. According to the Department of Justice prosecutors, the May 5, 2009 shooting ‘caused diplomatic difficulties for U.S. State Department representatives in Afghanistan’ and impacted ‘the national security interests of the United States.’ According to one media report, the shooting ‘turned an entire neighborhood against the U.S. presence’ and quoted a local elder as saying, ‘if they keep killing civilians, I’m sure some Afghans will decide to become insurgents.’

"On January 6, 2010, Mr. Cannon and Mr. Drotleff were indicted on firearm and homicide charges for their involvement in the May 5th shooting. Responsibility for litigating those charges is with the Department of Justice. Today’s hearing will focus on Blackwater-Paravant’s conduct and operations in Afghanistan. As acknowledged by a Blackwater senior executive after the May 5th shooting, an environment was created at Paravant which had ‘no regard for policies, rules, or adherence to regulations in country’.

"Our investigation dug into the events that occurred before the May 5th shooting. We will hear how that environment developed and also discuss failures in U.S. Government oversight that allowed it to persist. In particular, we will hear about Blackwater personnel’s reckless use of weapons, its disregard for the rules governing the acquisition of weapons in Afghanistan, and failures in the company’s vetting process that resulted in those weapons being placed in the hands of people who never should have possessed them. [...]"]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/government/2010/20100224.pdf http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/government/2010/20100224.pdf Sun, 26 Dec 2010 16:09:42 +0100 From Agence France Presse
December 17, 2010

New York - Private US security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater International, has been bought by a group of investors, they announced on Friday.

New York-based USTC Holdings said it will acquire Xe and its core operating subsidiaries, but did not disclose the price or terms of the agreement in a statement.

USTC Holdings is an investor consortium led by private equity firms Forte Capital Advisors and Manhattan Partners.

Xe's current owner Eric Prince, will sell his entire stake in the company and "will not be involved in the management or operation of the company," USTC Holdings said.

"The company going forward will be managed by a board appointed by the equity owners which will include independent, unaffiliated directors."

The New York Times reported Friday the sale came after the State Department threatened to stop awarding contracts to the company as long as it was owned by Prince, a former Navy SEAL.

The company, once the best known security contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, has come under pressure since Blackwater guards were accused of killing 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

Prince put the company up for sale in June and moved his family to Abu Dhabi.

The Times said people involved in the negotiations said the sale was worth 200 million dollars, but Prince will receive payments into the future depending on the company's financial performance.

A lead investor is Jason De Yonker of Forte Capital Advisors, who helped Prince develop a business plan after he founded the company in 1997, and negotiated its first training contracts.

Copyright © 2010 AFP.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/35h5plr]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-5/20101217.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-5/20101217.htm Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:16:15 +0100 By Tom Breen
Associated Press
December 16, 2010

Raleigh, N.C. - The security firm formerly known as Blackwater told a federal judge Thursday that the U.S. government - and not the company - should be held accountable for a 2007 shooting by its contractors that killed 17 Iraqis.

The Moyock, N.C.-based company and several of its contractors are seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of three people killed in the shooting - Ali Kinani, Abrahem Abed Al Mafraje and Mahde Sahab Naser Shamake. It accuses the parties of wrongful death and negligence, and seeks punitive damages.

Lawyers for the company, now known as Xe Services, argued in court that Blackwater contractors were essentially acting as employees of the U.S. government because they were providing security to State Department personnel.

Unlike duties performed by other contractors, the sensitive nature of providing security in a war zone required the kind of oversight the government normally reserves for its own employees, attorney Andrew Pincus argued.

"This isn't food service, where we can sort of leave it to the chefs," he said.

Lawyers for both the plaintiffs and the government disputed that, and said the practical effect of transferring the focus of the lawsuit to the federal government would be its dismissal. The federal government is exempt from such lawsuits.

Judge Terrence W. Boyle didn't immediately rule on the motions in the case, but said the most important issue seems to be whether the government is ultimately responsible for the actions of its contractors.

"If the government can cut the cord and let that drift off into space, that's one world," he said. "But it's a different world if the government has to be held accountable."

In separate motions, lawyers for Blackwater and the contractors argued they can't be sued by foreigners for something that happened in a foreign country governed by foreign law. They also argue that Iraqi law prohibits such lawsuits.

The contractors contend insurgents ambushed them in a traffic circle before they opened fire, but prosecutors say the men unleashed an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

The five contractors were initially charged with manslaughter for their role in the 2007 Nisoor Square shooting, which strained relations between Baghdad and Washington. A year ago, a federal judge dismissed those charges, citing missteps by the government.

A sixth contractor, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty in the criminal case. He filed a separate defense in the civil lawsuit, arguing that the federal court in North Carolina has no jurisdiction to hear the case.

Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services in March, saying its brand had been tarnished by its work in Iraq. The company settled a separate series of federal lawsuits earlier this year connected to the Nisoor Square shooting and others in Iraq.

The company is now looking for new ownership.

Associated Press Writer Mike Baker contributed to this report.

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/16/AR2010121606064.html
________________________________________________________________________________________

Blackwater Founder in Deal to Sell Company

By Andrew Ross Sorkin & Ben Protess
New York Times
December 16, 2010

Erik D. Prince, the founder of the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, has reached a deal to sell his embattled firm to a small group of investors based in Los Angeles who have close ties to Mr. Prince, according to people briefed on the deal.

Blackwater, now called Xe Services, was once the United States’ go-to contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been under intense pressure since 2007, when Blackwater guards were accused of killing 17 civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad. The company, its executives and personnel have faced civil lawsuits, criminal charges and Congressional investigations surrounding accusations of murder and bribery. In April, federal prosecutors announced weapons charges against five former senior Blackwater executives, including its former president.

The sale, which is expected to be announced on Friday, came after the State Department threatened to stop awarding contracts to the company as long as Mr. Prince owned the firm, people involved in the discussions said. These people requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the confidential talks. The sale is intended to help shake the stigma associated with its ownership under Mr. Prince.

Yet questions remain about Mr. Prince’s continuing relationship with the company. While he is expected to step down from any management or operational role, he will have a financial interest in the company’s future, according to people briefed on the negotiations. As part of the deal, he will be paid an “earn out,” or a payment that depends on the company’s financial performance over the next several years, these people said.

One of the lead investors in the deal is Jason DeYonker of Forté Capital Advisors, who has a long relationship with Mr. Prince and Blackwater. He helped advise Mr. Prince in his development of Blackwater’s business plan when the company was founded and helped negotiate the company’s first training contracts with United States government agencies and the company’s expansion of its training center in Moyock, N.C. In addition, he managed the Prince family’s money from 1998 to 2002. The other lead investor is Manhattan Growth Partners, a private equity firm in New York.

Exact terms of the deal could not be learned, but people involved in the talks said the transaction was worth about $200 million. Bank of America led the financing of the transaction, these people said.

Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seal who created Blackwater in 1997, put his company up for sale in June and moved his family to Abu Dhabi, court records show. Mr. Prince, who built Blackwater using an inheritance from his family’s Michigan auto parts fortune, stepped aside as Xe’s chief executive in 2009 but has remained chairman until now. Mr. Prince sold the company’s aviation division, Presidential Airways, to the AAR Corporation in March.

The auction for Xe Services has dragged on for months as speculation has swirled about the company’s future and the auction process. Some bidders speculated that Mr. Prince had always favored selling the company to the investor group led by Mr. DeYonker.

The new buyers are hoping to recast the company as a military training organization instead of a private security service. The company’s training center in Moyock has trained more than 50,000 United States government personnel and allied forces. The buyers hope to receive new contracts to train forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, among other locations, especially as the United States withdraws troops and needs to train local forces.

After the sale, the company will continue to be subject to an agreement it reached with the State Department in August. Under the settlement, the company paid $42 million in fines over hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations, permitting it to continue to compete for government contracts.

Wendy Wysong, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance, was appointed as a special compliance officer for Xe Services as a result of the settlement.

James Risen contributed reporting.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

External link: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/blackwater-founder-in-deal-to-sell-company/]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-5/20101216.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-5/20101216.htm Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:13:43 +0100 From United Press International
October 22, 2010

Aby Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - U.S. security magnate Erik Prince, embattled for his role as head of the notorious Blackwater security contracting outfit that made a fortune in Iraq, is setting up shop in the United Arab Emirates.

Blackwater has been the subject of half a dozen U.S. lawsuits and prosecutions, many stemming from the activities of its personnel in Iraq. Several are linked to a September 2007 shooting central Baghdad's Nissour Square in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.

In April, five of the company's executives were hit with 15-count indictments on weapons and conspiracy charges.

No criminal charges have been made against Prince himself but he faces civil lawsuits brought by Iraqi victims killed or wounded by Blackwater personnel in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Blackwater's alleged links with the CIA and other U.S. government agencies could prove a challenge to any move to prosecute him. But if any do surface, the 51-year-old former U.S. Navy SEAL can fall back on the lack of any extradition agreement between the Emirates and the United States.

As Blackwater, which continues to be a significant player in U.S. operations in Afghanistan, became engulfed in scandal after scandal, Prince renamed it Xe Services. After selling off Blackwater's aviation division, Presidential Airways, early this year, he put the company, which he formed in 1997, up for sale in June.

No buyer has yet emerged. But Intelligence Online, a Paris Web site that specializes in the global security industry, reports that the logistics group Parsons Global Services and the investment fund DC Capital Partners have shown interest in Xe Service's assets.

Those assets include the 7,000-acre compound it operates at its headquarters in Moyock, N.C., with extensive training grounds.

Prince left the United States in August. Colleagues told The New York Times he had become bitter about the intense scrutiny of Blackwater over its activities in Iraq following the March 2003 U.S. invasion and the negative publicity this engendered.

"He needs a break from America," an unidentified colleague told the newspaper.

Prince has set up in Abu Dhabi, the Emirates' main source of oil. Prince will find plenty of well-established competition there.

Abu Dhabi and nearby Dubai, a major financial center in the region, have become hubs for security contractors because of the Iraq war at the northern end of the Persian Gulf.

With U.S. military forces withdrawing from Iraq, private military contractors have filled the manpower gap and are likely to go on doing so for some considerable time.

With only 50,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq, and the pullout scheduled for completion in late 2011, the U.S. State Department is expected to expand its force of security personnel to guard the massive new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and other facilities from some 2,700 to as many as 7,000.

The security companies operating in the United Arab Emirates are also linked to the growing use of private military companies in Afghanistan, where according to a recent U.S. congressional study, more contractors are being killed than regular troops.

The study estimated there are more than 16,000 mercenaries, mostly hired by the U.S. Defense Department, currently in Afghanistan.

Intelligence Online reports that Prince "is busy working on the establishment in the Emirates of a security group capable of mounting and handling large security projects in the gulf states that would integrate both surveillance technology and protection by armed guards."

He was reported to be seeking to forge partnerships with security firms already operating in the region, many of them working with oil companies.

Intelligence Online said several firms in the Emirates have adopted the same model. Among them is Britain's Olive, which is based in Dubai's free zone and handles large-scale security projects around the gulf.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/339oyhu]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-4/20101022.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-4/20101022.htm Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:11:59 +0100 By James Risen
New York Times
October 20, 2010

Washington - Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against Blackwater Worldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by a legal obstacle of the government’s own making.

In the most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department on Monday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J. Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to an Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006. Justice officials said that they were abandoning the case after an investigation that began in early 2007, and included trips to Baghdad by federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents to interview Iraqi witnesses.

The government’s decision to drop the Moonen case follows a series of failures by prosecutors around the country in cases aimed at former personnel of Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services. In September, a Virginia jury was unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of two former Blackwater guards accused of killing two Afghan civilians. Late last year, charges were dismissed against five former Blackwater guards who had been indicted on manslaughter and related weapons charges in a September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square in Baghdad, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.

Interviews with lawyers involved in the cases, outside legal experts and a review of some records show that federal prosecutors have failed to overcome a series of legal hurdles, including the difficulties of obtaining evidence in war zones, of gaining proper jurisdiction for prosecutions in American civilian courts, and of overcoming immunity deals given to defendants by American officials on the scene.

"The battlefield," said Charles Rose, a professor at Stetson University College of Law in Florida, "is not a place that lends itself to the preservation of evidence."

The difficulty of these cases also illustrates the tricky legal questions raised by the government’s increasing use of private contractors in war zones.

Such problems clearly plagued the Moonen case. In the immediate aftermath of the Christmas Eve shooting, Mr. Moonen was interviewed, not by the F.B.I., but by an official with the Regional Security Office of the United States Embassy in Baghdad, the State Department unit that supervised Blackwater security guards in Iraq.

Mr. Moonen’s lawyer, Stewart Riley, said that his client gave the embassy officials a statement only after he was issued a so-called Garrity warning - a threat that he might lose his job if he did not talk, but that he would be granted immunity from prosecution for anything he said.

The legal warning and protection given to Mr. Moonen were similar to warnings that embassy officials later gave to Blackwater guards involved in the Nisour Square case. In each case, the agreements presented an obstacle to prosecution in the United States. In effect, the Blackwater personnel were given a form of immunity from prosecution by the people they were working for and helping to protect.

"Once you immunize statements, it is really hard to prosecute," said Andrew Leipold, a law professor at the University of Illinois. "In the field, the people providing the immunity may value finding out what happened more than they do any possibility of prosecution. But that just makes any future prosecution really very hard."

Justice Department officials declined to comment Wednesday about specific Blackwater cases. But the department has appealed the dismissal of the Nisour Square case, and a new trial has been scheduled for next March in the Virginia murder case after a mistrial was declared. And Justice officials noted that the government had had a number of successful prosecutions against contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, including several for sexual assaults and other violent crimes. More than 120 companies have been charged by the Justice Department for contract fraud and related crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, officials said.

Still, a Justice official who spoke on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that the government had faced tough obstacles. "There are substantial difficulties in prosecuting cases committed in war zones," the official said. "There’s problems with the availability of witnesses, availability of evidence, and the quality of the evidence. You also have claims of self-defense, which are generally difficult, although not insurmountable."

And self-defense is a more compelling argument in war zones, where many people are routinely armed.

One problem in the Moonen case, for example, was that while Mr. Moonen admitted in his statement to the embassy official that he did shoot the Iraqi guard, he asserted that he had done so in self-defense. The guards in the Virginia case also said that they shot in self-defense when they believed they were facing an attack from insurgents. In the Nisour Square case, the five Blackwater guards who were charged also claimed that they shot only after they believed they were under attack.

Jurisdictional problems also plague the Blackwater cases. Since the Blackwater guards were working under a contract with the State Department, they did not fall under the laws that govern contractors working for the Defense Department overseas. Contractors for the Defense Department are subject to criminal prosecution under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, but it has never been clear whether the law can be applied to contractors for the State Department, like Blackwater. Those contractors generally have greater protections because of the possibility that they might be engaged in fighting.

Until last year, foreign contractors also had immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law, so the Blackwater guards were operating in a legal vacuum, noted Eric Jensen, a law professor at Fordham University. "I would be concerned as a prosecutor that even if you got past the immunization, and the problems with witnesses and evidence, that you may not even have a law that supports the prosecution of a Department of State contractor," Mr. Jensen said. "Congress has tried to address this, but it’s still a live question."

Mr. Riley cited these reasons in a letter he wrote in April 2009 to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. about the case and also noted that he believed the government had considered indicting Mr. Moonen to placate the Iraqi government. In a letter sent to Mr. Riley on Monday, notifying him that they were dropping the case, prosecutors also indicated that they would have difficulty proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt, particularly in overcoming Mr. Moonen’s claims that he shot in self-defense.

Meanwhile, the government said that the United States ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, had to notify the Iraqi government of the decision, and also provided government officials a letter to be given to the family of the shooting victim, Raheem Saadoun. This year, Mr. Saadoun’s family dropped a civil lawsuit against Mr. Moonen and Blackwater after receiving a financial settlement.

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/21contractors.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-4/20101020.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-4/20101020.htm Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:33:01 +0100 By James Risen & Mark Mazzetti
New York Times
September 3, 2010

Washington - Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released a chart that identified 31 affiliates of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. The network was disclosed as part of a committee’s investigation into government contracting. The investigation revealed the lengths to which Blackwater went to continue winning contracts after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007. That episode and other reports of abuses led to criminal and Congressional investigations, and cost the company its lucrative security contract with the State Department in Iraq.

The network of companies - which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens - allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities, said former Blackwater officials, who, like the government officials, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that it was worth "looking into why Blackwater would need to create the dozens of other names" and said he had requested that the Justice Department investigate whether Blackwater officers misled the government when using subsidiaries to solicit contracts.

The C.I.A.’s continuing relationship with the company, which recently was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security at agency bases in Afghanistan, has drawn harsh criticism from some members of Congress, who argue that the company’s tarnished record should preclude it from such work. At least two of the Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the agency, according to interviews with a half dozen former Blackwater officials.

A C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said that Xe’s current duties for the agency were to provide security for agency operatives. Contractors "do the tasks we ask them to do in strict accord with the law; they are supervised by C.I.A. staff officers; and they are held to the highest standards of conduct" he said. "As for Xe specifically, they help provide security in tough environments, an assignment at which their people have shown both skill and courage."

Congress began to investigate the affiliated companies last year, after the shooting deaths of two Afghans by Blackwater security personnel working for a subsidiary named Paravant, which had obtained Pentagon contracts in Afghanistan. In a Senate hearing earlier this year, Army officials said that when they awarded the contract to Paravant for training of the Afghan Army, they had no idea that the business was part of Blackwater.

While Congressional investigators have identified other Blackwater-linked businesses, it was not the focus of their inquiry to determine how much money from government contracts flowed through the web of corporations, especially money earmarked for clandestine programs. The former company officials say that Greystone did extensive work for the intelligence community, though they did not describe the nature of the activities. The firm was incorporated in Barbados for tax purposes, but had executives who worked at Blackwater’s headquarters in North Carolina.

The former company officials say that Erik Prince, the business’s founder, was eager to find ways to continue to handle secret work after the 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisour Square and set up a special office to handle classified work at his farm in Middleburg, Va.

Enrique Prado, a former top C.I.A. official who joined the contractor, worked closely with Mr. Prince to develop Blackwater’s clandestine abilities, according to several former officials. In an internal e-mail obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Prado claimed that he had created a Blackwater spy network that could be hired by the American government.

"We have a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations," Mr. Prado wrote in the October 2007 message, in which he asked another Blackwater official whether the Drug Enforcement Administration might be interested in using the spy network. "These are all foreign nationals," he added, "so deniability is built in and should be a big plus."

It is not clear whether Mr. Prado’s secret spy service ever conducted any operations for the government. From 2004 to 2006, both Mr. Prado and Mr. Prince were involved in a C.I.A. program to hunt senior leaders of Al Qaeda that had been outsourced to Blackwater, though current and former American officials said that the assassination program did not carry out any operations. Company employees also loaded bombs and missiles onto Predator drones in Pakistan, work that was terminated last year by the C.I.A.

Both Mr. Prince and Mr. Prado declined to be interviewed for this article.

The company is facing a string of legal problems, including the indictment in April of five former Blackwater officials on weapons and obstruction charges, and civil suits stemming from the 2007 shootings in Iraq.

The business is up for sale by Mr. Prince, who colleagues say is embittered by the public criticism and scrutiny that Blackwater has faced. He has not been implicated in the criminal charges against his former subordinates, but he has recently moved his family to Abu Dhabi, where he hopes to focus on obtaining contracts from governments in Africa and the Middle East, according to colleagues and former company officials.

After awarding Blackwater the new security contract in June, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, publicly defended the decision, saying Blackwater had "cleaned up its act."

But Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she could not understand why the intelligence community had been unwilling to cut ties to Blackwater. "I am continually and increasingly mystified by this relationship," she said. "To engage with a company that is such a chronic, repeat offender, it’s reckless."

It is unclear how much of Blackwater’s relationship with the C.I.A. will become public during the criminal proceedings in North Carolina because the Obama administration won a court order limiting the use of classified information. Among other things, company executives are accused of obtaining large numbers of AK-47s and M-4 automatic weapons, but arranging to make it appear as if they had been bought by the sheriff’s department in Camden County, N.C. Such purchases were legal only if made by law enforcement agencies.

But defense lawyers say they hope to argue that Blackwater had a classified contract with the C.I.A. and wanted at least some of the guns for weapons training for agency officers.

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/world/middleeast/04blackwater.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-4/20100903.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-4/20100903.htm Sat, 4 Sep 2010 13:22:04 +0200 By James Risen
New York Times
August 20, 2010

Washington - 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. A company spokeswoman confirmed Friday that a settlement had been reached. The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said he could not immediately comment.

The settlement with the State Department does not resolve other legal troubles still facing Blackwater and its former executives and other personnel. Those include the indictments of five former executives, including Blackwater’s former president, on weapons and obstruction charges; a federal investigation into evidence that Blackwater officials sought to bribe Iraqi government officials; and the arrest of two former Blackwater guards on federal murder charges stemming from the killing of two Afghans last year.

But by paying fines rather than facing criminal charges on the export violations, Blackwater will be able to continue to obtain government contracts. While the company lost its largest federal contract last year to provide diplomatic security for United States Embassy personnel in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government was incensed by killings of Iraqis in one highly publicized case, it still has contracts to provide security for the State Department and the C.I.A. in Afghanistan.

Blackwater, its reputation tainted in part because of the excessive use of force by some of its personnel in Baghdad, sought for years to extend its reach far beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

For a time, the company’s founder, Erik Prince, had ambitions to turn Blackwater into an informal arm of the American foreign policy and national security apparatus, and proposed to the C.I.A. to create a "quick reaction force" that could handle paramilitary operations for the spy agency around the world. He had hopes that Blackwater’s military prowess could be an influential force in regional conflicts around the world.

Mr. Prince, a former Navy Seals member and the heir to an auto parts fortune, took an interest in Africa, particularly Sudan, and he is said to have wanted Blackwater to step in to help the rebels in southern Sudan, which is predominantly Christian and animist, fight the Sudanese government and the Muslim north, despite United States economic sanctions.

Blackwater’s ambitions in Sudan were described in detail by McClatchy newspapers in June.

The settlement with the State Department, involving practices from the days before Blackwater was rebranded as Xe Services, comes as Mr. Prince is trying to shed his ties to Blackwater and its past activities.

He overhauled the company’s management in 2009, changed its name, and has now put the privately held company up for sale. He has just moved with his family to Abu Dhabi from the United States, a move that colleagues say was a result of his deep anger and frustration over the intense scrutiny he and his firm have received in recent years.

The State Department export controls require government approval for the transfer of certain types of military technology or knowledge from the United States to other countries. But Blackwater began to seek training contracts from foreign governments and other foreign organizations without adhering closely to American regulations.

The company also shipped automatic weapons and other military equipment for use by its personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in violation of export controls, and in some cases sought to hide its actions, according to the government. In one incident, Blackwater shipped weapons to Iraq hidden inside containers of dog food.

A federal investigation into the company’s weapons shipments to Iraq led to guilty pleas on criminal charges by two former Blackwater employees who are believed to have cooperated with a broader federal inquiry.

Investigators reportedly looked into whether some of the weapons that were shipped to Iraq were sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. Turkish officials reportedly complained to the United States about American weapons seized from the group.

In 2008, after a federal investigation of Blackwater’s actions was begun, the company admitted "numerous mistakes" in its adherence to export laws and created an outside board of experts to supervise the firm’s compliance.

Current and former government officials say that the government’s inquiry into some of Blackwater’s export control violations began as part of a federal grand jury investigation in North Carolina, where Blackwater is based. But the matter was apparently shifted to the State Department when the criminal investigation in North Carolina narrowed its focus.

That grand jury handed down the indictments of the five former Blackwater executives earlier this year. That indictment includes charges that Blackwater executives sought to hide evidence that they had given weapons as gifts to King Abdullah of Jordan.

Despite the fines and investigations that have plagued Blackwater, the firm has continued to win contracts from the State Department and the C.I.A.

In June, the State Department awarded Blackwater a $120 million contract to provide security at its regional offices in Afghanistan, while the C.I.A. renewed the firm’s $100 million security contract for its station in Kabul. At the time, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, defended the decision, saying that the company had offered the lowest bid and had "cleaned up its act."

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/world/21blackwater.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100820.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100820.htm Sun, 22 Aug 2010 01:28:20 +0200 By Gopal Ratnam
Bloomberg
August 4, 2010

Xe Services LLC, the security company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, brought in BlackArch Partners as an adviser as founder Erik Prince seeks a buyer for the business.

“I can confirm we have been hired as exclusive advisers on the sale process,” Tim Whitmire, a founder of Charlotte, North Carolina-based BlackArch, said today in a telephone interview. He declined to give a possible sale size, deadline or the names of any suitors.

Prince, the ex-Navy commando who formed Blackwater in 1997, said in June that the closely held company was being sold. Blackwater won contracts that included helping protect U.S. officials and embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan, while also drawing criticism in Congress for fatal civilian shootings.

BlackArch executives previously advised Moyock, North Carolina-based Xe on the sale of its aviation services unit to AAR Corp., according to the advisory firm’s website. The sale, valued at $200 million, was concluded in March.

Stacy DeLuke, a spokeswoman for Xe, couldn’t be reached by telephone regarding BlackArch’s hiring and didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail request. The company has declined to comment since disclosing its sale plans on June 7.

Talks With Buyers

Xe was in talks at the time with possible buyers, a person familiar with the matter has said, asking not to be identified because the details are private.

The Xe name was adopted about a year and a half ago, according to the company. In 2008, the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reported that the firm’s employees were linked to 195 shooting incidents dating to 2005. Five ex- workers won dismissal of U.S. weapons and manslaughter charges on Dec. 31 in the 2007 deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

In August 2009, the New York Times reported that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had hired contractors from Blackwater to find and assassinate al-Qaeda operatives. The Times cited current and former government officials it didn’t identify.

Xe said in June it had taken “significant” steps in the previous 15 months to make it more attractive to a buyer, without elaborating. Also in June, it won $120 million in State Department security work in Afghanistan, CBS News reported, and a $100 million contract to protect CIA operations in the country, according to the Washington Post.

AAR Purchase

The Aviation Worldwide Services unit sold to Wood Dale, Illinois-based AAR provided planes and helicopters to the U.S. Defense and State departments to transport people and cargo worldwide.

Whitmire said BlackArch Vice President Gordie Vap advised on that sale while with Edgeview Partners, another Charlotte-based advisory firm. BlackArch principals completed about 200 transactions in industries ranging from aerospace to food and beverage and transportation, according to the company’s website.

Those deals include Transdigm Group Inc.’s 2008 purchase of CEF Industries, which Transdigm said was an $83 million acquisition.

External link: http://tinyurl.com/2u2mb9u]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100804.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100804.htm Sun, 8 Aug 2010 00:18:05 +0200 By Bill Sizemore
The Virginian-Pilot
July 29, 2010

Lax oversight by the State Department appears to have allowed Blackwater to overcharge a nonprofit organization for security services in Iraq, according to a government audit released today.

For five years, the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company, now known as Xe, held a no-bid contract to provide security for the Iraq operations of the International Republican Institute. The company lost the contract last year - along with a much larger contract with the State Department - after the Iraqi government canceled its license to do business in the country.

The International Republican Institute “advances freedom and democracy worldwide by developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, good governance and the rule of law,” according to its website. Although it bills itself as nonpartisan, prominent Republicans occupy many of its leadership positions.

Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, is chairman of the board.

The organization is funded largely by government grants.

Over the three-year period from Oct. 1, 2005, to Sept. 30, 2008, IRI paid Blackwater $50 million - more than one-fifth of its budget - for security services, according to its most recent tax returns.

Since 2004 the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor has awarded IRI eight democracy-building grants totaling $131 million. Auditors for the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction examined the largest of those, for $50 million.

There are no records to indicate that IRI conducted any analysis of the reasonableness of the security costs that Blackwater was charging, the auditors found.

The company lost its operating license last year over allegations of unprovoked killings of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater contractors.

IRI then opened up its security work to competitive bidding and replaced Blackwater with two other companies. The auditors found that those companies provided the same level and type of services for significantly less money.

For example, in January 2008, Blackwater charged $114,470, which included $120.11 per day for 30 Iraqi static security guards.

In February 2010, one of the successor companies, Ardan Energy Services, charged less than one-third of that amount, $33,120, for 34 guards who were paid $27 to $33 per day.

The State Department still uses Xe’s security services. Last month the company won a contract worth more than $120 million to protect U.S. consulates in Afghanistan.

External link: http://hamptonroads.com/2010/07/audit-blackwater-may-have-overcharged-iraq-work?cid=ltst]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100729.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100729.htm Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:09:20 +0200 By Tim McGlone
The Virginian-Pilot
July 10, 2010

Norfolk - A federal judge Friday refused to throw out charges against two former Blackwater security workers accused of killing two Afghan civilians, clearing the way for a September trial.

Lawyers for Christopher Drotleff and Justin Cannon challenged the constitutionality of the indictment against the two men, claiming that the long arm of the U.S. government could not extend to Afghan soil.

U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar quickly dismissed that notion.

"You're asking that he be sent back to Afghanistan" to face charges there? Doumar asked Cannon's lawyer. "Is that what you really want?"

"That's not an option for this court," said Assistant Federal Public Defender Larry Dash, one of Cannon's lawyers.

Drotleff, of Virginia Beach, and Cannon, of Texas, were charged under a 10-year-old act of Congress meant to close loopholes that prevented the government from charging nonmilitary civilians with crimes committed outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Dash argued that the men couldn't be charged because they were off duty and outside the American base where they were stationed.

Doumar disagreed.

"I think the act is constitutional," Doumar said. "You can take it up with the Supreme Court of the United States."

The attorneys said the act has never been challenged before the nation's highest court.

Drotleff and Cannon were employed by Paravant, a subsidiary of Blackwater - now known as Xe - in May 2009. They were based at Camp Alamo in Kabul, training the Afghan National Army on the use of weapons.

The indictment alleges that both men fired at unarmed Afghan civilians following a traffic accident in Kabul, killing two and wounding a third. The trial is set for Sept. 14.

In recent court filings, government prosecutors say Cannon and Drotleff were "drinking heavily" in the early evening hours of May 5, 2009, while attending parties at bases around Kabul.

After returning to their home camp, they were specifically ordered not to leave but jumped in a vehicle anyway, armed with guns, to drive some Afghan interpreters to a taxi stand, the court papers say.

A car they were traveling with was involved in an accident ahead of their vehicle. Two Afghans in another car approached and stopped to offer assistance. Prosecutors said Cannon and Drotleff "became combative" with the two men and opened fire on them as they tried to drive away. One man in the car was killed, as well as a passer-by.

Drotleff and Cannon say they fired in self-defense, fearful that the Afghans were attacking them.

Drotleff's family is trying to drum up support for him through a Facebook page they established. The page, called Support Chris Drotleff, appears to be maintained by his wife and includes a diary of her jail visits with him and letters he wrote.

In one letter, dated June 16, Drotleff says the "truth keeps seeping out" as he gets closer to trial:

"My question is when all this is over and that jury says 'Not Guilty' what do I get back? Do I get back my daughter's infant months? Do I get back my son's 4th birthday? Do I get back all this time lost with my family? Do I get back the financial damage done by this case? Do I get back the 'I love you daddy's' at bedtime?"

External link: http://hamptonroads.com/2010/07/judge-wont-drop-charges-against-exblackwater-contractors]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100710.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-3/20100710.htm Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:57:06 +0200 From Agence France Presse
June 27, 2010

Washington - CIA chief Leon Panetta defended Sunday his agency's 100-million-dollar contract with the controversial and secretive firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide.

News of the contract unleashed a furious response from lawmakers this week outraged by new government deals with the renamed Xe Services despite Blackwater's murky history of killing civilians in Iraq.

The firm was thrown into the spotlight after five of its guards were accused of killing 17 unarmed Iraqis in a gun and grenade attack, and wounding some two dozen others during a September 2007 incident at the busy Nisur Square in Baghdad.

But Panetta said his agency did not have much choice but to turn to Xe among the few companies that provide the needed security services in warzones after it underbid other competitors.

"I have to tell you that in the war zone, we continue to have needs for security. You've got a lot of forward bases. We've got a lot of attacks on some of these bases. We've got to have security," Panetta told ABC television's "This Week."

"Unfortunately, there are a few companies that provide that kind of security. The State Department relies on them, we rely on them to a certain extent."

Two other security contractors, Triple Canopy and DynCorp International, are said to have put in losing bids for the Central Intelligence Agency's business.

Xe "provided a bid that ... underbid everyone else by about 26 million dollars. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice but to accept that contract," Panetta explained.

He said he was reviewing all current CIA bids with Xe.

The CIA inked the deal after the US State Department last week awarded Xe a security services contract worth some 120 million dollars for work in Afghanistan.

Under the contract, Xe will provide "protective security services" at the US consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.

The North Carolina-based firm lost its contract to provide security for US embassy diplomats in Baghdad in May 2009 after Iraqis and others repeatedly accused it of adopting a cowboy mentality.

Earlier this month, Iraq expelled 250 former employees of the security firm.

Copyright © 2010 AFP.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hRbJ0ZMsR6ligIh8eq2PjYDGEEiQ]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-2/20100627.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-2/20100627.htm Sun, 27 Jun 2010 23:55:32 +0200 By Pete Yost
Associated Press
June 16, 2010

Washington - There was more than enough untainted evidence to justify a trial for five Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court.

In court papers seeking to reinstate criminal charges, the department asserted that some of the evidence tainted by immunized statements in the case was harmless and did not justify scuttling the manslaughter charges against the guards.

In December, a federal judge dismissed the case against the security guards, who had opened fire on a crowded Baghdad street. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq.

In the filing released Wednesday by the appeals court, the government said the judge who dismissed the charges lost sight of the key question of whether the defendants' testimony given under a grant of immunity from prosecution was actually used against them.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina "unjustifiably drew the curtain on a meritorious prosecution," Justice Department lawyers wrote.

Urbina ruled on Dec. 31 that the Justice Department mishandled evidence and violated the guards' constitutional rights.

The Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater, now called Xe Services, has said the guards were innocent, contending they were ambushed by insurgents. Prosecutors said the shooting was unprovoked.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iVr2asgiGuQ8gvpPrT7AINv_lBhQD9GCLOGG4]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-2/20100616.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-2/20100616.htm Sun, 27 Jun 2010 23:40:10 +0200 By Mike Baker
News Channel 8
April 21, 2010

Raleigh, N.C. - Federal prosecutors launched a scathing assessment of Blackwater Worldwide's former president Wednesday, declaring in an initial court appearance that he operated the security firm with "sheer arrogance" and a "scofflaw attitude." Gary Jackson and four past colleagues indicted last week appeared Wednesday morning before a judge who allowed them to go free as they await trial. A magistrate judge denied a government request to place a bond on each defendant but ordered them to turn over passports and refrain from possessing firearms.

The first court hearing offered a brief glimpse into the combative nature of a case that pits the federal government against former officials at a company that for years played a crucial role as a government contractor protecting U.S. officials in war zones.

Prosecutors slammed Jackson, arguing that he flouted federal regulations while building the lucrative security enterprise. As an example, assistant US attorney John Bowler said Jackson participated in an effort to falsify federal documents to hide that the company had provided guns as a gift to the king of Jordan.

"It is just another display of sheer arrogance and scofflaw attitude," Bowler said.

Ken Bell, an attorney for Jackson, said federal officials were frequently aware of Blackwater's activities and were on scene when the company provided weapons to Jordanian officials. He dismissed the charges as nothing more than "regulatory offenses."

"At most, certain forms were not filled out," he said.

The charges against Jackson, 52, include a conspiracy to violate firearms laws, false statements, possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered firearm. Also indicted were former Blackwater general counsel Andrew Howell, 44; former executive vice president Bill Mathews, 44; former procurement vice president Ana Bundy, 45; and former weapons manager Ronald Slezak, 65.

Each of the defendants was charged as part of a conspiracy to violate firearms laws. Mathews also was charged with possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered weapon. Howell was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. Slezak was charged with false statements. Bundy was charged with obstruction of justice.

All five, wearing suits, quietly sat together in the first row of a cramped courtroom, talking only when a judge asked them brief questions. Next to them was a group of tattooed defendants who wore T-shirts and handcuffs during their first appearance on drug charges.

Jackson and other top officials at Blackwater left the Moyock-based firm last year during a management shake-up, around the time the company changed its name to Xe Services.

Blackwater has been trying to rehabilitate its image since a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 people, outraged the Iraq (web | news) i government and led to federal charges against several Blackwater guards. The accusations later were thrown out of court after a judge found prosecutors mishandled evidence.

In the current case, prosecutors cited several cases in which they say Blackwater bypassed federal rules. In one, they accused the company of setting up a straw purchase in which the firm acquired machine guns such as AK-47s by using a North Carolina sheriff's letterhead. In another, they said the company converted long-barrel rifles to short-barrel weapons for its contractors and didn't register the guns as federal rules require.

Bell said the automatic weapons were acquired in conjunction with the Camden County Sheriff's Office. He said Blackwater had all the licenses required to manufacture short-barrel weapons, something he said contractors needed to do their government work.

"They were not able to perform these functions - and keep themselves alive - with long-barrel weapons," he said.

The maximum penalty for each charge ranges from five to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

External link: http://www.news8.net/news/stories/0410/728100.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100421.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100421.htm Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:54:03 +0200 By Larry O’Dell
Associated Press
April 19, 2010

Norfolk, Va. - Federal prosecutors said Monday that they will not seek the death penalty against two former Blackwater contractors charged in the shooting deaths of two Afghans.

Christopher Drotleff of Virginia Beach and Justin Cannon of Corpus Christi, Texas, still could face life in prison if convicted of last year's shooting deaths. They are charged with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons counts.

During a brief hearing, prosecutor Randy Stoker told U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar that the attorney general decided against pursuing the death penalty. Stoker did not give a reason for the decision, and he and other prosecutors declined to comment to reporters after the hearing.

"We're delighted," Drotleff's attorney, Lawrence Woodward, said outside the courtroom. "It's still an extremely serious case for the defendants and their families."

Drotleff and Cannon, who are being held without bond, listened impassively as Stoker informed the judge of the government's decision. Members of Drotleff's family also remained expressionless. They declined to speak to reporters afterward.

"It's a step in the right direction," Cannon's attorney, James Broccoletti, said of the attorney general's decision. "The next step would be to drop the case."

The trial is scheduled for Sept. 14, and Doumar told the attorneys he does not want any delays. Woodward said defense attorneys have received most of the evidence they sought from the government, but they are still awaiting results of ballistics tests.

Drotleff and Cannon have said they were justified in opening fire last year on a car that caused an accident in front of their vehicle at a Kabul intersection. They say they fired after the vehicle sped toward them. The men were in the country to train the Afghan National Army.

Prosecutors have said the men had been drinking in violation of military and company policy the day of the shooting.

Drotleff and Cannon were arrested in early January, a day after Xe - the North Carolina-based company formerly known as Blackwater - settled a series of federal lawsuits alleging that illegal activity by the company led to the deaths of dozens of Iraqis. Those killings and other problems in Iraq have led to the U.S. government's push to increase oversight of contractors in war zones.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gO3b8AQwioSxsmv6_PDjYvuE2N8QD9F69RF00]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100419.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100419.htm Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:48:49 +0200
United States of America v. Gary Jackson, William Wheeler Mathews Jr., Andrew Howell, Ronald Slezak & Ana Bundy

Indictment

The Grand Jury charges:

[...] Introduction

1. Defendant Gary Jackson was President of Blackwater Worldwide, Inc., now called Xe Services (Blackwater/Xe).

2. Defendant William Wheeler Mathews, Jr, was an attorney with Blackwater/Xe who also held the title of Executive Vice President.

3. Defendant Andrew Howell was an attorney with Blackwater/Xe who held the title of General Counsel.

4. Defendant Ronald Slezak had been hired by Blackwater/Xe to be responsible for all documentation and matters related to Blackwater/Xe's status as a federally licensed firearms dealer.

5. Defendant Ana Bndy came to hold several administrative positions within Blackwater/Xe's Moyock, North Carolina, operations. These included the position of Vice President of Logistics and Procurement. Her responsibilities at pertinent times included oversight of the armory as well as the packaging and shipping of weapons to overseas locations.

[...] At some date prior to January, 2003, the exact date being unknown to the Grand Jury, and continuing thereafter until on or about November 3D, 2009, in the Eastern District of North Carolina and elsewhere, Gary Jackson, William Wheeler Mathews Jr., Andrew Howell, Ronald Slezak and Ana Bundy, defendants herein, and others both known and unknown, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate and agree to commit offenses against the United States, that is:

a. To knowingly make false statements and representations with respect to information required by Chapter 44 of Title 18, United States Code, to be kept in the records of a federally licensed firearms dealer, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 924(a) (1) (A);

b To knowingly and illegally possess machine guns, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 922(0) (1) i

c. To knowingly receive and possess firearms which were not registered to them in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, in violation of Title 26, United States Code, section 5861(d) i

d. To corruptly persuade another person and to engage in misleading conduct toward another person with intent to alter and conceal an object with the intent to impair the object' s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1512(b) (2) (B);
e.
To knowingly falsify and make a false entry in a record, document, and tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, and influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1519. [...]]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/legal/2010/20100416.pdf http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/legal/2010/20100416.pdf Sun, 18 Apr 2010 01:04:16 +0200 By James Risen & Mark Mazzetti
New York Times
April 16, 2010

Washington - Federal prosecutors charged the former president of Blackwater Worldwide and four other former senior company officials on Friday with weapons violations and making false statements in the first criminal inquiry to reach into the top management ranks of the private security company.

The executives were some of the closest advisers to Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, and helped him steer the company during its swift rise to become the leading contractor providing security for American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan, working for the State Department, the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.

They were also the senior executives in charge during the company’s most turbulent period, after its security guards were involved in a series of shootings, including one in Baghdad in 2007 that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

Mr. Prince, who was not charged, remains at the helm of the company, now known as Xe Services, while many other executives have left as the company has sought to reshape its public image in the face of mounting legal and political scrutiny.

While the indictment is somewhat limited in scope, it could be the government’s opening salvo in a broader offensive to bring criminal charges against the company. They could include charges for bribery and export violations, according to officials familiar with the case, perhaps under a strategy of turning former and current executives of the company against one another.

A federal grand jury in Raleigh, N.C., issued the 15-count indictment against Gary Jackson, Blackwater’s former president; William Matthews, the former executive vice president; Andrew Howell, the former general counsel; Ana Bundy, a former vice president; and Ronald Slezak, a former weapons manager, charging that they conspired to skirt federal weapons laws and then tried to hide their actions.

The charges stem in part from a 2008 raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of Blackwater’s Moyock, N.C., headquarters complex, where agents seized 22 weapons, including 17 AK-47s.

The former officials are charged with trying to hide the company’s purchases of the weapons by making it seem as if they had been bought by a North Carolina sheriff’s office. Blackwater sought to have the sheriff pose as the owner of the weapons because federal firearms law made it illegal for Blackwater to have so many of them, according to the indictment.

Other charges relate to the company’s large inventory of short-barrel rifles, deadly and especially useful in tight spots, which by law must be registered. Federal prosecutors charge that Blackwater shipped the weapons overseas with the barrels detached in an effort to avoid export regulations.

The executives are also charged with trying to hide gifts of expensive weapons to Jordanian officials who were visiting Blackwater at a time when the company was trying to win contracts from Jordan’s government.

Former Blackwater officials say that Mr. Jackson ran the company on a day-to-day basis, along with his top aide, Mr. Matthews, and would be knowledgeable about virtually all of the company’s actions.

Reached by telephone, Mr. Jackson declined to comment. His lawyer, Kenneth Bell, did not return a call seeking comment. Mr. Bell told The Associated Press that the charges against Mr. Jackson were false.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Xe Services, said that the company had been cooperating. "The company is aware of the charges against former executives," he said in a written statement. "As we’ve stated before, the company has fully cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation. Given the pending criminal charges, the company will not comment further."

The charges against the top former officials follow lengthy federal investigations of lower-level Blackwater personnel. Five former Blackwater guards were charged with manslaughter in the September 2007 shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad, but those charges were dismissed last December.

Two guards who worked for a Blackwater subsidiary in Afghanistan were arrested in January on murder charges in connection with a shooting in Kabul last May. Other shootings have also been the subject of lengthy federal investigations, including one in 2006 in which a Blackwater guard killed an Iraqi guard.

But prosecutors have recently begun to focus on the company’s management as well. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether Blackwater officials bribed Iraqi officials so the company could continue to operate in Iraq after the 2007 shooting.

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/world/17XE.html
____________________________________________________________

Feds indict former Blackwater president, 4 others

By Mike Baker
Associated Press
April 16, 2010

Raleigh, N.C. - The former president of Blackwater Worldwide was charged Friday with using straw purchases to stockpile automatic weapons at the security firm and filing false documents to cover up gifts given to the king of Jordan.

Gary Jackson, 52, who left the company last year in a management shake-up, was charged along with four of his former colleagues, according to the federal indictment.

The prosecution opens a new front of the government's oversight of the sullied security company. Several of the company's contractors have previously been charged with federal crimes for their actions in war zones, but the company's executives have thus far weathered a range of investigations.

Blackwater has been trying to rehabilitate its image since a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 17 people dead, outraged the Iraqi government and led to a federal charges against several Blackwater guards - accusations later thrown out of court after a judge found prosecutors mishandled evidence. Around the time that Jackson left the company, Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services.

The charges against Jackson include a conspiracy to violate firearms laws, false statements, possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered firearm. Also indicted were former Blackwater general counsel Andrew Howell, 44; former executive vice president Bill Mathews, 44; former procurement vice president Ana Bundy, 45; and former weapons manager Ronald Slezak, 65.

The case stems in part from a raid conducted by federal agents at the company's headquarters in Moyock in 2008 that seized 22 weapons, including 17 AK-47s.

Blackwater officials enticed the local sheriff's office to pose as the purchaser of 34 automatic weapons that would be stored on the company's campus, something prosecutors called a straw purchase, according to the indictment. The Camden County Sheriff's Office provided blank letterhead to the company, which then used the stationery to prepare letters ordering weapons.

Federal law prohibits licensed firearms dealers such as Blackwater from having more than two of the same style of machine gun. Law enforcement agencies can have fully automatic weapons.

Prosecutors also said company officials, hoping to land a lucrative overseas contract, presented the king of Jordan with five guns as gifts - then realized that they were unable to account for where the weapons went. To cover it up, they falsified four federal documents "to give the appearance that the weapons had been purchased by them as individuals," according to the indictment.

The U.S. attorney's office in Raleigh said the indictment should not suggest any wrongdoing on the part of Jordan or any of its officials. The office said it was grateful for the assistance the nation has provided for the investigation.

Prosecutors also focused on Blackwater's supply of short-barrel rifles, which dealers must register. The company purchased 227 short barrels and installed them on long rifles without registering them, and officials shipped the weapons with the barrels detached so that they could be reassembled overseas without facing the charge of exporting regulated weapons, according to the indictment.

Kenneth Bell, an attorney for Jackson, said the former executive was a true American hero. Jackson spent two decades in the military as a Navy SEAL.

"These charges are false," Bell said. "He will defend himself, as he defended this country, in what he calls the greatest justice system in the world."

Each of the defendants was charged as part of a conspiracy to violate firearms laws. Mathews also was charged with possession of a machine gun and possession of an unregistered weapon. Howell was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice. Slezak was charged with false statements. Bundy was charged with obstruction of justice.

The maximum penalty for each charge ranges from 5-10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

James Sweeney, an attorney for Mathews, said his client was shocked and disappointed by the indictment, which he called "a persecution born of political purpose." Pat Woodward, an attorney for Slezak, said he looks forward to his client's vindication.

Howell's attorney, Randy Turk, said he doesn't believe the government has done its homework.

"Mr. Howell has broken no laws, and I'm confident that when all the dust settles, he will be cleared of any wrongdoing," Turk said.

Xe spokesman Mark Corallo said the company has fully cooperated with the federal investigation. He declined further comment. Jordanian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

One of the 2005 agreements viewed later by the AP says the weapons were to be kept under "lock and key" and doesn't describe whether Blackwater would use the guns. Camden County Sheriff Tony Perry said at the time that his department only used the AK-47s in shooting practice at Blackwater and that none of his 19 deputies were qualified to use them.

Blackwater has said federal authorities knew about the weapons for years and that investigators got a complete look at the company's cache in 2005 after two employees were fired.

In a 2008 interview with the AP, Jackson and other Blackwater executives said the company provided the local Camden County sheriff's office a place to store weapons, calling the gesture a "professional courtesy."

"We gave them a big safe so that they can store their own guns," Jackson said at the time. Added then-executive vice president Bill Mathews: "We give stuff to police departments all over the country, and we take particularly good care of our home police departments."

Company officials, including both Jackson and Howell, downplayed the raid during the interview. Jackson said some of the 16 uniformed officers who came to serve the warrant were embarrassed by the event and said agents had to stop at Blackwater's front gate to get passes to come onto the company's sprawling campus in northeastern North Carolina.

"As a hypothetical, one would think that, if you were going on a raid, you'd take your Kevlar and your weapon," Howell said to laughter from other executives.

Associated Press Writers Emery Dalesio in Raleigh, Matt Apuzzo in Washington and Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5bT6zBuFB23rj9mMRTJbqC0xHYgD9F4F8MO0]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100416-1.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100416-1.htm Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:19:47 +0200 By Devlin Barrett & Mike Baker
Associated Press
March 23, 2010

Washington - Federal prosecutors are considering weapons charges against former executives at Blackwater Worldwide over allegations the private security company illegally stockpiled automatic rifles at its North Carolina headquarters, The Associated Press has learned.

Senior Justice Department officials are reviewing a draft indictment against former president Gary Jackson, former Blackwater general counsel Andrew Howell, and a third man who used to work at the firm's armory, people close to the case told the AP. A decision is not expected until at least next month.

Blackwater has repeatedly been under federal scrutiny - from the FBI to Congress to agencies that have hired the firm. While some of the company's guards have faced charges for their actions overseas, Blackwater's executives have managed to weather a range of investigations.

Any indictment would be unwelcome news at a business trying to rehabilitate its image since a 2007 shooting involving Blackwater guards in Baghdad left 17 people dead. Under a new name, Xe, the company is trying to win Defense Department approval to train police in Afghanistan. The contract could be worth up to $1 billion but has drawn the ire of some in Congress.

The potential charges stem from a raid conducted by federal agents in 2008 that seized 22 weapons, among them 17 AK-47s.

Multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the case said investigators are trying to determine if Blackwater obtained the official letterhead of a local sheriff to create a false justification for buying the guns. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Federal law prohibits private parties from buying fully automatic weapons registered after 1986, but does let law enforcement agencies have them.

Xe spokesman Mark Corallo said the company has "fully cooperated with this investigation and we will have no further comment."

Jackson, who left Blackwater along with other executives during a management shake-up last year, said during a brief phone conversation Monday that he wouldn't be able to talk about federal charges and didn't know anything about any that might be looming.

"I haven't heard a single, solitary word," Jackson said before ending the phone call. Attempts to reach Howell for comment Monday were not successful.

In a 2008 interview with the AP, Jackson and other Blackwater executives said the company provided the local Camden County sheriff's office a place to store weapons, calling the gesture a "professional courtesy."

"We gave them a big safe so that they can store their own guns," Jackson said at the time.

Company officials, including both Jackson and Howell, downplayed the raid during the interview. Jackson said some of the 16 uniformed officers who came to serve the warrant were embarrassed by the event and said agents had to stop at Blackwater's front gate to get passes to come onto the company's sprawling campus in northeastern North Carolina.

"As a hypothetical, one would think that, if you were going on a raid, you'd take your Kevlar and your weapon," Howell said to laughter from other executives.

Blackwater, headquartered in Moyock, N.C., changed its name to Xe Services after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago. Those charges were later thrown out of court after a judge found prosecutors mishandled evidence.

In the 2008 North Carolina raid, agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched the armory and seized 22 guns from a vault dedicated to county authorities.

The company signed agreements in 2005 in which Blackwater financed the purchase of 34 automatic weapons for the Camden County sheriff's office. Sheriff Tony Perry became the official owner of the weapons, but Blackwater was allowed to keep most of the guns at its armory.

One of the 2005 agreements viewed later by the AP says the weapons will be kept under "lock and key" and doesn't describe whether Blackwater would use the guns.

At the time of the raid, Blackwater said federal authorities knew about the weapons for years and said investigators got a complete look at the company's cache in 2005 after two employees were fired.

The company also said it was not unusual to store automatic weapons because the company is licensed to sell, provide training on or even manufacture firearms.

The 2005 agreements give the sheriff's office unlimited access to the weapons, including 17 Romanian AK-47s. Perry said at the time that his department only used the AK-47s in shooting practice at Blackwater and that none of his 19 deputies were qualified to use them.

Baker reported from Raleigh, N.C. Associated Press Writer Matt Apuzzo in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5bT6zBuFB23rj9mMRTJbqC0xHYgD9EKEJCO0]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100323-1.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100323-1.htm Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:02:46 +0100 By Walter Pincus
Washington Post
March 9, 2010

"The American people have a right to be outraged that we're playing this kind of game with contracting. It's wrong. It's flat wrong."

With those words, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) voiced her exasperation near the end of a three-hour Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about a contract to train Afghan National Army troops last year to use American weapons. One issue at the Feb. 24. hearing was that the $25 million contract, awarded in September 2008, was to a company called Paravant - well known to those involved as a cover name for Blackwater (now Xe Services).

Another issue was that while the U.S. Army was paying for it, the contract was awarded to Paravant (Blackwater) by a Raytheon subsidiary called Raytheon Technical Services Co. RTSC holds a multibillion-dollar War Fighter Focus contract, primarily to train U.S. troops, but in this case the Army decided to use the company, through a separate task order under the War Fighter Focus contract, to hire Paravant.

Why didn't the Army contract directly with Paravant? That was not explored at the hearing. But the use of a cover name, Paravant, to bid on a contract when the attached qualifications were essentially those of Blackwater has been referred to the Justice Department by the committee's chairman, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

Another major issue examined at the hearing was the lack of oversight of the Paravant contract by Raytheon and the Army. The military unit responsible for overseeing this odd contracting was the Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, referred to as PEO-STRI. It is located in Orlando, and its primary job is to supervise billion-dollar training and simulator contracts - though it was eight months before one of its contract officers arrived in Afghanistan to monitor the training.

It is not that the contract did not need oversight from the start. At the hearing, Levin said that the 72 trainers (six teams of 12) hired by the Paravant manager in Afghanistan, Brian C. McCracken, included a person whose record during his Army service apparently included "assault, insubordinate conduct [and] absence without leave" and who, after discharge, had a criminal record that included assault and battery, driving while intoxicated, resisting arrest and trespassing.

Another trainer who was hired had been "discharged from the U.S. military after he was absent without leave for 22 days and tested positive for cocaine," according to Levin, and a third "was fired from Blackwater's security contract in Iraq for an alcohol-fueled incident that ended in a fight between him and another contractor." Levin added that "he had been on Blackwater's own internal 'Do Not Use' (DNU) list since September 2006."

As the hearing revealed, the first two were eventually fired after allegedly getting drunk, using a Paravant sport-utility vehicle to go off base, shooting and killing two Afghans and wounding another. (They are in custody awaiting trial in the April 2009 incident.) The third of the contractors Levin mentioned was also fired after he was, as Levin put it, "thrown off the contract by the U.S. Army" after attempting to pull rank on an Army lieutenant.

In early 2009, Raytheon decided it needed to have a person on the scene for oversight of the contract, and it chose McCracken, a former Blackwater manager who did the original hiring. According to Levin, amid the military's concerns in late April 2009 about whether the trainers "were performing up to U.S. Army standards," the Army's chief of training and education for Afghan soldiers said that "McCracken, who had recently moved from Paravant to Raytheon, would be responsible for monitoring Paravant and would be coordinating oversight of the contracts."

The hearing exposed yet another contracting issue: Raytheon wrote to Paravant in June 2009, saying it intended to end the contract based in part on the alleged involvement of the trainers in the killings. Paravant responded that its trainers were independent contractors and that it was not responsible for their actions when they were not working as trainers.

McCaskill zeroed in on this, saying that, if the United States is putting these trainers on the battlefield and they are seen as part of the U.S. military mission, there needs to be "a clear line of responsibility for what they do." She told Fred Roitz, Blackwater's former vice president for contracts, who now holds the same position at Xe: "If you are going to get the contracts and make the money, you have to take responsibility for what they do."

McCaskill also questioned James T. Blake, head of Army contracting for PEO-STRI, about the fees paid Raytheon. She said that Raytheon botched its oversight of the contract but that there were no penalties. "Should there be penalties for this kind of failure of oversight?" McCaskill asked. Blake replied that it would be looked into because it "was not in the contract" and that "this issue wasn't envisioned."

Referring to contractors and soldiers in Afghanistan, McCaskill said: "You know, we've got two kinds of organizations that are performing the same functions. One responds to money, and the other responds to duty. And if we're going to hold these guys accountable, we better get busy with making sure it hurts when they ... fail to do things like this."

The columnist's son, Andrew J. Pincus, is a partner in the law firm Mayer Brown LLP, which represents Xe Services, formerly Blackwater.

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030803706.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100309-1.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100309-1.htm Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:25:14 +0100 By Matt Apuzzo
Associated Press
March 2, 2010

Washington - As the U.S. investigated Blackwater Worldwide contractors for a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad, a legal debate was playing out behind the scenes at the Justice Department between two veteran prosecutors. One urged caution. The other aggressively pushed the case forward.

The disagreement foreshadowed problems that in December led a judge to dismiss manslaughter charges against five contractors who fired machine guns and grenades into a busy intersection. The dismissal outraged Iraqis and sent the Obama administration scrambling to repair a case that is all but in ruins.

In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said prosecutors ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials and built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Documents unsealed Tuesday in response to a request by The Associated Press and The Washington Post paint the clearest picture yet of how the case prosecution went awry.

Immediately after the Sept. 16, 2007, shooting, Blackwater contractors told State Department investigators what happened. Two days later, the security gave written statements under a promise that nothing they said could be used against them in a criminal case.

Because of that deal, prosecutors had to make sure they didn't use the written statements to build their case. It was unclear, however whether prosecutors could use the Sept. 16 interviews.

Ken Kohl, the lead prosecutor, believed he could. And he thought Raymond Hulser agreed.

Hulser is among the Justice Department's experts on Garrity V. New Jersey, the Supreme Court case that spells out how to deal with these kinds of immunity deals. Hulser did not agree with Kohl.

"I think that we agreed that there was an issue regarding the Sept. 16, the earlier statements," Hulser testified in one of several closed-door hearing last year that ultimately persuaded Urbina to dismiss the case. "My view was that the risk was such that they shouldn't take it. His view was that they had a good chance of arguing the other way."

Hulser repeatedly tried to warn Kohl that building the investigation on those interviews could jeopardize the case.

"We've got an uphill battle on this Garrity issue, and the burden of proof is ours, so we need to be particularly cautious," Hulser wrote in an e-mail to Michael Mullaney, who served as the middle man between Hulser and Kohl.

The Justice Department installed Mullaney as a middle man as a safeguard to protect tainted evidence from sinking the case. But that structure just made things more confusing, attorneys said in testimony unsealed Friday.

When Mullaney relayed Hulser's warnings, Kohl said he either didn't read them or didn't interpret them the way they were intended. Kohl's team did use the Sept. 16 statements, a strategy that ultimately helped unravel the prosecution.

Kohl acknowledged that at times his investigation went "close to the line" but said he always thought he had the approval of his supervisors.

In his ruling, Urbina said Kohl simply ignored the warnings. The Justice Departments internal affairs division, the Office of Professional Responsibility, is investigating the Blackwater prosecutors for their handling of the case.

The Justice Department now faces an uphill battle resurrecting the case. Traveling in Iraq earlier this year, Vice President Joe Biden told Iraqi leaders that the U.S. would not give up.

The five guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press.

External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gew3dv19JkSK3-DtzwDvCn-5g8TAD9E6QEC01
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Interference Seen in Blackwater Inquiry

By James Risen
New York Times
March 2, 2010

Washington - An official at the United States Embassy in Iraq has told federal prosecutors that he believes that State Department officials sought to block any serious investigation of the 2007 shooting episode in which Blackwater Worldwide security guards were accused of murdering 17 Iraqi civilians, according to court testimony made public on Tuesday.

David Farrington, a State Department security agent in the American Embassy at the time of the shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, told prosecutors that some of his colleagues were handling evidence in a way they hoped would help the Blackwater guards avoid punishment for a crime that drew headlines and raised tensions between American and Iraqi officials.

The description of Mr. Farrington’s account came in closed-door testimony last October from Kenneth Kohl, the lead prosecutor in the case against the Blackwater guards.

"I talked to David Farrington, who was concerned, who expressed concern about the integrity of the work being done by his fellow officers," Mr. Kohl recalled. He said that Mr. Farrington had said he was in meetings where diplomatic security agents said that after they had gone to the scene and picked up casings and other evidence, "They said we’ve got enough to get these guys off now."

Mr. Farrington, who also testified in a closed-door pretrial hearing in the Nisour Square shooting case, declined to comment. His own testimony has not yet been unsealed by the court.

Blackwater became a multimillion-dollar contractor as the United States escalated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing protection for State Department officials and covert work for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The company, dominated by former American officials, has been described by critics as being too close to the intelligence and diplomatic agencies for which it worked.

The New York Times has reported that the Justice Department was investigating allegations that Blackwater had tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining their security business after the deadly shooting.

In December, a federal judge dismissed the criminal charges against five former Blackwater guards in the Nisour Square shooting, and criticized the Justice Department’s handling of the case, chiding prosecutors for trying to use statements from defendants who had been offered immunity and testimony from witnesses tainted by news media leaks.

The documents made public on Tuesday show that before the December dismissal, prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents working on the Nisour Square case took the stand in October to argue that they had plenty of untainted evidence. In a closed-door hearing, they also contended that they had evidence that, in the immediate aftermath of the shootings, there had been a concerted effort to make the case go away, both by Blackwater and by at least some embassy officials.

In fact, prosecutors were told that the embassy had never conducted any significant investigation of any of the numerous shooting episodes in Iraq involving Blackwater before the Nisour Square case, according to the documents.

In his October testimony, Mr. Kohl described how the Justice Department had "serious concerns" about obstruction of justice in the case. He also said prosecutors briefed Kenneth Wainstein, then an assistant attorney general, on evidence of obstruction by Blackwater management.

Mr. Kohl disclosed that prosecutors had discovered that five Blackwater guards who were on the convoy involved in the Nisour Square shootings reported to Blackwater management what they had seen. One guard, he said, described it as "murder in cold blood." Mr. Kohl said that Blackwater management never reported these statements by the guards to the State Department.

He said that prosecutors informed senior Justice Department officials as early as 2007 that they were investigating whether Blackwater managers "manipulated" the official statements made by the guards to the State Department.

But he testified that prosecutors also had evidence of embassy officials thwarting the inquiry. In addition to the testimony of Mr. Farrington, Mr. Kohl said that United States military officials had told prosecutors that they witnessed State Department investigators "badgering" Iraqi witnesses.

He also testified that diplomatic security agents, who conducted the embassy’s initial investigation before the F.B.I. and Justice Department began a criminal inquiry, left out important facts from their report relating to a witness’s account.

Philip J. Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, defended the department’s handling of the Nisour Square case. He said: "Seventeen people died in broad daylight. We took the case seriously from the outset. We invited the F.B.I. to join the investigation, and more than two years later, we continue to pursue the case and seek justice."

Officials from Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Kohl described what he believed was "an undercurrent of obstruction in this case."

He said that a Blackwater official had told him that the whole criminal investigation could have been avoided if the State Department had given Blackwater officials more time to prepare the official statements by the guards involved in the shooting.

"He said, do you know why this all happened, why we’re here?" Mr. Kohl recalled. "Because the State Department didn’t give us enough time to work on these statements with these guys. We only had a couple hours, and we needed to get these over to the embassy."

The dismissal of the criminal case against the guards for Blackwater in the Nisour Square shooting prompted bitter protests by Iraqis against the United States, and it led the Iraqi government to threaten to bring a lawsuit of its own in the case.

The Justice Department has now appealed the dismissal. Blackwater has settled one series of civil lawsuits brought by victims of the Nisour Square shooting, but another lawsuit brought by another group of victims is still pending.

External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/world/middleeast/03blackwater.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100302.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010-1/20100302.htm Wed, 3 Mar 2010 23:25:11 +0100 Daniel Brady et al vs. Xe Services LLC, Blackwater Security Consulting LLC et al
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina
Case No.: 5:09-cv-00449-BO (5:09-cv-00450-BO)
        Filed on October 15th, 2009

Recent Filings:

February 17th, 2010 - Defendant Ridgeway’s Opposition to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery

"[...] Comes now Defendant Jeremy P. Ridgeway (‘Mr. Ridgeway’), by counsel, pursuant to Local Rule 7.1, and hereby submits this Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Separated Motion for Leave to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery (the ‘Opposition’). Plaintiffs’ Separated Motion for Leave to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery (the ‘Motion’) should be denied because Plaintiffs have not established the requisite prima facie evidence of personal jurisdiction that is needed for the Court to grant Plaintiffs leave to conduct the discovery in question. The grounds for this Opposition are set forth more fully in the accompanying Memorandum in Support.

"Wherefore, Mr. Ridgeway requests respectfully that the Court deny Plaintiffs’ Motion. [...]"

February 16th, 2010 - Defendants Ball, [...] Reply to Opposition to Motion to Dismiss

"[...] Defendants Donald Wayne Ball, Dustin L. Heard, Evan Shawn Liberty, Nicholas Abrarn Slatten and Paul Alvin Slough hereby adopt, and refer the Court to the Corporate Defendants’ Reply Memorandum in Support of their Motion to Dismiss the Complaint or, in the Alternative, to Strike Exhibits, which is being filed today. [...]"

February 16th, 2010 - Corporate Defendants’ Memorandum in Support to Dismiss Complaint

"[...] Plaintiffs’ opposition to the Corporate Defendants’ motion to dismiss [...] describes an event that was undeniably tragic. Every tragic event that occurs throughout the world is not redressable through a lawsuit in the courts of the United States, however. The issue presented by this motion is whether the Complaint states a valid claim for relief against the Corporate Defendants. For all of the reasons stated herein and in the opening brief [...], it does not.

"[...] Plaintiffs are Iraqi citizens seeking compensation under Iraqi law for injuries allegedly sustained in the Iraq war zone at the hands of U.S. State Department contractors providing security services to U.S. diplomats. Such injuries are not redressable in this Court. [...]

"[...] Even if they were actionable here, Plaintiffs’ claims are deficient under Iraqi law. [...]"

January 25th, 2010 - Plaintiffs’ Motion for Leave to Conduct Jurisdictional Discovery

"[...] Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 7(b)(l), Local Civil Rule 7.1, EDNC, through undersigned counsel and upon the grounds set forth in the accompanying Memorandum of Law, Plaintiffs respectfully move the Court for an order allowing them a 90-day period to conduct limited discovery on the personal jurisdictional issue raised by Defendant Jeremy Ridgeway’s Motion to Dismiss and an additional twenty (20) days from the close of such discovery period to file a brief in opposition to said motion. In the alternative, if this Court does not grant Plaintiffs leave to conduct the requested limited discovery, Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court allow them twenty (20) days from the date of such ruling to respond to Defendant Ridgeway’s Motion to Dismiss. While Defendant Ridgeway’s counsel does not consent to Plaintiffs’ request for leave to conduct limited jurisdictional discovery, counsel does consent to Plaintiffs’ request for an additional twenty (20) days, from the date the Court rules on this Motion, to respond to Defendant Ridgeway’s Motion to Dismiss. [...]"

January 25th, 2010 - Plaintiffs’ Memorandum in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss

"[...] Plaintiffs, through counsel, respectfully submit this Memorandum of Law opposing defendants’ Motion to Dismiss and/or to Strike (‘Motion’). For the reasons that follow, defendants’ Motion should be overruled. Plaintiffs submit that this case should first be remanded to the state court from which defendants improperly removed it. Should the Court remand, the need to decide this Motion will be mooted. In any event, defendants’ Motion is meritless and should be rejected.

"Nature of the case

"This case is not about the United States military or the conduct of the war against terrorism in Iraq. This case is not about national security, nor is it about politics, and it does not implicate the separation of powers amongst co-equal branches of our government. Although the location of events is a public traffic circle known as Nisur Square in Baghdad, Iraq, none of the relevant events has any military or national security component whatsoever. There are no federal claims or causes of action raised in the Complaint.

"The defendants consist of a private company and its employees that were hired, as independent contractors, by the United States Department of State (‘DOS’) to provide bodyguard services to diplomats and related personnel. Defendants’ employees, per Blackwater’s contract with the DOS, were expressly prohibited from using deadly force except for purely defensive purposes. [...] Defendants, including the instant guard-defendants, also agreed to ‘comply with the laws of the United States and the host countries in which they are required to provide services under th[e] [WPPS II] contract.’ [...]"]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/DOD/iraq_II/blackwater.htm#CivilSuitX http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/DOD/iraq_II/blackwater.htm#CivilSuitX Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:05:46 +0100 U.S. vs. Slough, Slatten, Liberty, Heard & Ball
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Case No.: 10-3006
Filed on January 29th, 2010

U.S. vs. Slough, Slatten, Liberty, Heard & Ball
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Case No.: CR-08-360
Filed on December 4th, 2008

Recent Filings:

February 12th, 2010 - Order

"[...] Upon consideration of appellant’s unopposed motion for extension of time to file brief, it is ordered that the motion be granted.

"The following revised briefing schedule will now apply in this case:

"Appellant’s Brief: April 30, 2010

"Appendix: April 30, 2010

"Appellees’ Brief: July 30, 2010

"Appellant’s Reply Brief: August 20, 2010 [...]"

January 29th, 2010 - Notice of Appeal

"[...] By an Order and Memorandum Opinion dated December 31, 2009, the district court dismissed the indictment.

"[...] I, the above-named appellant, hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from the above-stated judgment.

"[...] United States of America, Appellant [...]"]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/DOD/iraq_II/blackwater.htm#CriminalCaseI http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/DOD/iraq_II/blackwater.htm#CriminalCaseI Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:06:07 +0100 By Carol D. Leonnig & Nick Schwellenbach
Washington Post
February 12, 2010

This report is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and The Washington Post.

Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years through phony billing, including charging taxpayers for alcohol-filled parties, spa trips and a prostitute.

In court records unsealed this week, a husband and wife who worked for Blackwater said they have firsthand knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and improperly charging the government for personal expenses. They said they witnessed "systematic" fraud in the company's security contracts with the State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Blackwater is the State Department's largest security contractor, and a State Department spokesman said Thursday that his agency and the Justice Department reviewed the allegations in 2008, when the lawsuit was filed under seal in federal court in Virginia. The spokesman, P.J. Crowley, could not determine what came of the review.

Brad Davis, a former Marine, served as a Blackwater team leader and security guard, including in Iraq. His wife, Melan Davis, worked as a finance and payroll employee, starting in Louisiana. Their lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Act, which allows whistle-blowers to win a portion of any money the government recovers as a result of the information. However, the Justice Department has chosen not to join them in pursuing their lawsuit, a decision that led to the suit being unsealed this week.

The company changed its name to Xe Services LLC last year. Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke said Thursday that the Davises' allegations are false. "The allegations are without merit and the company will vigorously defend against this lawsuit," she said. "It is noteworthy that the government has declined to intervene in this action."

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Blackwater became the largest of the State Department's private security contractors. It has since been paid billions of dollars to protect diplomatic employees in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other agencies' security missions. The company also became a major source of anti-American sentiment in Iraq because of repeated deadly shootings involving its guards.

Iraq moved to expel Blackwater after a September 2007 incident in which witnesses told the FBI that the company's security guards fired guns without provocation into a busy intersection, killing at least 14 Iraqis. The Justice Department charged six Blackwater guards in that incident. One pleaded guilty, and a judge dismissed the charges against the five others in December.

In their suit, the Davises assert that Blackwater officials kept a Filipino prostitute on the company payroll for a State Department contract in Afghanistan, and billed the government for her time working for male Blackwater employees in Kabul. The prostitute's salary was categorized as part of the company's "Morale Welfare Recreation" expenses, they alleged.

Melan Davis said in court papers that while working in Blackwater's finance department, she questioned how the company could bill the government for its workers' travel expenses to and from Iraq when it lacked the documentation for those trips. She said she later traveled to a hotel in Amman, Jordan, where Blackwater personnel often stopped en route to Iraq. While there, she said, corporate officers directed her and two co-workers to generate reams of false invoices for plane travel at inflated rates, so her Blackwater bosses could overcharge the government.

In one instance, the Davises allege, the company was paying inflated prices to a vendor whose work was billed to the Department of Homeland Security for services related to security after Hurricane Katrina. They said the overpayments allowed the vendor to provide a barbecue pit for Blackwater staff parties.

Melan Davis argues that Blackwater terminated her in February 2008 because she questioned fraudulent billing. Brad Davis resigned.

Schwellenbach works for the Center for Public Integrity. Staff writer Jerry Markon contributed to this report.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/11/AR2010021100232.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010/20100212.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010/20100212.htm Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:47:46 +0100 By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
February 11, 2010

When its investigation into a deadly and politically sensitive Baghdad shooting involving U.S. security contractors ran into major trouble, the Justice Department quickly handed it over to Kenneth Kohl, a seasoned and well-respected prosecutor.

Kohl, after all, had successfully prosecuted Colombian narco-terrorists, overseen the investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks and won scores of hard-fought homicide trials. He seemed to be the perfect prosecutor to lead a complex and thorny investigation into the controversial actions of U.S. private contractors in a faraway war zone.

So, how then, with all the forewarning of the case's pitfalls and Kohl's experience and dedication, does the Justice Department now find itself defending the prosecutor's conduct? How could such a high-profile case, one that generated international headlines and roiled U.S.-Iraq relations, implode so badly? On Dec. 31, a federal judge threw out the charges against the five Blackwater security guards.

The questions come as the Justice Department last month launched its appeal of a scathing opinion by the well-respected judge, who ruled that the conduct of Kohl and other prosecutors was so egregious that it "requires dismissal of the indictment against all the defendants." The guards had been accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 20 others in an eruption of gunfire and grenade explosions in a busy Baghdad square on a sunny afternoon in 2007.

The stakes are high. It was the most serious incident involving security contractors in Iraq or Afghanistan and raised profound questions about the oversight of private U.S. guards in war zones. Fallout from the incident was so intense that it forced Blackwater to rename itself; it now goes by Xe Services. In a sign of the case's continuing significance in U.S.-Iraq relations, Vice President Biden took the unusual step of announcing the appeal of the case's dismissal while on a trip to Baghdad.

Legal experts have said the Justice Department faces a difficult task in winning a reversal, pointing to what they consider a detailed and well-reasoned opinion by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, and could risk further embarrassment if another set of judges comes to similar conclusions. The Justice Department's reputation has already been marred by prosecutorial misconduct in the trial of then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on corruption charges. A federal judge threw out Stevens's conviction, and a lawyer appointed by that judge is investigating Justice Department prosecutors over potential criminal contempt violations.

A review of Urbina's decision, recently unsealed court papers and interviews with dozens of prosecutors, investigators and defense lawyers paint a less-than-flattering picture. They reveal a passionate prosecutor who risked his life in Iraq to seek justice while pushing legal boundaries and an investigation plagued by missteps, miscommunication and bungling.

Even when Kohl's team took steps to protect the integrity of the investigation, the procedures proved inadequate to withstand three weeks of intense closed-door hearings.

Tough case to prosecute

Kohl declined to comment. But in an e-mailed statement, he wrote: "All of us who were involved in this case felt an obligation to the 34 victims who were killed or wounded at Nisoor Square to do everything we could, within the bounds of the law, to bring this case to trial in an American courtroom.

"We don't want federal prosecutors to flinch at taking on tough cases involving complex legal issues, and I worry that some of the reaction to the court's ruling will have that effect." He declined to elaborate.

Kohl, 50, grew up in the Chicago area and joined the Justice Department in 1985, straight out of the Northern Illinois University College of Law. He lives with his wife and two children in the D.C. suburbs.

The prosecutor quickly rose through the ranks of the U.S. attorney's office in the District. Several colleagues say Kohl never lost a homicide trial. They described him as an aggressive and zealous advocate for victims.

In more recent years, he was assigned national security cases, including the years-long investigation into the anthrax attacks. In 2007, Kohl won a conviction against a Colombian rebel leader who took three Americans hostage. The man was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Alex Barbeito, an FBI agent who worked on that case, said Kohl was meticulous and brave. "He came down to Bogota several times, despite death threats to U.S. prosecutors," Barbeito said. "To me, he's exactly the type of prosecutor an agent wants to handle complex international criminal cases."

Colleagues say Kohl was fearless in his pursuit of the Blackwater guards, visiting Baghdad three times. On one visit, while staying in a trailer in the Green Zone, the compound was hit by rockets and mortar shells, forcing Kohl to dive under his bunk for shelter.

"And yet he still went back," a fellow prosecutor wrote in an e-mail. "It would take a lot for me to go back there" after that.

The shooting that led to the criminal charges occurred Sept. 16, 2007, when 19 Blackwater Worldwide security guards were part of a heavily armed convoy code-named Raven 23. At the time, Blackwater had a contract to provide security for State Department officials in Iraq.

Just after noon that day, Raven 23 arrived in Nisoor Square, which is near the Green Zone, to support other Blackwater teams in response to a bombing.

Soon, one Raven 23 guard was shooting at a white car. Five others fired machine guns and grenade launchers. By the time the explosions stopped, at least 14 Iraqis were dead and 20 were wounded, authorities have said.

Within hours, State Department investigators were questioning the Blackwater guards. Four of the five guards later indicted in U.S. District Court in Washington - Paul Slough, Nicholas Slatten, Donald Ball and Dustin Heard - told investigators that they opened fire in the square in self-defense. The fifth, Evan Liberty, did not say whether he fired a shot but said the others responded to an attack by insurgents.

Over the next few days, the guards gave written statements, and some were re-interviewed by State Department agents.

Guards’ tainted accounts

The shooting caused an uproar. The Iraqi government insisted that its citizens had been slain in an unprovoked attack. Meanwhile, the State Department and Blackwater said the guards had been responding to an ambush.

Caught in the middle was the Justice Department.

Ten days after the incident, State Department officials gave federal prosecutors and FBI agents copies of their initial reports, which included information from the guards' statements.

That caused an immediate problem. The guards had given written and follow-up interviews. The statements had been given under assurances that they would not be used in court and under warnings that the guards could be fired if they didn't cooperate.

Because of the assurances, prosecutors and FBI agents should never have been exposed to those accounts, so those agents and lawyers were reassigned. The Justice Department then turned the case over to Kohl.

Kohl and another prosecutor, Stephen Ponticello, examined the evidence and decided to treat the written statements as if they were out of bounds, court records indicate.

But Kohl did not think that the initial oral interviews deserved the same protection. To help Kohl navigate immunity questions, the Justice Department assigned Raymond Hulser, an expert on such issues, to act as a "taint" attorney. His job would be to screen material before it got into the hands of prosecutors and agents and to provide legal advice.

Within weeks, according to court records, Hulser was warning prosecutors and investigators to avoid the oral interviews because he thought a judge might rule that they were also protected.

In November, Hulser wrote an e-mail detailing his concerns to a Justice Department supervisor, Michael Mullaney, who forwarded the comments to Kohl. "Got it," Kohl responded. "Thanks Mike."

Hulser made a string of similar warnings over the next few months. Kohl says he never received the advice, and he denied having read the e-mail to which he had responded.

By January and February 2008, Kohl and FBI agents were interviewing the State Department investigators who had taken the guards' first oral statements - something that Hulser thought should have been avoided.

Kohl eventually obtained reports of the oral statements and used those accounts in search warrants to obtain drafts of the guards' written statements. Hulser was never told of the search-warrant effort.

A grand jury indicted the five guards in December 2008 on manslaughter and weapons charges. A sixth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges.

By October, Urbina was holding closed-door hearings to determine whether the guards' statements had improperly influenced the investigation.

Kohl testified at the hearings, while other Justice Department lawyers defended the government's case. They argued that the oral statements were fair game and that any taint from the written accounts was harmless.

The guards' attorneys, who were paid by Blackwater, argued that prosecutors should have avoided the statements and that the case was too damaged to continue.

Urbina ruled in favor of the guards, writing that it was "objectively reasonable" for the contractors to believe that their first interviews were protected because they had given such statements in past shootings. But he didn't stop there.

The judge chastised prosecutors for not heeding the advice of Hulser and other experts. He also said that he did not believe Kohl's assertion that he had not received the expert's advice until it was too late.

The protected statements infected the entire case, Urbina wrote, and prosecutors even exploited them to decide whether to charge two of the guards. He was particularly perplexed that Kohl had thought it proper to use the oral accounts in search warrants for written statements, Urbina added.

The judge also accused prosecutors of not giving grand jurors evidence that was helpful to the guards. He found that Kohl and other prosecutors did not take steps to shield grand jurors from tainted testimony, particularly from three Blackwater guards who read the defendants' written statements or news stories describing them.

More subtle actions also irked the judge.

Kohl, for example, went out of his way to tell the grand jury that the five guards had given immunized statements to investigators, the judge wrote. Urbina felt that Kohl was playing dirty, "to color the grand jury's thinking," by alluding to the guards' statements without further elaboration.

"The explanations offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants' compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility," wrote Urbina, voicing astonishment that such a "seasoned and accomplished" lawyer could make so many blunders.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021004029.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010/20100211-1.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010/20100211-1.htm Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:16:35 +0100 By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
Associated Press
February 10, 2010

Baghdad - 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 the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.

It applies to about 250 security contractors who worked for Blackwater in Iraq at the time of the incident, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told The Associated Press.

Some of the guards now work for other security firms in Iraq, while others work for a Blackwater subsidiary, al-Bolani said. He said all "concerned parties" were notified of the order three days ago and now have four days left before they must leave. He did not name the companies.

Blackwater security contractors were protecting U.S. diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a busy Baghdad intersection, on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq.

"We want to turn the page," al-Bolani said. "It was a painful experience, and we would like to go forward."

Backlash from the Blackwater shooting has been felt hardest by private security contractors, who typically provide protection for diplomats, journalists and aid workers. Iraqi security forces have routinely stopped security details at checkpoints to conduct searches and question guards.

Security guards will be required within the next 10 days to register their weapons with the Ministry of Interior, al-Bolani said. Failure to do so could result in arrest, he added.

Based in Moyock, North Carolina, Blackwater is now known as Xe Services, a name change that happened after six of the security firm's guards were charged in the Nisoor Square shooting. At the time, Blackwater was the largest of the State Department's three security contractors working in Iraq.

Xe Services said the company had no employees currently in Iraq, including with its subsidiary, Presidential Airways.

"Xe does not have one, single person in Iraq," said Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined comment. The State Department in Washington did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.

The Blackwater guards involved in the incident said they were ambushed, but U.S. prosecutors and many Iraqis said they let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

One of the accused guards pleaded guilty in the case, but a federal judge in Washington threw out charges against the other five in December, ruling that the Justice Department for mishandling the evidence.

The legal ruling infuriated Iraqis and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to seek punishment for the guards.

Last month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden flew to Baghdad to assure Iraqis the Obama administration to appeal the case and bring the guards back to trial.

The shooting further strained relations between the United States and Iraq, leading the parliament in Baghdad to seek new laws that would clear the way for foreign contractors to be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. The U.S. government rejected those demands in the Blackwater case.

In January 2009, the State Department informed Blackwater that it would not renew its contracts to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq because of the Iraqi government's refusal to grant it an operating license.

But last September, the State Department said it temporarily extended a contract with Blackwater subsidiary Presidential Airways to provide air support for U.S. diplomats. The State Department has since ended its contracts with Xe, and DynCorp International has taken over air support.

The Justice Department now is investigating whether Blackwater tried to bribe Iraqi officials with $1 million to allow the company to keep working there after the Baghdad shooting, according to U.S. officials close to the probe.

Elsewhere in Iraq, attackers bombed an oil pipeline north of Baghdad, cutting production in half at a refinery in the capital, the Oil Ministry said Wednesday.

There were no injuries in Tuesday night's bombing in Rashidiya, just north of Baghdad.

Production at the Baghdad refinery was cut from 140,000 barrels per day to 70,000, said Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad.

The pipeline runs from oil fields in northern Kirkuk province to Baghdad. It has been the target of attacks for years, and has been bombed multiple times since 2004.

Associated Press Writers Lara Jakes, Mazin Yahya and Chelsea J. Carter in Baghdad; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021001262.html]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010/20100210.htm http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/archive/media/2010/20100210.htm Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:01:48 +0100 U.S. vs. John A. Houston & Michael Henson
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
Case No.: 1:09-cr-00232-AW-1
Filed on September 4th, 2008

Recent Filings:

February 4th, 2010 - U.S.A.’s Memorandum to Admit Evidence Rel. to Def. Michael Henson

"[...] Facts giving rise to the charges:

"From approximately April 2007 until at least early 2008, the defendant was employed by SOS International [hereinafter SOSI], a company contracted by the United States Department of Defense, to provide services in Iraq. The defendant worked with the U.S. military and had access to firearms while in Iraq. During part of his employment, the defendant was supervised by codefendant John Houston, and both defendants Houston and Henson were otherwise personal friends.

"In early 2008, defendant Houston contacted Henson while the latter was on leave in the United States, specifically at his home in North Carolina, near Fort Bragg. Houston informed Henson that he was smuggling weapons from Iraq to Fort Bragg. Houston also asked Henson if he wanted to secrete any materials in the smuggled shipment and to retrieve the smuggled firearms upon their illicit arrival at Fort Bragg. Henson responded, via e-mail, that he concurred with the arrangements and that he would retrieve the shipment of smuggled weapons upon their arrival at Fort Bragg.

"Prior to his indictment and pursuant to their investigation of co-defendant John Houston, law enforcement officials contacted the defendant. The defendant agreed to speak with law enforcement officials on several occasions in late 2008 and early 2009. The defendant, however, made multiple false statements during the course of said interviews and meetings, including misrepresenting the fact that he had ever seen a particular weapon in co-defendant John Houston’s possession. The defendant, however, subsequently admitted that the weapon belonged to him [i.e., Henson] and that he previously observed said weapon under Houston’s bed in Iraq a short time before that weapon was one of eight others smuggled into the United States by both Houston and Henson. [...]"

February 1st, 2010 - Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Venue

"[...] Defendant John A. Houston, through his attorneys, James Wyda, Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland, and Michael T. Citara Manis, Assistant Federal Public Defender, hereby requests this Honorable Court to dismiss the indictment herein for lack of venue in Maryland, or in the alternative, to order that this case be transferred to another, more appropriate district. [...]"

January 28th, 2010 - U.S.A.’s Memorandum to Admit Evidence Rel. to Def. John Houston

"[...] Facts giving rise to the charges:

"From approximately April 2007 to August 2008, the defendant worked in Iraq for two companies contracted by the United States Department of Defense. From approximately April 2007 to May 2008, the defendant was employed by SOS International [hereinafter SOSI]. He thereafter obtained employment with MPRI until August 2008. At various times during his employment in Iraq, the defendant worked as a military analyst and in a supervisory capacity. While in Iraq, the defendant worked with the U.S. military and had access to firearms.

"From approximately mid-2007, the defendant approached U.S. military soldiers and asked the soldiers to unlawfully smuggle weapons from Iraq into the U.S. on his behalf. A U.S. soldier reported the matter to his superiors. Subsequently, in a series of e-mails in early 2008, the defendant arranged with the U.S. soldier and co-defendant Michael Henson to unlawfully smuggle firearms from Iraq to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in a manner that would evade U.S. military and civilian customs regulations and inspections. The defendant then transported a bag of weapons via two SOSI employees under his supervision to the U.S. soldier, who ostensibly had agreed to secrete the weapons to Fort Bragg on behalf of the defendant. Co-defendant Michael Henson agreed to collect the weapons once they arrived at Fort Bragg. Military investigators, however, seized the weapons before they departed Iraq. The weapons seized included eight machine guns and one semi-automatic pistol. [...]"]]> http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/DOD/iraq_II/blackwater.htm#CriminalCaseIII http://www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/DOD/iraq_II/blackwater.htm#CriminalCaseIII Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:12:26 +0100