Controversial Blackwater Security Firm Gets Iraq Contract Extended by State Dept

[sabra]

Source: ABC News

Company Banned From Operating by Iraqi Government Earlier This Year

The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned. The contract was due to expire this month.

Sources say the department has agreed to temporarily continue using the subsidiary known as Presidential Airways to provide helicopter transport for embassy employees around Iraq until a new contract with another security company, Dyncorp International, is fully implemented. Presidential Airways is an arm of U.S. Training Center, which is a subsidiary of the company Xe, formerly and still commonly known as Blackwater.

Officials say Dyncorp will not be fully staffed and certified in order to assume the responsibilities immediately. Dyncorp takes over the airlift contract on Sept. 4, but because of the delicate handoff between companies, the contract with Blackwater was extended so that the companies overlap.

"The deployment of an aviation program in Iraq is a complex challenge -- a slower transition to DynCorp taking over the task order is in the best interest of the government," a State Department official said.

The Blackwater contract's extension is for an indefinite period of time, but an official stressed it was "limited." The official said the State Department would like to complete the transition in "weeks or months."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Blackwater/story?id=84663...

[G_j]

1. you mean those folks who went to Iraq to kill Muslims?

[Bonobo]

2. This is wrong.

I could not be more disappointed than I am over Obama's war policies. If the war is a correct war, than it should not be turned over to private enterprise, but should be a sacrifice shared by all Americans and a there should be a clear goal.
Neither of these seem to be the case and the use of these friggin' cowardly "drones" is increasing! How do you think that makes us look to those cultures?

I am bitterly disappointed about this trend. He was elected to stop the fucking wars.

[saigon68]

3. Thank Hillary Clinton for this

I however am not surprised. The DLC status quo rules the "Present Occupants" administration.

[fascisthunter]

4. unacceptable (nt)

[OnyxCollie]

5. Anyone want to venture a guess

as to how Erik Prince's implication in a murder trial will turn out?

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[IndianaGreen]

7. Dyncorp International is as bad as Blackwater, they ran death squads!

Published on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 by TomDispatch.com

Bush's Third Term? You're Living It

by David Swanson

It sounds like the plot for the latest summer horror movie. Imagine, for a moment, that George W. Bush had been allowed a third term as president, had run and had won or stolen it, and that we were all now living (and dying) through it. With the Democrats in control of Congress but Bush still in the Oval Office, the media would certainly be talking endlessly about a mandate for bipartisanship and the importance of taking into account the concerns of Republicans. Can't you just picture it?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/02

[Seedersandleechers]

8. If I understood the article correctly,

BW is on their way out and is only staying long enough for another company to take over.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. This didn't sneak up on anyone - if the changeover is going to take

six weeks, then the new contractors' contract should have started six weeks EARLIER.

IT'S NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE.

[blm]

11. Exactly - and when a serious Dem raises concerns, they are ignored by most media.

Anyone see this discussed or even repeated by broadcast newsmedia?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/us/22intel.html?_r=2&...


U.S. Still Using Security Firm It Broke With


By MARK LANDLER and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: August 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — Despite publicly breaking with an American private security company in Iraq, the State Department continues to award the company, formerly known as Blackwater, more than $400 million in contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them in Afghanistan, and train security forces in antiterrorism tactics at its remote camp in North Carolina.

The contracts, one of which runs until 2011, illustrate the extent to which the United States government remains reliant on private contractors like Blackwater, now known as Xe (pronounced zee) Services, to conduct some of its most sensitive operations and protect some of its most vital assets.

Disclosures that the Central Intelligence Agency had used the company, which most people still call Blackwater, to help with a covert program to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda have touched off a storm in Washington, with lawmakers demanding to know why this kind of work is being outsourced. New details about Xe’s involvement in the covert program emerged Friday.
>>>>>>>>

The State Department continues to use Blackwater guards in Afghanistan, despite the company’s involvement in civilian shootings in Baghdad in 2007, and despite Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pledge to “reduce our dependence on private security contractors.”

The department declined to discuss its ties with Blackwater publicly, but a senior department official said it would be costly for the government to terminate, without cause, the other contracts that are in place. A spokeswoman for Xe Services did not respond to messages requesting comment.
>>>>>>


This web of ties is drawing the attention and anger of lawmakers, including Senator John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

On Friday, Mr. Kerry wrote to the founder and chairman of Xe, Erik D. Prince, asking for details of his company’s dealings with the C.I.A. In the letter, a copy of which was supplied to The New York Times, Mr. Kerry expressed concern that contractors could have used their State Department assignments as a “cover to gather information for the targeted killing program.” Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, canceled the program this year, in part because he learned the C.I.A. had used an outside company for the program, government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity have said.

This week, government officials and current and former Blackwater employees said the company had also taken on a role in the United States’ most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda leaders.

Mr. Kerry also plans to write to Mrs. Clinton to raise his concerns, said one of his aides.

In a meeting with department employees in February, Mrs. Clinton said, “I certainly am of the mind that we should, insofar as possible, reduce our dependence.” But she added, “Whether we can go all the way to banning, under current circumstances, seems unlikely.”

>>>>>>>

[IndianaGreen]

12. And that company is Dyncorp, which has been in the death squad business

in Latin America and elsewhere.

[bvar22]

10. Change.....in the wrong direction.

K&R

[bonjourtristesse]

13. as long as Obama likes it people will accept it here

[clixtox]

14. You must mean up in Canada...

Because the folks here on DU don't seem to be very sanguine at all. I haven't seen one accepting post yet!