Blackwater's new sugar daddy: the Obama administration

[Enrique]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/36756/blackwaters-new-sugar-daddy-obama-administration

Blackwater has spent heavily on Democratic lobbyists in 2010 and clearly it has paid off. Despite the investigations, the indictments, the trail of dead bodies, George W Bush's favorite mercenary company is thriving under the Obama Administration. After its original sugar daddy left town, Blackwater has happily remarried. Over the past two weeks, the Administration has awarded nearly a quarter billion dollars in new US government contracts to Blackwater to work for the State Department and CIA in Afghanistan and other hot zones globally.

In an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week," CIA Director Leon Panetta made it clear that the Agency is dependent upon private security companies to operate globally. But, not just any private security companies. Specifically, Panetta said, the CIA needs Blackwater.

"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. Unfortunately, there are a few companies that provide that kind of security," Panetta told Jake Tapper. "So we bid out some of those contracts. provided a bid that was underbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So their really was not much choice but to accept that contract." While Tapper specifically asked Panetta about Blackwater's work in Afghanistan, the CIA contract is not limited to Afghanistan--it is a global contract.

PolitiFact didn't review the accuracy of Panetta's statements about Blackwater (which, these days, tries to pass itself off under the new names Xe Services and the US Training Center), but it should have. Blackwater is still Blackwater. Yes, the company changed its name and yes they hired some new figureheads and yes Erik Prince says he is selling the company and leaving the government services business. But let's be clear: this is a company that remains under serious investigation by multiple US agencies and Congress for a range of alleged crimes and violations. Among these are weapons charges, murder, manslaughter, conspiracy, making false statements and using shell companies to win contracts that may not have been awarded to Blackwater if the company's true identity was clear. Most recently, McClatchy revealed that "the U.S. government and the private military contractor are negotiating a multimillion-dollar fine to settle allegations that Blackwater violated U.S. export control regulations in Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere."

(...)

When Panetta says a panel determined Blackwater had "shaped up their act," what exactly does he mean? I would love to see the findings of that CIA panel and how "shaped up" is defined. Moreover, Panetta speaks as though his hands are simply tied up and that if Blackwater comes in with a lower bid than any other company, there's nothing he can do. That is simply ridiculous. "It's just outrageous," Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who, as chair of the House Intelligence subcommittee on investigations and oversight is leading classified investigations of Blackwater, told me last week. "What does Blackwater have to do to be determined an illegitimate player? While some of Blackwater's personnel do good work, its employees have proven to be untrustworthy with weapons in combat zones. Whether they are at the center of a mission or are doing static security, we should not be using Blackwater employees. The CIA should not be doing business with this company no matter how many name changes it undergoes."

(...)

[KansasVoter]

1. Wow, this is extremely disappointing! I thought Obama would HAMMER blackwater!

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Enrique]

3. maybe Erik Prince is a Duer

;-)

[KansasVoter]

4. Good one!! :-)

[Blue Owl]

7. He's a Dubaier last I heard

He's too toxic for America, so these days he's hanging out with GWB's hand-holding/war-pig buddies over in Dubai.

Let us now kneel before our true masters -- Blackwater, BP, Halliburton, KBR.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

12. Nicely done!

:toast:

[MadHound]

5. Change, what change?

Oh, yeah, a change from R to D, a change from the name Blackwater to Xe. Meanwhile the death and destruction continues in our name, draining our coffers, ruining our country.

[zabet]

6. Just curious.....

wonder how many wars/military actions through history that the US needed security contractors to protect the armed forces?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[jaxx]

9. "?"

[Bullet1987]

10. This will be ignored and unrecced in this section...but extremely important information

to tell from Jeremy Scahill.

[ProSense]

11. This article is weird

...But let's be clear: this is a company that remains under serious investigation by multiple US agencies and Congress for a range of alleged crimes and violations. Among these are weapons charges, murder, manslaughter, conspiracy, making false statements and using shell companies to win contracts that may not have been awarded to Blackwater if the company's true identity was clear. Most recently, McClatchy revealed that "the U.S. government and the private military contractor are negotiating a multimillion-dollar fine to settle allegations that Blackwater violated U.S. export control regulations in Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere."

In April, five of Prince's top deputies were hit with a fifteen-count indictment by a federal grand jury on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Among those indicted were Prince's longtime number-two man, former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, former vice presidents William Matthews and Ana Bundy and Prince's former legal counsel Andrew Howell. Meanwhile, US prosecutors are still pursuing the Blackwater operatives alleged to be responsible for the single greatest massacre of Iraqi civilians by a private US force, the infamous Nisour Square massacre. Earlier this year, Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee formally called on the Justice Department and Defense Department to investigate what he called "the reckless use of weapons by Blackwater personnel and a failure by the company to adequately supervise its personnel" in Afghanistan.


<...>

No one is paying any attention to what should be a major part of the story of Blackwater's thriving second marriage to the current Administration: the money trail. Blackwater has spent heavily this year on lobbyists—particularly Democratic ones. In the first quarter of 2010, the company spent more than $500,000 for the services of Stuart Eizenstat, a well-connected Democratic lobbyist who served in the Clinton and Carter administrations. Eizenstat heads the international practice for the powerhouse law and lobbying firm Covington and Burling.

So several people have been indicted and the company is under multiple "serious" investigations because of their ties to Democratic lobbyists from the Clinton and Carter administrations?

The government needs to to stop awarding contracts to Blackwater and these serious investigations need to be pursued, but somehow there is a disconnect in this piece.