12-12-2009, 08:06 AM
Blackwater’s Black Ops: Batman Begins
![[Image: helloblacky.jpg]](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2009/12/helloblacky.jpg)
Erik Prince, the founder of the security firm formerly known as Blackwater, has undergone more image changes than Madonna. First there was Prince as Bruce Wayne, the billion-dollar heir to a Michigan auto parts fortune who quietly turned his target manufacturing business into a first-rate private army. Then there was Prince the war profiteer, a scary right-wing Christian with a severe haircut who would become the poster child for George W. Bush-era recklessness.
And now onto the third act: Erik Prince as outed CIA asset, fighting to save his good name.
Vanity Fair last week unveiled a profile of Prince in which the Blackwater founder cops to working for the CIA. “I put myself and my company at the CIA’s disposal for some very risky missions,” Prince tells reporter Adam Ciralsky. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.”
According to Ciralsky’s article, Prince “road-tested” the viability of sensitive CIA operations, sometimes on his own dime. Prince supposedly researched ways to penetrate “hard target” countries where the agency has trouble getting access, and was until recently helping run intelligence-gathering operations in an unnamed “Axis of Evil” country.
Crusading journalist and Blackwater nemesis Jeremy Scahill — who I’m guessing will be played by a bearded Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie version of all this — suspects the profile is really a sneaky info op by Prince. “In the article, Prince is revealed not just as owner of a company that covertly provided contractors to the CIA for drone bombings and targeted assassinations, but as an actual CIA asset himself,” he wrote. “While the story appears to be simply a profile of Prince, it might actually be the world’s most famous mercenary’s insurance policy against future criminal prosecution. The term of art for what Prince appears to be doing in the VF interview is graymail: a legal tactic that has been used for years by intelligence operatives or assets who are facing prosecution or fear they soon will be.”
To add to the intrigue, James Risen and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times — who have produced a steady trickle of stories on Blackwater’s ties to the CIA — have a new story that casts light on the “brotherly relationship” between the CIA and Blackwater, now renamed Xe. According to their story, Blackwater personnel played a central roles in the agency’s “snatch and grab” operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred,” they write. “Instead of simply providing security for CIA officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.”
Wow, this is all starting to sound like the new season of Burn Notice. But the Times story gives us a bit more detail on something we’ve actually known for a while: Blackwater got its start in the protective services racket as a CIA contractor.
Let’s revisit: Prince and Jamie Smith, one of Blackwater’s early employees, snared a “black” contract from the CIA in early 2002 to provide protective details for the agency’s newly established Kabul station. Blackwater’s team would provide security for the CIA end of Kabul airport and “the Annex” (the CIA’s Kabul station, based out of the Ariana hotel). Prince would even travel out to Skhin, a firebase on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where he would spend a few weeks playing CIA paramilitary.
All this is laid out in intricate detail in Robert Young Pelton’s book, Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror, which was published back in 2006. While the recent reporting has filled in more of the gaps — and the Times has revealed new information about the firm’s role in the drone war over Pakistan — it’s worth asking a larger question: Why is the U.S. government so hopelessly dependent on hired guns? Blackwater may be the company everyone loves to hate, but as the Government Accountability Office reported this week, the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security — one of the primary customers for companies like Blackwater — has proven completely incapable of handling the growth in its contracted workforce.
See Also:
Tags: Cash Rules Everything Around Me, Info War, Mercs, Shhh!!!
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/...more-20542
- By Nathan Hodge
![[Image: envelope.gif]](http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/wp-content/themes/wired/images/envelope.gif)
- December 11, 2009 |
- 12:26 pm |
- Categories: Miscellaneous, Paper Pushers, Beltway Bandits, Politicians
Erik Prince, the founder of the security firm formerly known as Blackwater, has undergone more image changes than Madonna. First there was Prince as Bruce Wayne, the billion-dollar heir to a Michigan auto parts fortune who quietly turned his target manufacturing business into a first-rate private army. Then there was Prince the war profiteer, a scary right-wing Christian with a severe haircut who would become the poster child for George W. Bush-era recklessness.And now onto the third act: Erik Prince as outed CIA asset, fighting to save his good name.
Vanity Fair last week unveiled a profile of Prince in which the Blackwater founder cops to working for the CIA. “I put myself and my company at the CIA’s disposal for some very risky missions,” Prince tells reporter Adam Ciralsky. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.”
According to Ciralsky’s article, Prince “road-tested” the viability of sensitive CIA operations, sometimes on his own dime. Prince supposedly researched ways to penetrate “hard target” countries where the agency has trouble getting access, and was until recently helping run intelligence-gathering operations in an unnamed “Axis of Evil” country.
Crusading journalist and Blackwater nemesis Jeremy Scahill — who I’m guessing will be played by a bearded Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie version of all this — suspects the profile is really a sneaky info op by Prince. “In the article, Prince is revealed not just as owner of a company that covertly provided contractors to the CIA for drone bombings and targeted assassinations, but as an actual CIA asset himself,” he wrote. “While the story appears to be simply a profile of Prince, it might actually be the world’s most famous mercenary’s insurance policy against future criminal prosecution. The term of art for what Prince appears to be doing in the VF interview is graymail: a legal tactic that has been used for years by intelligence operatives or assets who are facing prosecution or fear they soon will be.”
To add to the intrigue, James Risen and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times — who have produced a steady trickle of stories on Blackwater’s ties to the CIA — have a new story that casts light on the “brotherly relationship” between the CIA and Blackwater, now renamed Xe. According to their story, Blackwater personnel played a central roles in the agency’s “snatch and grab” operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred,” they write. “Instead of simply providing security for CIA officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.”
Wow, this is all starting to sound like the new season of Burn Notice. But the Times story gives us a bit more detail on something we’ve actually known for a while: Blackwater got its start in the protective services racket as a CIA contractor.
Let’s revisit: Prince and Jamie Smith, one of Blackwater’s early employees, snared a “black” contract from the CIA in early 2002 to provide protective details for the agency’s newly established Kabul station. Blackwater’s team would provide security for the CIA end of Kabul airport and “the Annex” (the CIA’s Kabul station, based out of the Ariana hotel). Prince would even travel out to Skhin, a firebase on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where he would spend a few weeks playing CIA paramilitary.
All this is laid out in intricate detail in Robert Young Pelton’s book, Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror, which was published back in 2006. While the recent reporting has filled in more of the gaps — and the Times has revealed new information about the firm’s role in the drone war over Pakistan — it’s worth asking a larger question: Why is the U.S. government so hopelessly dependent on hired guns? Blackwater may be the company everyone loves to hate, but as the Government Accountability Office reported this week, the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security — one of the primary customers for companies like Blackwater — has proven completely incapable of handling the growth in its contracted workforce.
See Also:
- Blackwater Takes Our Advice, Adopts Inscrutable, Opaque Name …
- Russian Mercs: We’ll Out-Blackwater Blackwater
- Layoffs at Blackwater Worldwide Xe
- Iraq Deal Dead, Blackwater Now Faces A’stan Scrutiny
- Blackwater Chief is a Super Villian: Ex-Employees
- Blackwater’s Pirate-Fighting Ops Sunk After Discrimination Suits …
Tags: Cash Rules Everything Around Me, Info War, Mercs, Shhh!!!
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/...more-20542
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