27-03-2009, 08:59 AM
The North Carolina-based Blackwater Worldwide is a private military company closely connected to right-wing political sectors in the United States that became notorious after its employees in Iraq were involved in the shooting of unarmed civilians. In February 2009, shortly after Iraqi officials and the U.S. State Department announced that they would not renew their working relationship with Blackwater in Iraq, the company changed its name to Xe (pronounced “z”).1 The subsidiary responsible for carrying out much of the company’s overseas and training business, Blackwater Lodge & Training Center, changed its name to U.S. Training Center Inc.2
In a memo announcing the changes, Blackwater president Gary Jackson said that the company was seeking to shift away from private security contracts—like those it had to protect State Department employees in Iraq—and focus more on training and logistics. "This company will continue to provide personnel protective services for high-threat environments when needed by the U.S. government, but its primary mission will be operating our training facilities around the world, including the flagship campus in North Carolina," said Jackson.3
Apparently as part of its rebranding efforts, the company scrubbed its website of several informational pages, including the company history. It also seems to have changed its logo.4 Formerly a paw print inside a red oval, the logo on the company’s website had changed to the head of an eagle by February 2008.
Founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark,5 Blackwater was once the largest of the State Department’s three private security contractors and has provided security services in the Iraq War and other “war on terror” combat zones.6 In 2007, Prince said that at least 90 percent of Blackwater revenue came from government contracts7, two-thirds of which were no-bid.8
Prince was born in 1969 to a wealthy conservative family in Michigan with deep ties to the Right (his late father Edgar helped set up and fund the Family Research Council, a Christian Right think tank and lobby group where Prince interned in college).9 Staunchly conservative, Erik Prince has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican Party, religious groups, and conservative organizations (often through the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation), including the American Enterprise Institute10 and the Alliance Defense Fund.11
After college, Prince joined the Navy SEALs and carried out operations in Haiti and Bosnia.12 This experience shaped his future career; in a 2006 interview he said, “As I trained all over the world, I realized how difficult it was for units to get the cutting-edge training they needed to ensure success. In a letter home while I was deployed, I outlined the vision that is today Blackwater.”13
Before its rebranding, Blackwater called itself “one of the world’s most successful security services corporations.”14 An early mission statement read, “To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times.”15
The company has claimed that during its first decade it “trained more than 100,000 local police officers, SWAT team members, homeland security professionals, military personnel, and others to help prepare them to serve and protect U.S. citizens at home and abroad. Blackwater trains approximately 500 members of the military and law enforcement agencies every day.”16
Blackwater has been called a “mercenary company,” most notably by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, because of the foreign soldiers it employs,17 but often pejoratively by critics who take exception to the outsourcing of U.S. military duties for profit.
Controversy and Accountability
Business at Blackwater boomed after the 9/11 attacks; an October 2007 congressional memorandum stated, “Blackwater's government contracts have grown exponentially during the Bush Administration, particularly since the start of the war in Iraq.”18 In 2000, the corporation only earned $200,000 in federal contracts, compared with $25 million in 2003 and $1 billion in late 2007.19 Much of Blackwater’s revenue has come from security contracts for guarding high-profile officials and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad; from 2001 through 2006, Blackwater had $832 million in two State Department contracts for providing “protective services in Iraq.”20 In July 2008, Prince announced a restructuring of his company away from security services (see “No More Security?” below).
Its rise in fame ran parallel to increasing public and official scrutiny. In October 2007, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform questioned the cost-effectiveness of using Blackwater forces instead of U.S. troops, stating, “Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day for the services of a private military contractor. This is equivalent to $445,000 per year, over six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier.”21
Earlier, in March 2004, Blackwater—along with the topic of private military contractors—made headlines when Iraqi insurgents attacked and killed four Blackwater employees in Fallujah, hanging their bodies from a bridge.22 Even greater controversy erupted in fall 2007, after Blackwater workers guarding a State Department convoy opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing more than a dozen innocent Iraqi civilians.23 The scrutiny that followed this incident led to congressional hearings; a congressional committee document issued before the hearings “depict[ed] the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets,” according to the New York Times.24
The outcry over the Fallujah and Nisour Square incidents sparked public debate about the role of private military companies in the Iraq War and the broader war on terror, notably over issues of accountability. According to Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), “their actions may not be subject to constitutional limitations that apply to both federal and state officials and employees—including First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from illegal searches and seizures. Unlike police officers, they are not trained in protecting constitutional rights.”25 In his book, Scahill reported, “With almost no public debate, the Bush administration has outsourced to the private sector many of the functions historically held by the military. In turn, these private companies are largely unaccountable to the US taxpayers from whom they draw their profits. As the Times of London put it [in 2004], ‘in Iraq, the post-war business boom is not oil. It is security.’”26 Blackwater has repeatedly refused congressional requests for information on its contracts, saying the documents are classified.27
The Associated Press (AP) reported, “Blackwater and other contractors operate in a legal gray area. They are immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. If the Justice Department wants to bring criminal charges such as assault, manslaughter or murder in a U.S. court, prosecutors would have to do so under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. That would require the government to show that State Department contractors were ‘supporting the mission of the Department of Defense overseas.’ Blackwater, however, claims that its contract guarding diplomats was purely a State Department function, one independent from the Pentagon. That could give Blackwater the legal cover it needs to avoid charges against its employees.” 28 A year after the Nisour Square killings, none of the Blackwater employees involved had been indicted, though the Justice Department was still considering issuing indictments.29
The story of Prince and Blackwater is, Scahill writes, “the living embodiment of the changes wrought by the revolution in military affairs and the privatization agenda radically expanded by the Bush administration under the guise of the war on terror. But more fundamentally, it is a story about the future of war, democracy, and governance.”30 Blackwater’s business model makes it ideally suited to enable governments to fight wars without heeding the public, thus undermining the democratic process, Scahill believes. He quotes Ratner: “The increasing use of contractors, private forces or as some would say ‘mercenaries’ makes wars easier to begin and to fight—it just takes money and not the citizenry.”31
Mixing Business, Politics, and Religion?
Critics question whether Blackwater’s business interests are commingled with its executives’ religious motivations. According to Scahill, “What is particularly scary about Blackwater’s role in a war that President [George W.] Bush labeled a ‘crusade’ is that the company’s leading executives are dedicated to a Christian-supremacist agenda.”32 Prince is a staunch Catholic; Joseph Schmitz, another top Blackwater executive, said in 2004 that “no American today should ever doubt that we hold ourselves accountable to the rule of law under God. Here lies the fundamental difference between us and the terrorists.” In his official biography Schmitz proclaimed membership in the Order of Malta, a Christian militia formed in the 11th century with the goal of defending “territories that the Crusaders had conquered from the Moslems.”33
Before joining Blackwater, Schmitz (who had previously worked for the Reagan administration and represented ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich) was inspector general for the Department of Defense, nominated by Bush in 2001. As inspector general—a position he held until fall 2005—Schmitz was to prevent “fraud, waste, and abuse in the programs and operations” of the Pentagon. But under Schmitz, “corporate profiteers, many with close ties to the administration, thrived as they burned through resources ostensibly allocated for the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to Scahill.34
In February 2005, Blackwater hired J. Cofer Black as vice chairman.35 Black was director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center on 9/11, after which the “staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.”36 After President George W. Bush signed a secret act that “authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures and renditions,” the number of renditions (the controversial process in which suspects are captured and transported for interrogations) also ballooned.37 Black lost his job in May 2002, possibly because he criticized the Bush administration’s failure to capture Osama bin Laden.38 In December 2002 he was tapped to become the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, a position he held until November 2004.39 In 2006, Black and his former CIA and Blackwater colleague Robert Richer launched Total Intelligence Solutions, a privatized intel company run by the Prince Group, owner of Blackwater.40
No More Security?
In July 2008, several months before it officially changed its name to Xe, the company said it intended to pull back from the security business. The AP reported, “Blackwater executives say they have unfairly become a symbol for all contractors in Iraq and thus the company is a target for those opposed to the war. It will continue guarding U.S. officials in Iraq but its future will be focused on training, aviation, and logistics.”41 Prince told the AP, "The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk."42 Blackwater “has expanded its aviation division, which provides airplane and helicopter maintenance and also drops supplies into hard-to-reach military bases,” the AP reported. “A 6,000-foot runway is under construction and a large map in the company's hangar shows units based across the world, from Africa to the Middle East to Australia.”43
Commenting on Blackwater’s announcement, Josh Marshall of the blog Talking Points Memo wrote, “Come to think of it, 'training, aviation, and logistics' sounds a lot like military contracting. But who knows. Eric Kleefeld suggests another possibility. As a partisan Republican mercenary outfit, they may rightly anticipate slackening sales under a Democratic president.”44
According to Wired magazine, by early 2009 the company had branched out into a range of new activities in its efforts to reinvent itself, including offering protection to commercial ships, “making custom rifles, marketing spy blimps, assembling a fleet of light attack aircraft, and billing itself as experts in everything from cargo handling to dog training to construction management.”45 The company had also begun offering firearms and self-defense classes to professional athletes. According to a February 2009 AP story, “The first weekend class at the company's compound in North Carolina is set for April, about six months after New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress shot himself in the thigh inside a nightclub. The company cites that case, along with the shooting death by an intruder of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, as examples of why pro athletes need to have a handle on firearms safety.”46
Contact Information
US Training Center North Carolina
PO Box 1029
Moyock, NC 27958
Primary Number 252.435.2488
Fax Number 252.435.6388blackwatermediacenter.com
Mission Statement (as of 2007)
“To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times. Blackwater is committed to the foot soldiers -- the men and women who stand on the frontlines of the global war on terror and who believe in a peaceful future for their communities and nations. Whether serving in or out of uniform, Blackwater is committed to providing these men and women with the very best in training and tactical support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet current and future global security challenges.”47
Key Personnel
Erik Prince, Founder and CEO
Founded
1997
Additional Resources
Ali Gharib, “Blackwater: The Real 'Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy'?” Right Web, July 18, 2008.
Rigth Web Profile: Erik Prince
Sources
1. Mike Baker, “Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name,” Associated Press, February 13, 2009.
2. Mike Baker, “Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name,” Associated Press, February 13, 2009.
3. Mike Baker, “Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name,” Associated Press, February 13, 2009.
4. The company history was located at http://www.blackwaterusa.com/company_pro...story.html.
5. Jim Schaefer, M.L. Elrick, and Todd Spangler, “Ready for Battle,” Detroit Free Press, October 7, 2007.
6. Jennifer Elsea et al., "CRS Report for Congress: Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status and Other Issues,” August 25, 2008, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32419.pdf.
7. Rep. Peter Welch, http://www.welch.house.gov/index.php?opt...&Itemid=64.
8. Bill Sizemore and Joanne Kimberlin, "Blackwater: On the Front Lines," Virginian-Pilot, July 25, 2007.
9. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), pp. 72, 78.
10. 2000 IRS Form 990-PF for the Freiheit Foundation; Ben Van Heuvelen, “The Bush Administration's Ties to Blackwater,” Salon.com, October 2, 2007.
11. Sarah Posner, “The Legal Muscle Fighting to End the Separation of Church and State,” Washington Spectator, April 1, 2007; 2006 IRS Form 990-PF for the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation.
12. Jim Schaefer, M.L. Elrick, and Todd Spangler, “Ready for Battle,” Detroit Free Press, October 7, 2007.
13. “Blackwater’s Founder on the Record,” Virginian-Pilot, July 24, 2006.
14. Blackwater Worldwide, "Company History,” http://www.blackwaterusa.com/company_pro...story.html (accessed on September 25, 2008).
15. Blackwater homepage (Web Archive, September 27, 2007), http://web.archive.org/web/20070927195733/http://www.blackwaterusa.com/
16. Blackwater Worldwide, “Blackwater Media Center,” http://blackwatermediacenter.com/ (accessed on September 25, 2008).
17. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 247.
18. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, “Memorandum: Re: Additional Information about Blackwater USA,” October 1, 2007, http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf.
19. Dana Milbank, “The Man from Blackwater, Shooting from the Lip,” Washington Post, October 3, 2007, p. A2.
20. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, “Memorandum: Re: Additional Information about Blackwater USA,” October 1, 2007, http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf.
21. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, “Memorandum: Re: Additional Information about Blackwater USA,” October 1, 2007, http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf.
22. Kevin Flower et al., “U.S. Expects More Attacks in Iraq,” CNN, May 6, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/31/iraq.main/
23. David Stout and John Broder, "Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater,” New York Times, October 1, 2007; David Stout and John Broder, “F.B.I. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause,” New York Times, November 14, 2007.
24. David Stout and John Broder, "Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater,” New York Times, October 1, 2007.
25. Quoted in Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 61.
26. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 56.
27. “Interview: Journalist Scahill Charts the Rise of Blackwater USA,” National Public Radio, March 29, 2007.
28. Lara Jakes Jordan and Matt Apuzzo, “Sources: Charges against Blackwater Guards Debated,” Associated Press, Washington Post, September 16, 2008.
29. Lara Jakes Jordan and Matt Apuzzo, “Sources: Charges against Blackwater Guards Debated,” Associated Press, Washington Post, September 16, 2008.
30. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), pp. 60.
31. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), pp. 60.
32. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 61.
33. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 367.
34. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 374.
35. Blackwater USA, “Ambassador Cofer Black Becomes Vice-Chairman at Blackwater USA,” February 4, 2005, http://www.blackwaterusa.com/press/cofer.asp.
36. Dana Priest, “Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake,” Washington Post, December 4, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...76_pf.html.
37. Dana Priest, “Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake,” Washington Post, December 4, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...76_pf.html.
38. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 341.
39. State Department, “Biography: J. Cofer Black,” http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bios/b/15367.htm.
40. Dana Hedgpeth, “Blackwater’s Owner Has Spies for Hire,” Washington Post, November 3, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...65_pf.html; Total Intelligence Solutions, “Former CIA and Counterterrorism Experts Respond to Security and Intelligence Demands of the Private Sector,” February 20, 2006, http://www.totalintel.com/dsp_media_pres..._16_07.php.
41. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
42. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
43. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
44. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
45. Noah Schactman, “Blackwater's New Business: Training Pro Athletes,” Wired, February 9, 2009.
46. Associated Press, "Blackwater to offer athletes firearms training,” February 5, 2009.
47. Blackwater homepage (Web Archive, September 27, 2007), http://web.archive.org/web/20070927195733/http://www.blackwaterusa.com/
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/4784.html
In a memo announcing the changes, Blackwater president Gary Jackson said that the company was seeking to shift away from private security contracts—like those it had to protect State Department employees in Iraq—and focus more on training and logistics. "This company will continue to provide personnel protective services for high-threat environments when needed by the U.S. government, but its primary mission will be operating our training facilities around the world, including the flagship campus in North Carolina," said Jackson.3
Apparently as part of its rebranding efforts, the company scrubbed its website of several informational pages, including the company history. It also seems to have changed its logo.4 Formerly a paw print inside a red oval, the logo on the company’s website had changed to the head of an eagle by February 2008.
Founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark,5 Blackwater was once the largest of the State Department’s three private security contractors and has provided security services in the Iraq War and other “war on terror” combat zones.6 In 2007, Prince said that at least 90 percent of Blackwater revenue came from government contracts7, two-thirds of which were no-bid.8
Prince was born in 1969 to a wealthy conservative family in Michigan with deep ties to the Right (his late father Edgar helped set up and fund the Family Research Council, a Christian Right think tank and lobby group where Prince interned in college).9 Staunchly conservative, Erik Prince has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican Party, religious groups, and conservative organizations (often through the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation), including the American Enterprise Institute10 and the Alliance Defense Fund.11
After college, Prince joined the Navy SEALs and carried out operations in Haiti and Bosnia.12 This experience shaped his future career; in a 2006 interview he said, “As I trained all over the world, I realized how difficult it was for units to get the cutting-edge training they needed to ensure success. In a letter home while I was deployed, I outlined the vision that is today Blackwater.”13
Before its rebranding, Blackwater called itself “one of the world’s most successful security services corporations.”14 An early mission statement read, “To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times.”15
The company has claimed that during its first decade it “trained more than 100,000 local police officers, SWAT team members, homeland security professionals, military personnel, and others to help prepare them to serve and protect U.S. citizens at home and abroad. Blackwater trains approximately 500 members of the military and law enforcement agencies every day.”16
Blackwater has been called a “mercenary company,” most notably by investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, because of the foreign soldiers it employs,17 but often pejoratively by critics who take exception to the outsourcing of U.S. military duties for profit.
Controversy and Accountability
Business at Blackwater boomed after the 9/11 attacks; an October 2007 congressional memorandum stated, “Blackwater's government contracts have grown exponentially during the Bush Administration, particularly since the start of the war in Iraq.”18 In 2000, the corporation only earned $200,000 in federal contracts, compared with $25 million in 2003 and $1 billion in late 2007.19 Much of Blackwater’s revenue has come from security contracts for guarding high-profile officials and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad; from 2001 through 2006, Blackwater had $832 million in two State Department contracts for providing “protective services in Iraq.”20 In July 2008, Prince announced a restructuring of his company away from security services (see “No More Security?” below).
Its rise in fame ran parallel to increasing public and official scrutiny. In October 2007, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform questioned the cost-effectiveness of using Blackwater forces instead of U.S. troops, stating, “Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day for the services of a private military contractor. This is equivalent to $445,000 per year, over six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier.”21
Earlier, in March 2004, Blackwater—along with the topic of private military contractors—made headlines when Iraqi insurgents attacked and killed four Blackwater employees in Fallujah, hanging their bodies from a bridge.22 Even greater controversy erupted in fall 2007, after Blackwater workers guarding a State Department convoy opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing more than a dozen innocent Iraqi civilians.23 The scrutiny that followed this incident led to congressional hearings; a congressional committee document issued before the hearings “depict[ed] the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets,” according to the New York Times.24
The outcry over the Fallujah and Nisour Square incidents sparked public debate about the role of private military companies in the Iraq War and the broader war on terror, notably over issues of accountability. According to Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), “their actions may not be subject to constitutional limitations that apply to both federal and state officials and employees—including First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from illegal searches and seizures. Unlike police officers, they are not trained in protecting constitutional rights.”25 In his book, Scahill reported, “With almost no public debate, the Bush administration has outsourced to the private sector many of the functions historically held by the military. In turn, these private companies are largely unaccountable to the US taxpayers from whom they draw their profits. As the Times of London put it [in 2004], ‘in Iraq, the post-war business boom is not oil. It is security.’”26 Blackwater has repeatedly refused congressional requests for information on its contracts, saying the documents are classified.27
The Associated Press (AP) reported, “Blackwater and other contractors operate in a legal gray area. They are immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. If the Justice Department wants to bring criminal charges such as assault, manslaughter or murder in a U.S. court, prosecutors would have to do so under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. That would require the government to show that State Department contractors were ‘supporting the mission of the Department of Defense overseas.’ Blackwater, however, claims that its contract guarding diplomats was purely a State Department function, one independent from the Pentagon. That could give Blackwater the legal cover it needs to avoid charges against its employees.” 28 A year after the Nisour Square killings, none of the Blackwater employees involved had been indicted, though the Justice Department was still considering issuing indictments.29
The story of Prince and Blackwater is, Scahill writes, “the living embodiment of the changes wrought by the revolution in military affairs and the privatization agenda radically expanded by the Bush administration under the guise of the war on terror. But more fundamentally, it is a story about the future of war, democracy, and governance.”30 Blackwater’s business model makes it ideally suited to enable governments to fight wars without heeding the public, thus undermining the democratic process, Scahill believes. He quotes Ratner: “The increasing use of contractors, private forces or as some would say ‘mercenaries’ makes wars easier to begin and to fight—it just takes money and not the citizenry.”31
Mixing Business, Politics, and Religion?
Critics question whether Blackwater’s business interests are commingled with its executives’ religious motivations. According to Scahill, “What is particularly scary about Blackwater’s role in a war that President [George W.] Bush labeled a ‘crusade’ is that the company’s leading executives are dedicated to a Christian-supremacist agenda.”32 Prince is a staunch Catholic; Joseph Schmitz, another top Blackwater executive, said in 2004 that “no American today should ever doubt that we hold ourselves accountable to the rule of law under God. Here lies the fundamental difference between us and the terrorists.” In his official biography Schmitz proclaimed membership in the Order of Malta, a Christian militia formed in the 11th century with the goal of defending “territories that the Crusaders had conquered from the Moslems.”33
Before joining Blackwater, Schmitz (who had previously worked for the Reagan administration and represented ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich) was inspector general for the Department of Defense, nominated by Bush in 2001. As inspector general—a position he held until fall 2005—Schmitz was to prevent “fraud, waste, and abuse in the programs and operations” of the Pentagon. But under Schmitz, “corporate profiteers, many with close ties to the administration, thrived as they burned through resources ostensibly allocated for the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to Scahill.34
In February 2005, Blackwater hired J. Cofer Black as vice chairman.35 Black was director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center on 9/11, after which the “staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.”36 After President George W. Bush signed a secret act that “authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures and renditions,” the number of renditions (the controversial process in which suspects are captured and transported for interrogations) also ballooned.37 Black lost his job in May 2002, possibly because he criticized the Bush administration’s failure to capture Osama bin Laden.38 In December 2002 he was tapped to become the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, a position he held until November 2004.39 In 2006, Black and his former CIA and Blackwater colleague Robert Richer launched Total Intelligence Solutions, a privatized intel company run by the Prince Group, owner of Blackwater.40
No More Security?
In July 2008, several months before it officially changed its name to Xe, the company said it intended to pull back from the security business. The AP reported, “Blackwater executives say they have unfairly become a symbol for all contractors in Iraq and thus the company is a target for those opposed to the war. It will continue guarding U.S. officials in Iraq but its future will be focused on training, aviation, and logistics.”41 Prince told the AP, "The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk."42 Blackwater “has expanded its aviation division, which provides airplane and helicopter maintenance and also drops supplies into hard-to-reach military bases,” the AP reported. “A 6,000-foot runway is under construction and a large map in the company's hangar shows units based across the world, from Africa to the Middle East to Australia.”43
Commenting on Blackwater’s announcement, Josh Marshall of the blog Talking Points Memo wrote, “Come to think of it, 'training, aviation, and logistics' sounds a lot like military contracting. But who knows. Eric Kleefeld suggests another possibility. As a partisan Republican mercenary outfit, they may rightly anticipate slackening sales under a Democratic president.”44
According to Wired magazine, by early 2009 the company had branched out into a range of new activities in its efforts to reinvent itself, including offering protection to commercial ships, “making custom rifles, marketing spy blimps, assembling a fleet of light attack aircraft, and billing itself as experts in everything from cargo handling to dog training to construction management.”45 The company had also begun offering firearms and self-defense classes to professional athletes. According to a February 2009 AP story, “The first weekend class at the company's compound in North Carolina is set for April, about six months after New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress shot himself in the thigh inside a nightclub. The company cites that case, along with the shooting death by an intruder of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, as examples of why pro athletes need to have a handle on firearms safety.”46
Contact Information
US Training Center North Carolina
PO Box 1029
Moyock, NC 27958
Primary Number 252.435.2488
Fax Number 252.435.6388blackwatermediacenter.com
Mission Statement (as of 2007)
“To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times. Blackwater is committed to the foot soldiers -- the men and women who stand on the frontlines of the global war on terror and who believe in a peaceful future for their communities and nations. Whether serving in or out of uniform, Blackwater is committed to providing these men and women with the very best in training and tactical support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet current and future global security challenges.”47
Key Personnel
Erik Prince, Founder and CEO
Founded
1997
Additional Resources
Ali Gharib, “Blackwater: The Real 'Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy'?” Right Web, July 18, 2008.
Rigth Web Profile: Erik Prince
Sources
1. Mike Baker, “Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name,” Associated Press, February 13, 2009.
2. Mike Baker, “Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name,” Associated Press, February 13, 2009.
3. Mike Baker, “Blackwater dumps tarnished brand name,” Associated Press, February 13, 2009.
4. The company history was located at http://www.blackwaterusa.com/company_pro...story.html.
5. Jim Schaefer, M.L. Elrick, and Todd Spangler, “Ready for Battle,” Detroit Free Press, October 7, 2007.
6. Jennifer Elsea et al., "CRS Report for Congress: Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status and Other Issues,” August 25, 2008, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32419.pdf.
7. Rep. Peter Welch, http://www.welch.house.gov/index.php?opt...&Itemid=64.
8. Bill Sizemore and Joanne Kimberlin, "Blackwater: On the Front Lines," Virginian-Pilot, July 25, 2007.
9. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), pp. 72, 78.
10. 2000 IRS Form 990-PF for the Freiheit Foundation; Ben Van Heuvelen, “The Bush Administration's Ties to Blackwater,” Salon.com, October 2, 2007.
11. Sarah Posner, “The Legal Muscle Fighting to End the Separation of Church and State,” Washington Spectator, April 1, 2007; 2006 IRS Form 990-PF for the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation.
12. Jim Schaefer, M.L. Elrick, and Todd Spangler, “Ready for Battle,” Detroit Free Press, October 7, 2007.
13. “Blackwater’s Founder on the Record,” Virginian-Pilot, July 24, 2006.
14. Blackwater Worldwide, "Company History,” http://www.blackwaterusa.com/company_pro...story.html (accessed on September 25, 2008).
15. Blackwater homepage (Web Archive, September 27, 2007), http://web.archive.org/web/20070927195733/http://www.blackwaterusa.com/
16. Blackwater Worldwide, “Blackwater Media Center,” http://blackwatermediacenter.com/ (accessed on September 25, 2008).
17. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 247.
18. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, “Memorandum: Re: Additional Information about Blackwater USA,” October 1, 2007, http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf.
19. Dana Milbank, “The Man from Blackwater, Shooting from the Lip,” Washington Post, October 3, 2007, p. A2.
20. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, “Memorandum: Re: Additional Information about Blackwater USA,” October 1, 2007, http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf.
21. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, “Memorandum: Re: Additional Information about Blackwater USA,” October 1, 2007, http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf.
22. Kevin Flower et al., “U.S. Expects More Attacks in Iraq,” CNN, May 6, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/03/31/iraq.main/
23. David Stout and John Broder, "Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater,” New York Times, October 1, 2007; David Stout and John Broder, “F.B.I. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause,” New York Times, November 14, 2007.
24. David Stout and John Broder, "Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater,” New York Times, October 1, 2007.
25. Quoted in Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 61.
26. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 56.
27. “Interview: Journalist Scahill Charts the Rise of Blackwater USA,” National Public Radio, March 29, 2007.
28. Lara Jakes Jordan and Matt Apuzzo, “Sources: Charges against Blackwater Guards Debated,” Associated Press, Washington Post, September 16, 2008.
29. Lara Jakes Jordan and Matt Apuzzo, “Sources: Charges against Blackwater Guards Debated,” Associated Press, Washington Post, September 16, 2008.
30. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), pp. 60.
31. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), pp. 60.
32. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 61.
33. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 367.
34. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 374.
35. Blackwater USA, “Ambassador Cofer Black Becomes Vice-Chairman at Blackwater USA,” February 4, 2005, http://www.blackwaterusa.com/press/cofer.asp.
36. Dana Priest, “Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake,” Washington Post, December 4, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...76_pf.html.
37. Dana Priest, “Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake,” Washington Post, December 4, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...76_pf.html.
38. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008), p. 341.
39. State Department, “Biography: J. Cofer Black,” http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bios/b/15367.htm.
40. Dana Hedgpeth, “Blackwater’s Owner Has Spies for Hire,” Washington Post, November 3, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...65_pf.html; Total Intelligence Solutions, “Former CIA and Counterterrorism Experts Respond to Security and Intelligence Demands of the Private Sector,” February 20, 2006, http://www.totalintel.com/dsp_media_pres..._16_07.php.
41. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
42. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
43. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
44. Matt Apuzzo and Mike Baker, “Blackwater Plans Shift from Security Business,” Associated Press, July 21, 2008.
45. Noah Schactman, “Blackwater's New Business: Training Pro Athletes,” Wired, February 9, 2009.
46. Associated Press, "Blackwater to offer athletes firearms training,” February 5, 2009.
47. Blackwater homepage (Web Archive, September 27, 2007), http://web.archive.org/web/20070927195733/http://www.blackwaterusa.com/
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"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
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"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.