Former CEO reveals Blackwater worked as ‘virtual extension of the CIA’

[kpete]

Exclusive: Court Docs Reveal Blackwater’s Secret CIA Past
by Eli Lake Mar 14, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
It was the U.S. military’s most notorious security contractor—but it may also have been a virtual extension of the CIA. Eli Lake reports.


The mercenary group formerly known as Blackwater worked as a “virtual extension of the CIA,” the company’s former CEO revealed to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, who obtained court documents showing the company argued as much when its executives were facing prosecution.

It has long been known that Blackwater, now called Academi, worked with the Central Intelligence Agency, and there were even some pretty straightforward clues that former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince was an agency asset. That relationship is strongly clarified by the company’s own legal defense in a three-year prosecution that collapsed in February, going from having the potential to jail several of the company’s executives to wrapping up with a guilty plea from two men punishable by probation, house arrest and a $5,000 fine.

“Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told Lake. “In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the Agency either could not or would not do in-house.”


Prince added that for many missions he did not even charge the CIA, saying his work at the company came not out of a desire for enrichment, but because “in the wake of 9/11, I felt it my patriotic duty.”



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/14/exclusive-erik-prince-on-blackwater-s-secret-cia-past.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/14/former-ceo-reveals-blackwater-worked-as-virtual-extension-of-the-cia/

[librechik]

1. thanks, Erik, like it wasn't obvious from day 1

you weren't fooling anybody, moron.

[Scuba]

2. No one could have predicted that.

[ProSense]

3. Interesting

But according to the documents Blackwater submitted in its defense—as well as an email exchange I had recently with Prince—the contractor’s relationship with the CIA was far deeper than most observers thought. “Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told me recently...Reflecting on the prosecution and the scrutiny of the company he founded, Prince said the charges against Blackwater executives left him “perplexed and angry.” “Blackwater carried out countless life-threatening missions for the CIA,” he said. “And, in return, the government chose to prosecute my people for doing exactly what was asked of them.”

So his defense is to blame the CIA? Given that the CIA was likely doing all sorts of illegal crap under Bush, why wasn't this exposed years ago?

Investigate those who were in charge of the CIA and prosecute this asshole.

[woodsprite]

4. I always figured Blackwater was Cheney's private army. n/t

[blm]

8. GHWBush has run most every covert CIA operation since the late 60s. Prince interned at Poppy's WH.

You know me - I don't believe in 'coincidence' when it comes to the Bushes. Cheney serves somebody, too.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[Octafish]

6. Gee. Privatized Secret Government. Secret Kill Lists. Death by Drone without Trial. W. T. F. People.

What will they think up next?

It used to be that the mafia got rich by doing dirty work for gentlemen who didn't want to get their own hands dirty.

C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones

By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI
The New York Times
August 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda’s leaders, according to government officials and current and former employees.

The division’s operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also provide security at the covert bases, the officials said.

The role of the company in the Predator program highlights the degree to which the C.I.A. now depends on outside contractors to perform some of the agency’s most important assignments. And it illustrates the resilience of Blackwater, now known as Xe (pronounced Zee) Services, though most people in and outside the company still refer to it as Blackwater. It has grown through government work, even as it attracted criticism and allegations of brutality in Iraq.

SNIP...

In interviews on Thursday, current and former government officials provided new details about Blackwater’s association with the assassination program, which began in 2004 not long after Porter J. Goss took over at the C.I.A. The officials said that the spy agency did not dispatch the Blackwater executives with a “license to kill.” Instead, it ordered the contractors to begin collecting information on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s leaders, carry out surveillance and train for possible missions.

“The actual pulling of a trigger in some ways is the easiest part, and the part that requires the least expertise,” said one government official familiar with the canceled C.I.A. program. “It’s everything that leads up to it that’s the meat of the issue.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21intel.html?_r=0

So. Blackwater means deep, deep wet work. In secret. And gets paid by secret types in government. And drone kill lists are secret. And...when did secret government replace Democracy?

[librechik]

7. when? Right about when Eisenhower warned us it would.

[blm]

10. And the American Fascism of Henry Wallace's warnings.

.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Thugs hire thugs.

[redqueen]

11. K&R nt