DER SPIEGEL: Memo Reveals Details of Blackwater Targeted Killings Program

[seafan]

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)


This is from the full companion article to last week's shorter piece from Der Spiegel.


Memo Reveals Details of Blackwater Targeted Killings Program


By Gabor Steingart in Washington
DER SPIEGEL

August 24, 2009

A US district court will decide this week whether one of the darkest chapters of the Bush era, the relationship between the administration and the private security company Blackwater, should be reexamined. Former Blackwater employees want to shine light on the company's shadowy activities.

.....

The political world will also have to make some decisions. The first question is whether the US government will make public on Monday the most comprehensive report to date on the treatment of terrorism suspects. That alone would trigger a political hurricane in Washington, says former CIA Director Porter Goss. It would also make it much more difficult for the government to rebuff calls for it to finally investigate all the alleged illegal activity carried out in the fight against terrorism.

It was not until the end of June that US Attorney General Eric Holder read the report, which was prepared by the CIA's inspector general in 2004. But then he spent a full two days in his office in Washington D.C. studying the document. When he had finished reading it, he apparently stood at the window for a long time, staring out at Constitution Avenue. Horrified over what had been done in the name of America, Holder looked into the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor. Sources in Washington say that he has now achieved his goal, which puts him more squarely in Burke's camp than Obama's.

.....

After the al-Qaida attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney began using large numbers of private security contractors for the first time. The mercenaries were intended to make up for a lack of manpower, especially in the area of personal security, as well as to perform the dirty work, such as interrogating detainees, thereby leaving US military personnel untainted. Erik Prince's company turned into an empire practically overnight, collecting more than $1 billion (€700 million) in revenues from US taxpayers. Seventy percent of Blackwater's contracts with the government were no-bid contracts.

Original link to last week's piece from Der Spiegel, with more details on Buzzy Krongard's involvement is here.

[mod mom]

1. Privatized mercenaries where Erik Prince rakes in the big bucks while his employees

pay the ultimate price with little/no compensation for their families. I would love for Prince to face the justice he deserves!

[bobthedrummer]

2. They are hired killers, regardless of the rebranding efforts like International Peace Operations...

Remember Greystone?

On edit-links to Greystone are disappearing due to information warfare in realtime

[NashVegas]

3. seafan, Please Edit This

Copyright violations kick in when you go over 4-5 paragraphs. This is an important story and I'd hate to see it get locked, but I'd hate even more for people who don't make much money in the first place to not be able to get paid for their work.

[seafan]

4. I'll leave it in the hands of the mods. Our media are stunningly AWOL on this. n/t

[NashVegas]

5. I'm Sorry You Feel That Way

[seafan]

6. Blackwater's "shooters" were recruited internationally, including from Philippines and Latin America

Blackwater is incredibly dangerous to the security of the United States, as it has trained foreigners as murderers, who have no loyalty to the U. S., and have no accountability to anyone.

.....

The company's most important personnel, its fighters, who were known internally as "shooters," were recruited around the world, including from places like the Philippines and Latin America. In 2007, the company proudly changed its name to Blackwater Worldwide.

The advantage of privatizing the war was obvious for the Bush administration. Blackwater contractors are cheaper than regular US soldiers. When they were killed, their widows received only minor compensation, while the US military pays lifelong survivor benefits. Besides, Blackwater employees died quietly -- in other words, they were never part of the official death statistics, which was convenient for the president.

.....

Burke now plans to call 40 witnesses to testify against Prince. If the court agrees to hear her suit on Friday, eyewitnesses to the various killings will be summoned from Baghdad. In the United States, Burke, who made a name for herself defending detainees subjected to abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, will ask the court to subpoena several former Blackwater employees, including a former executive.

Two affidavits that have been filed in the Alexandria court contain serious allegations against company founder Erik Prince. The men who signed the affidavits, fearing that their lives could be put in danger if their identities were revealed, are identified anonymously as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2.

In his affidavit, John Doe 1, who served in Iraq, writes that he "personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using excessive and unjustified deadly force."
John Doe 2, who worked for Prince, writes that the former head of Blackwater "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe." He claims that company employees treated the killing of Iraqis as sport.

.....

[seafan]

7. Blackwater flew renditions to black sites; other Prince companies also involved

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In addition to working for government departments, Blackwater also worked directly for the intelligence agency, as the new CIA director recently confirmed in a closed-door hearing in the US Congress. And in a memo SPIEGEL has obtained, two other former employees describe, for the first time, the details of this covert collaboration.

The two informants are referred to as "Source A" and "Source B" in the internal memo. According to Source B, Blackwater, working on behalf of the CIA, flew terror suspects from Guantanamo to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, where the detainees apparently faced "special treatment" in secret prisons.

The intelligence service commissioned Blackwater and its subsidiaries to transport terror suspects from Guantanamo to interrogations at secret prison camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The paper identifies aircraft movements and unveils how the flights were disguised. The memo reads: "The CIA hired Blackwater to conduct extraordinary renditions" and "Blackwater flew the rendition targets from Fort Perry and Cuba to Kandahar, Afghanistan."

.....

According to the informant, some of the flights were provided by two other companies Prince owned, Presidential Airways and Aviation Worldwide, which were given special clearance in 2003 by the US Defense Department to conduct such flights. Source B even knew the tail numbers of the aircraft that were allegedly involved: N962BW, N964BW and N968BW.

The flights also involved Satelles Solutions, another Prince subsidiary, which operates a training and recruitment camp in the Philippines designed to accommodate about 1,000 soldiers.

[seafan]

8. CIA hired Blackwater to carry out targeted assassinations; Cheney wanted kept secret from Congress

.....

According to Source A, Blackwater also helped out the CIA with another controversial activity during the Bush years. In the memo, Source A writes: "The CIA hired Blackwater to conduct targeted killings in Afghanistan."

In June Leon Panetta, Obama's new CIA director, told lawmakers in a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill about a secret program to kill or capture al-Qaida operatives that was begun eight years ago. The purpose of the so-called assassination program was to recruit and train special forces to assassinate senior al-Qaida leaders.

.....

The memo by the two sources gets more specific. Source A names five people who were allegedly involved in the development of assassination teams, including a man who left Blackwater in mid-2005 and last worked as the head of the Blackwater's OGA division. The acronym stands for "Other Government Agencies," which included the connection to the CIA. The other men on the source's list are a former member of Blackwater's paratrooper unit, an employee of Blackwater Security Consulting who, according to the memo, was designated as a "hit man" within the unit and Alvin Bernard Krongard, the most senior employee on the list, who the source claims was responsible for assembling the teams. "Krongard set up the teams," the paper claims.

But the memo does not specify whether agreements were made with individuals or the company itself, or what Krongard's role was exactly. The latter is particularly difficult to determine, given that Krongard has worked on both sides of the desk. From March 2001 to September 2004, Krongard served as the CIA's executive director, under then-CIA Director George Tenet. After leaving office, he switched to the private sector, joining Blackwater's advisory board.

.....

[seafan]

9. 'Blackwater assisted in drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.'

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The allegations have triggered growing unease on Capitol Hill, where senators want to know more about the covert assassination program. Last Friday, it was also revealed that Blackwater assisted in drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In a letter to fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky urged the secretary of state "not to enter into further contracts with Xe and to immediately review any existing contracts."

Blackwater: Merchants of Death

[bobthedrummer]

10. thanks for starting this thread seafan! Kick.

:patriot:

[seafan]

12. Hey, bob! I plan to keep swinging this pickax.

Thanks for all of your efforts, friend.

[bobthedrummer]

13. Kick!

:patriot:

[Echo In Light]

11. Rec

[bobthedrummer]

14. No one is above the law....kick