Anyone see this discussed or even repeated by broadcast newsmedia?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/us/22intel.html?_r=2&hpwU.S. Still Using Security Firm It Broke With
By MARK LANDLER and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: August 21, 2009
WASHINGTON — Despite publicly breaking with an American private security company in Iraq, the State Department continues to award the company, formerly known as Blackwater, more than $400 million in contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them in Afghanistan, and train security forces in antiterrorism tactics at its remote camp in North Carolina.
The contracts, one of which runs until 2011, illustrate the extent to which the United States government remains reliant on private contractors like Blackwater, now known as Xe (pronounced zee) Services, to conduct some of its most sensitive operations and protect some of its most vital assets.
Disclosures that the Central Intelligence Agency had used the company, which most people still call Blackwater, to help with a covert program to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda have touched off a storm in Washington, with lawmakers demanding to know why this kind of work is being outsourced. New details about Xe’s involvement in the covert program emerged Friday.
>>>>>>>>
The State Department continues to use Blackwater guards in Afghanistan, despite the company’s involvement in civilian shootings in Baghdad in 2007, and despite Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pledge to “reduce our dependence on private security contractors.”
The department declined to discuss its ties with Blackwater publicly, but a senior department official said it would be costly for the government to terminate, without cause, the other contracts that are in place. A spokeswoman for Xe Services did not respond to messages requesting comment.
>>>>>>
This web of ties is drawing the attention and anger of lawmakers, including Senator John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On Friday, Mr. Kerry wrote to the founder and chairman of Xe, Erik D. Prince, asking for details of his company’s dealings with the C.I.A. In the letter, a copy of which was supplied to The New York Times, Mr. Kerry expressed concern that contractors could have used their State Department assignments as a “cover to gather information for the targeted killing program.” Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, canceled the program this year, in part because he learned the C.I.A. had used an outside company for the program, government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity have said.
>>>>>>>
Mr. Kerry also plans to write to Mrs. Clinton to raise his concerns, said one of his aides.
In a meeting with department employees in February, Mrs. Clinton said, “I certainly am of the mind that we should, insofar as possible, reduce our dependence.” But she added, “Whether we can go all the way to banning, under current circumstances, seems unlikely.”
>>>>>>>
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
