By Jeremy Scahill

In Iraq, armed contractors are increasing as US troops “drawdown.” In Afghanistan, the increases are across the board.

The Department of Defense has released an updated census of Pentagon contractors deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and CENTCOM’s area of operations. The overall number of contractors in the third quarter of 2009 increased slightly from 243,000 to 244,000, which means that private forces continue to constitute about half of the total US force deployed in these two wars.

Two other statistics jump out. First, in Iraq, the DoD reports that there was “a 19 % increase (from 10,743 to 13,232) of armed DoD PSCs in Iraq compared to the 2nd quarter FY 2009 census.” The DoD says the “increase can be attributed to an increased need for PSCs to provide security as the military begins to drawdown forces and to our continued improved ability to account for subcontractors who are providing security services.” In other words, less soldiers means more mercenaries in Iraq.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, there continue to be more private contractors than US soldiers. There was “a 20% increase (from 4,111 to 5,165) of armed DoD PSCs in Afghanistan compared to the 1st quarter FY 2009 census,” according to the DoD. That increase is, predictably, linked to the overall “build up of forces” in Afghanistan.

In neither Iraq, nor Afghanistan, do these numbers include the armed contractors working for the US Department of State or for private entities or individuals. That means that the Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy forces working for the State Department are not included in this count. Nor are those who work for the CIA or other covert US agencies. In other words, these statistics are a conservative estimate of the total number of private armed personnel on the US payroll in these countries.

In Iraq, there has been an overall 10% decrease in the total number of private contractors— there are now 119,706. According to DoD this is “due to ongoing efforts to reduce the contractor footprint in Iraq.” Interestingly, there has been an increase in the overall number of contractors in Afghanistan— “a 9% increase (from 68K to 74K) in contractor personnel in Afghanistan.” Kuwait has also seen a “significant” increase in US contractor personnel. The report was prepared by the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Program Support.

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US Still Paying Blackwater Millions
By Jeremy Scahill

Just days before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company's owner, Erik Prince, "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for "security services" in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation. The State Department contract is scheduled to run through September 3. In May, the State Department announced it was not renewing Blackwater's Iraq contract, and the Iraqi government has refused to issue the company an operating license.

"They are still there, but we are transitioning them out," a State Department official told The Nation. According to the State Department, the $20 million represents an increase on an aviation contract that predates the Obama administration.

Despite its scandal-plagued track record, Blackwater (which has rebranded itself as Xe) continues to have a presence in Iraq, trains Afghan forces on US contracts and provides government-funded training for military and law enforcement inside the United States. The company is also actively bidding on other government contracts, including in Afghanistan, where the number of private contractors is swelling. According to federal contracting records reviewed by The Nation, since President Barack Obama took office in January the State Department has contracted with Blackwater for more than $174 million in "security services" alone in Iraq and Afghanistan and tens of millions more in "aviation services." Much of this money stems from existing contracts from the Bush era that have been continued by the Obama administration. While Obama certainly inherited a mess when it came to Blackwater's entrenchment in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has continued the widespread use of armed private contractors in both countries. Blackwater's role may be slowly shrinking, but its work is continuing through companies such as DynCorp and Triple Canopy.

"These contracts with Blackwater need to stop," says Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. "There's already enough evidence of gross misconduct and serious additional allegations against the company and its owner to negate any possibility that this company should have a presence in Iraq, Afghanistan or any conflict zone--or any contract with the US government."

On July 24 the Army signed an $8.9 million contract with Blackwater's aviation wing, Presidential Airways, for aviation services at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Bagram, home to a massive--and expanding--US-run prison, has been the subject of intense criticism from the ACLU and human rights groups for holdings hundreds of prisoners without charges and denying them habeas corpus and access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Blackwater aviation contract for Afghanistan is described as "Air Charter for Things" and "Nonscheduled Chartered Passenger Air Transportation." The military signed an additional $1.4 million contract that day for "Nonscheduled" passenger transportation in Afghanistan. These payments are part of aviation contracts dating back to the Bush era, and continued under Obama, that have brought Blackwater tens of millions of dollars in Afghanistan since January. In May, Blackwater operatives on contract with the Department of Defense allegedly killed an unarmed Afghan civilian and wounded two others. Moreover, Presidential Airways is being sued by the families of US soldiers killed in a suspicious crash in Afghanistan in November 2004.

The sworn affidavits from the former Blackwater employees, first reported by The Nation on August 3, have sparked renewed calls on Capitol Hill for the Obama administration to cancel all business with Blackwater. "I believe that the behavior of Xe, its leadership, and many of its employees, puts our government and military personnel, as well as our military and diplomatic objectives, at serious risk," Schakowsky wrote in an August 6 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Given this company's history of abuse and in light of recent allegations, I urge you not to award further contracts to Xe and its affiliates and to review all existing contracts with this company." Schakowsky sent a similar letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Meanwhile, VoteVets.org, a leading veterans' organization, has called on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to investigate the allegations contained in the sworn declarations submitted in the Eastern District of Virginia on August 3. VoteVets.org, which has more than 100,000 members, also appealed to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to "immediately hold hearings, and make recommendations on a new legal structure" to hold private military contractors accountable for alleged crimes.

"Given the charges made against Xe and Erik Prince in these sworn statements, which include smuggling and use of illegal arms inside of Iraq, as well as the encouraged murder of innocent Iraqis, it is essential that these loopholes be closed, retroactively, so that Xe, Prince, and his employees cannot escape proper prosecution in the United States now or in the future," wrote the group's chair Jon Soltz, an Iraq War veteran, in a letter to Senator John Kerry and other lawmakers. "It is absolutely crucial that we show Iraqis and the rest of the world that no matter who you are or how big your company is, you will be held accountable for your conduct--especially when in a war zone. Failure to do so only emboldens our enemy, and gives them yet another tool to recruit more insurgents and terrorists that target our men and women in harm's way."

For its part, Blackwater/Xe issued a statement responding to the sworn statements of two of its former employees. The company called the allegations "unsubstantiated and offensive assertions." It said the lawyers representing alleged Iraqi victims of Blackwater "have chosen to slander Mr. Prince rather than raise legal arguments or actual facts that will be considered by a court of law. We are happy to engage them there."

What Blackwater/Xe's statement did not flatly say is that the allegations are untrue. "I would have expected a crisp denial," says military law expert Scott Horton, who has followed this case closely. "The statement had the look of a denial to it, without actually refuting the specific allegations. I can understand why from the perspective of a corporate public affairs officer--just repeating the allegations would be harmful and would add to their credibility."

Blackwater also claims that the accusations "hold no water" because, even though the two former employees said that they had already provided similar information to federal prosecutors, no further Blackwater operatives or officials have been indicted. The company claims that according to the US attorney, the indictment of five Blackwater employees for the September 2007 Nisour Square shootings is "very narrow in its allegation" and does not charge "the entire Blackwater organization in Baghdad."

But, as Blackwater certainly knows, there are multiple prosecutors looking into its activities on a wide range of issues, and more than one grand jury can be seated at any given time. Simply because indictments were not announced regarding other actions when the Nisour Square charges were brought by the Justice Department does not mean Prince, Blackwater and its management are in the clear.

"We know that the federal criminal investigation is still ongoing, so this prosecutor's statement was not really anything definitive," says Horton. "Second, the presumption in US law is that, with fairly rare exceptions, crimes are committed by natural persons, not by legal entities like corporations. A corporation might be fined, for instance, but if it's deeply entangled in criminal dealings, it's the officers who would be prosecuted. Among other things, of course, it's impossible to put a corporation in the slammer. So saying that Blackwater wasn't charged with any crime really doesn't mean much."

Blackwater says it will formally respond to the allegations against Prince and Blackwater in a legal motion on August 17 in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Prince and the company are being sued for war crimes and other alleged crimes by Susan Burke and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

On August 5, Blackwater's lawyers filed a motion with the court reiterating their request for a gag order to be placed on the plaintiffs and their lawyers. That motion largely consisted of quotes from two recent Nation magazine articles covering the case, including one about the allegations against Prince. Despite the fact that the affidavits of "John Doe #1" and "John Doe #2" were public, Blackwater accused the lawyers of "providing this information" to the media. Blackwater's lawyers charged that the plaintiffs' attorneys comments to The Nation were intended "to fuel this one-sided media coverage and to taint the jury pool against [Erik Prince and Blackwater]," adding that The Nation articles and the "coordinated media campaign" of the lawyers "demonstrate a clear need for an Order restraining extrajudicial commentary by the parties and their counsel." On August 7, Judge T.S. Ellis III, a Reagan appointee, denied Blackwater's motion.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill2/print

•••••

Blackwater: CIA Assassins?
By Jeremy Scahill

In April 2002, the CIA paid Blackwater more than $5 million to deploy a small team of men inside Afghanistan during the early stages of US operations in the country. A month later, Erik Prince, the company's owner and a former Navy SEAL, flew to Afghanistan as part of the original twenty-man Blackwater contingent. Blackwater worked for the CIA at its station in Kabul as well as in Shkin, along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where they operated out of a mud fortress known as the Alamo. It was the beginning of a long relationship between Blackwater, Prince and the CIA.

Now the New York Times is reporting that in 2004 the CIA hired Blackwater "as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda." According to the Times, "it is unclear whether the CIA had planned to use the contractors to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance."

The Times reports that "the CIA did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune." A retired intelligence officer "intimately familiar with the assassination program" told the Washington Post, "Outsourcing gave the agency more protection in case something went wrong." The Post reported that Blackwater "was given operational responsibility for targeting terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry, but the program was canceled before any missions were conducted."

"What the agency was doing with Blackwater scares the hell out of me," said Jack Rice, a former CIA field operator who worked for the directorate of operations, which runs covert paramilitary activities for the CIA. "When the agency actually cedes all oversight and power to a private organization, an organization like Blackwater, most importantly they lose control and don't understand what's going on," Rice told The Nation. "What makes it even worse is that you then can turn around and have deniability. They can say, 'It wasn't us, we weren't the ones making the decisions.' That's the best of both worlds. It's analogous to what we hear about torture that was being done in the name of Americans, when we simply handed somebody over to the Syrians or the Egyptians or others and then we turn around and say, 'We're not torturing people.'"

Reached by telephone, Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that because of her oath of secrecy on sensitive intelligence issues, she could neither confirm nor deny that Congress was aware of Blackwater's involvement in this program before the Times report. Schakowsky also declined to comment on whether Blackwater came up at a June briefing by CIA director Leon Panetta, which she attended. That briefing sparked calls for an investigation into whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to conceal an assassination program from Congress.

"What we know now, if this is true, is that Blackwater was part of the highest level, the innermost circle strategizing and exercising strategy within the Bush administration," Schakowsky told The Nation. "Erik Prince operated at the highest and most secret level of the government. Clearly Prince was more trusted than the US Congress because Vice President Cheney made the decision not to brief Congress. This shows that there was absolutely no space whatsoever between the Bush administration and Blackwater."

As The Nation has reported, Blackwater continues to operate on the US government payroll in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where it works for the State Department and the Defense Department. The CIA will not confirm whether Blackwater continues to work for the agency (or, for that matter, if it ever has).

Blackwater's work for the CIA was the result of meetings in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 between Prince and Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, then-executive director of the CIA, the agency's number-three man. Krongard and Prince, according to a former Blackwater executive interviewed by The Nation, "were good buddies." In a 2006 interview for my book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Krongard said that the company was hired to provide security for the CIA in Afghanistan. "Blackwater got a contract because they were the first people that could get people on the ground," Krongard said. "The only concern we had was getting the best security for our people. If we thought Martians could provide it, I guess we would have gone after them."

The relationship between Krongard and Prince apparently got chummier after the contract was signed. One former Blackwater executive said in 2006, "Krongard came down and visited Blackwater [at company headquarters in North Carolina], and I had to take his kids around and let them shoot on the firing range a number of times." That visit took place after the CIA contract was signed, according to the former executive, and Krongard "may have come down just to see the company that he had just hired."

The relationship between Blackwater and the CIA quickly evolved. Shortly after Prince arrived in Afghanistan in May 2002, according to a former Blackwater executive who was with Prince, the Blackwater owner focused on winning more business with government agencies, providing private soldiers for hire. In 2002 Prince, along with former CIA operative Jamie Smith, created Blackwater Security Consulting, which would put former Navy SEALs and other special ops on the market.

Prince subsequently tried to join the CIA but was reportedly denied when his polygraph test came back inconclusive. Still, he maintained close ties with the agency. He reportedly was given a "green badge" that permitted him access to most CIA stations. "He's over there [at CIA headquarters] regularly, probably once a month or so," a CIA source told Harper's journalist Ken Silverstein in 2006. "He meets with senior people, especially in the [directorate of operations]."

Prince would also go on to hire many senior Bush-era CIA officials to work at Blackwater. In July 2007 Buzzy Krongard joined the company's board; Prince offered him a $3,500 honorarium per meeting attended plus all expenses paid. "Your experience and insight would be ideal to help our team determine where we are and where we are going," Prince wrote in a letter to Krongard. At the time his brother, Howard "Cookie" Krongard, was the State Department inspector general responsible for overseeing Blackwater's work for the State Department. In September 2007 California Democratic Representative Henry Waxman accused Cookie Krongard of impeding a Justice Department investigation into Blackwater over allegations the company was illegally smuggling weapons into Iraq.

Prince hired several other former CIA officials to run what amounted to his own private CIA. Most notable among these was J. Cofer Black, who was running the CIA's counterterrorism operations and leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden when Blackwater was initially hired by the CIA in 2002. Black left the government in 2005 and took a job at Blackwater running Prince's private intelligence company, Total Intelligence Solutions.

While at the CIA, Black ran the "extraordinary rendition" program and coordinated the CIA "Jawbreaker" team sent into Afghanistan to kill or capture bin Laden and senior Al Qaeda leaders. In the days immediately after 9/11, he told Bush that his men would aim to kill Al Qaeda operatives. "When we're through with them, they will have flies walking across their eyeballs," Black promised Bush. When Black told Bush the operation would not be bloodless, the president reportedly said, "Let's go. That's war. That's what we're here to win."

Before the CIA Jawbreaker team deployed on September 27, 2001, Black gave his men direct and macabre directions: "I don't want bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead.... They must be killed. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want bin Laden's head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to be able to show bin Laden's head to the president. I promised him I would do that." According to CIA operative Gary Schroen, a member of the Jawbreaker team, it was the first time in his thirty-year career he had been ordered to assassinate an adversary rather than attempt a capture.

In September 2002, five months after Blackwater's first known contract with the CIA in Afghanistan, Black testified to Congress about the new "operational flexibility" employed in the "war on terror." "There was a before 9/11, and there was an after 9/11," Black said. "After 9/11 the gloves come off." Black outlined a "no-limits, aggressive, relentless, worldwide pursuit of any terrorist who threatens us," saying it "is the only way to go and is the bottom line." Black would later brag, in 2004, that "over 70 percent" of Al Qaeda's leadership had been arrested, detained or killed, and that "more than 3,400 of their operatives and supporters have also been detained and put out of an action." The Times reports that the Blackwater-CIA assassination program "did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects."

In addition to Black, Total Intelligence's executives include CEO Robert Richer, the former associate deputy director of the CIA's Directorate of Operations and second-ranking official in charge of clandestine operations. From 1999 to 2004, Richer was head of the CIA's Near East and South Asia Division, where he ran covert operations in the Middle East and South Asia. As part of his duties, he was the CIA liaison with Jordan's King Abdullah, a key US ally and Blackwater client, and briefed George W. Bush on the burgeoning Iraqi resistance in its early stages.

Total Intelligence's chief operating officer is Enrique "Ric" Prado, a twenty-four-year CIA veteran and former senior executive officer in the Directorate of Operations. He spent more than a decade working in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and ten years with the CIA's "paramilitary" Special Operations Group.

Total Intelligence is run out of an office on the ninth floor of a building in the Ballston area of Arlington, Virginia. Its Global Fusion Center, complete with large-screen TVs broadcasting international news channels and computer stations staffed by analysts surfing the web, "operates around the clock every day of the year" and is modeled after the CIA's counterterrorist center, once run by Black. The firm employs at least sixty-five full-time staff--some estimates say it's closer to 100. "Total Intel brings the...skills traditionally honed by CIA operatives directly to the board room," Black said when the company launched.

Representative Schakowsky says the House Intelligence Committee is investigating the CIA assassination program and will probe alleged links to Blackwater. "The presidential memos (often referred to as 'findings') authorizing covert action like the lethal activities of the CIA and Blackwater have not yet surfaced," says Ray McGovern, a retired twenty-seven-year CIA analyst who once served as George H.W. Bush's national security briefer. "They will, in due course, if knowledgeable sources continue to put the Constitution and courage above secrecy oaths."

Blackwater Strikes Back

The Times report comes as Prince and his Blackwater empire are facing the prospect of a potentially explosive civil trial over the killing of Iraqi civilians. Attorney Susan Burke and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), who are suing Prince and his companies on behalf of their Iraqi victims, have alleged that Prince is "equivalent to a top mafia boss who is responsible for all the day-to-day crimes committed at his direction and behest." If the case proceeds, the process of discovery could blow the lid off some of the darkest secrets of the powerful security contractor and its secretive owner. Burke and CCR are suing Prince and his companies directly rather than his individual employees because they say Prince "wholly owns and personally controls all Defendants." Burke also alleges that Prince has committed "violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal statute permitting private parties to seek redress from criminal enterprises who damage their property." Among the allegations are war crimes, extra-judicial killings and assault and battery of Iraqis.

Since the first case was filed by Iraqi civilians against Prince and Blackwater over the killing of seventeen Iraqis at Baghdad's Nisour Square on September 16, 2007, the company's high-powered lawyers have fought feverishly to have that and four other cases dismissed. Now, facing a crucial August 28 hearing in federal court in Virginia, they are putting forward a new argument: instead of Prince and Blackwater standing trial, the US government should be the defendant.

In a motion filed August 12, Blackwater's lawyers asked federal Judge T.S. Ellis III to order "that the United States 'be substituted as the party defendant,' in place of all of the current Defendants." In his motion, Blackwater lawyer Peter White of the powerhouse firm Mayer Brown argued that the company was working for the State Department in Iraq and therefore was on official business when the alleged killings and injuries of Iraqis took place. White cites the 1988 Westfall Act, which prohibits suits against government employees for their actions on behalf of the government and states that the government will assume liability for any lawsuits against employees.

Federal tort law defines "employees" in this context as "persons acting on behalf of a federal agency in an official capacity, temporarily or permanently in the service of the United States, whether with or without compensation." The fact that the defendants are "corporate entities" in this instance, White claims, "does not alter that conclusion." In the motion, Blackwater's attorneys note that the company, which recently renamed itself Xe Services, now does business with the government under the name US Training Center (USTC).

"The idea that the United States government should accept liability for the unprovoked criminal manslaughter of seventeen innocent Iraqis by Blackwater mercenaries, and place it on the back of taxpayers, is corporate animism run amok," says Ralph Nader, who has spent his entire career fighting against corporate personhood. "If Blackwater wants to be treated like a person, then its latest mutation, USTC, should be prosecuted, convicted and given the equivalent penalty of corporate capital punishment by revoking its charter and terminating its corporate operations."

The Westfall Act was passed in 1988 as an amendment to the Federal Torts Claim Act "to protect federal employees from personal liability for common law torts committed within the scope of their employment, while providing persons injured by the common law torts of federal employees with an appropriate remedy against the United States." After Westfall, the government assumed legal responsibility for suits filed against federal employees and made the sole remedy for victims suits against the government.

Blackwater has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to intervene in the case and to assume liability for the allegations against Blackwater. If that were to happen, legal experts say, the case would be dead in the water. "It's clear that if they win this motion and the government is substituted, since the wrongs occurred in a foreign country, the government is absolutely immune and the case will be dismissed," says Alan Morrison, a former federal prosecutor who is now the associate dean for public interest at George Washington Law School. "This is an effort [by Blackwater and Prince] to absolve themselves...of any liability for the alleged wrongs to the plaintiffs." He adds: "A gigantic, for-profit corporation is seeking to use this statute, designed to protect government employees, to shield themselves from any responsibility for the deaths and injuries" of Iraqis.

"When Blackwater chooses to interpose itself in the middle and to make profit off these individual employees in the relationship with the government, the notion that Blackwater itself, a corporation, could be an employee is unusual to say the least," says Morrison. "Why would Congress want to, in effect, transfer liability from a large, well-heeled corporation like Blackwater to the United States taxpayers for this kind of conduct? What they'd be saying [if Blackwater's interpretation of the Westfall Act is accepted] is they would have wanted to assume liability for that which they didn't have any liability in the first place."

The Justice Department has not yet issued a position in this case. "Unfortunately, there's nothing we can provide in regard to your inquiry at this time," an official wrote in an e-mail. Earlier, in response to questions from The Nation, a Justice Department spokesperson sent a memo filed by the department earlier this year in a similar case against Blackwater in federal court in Florida, in which the department had rejected the company's attempt to make the government responsible. "Defendants' request for Westfall Act certification should be denied because only natural persons can be considered 'employee[s] of the government,'" Assistant Attorney General Tony West wrote on June 8 in a thirty-five-page filing opposing Blackwater's motion.

Several legal experts interviewed by The Nation said they could not foresee the Justice Department intervening on Blackwater's behalf. But the Westfall Act has been used by attorneys general in both the Bush and Obama administrations to attempt to absolve senior Bush officials of liability for their alleged role in crimes and to make the government liable. On June 26 Holder's office intervened in a lawsuit filed by CCR against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and twenty-three other military and medical officials "for their role in the illegal detention, torture, inhumane conditions and ultimate deaths" of two Guantánamo prisoners.

Citing the Westfall Act, Tony West wrote that "the type of activities alleged against the individual defendants were 'foreseeable' and were 'a direct outgrowth' of their responsibility to detain and gather intelligence from suspected enemy combatants." In defending the government's position, West cited case law stating that "genocide, torture, forced relocation, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by individual defendants employed by Department of Defense and State Department were within scope of employment" and similar cases justifying CIA torture as part of official duty.

"It is essentially saying torture is all in a day's work when it comes to holding people in military detention," says Shane Kadidal, who heads the Guantánamo project at CCR. In that case, the issue was not whether Rumsfeld and the others were "employees" but whether they were doing official business. Blackwater's argument is a tougher sell, says Morrison. "Does it hold water?" he asks. "It holds Blackwater."

Meanwhile, in another development, Prince's lawyers have responded to explosive allegations made against Prince by two former employees. In sworn affidavits submitted by lawyers representing the Iraqis suing Blackwater, the two alleged that Prince may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. One of the former employees alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life." They also charge that Prince was profiting from illegal weapons smuggling. In a motion filed August 10, Prince's lawyers asked Judge Ellis to strike from the record the sworn statements of the two former employees, saying that "the conclusory allegations they contain are inadmissible on multiple grounds, including lack of foundation, hearsay, irrelevance, and unfair prejudice." They charge that the lawyers suing Blackwater are attempting to "use this litigation as a 'megaphone' to increase their ability to influence the public's perceptions regarding the use of contractors in military battlefield situations, the Iraq War, and most particularly about Erik Prince and the other defendants. Unsubstantiated statements made in filings in this Court become 'newsworthy' simply because they appear in those filings." The lawyers characterize the allegations as "scandalous, baseless, inadmissible, and highly prejudicial." Interestingly, nowhere do Prince's lawyers say flatly that the allegations are untrue.

As the cases against Prince move forward, the company continues to do a robust business with the federal government, particularly in Afghanistan. Schakowsky has called for a review of all of the companies' current contracts, and she has called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stop awarding the company contracts. The "Obama administration should at the very least cancel and debar [Blackwater's] present and pending government contracts," says Nader. "Otherwise corporate crimes, privileges and immunities continue to pay and pay and pay."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090831/scahill1/print

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Source: http://rebelreports.com/post/171408295/u-s-increasing-use-of-private-contractors-in-war-zone