C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists

Source: NYT

C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the new C.I.A. director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

Officials said that the C.I.A. 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. Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.

Blackwater, which has changed its name, most recently to Xe Services, and is based in North Carolina, in recent years has received millions of dollars in government contracts, growing so large that the Bush administration said that it was a necessary part of its war operation in Iraq.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/us/20intel.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

:wtf::wtf::wtf:


I predict that crap like this will be trickling out for many years
post-shrub. What scares me is that I still don't know what the hell
is REALLY going on!

Shit like this is getting old

And watching them do NOTHING is getting even OLDER

:hi:

self delete.

far too often kill more innocents than insurgents. :crazy:

Doesn't it make you proud to be an American when our illustrious $$$ *pretty weapons* and munitions kill all those evil-doers ... and women, children, goats, etc. ?!? :sarcasm:

And yet, we WONDER why the vast majority of average Iraqis and Afghanis HATE OUR GUTS and only want our military out of their nations.

Then they'll frame him as a terrorist, while the real ones are left to roam and cause a justification for Thugwater's continued existence.

Thus the endless cycle of money and war continues.

Same reason I do!

Where you have troops & mercenaries who think your a terrorist, warlords who want protection money, the taliban wanting your crops and the CIA needing some funding from your poppies.

Where are you from? This fucked up place(Kabul) has no "law and order". It's survival of the fittest.

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Nice.

:sarcasm:

...and very well put.



K&R

C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists, August 19, 2009




A window into Cheney's secret assassination squads, perhaps


Just the tip of the iceberg

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090819/NEWS02/708199551

The secret CIA program to kill top al-Qaida leaders with assassination teams was outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA . . .The North Carolina-based company was given operational responsibility for targeting terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry

Blackwater works as today's mafia, contract hitmen for hire.

Followed up by success in Project "Kill a (insert racial epithet here)"

Political assassinations in Havana, Guatemala, Bolivia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand - by the hunbdreds of thousands. Millions. There were even a couple bombed in the back seat of a Chevy Malibu in Sheridan Circle, here in DC, while Bush, Sr. was CIA Director.

But, the difference here, the Bush Juniors had no respect for anyone. Particularly not for Americans who might be killed. 9/11 proved that. So, they dispatched Cofer Black and team off to the capitols of key allies in Europe and the Persian Gulf. Who gives a crap about collateral damage to foreign relations - you're either with us or against us.

I thought hiring murderers was illegal? I mean..isnt that cutting in on what the Mafia does?

Source: The Guardian

The CIA enlisted the infamous security company Blackwater in a secret programme to track down and kill al-Qaida leaders, US intelligence sources confirmed today. Blackwater staff, many of whom are former members of US special forces and former members of the CIA, were recruited in 2004 as part of the programme, estimated to have costs millions of dollars. No raid to capture or kill al-Qaida leaders was ever carried out and the programme was closed down this year.

But the employment of Blackwater raised new questions about the legality of the CIA's behaviour during the Bush administration and about the agency's widespread use of outside contractors. There is also an issue over whether the covert programme was deliberately kept hidden from Congress.

The CIA today refused to discuss the involvement of Blackwater but did not deny it either. George Little, a CIA spokesman, acknowledged that there had been a counter-terrorism effort and it amounted to "much more than a PowerPoint presentation". The New York Times, which broke the story, said it was unclear whether Blackwater had been engaged to carry out assassinations or simply to help with intelligence-gathering, planning and training.

General Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA from 2006 to this year, today defended the use of outside contractors, saying the agency used "whoever was best suited for the job". Speaking at a press conference in Washington, he denied that contractors had been used so the CIA could avoid blame. "We do not go outside the agency in order to deflect responsibility," he said. "Period."



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/20/cia-blackwater-assassination-programme

NOT! :mad:

who would not be subject to military law.

:hi:

Assassinating people for the CIA used to be *their* gig.

I am having a mid-level crisis and thinking about changing careers?

Do you need to be certified to be an assassin?

I am a fast learner and I have good people skills.

Do middle managers at Blackwater (Xe) have to do the actual killing? How is the 401K plan?

Don't you mean "mid-life?" Unless you're stuck in some middle-management position with no hope of advancement.

I'm not sure but as an assassin, I think you will have to work nights and weekends. At least until you get senority...

but they don't offer Life Insurance.

I figure, they paid the assassins piece-work wages, like in Vietnam, by the ear.

For all this money and illegality and graft and corruption, not one terrorist suspect was ever captured or killed. I could have achieved the exact same results for half the money.

I'm sure the Tea Party Patriots will be all over this colossal waste of government money, right? Right? Fox News? Anyone?

{Crickets}

Of course they never captured one terrorist. But, plenty of people were killed. Were they terrorists? We'll likely never know.

troopers who were ambushed in Fallujah and hung from a bridge. Maybe they weren't nearly as innocent as the government and the media would have had us believe. Then we leveled the city in retaliation. Sounds like all of it was a fucking lie. ...and maybe a war crime.

Jay