P.S. - Der Speigel Names Head of Blackwater "Hitman" Squad

leveymg

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Sun Aug-23-09 04:51 PM
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P.S. - Der Speigel Names Head of Blackwater "Hitman" Squad

Edited on Sun Aug-23-09 04:54 PM by leveymg

Follow-up to the report, yesterday. Der Spiegel has named A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, former CIA Executive Director of Operations (02/98-09/04), as the principal manager of the "Killing Program" allegedly set up in 2002 within Blackwater. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,644405,00.html

The German magazine states that it has a memo naming Krongard along with four others as members of a "death squad" run by Blackwater in coordination with the US Central Intelligence Agency. The report differs from reports that came out this week in stating that the program went operational at the time of the manhunt in Afganistan. The New York Times had stated that the Blackwater targeted killing program was started in 2004, information cited yesterday in my journal. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/438

A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard has been identified elsewhere as a primary CIA conduit for contracts to Blackwater founder, Erik Prince. In an interview earlier this week, Jeremy Scahill stated that Krongard started steering CIA work to Prince in early 2002, at a time the two were in Afghanistan. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/20/reports_private_military_firm_blackwater_was Krongard, however, did not establish a formal, public relationship with BW until September 2007, when he was appointed to the company's advisory board. See, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3866602&page=1 According to the Speigel report, Blackwater was contracted to kill al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, which would have been at a time Krongard was still employed by CIA, at least two years before the NYT reported the CIA-BW assassination program was started.

Krongard is one of a number of ranking ex-CIA officers appointed to the Boards and upper management of Blackwater. Another figure who has attracted considerable attention is CIA Counter-Terrorism Center Director Cofer Black, who was immediately in charge of the Agency's command center at the time of the entry of 9/11 hijackers. Black was put in charge of the renditions, torture, and armed Predator drone assassination programs developed prior to his departure as head of CIA/CTC in May 2002. The first of the CIA's targeted killings took place under Black's leadership, as was discussed yesterday.

Prior to his appointment as CIA #3, Krongard was CEO and Chairman of the Board of Alex. Brown & Sons, the nation�s oldest investment banking firm, and Vice Chairman of Bankers Trust. Some attention was brought to Krongard following 9/11, as early investigations found that in the weeks before the attack an unusually large number of put options had been placed through the Alex. Brown firm on impacted airline stocks.

Buzzy Krongard with Blackwater bodyguards

If these reports are accurate, Krongard would have been acting in a covert operational capacity that is not normally consistent with his administrative position at the Agency. If Krongard was in fact working for Blackwater previous to his appointment as a board advisor on September 5, 2007, it would have been in some other, still unrevealed, capacity. The Blackwater assassinations program was not revealed to Congressional oversight, which is a serious violation of law. Furthermore, it is normally illegal for an active duty CIA officer to have outside employment, particularly to maintain any direct, outside financial interests with an Agency contractor.

08/22/2009
Speigel.com
Death Squad
Blackwater Accused of Creating "Killing Program"

A memo obtained by SPIEGEL indicates that cooperation between the CIA and private security firm Blackwater was deeper than previously known. SPIEGEL has uncovered further details about a plan to set up squads for targeted killings of suspected al-Qaida leadership in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, the CIA disclosed that it had hired private security contractor Blackwater to kill senior al-Qaida members. The assassination-program has since drawn strong criticism in Washington. However, SPIEGEL has learned that the level of cooperation between the CIA and the paid mercenaries at Blackwater was even deeper than previously known.

In a memo obtained by SPIEGEL, two former employees describe details of cooperation between the firm and the intelligence agency that then-Vice President Dick Cheney asked the CIA not to disclose to the United States Congress. Even today, members of Congress do not have a complete image of the activities Blackwater undertook on behalf of the government.

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 says: "The CIA hired Blackwater to conduct extraordinary renditions". And: "Blackwater flew the rendition targets from Fort Perry and Cuba to Kandahar, Afghanistan."

Blackwater also supported the CIA with other controversial activities during the Bush years, the memo states. "The CIA hired Blackwater to conduct targeted killings in Afghanistan," it reads. In July, the new CIA chief appointed by President Barack Obama, Leon Panetta first discussed an "assassination program" with members of Congress in a classified meeting.

The aim of the program was to recruit special commandos who could be trained to conduct assassinations of al-Qaida leadership. Over the years though, CIA officials told members of Senate, the program never really managed to get out of the planning stage.

A "Hitman"

Now, further details have emerged. The memo names five participants who were responsible for building the assassination team, including a member of the Blackwater's paratrooper team and an employee of Blackwater Security Consulting, who, according to the memo was meant to be used as a "hitman." The most important person named in the memo is the former third from the top at the CIA, ex-executive director Alvin Bernard Krongard. "Krongard set up the teams," the paper claims. After he left the CIA, Krongard switched to Blackwater's advisory board.