rssBlackwater Will Be Allowed to Bid on Big State Department Contract
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 11:02 am
- 22 Comments
GUANTANAMO BAY — A brief detour from my Guantanamo coverage, as a State Department official, speaking only on background, confirmed something else I’ve been working on. The private security company formerly known as Blackwater and now known as Xe Services, will be allowed to bid on the next generation of the State Department’s lucrative Worldwide Protective Services Contract. The company’s track record of killing Iraqi civilians, shooting at Afghan civilians, taking for personal use U.S. military-issued rifles from the Afghan police and setting up shell companies to win government contracts will not be an obstacle.
Once again, the fact that no federal acquisition official has recommended Blackwater be barred from bidding on federal contracts means, the official said, that “any company, including Xe Services and its subsidiary companies, [may] submit a proposal in response to an acquisition process established on the basis of full and open competition.” While a Blackwater/Xe Services spokeswoman did not reply to repeated phone calls seeking comment before I left for Guantanamo, she told me last year that the company intends to bid on the contract — which is the successor contract to the one that allowed it to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place.
Nor is the fact that the Iraqi government took away Blackwater’s license to operate in Iraq a dealbreaker. “The solicitation is for undefined worldwide requirements,” the State Department official said, meaning any specific country “license is not required for the award of the base contract.”
The last Worldwide Protective Services contract, as it’s formally known, was awarded to a consortium of three firms: Blackwater/Xe, Triple Canopy and DynCorp. This time around, State intends to award it to six firms, who will then bid on the right to protect diplomats in specific dangerous countries. The year-long contract has an annual option for renewal for four years, making it essentially a four-year contract. Its cost has yet to be determined, but it’ll be announced — along with the winners — by September 30. A back-of-the-envelope calculation places the value of the previous WPS contract at $2.2 billion.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), whose Armed Services Committee uncovered the shell-company establishment and the Afghanistan weapons diversions, wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder in February to request the Justice Department investigate the company for fraud.
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22 Comments
Pingback posted April 28, 2010 @ 11:27 am
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Pingback posted April 28, 2010 @ 12:20 pm
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Comment posted April 28, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
well, a criminal government will feel most comfortable working with criminal corporations like blackwater, HKBR, the wall-street war profiteers or the mafia… so this comes as no surprise. i'd be very surprised if the govt ceased doing business with their ilk.
back in the mid1970s, my since-deceased brother was the top aide to the longtime representative fro north carolina, richardson preyer, who for years was the head of the house ethics committee and known as 'mr. ethics.' unlike others, he was never involved in heinous bad ethics. when jesse helms decided to run for the senate, preyer decided he had to run against helms and tragically lost. but after he lost, he told y brother that what he had learned was that you could no more separate the US government from organized crime than a tree from its roots. he believed that this merging of organized crime into organized crime government stemmed from prohibition and the drugwar which started precisely at the end of prohibition. it was his belief that organized crime and its government allies refused to accept the loss of revenues and control which came with the end of prohibition, so the drug war, which actually constitutionally required an amendment which has, obviously, was just not done.
per example… in the times and WaPo in 1995 were articles about the CIA and DEA joinly pulling off the largest cocaine bust in history. the goods were so large that it filed a C5A transport plane which was brought to andrews afb outside washington. but… just hours later, the plane was found to have been entirely emptied, indeed, swept clean of all contents. when my wife and i calculated the value of that tonnage at the street price of a gram, it was roughly 1% of US GDP. we noted that while there were zero arrests ever reported on that; there must have been hundreds of largely young blacks imprisoned for it, as they deliver to white people in their homes…
Pingback posted April 28, 2010 @ 9:55 pm
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Comment posted April 29, 2010 @ 7:04 am
Levin and Prince family live near each other in Michigan Grand Rapids and
Holland…. In fact Eric Prince (Blackwater Head) will be a speaker During the
Tulip Fest this week in Holland, and the Good Guy… JEREMY SCAHILL (author
BLACKWATER) will be in Holland also….at a different place…want BS go see
Prince….want truth….Scahill…. go to Google to find out more details ……..
Comment posted April 29, 2010 @ 7:04 am
Levin and Prince family live near each other in Michigan Grand Rapids and
Holland…. In fact Eric Prince (Blackwater Head) will be a speaker During the
Tulip Fest this week in Holland, and the Good Guy… JEREMY SCAHILL (author
BLACKWATER) will be in Holland also….at a different place…want BS go see
Prince….want truth….Scahill…. go to Google to find out more details ……..
Pingback posted April 29, 2010 @ 8:59 am
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Comment posted April 29, 2010 @ 2:51 pm
thanks for the info. as it happens, i get updates from the good people at
{http://www.blackwaterwatch.com/}
Pingback posted April 29, 2010 @ 7:07 pm
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