CIA Just Straight Throwing Money at Blackwater

It’s like they’re in a strip club, according to Jeff Stein:

The Central Intelligence Agency has hired Xe Services, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, to guard its facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to an industry source.

The previously undisclosed CIA contract is worth about $100 million, said the industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the deal, which is classified.

“It’s for protective services … guard services, in multiple regions,” said the source.

That’s the second nine-figure contract Blackwater has pulled down this week. The State Department gave the company — whose guards have killed unarmed Iraqis and Afghans, taken guns from the U.S. military without authorization, and established shell firms to win contracts – $120 million to guard consulates in Afghanistan. And that’s outside the more lucrative Worldwide Protective Services contract that Blackwater still wants to bid on. It might even get a piece of a contract to train the Afghan police, after taking rifles intended for those very cops and signing the receipt slip “Eric Cartman.”