blackwater

It turns out that expanding your contracts with the government after killing people and paying hush money can attract congressional scrutiny. The New York Times:
Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in a letter on Wednesday that his committee was told by a top State Department official [...]

As DeLong noted, Blackwater lost its license to operate in Iraq in 2007, after its security officers gunned down innocent civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Yet Blackwater didn’t actually leave Iraq until earlier this year, and even then it didn’t really leave. Many of its security guards were allowed to stay and work under a [...]

Breaking news from The New York Times:
Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.

Remember ArmorGroup, the negligence-and-fraud-prone security contractor that’s responsible for protecting the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan? When last I checked in, the State Department was reviewing its contract — yes, again — and dangling the possibility that it might finally revoke the deal after credible allegations emerged of widespread incompetence, dabbling in prostitution, the inability of [...]

The CIA is none too happy about the recent disclosure of apparently inchoate “significant actions” canceled by Director Leon Panetta. After the activities’ initial disclosure to Congress in late June, additional reporting determined that these actions were a never-operational effort at assassinating members of al-Qaeda and were contracted to the controversial firm Blackwater. Now, Eli [...]

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly came out of the box yesterday with a strong statement. The State Department takes the allegations of impropriety on the part of ArmorGroup, the security company State hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, so seriously that the Office of the Inspector General has opened an investigation. In fact, [...]

TWI’s own Spencer Ackerman appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” Wednesday to discuss Afghanistan, contractors, and the shocking scandal that has recently come to light. In case you missed it, here’s the video (after the jump).

While the government’s use of private security contractors has garnered no end of criticism, the highest-profile blunders and abuses have come from companies that work not for the Pentagon, but for the State Department.

These documents about the behavior of ArmorGroup, a security company hired by the State Department to protect the U.S. embassy in Kabul, have to be seen to be believed. The Project on Government Oversight released them in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Here’s a sample:
Numerous emails, photographs, and videos portray a [...]

Statement out from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
“The first thing to remember is that the program has been canceled. It was fully briefed to the Senate Intelligence Committee, first by Director Panetta in June, and afterward through additional oversight.
The program was never briefed to the Congress before June [...]