By March 24, the private security corporation formerly known as Blackwater — last seen in Afghanistan shooting civilians and stealing weapons intended for the Afghan police — may win a new Defense Department contract to train the Afghan police. And nearly no one in the government wants to own More…
Laura Rozen at Politico beat me to this, but today Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released letters he sent to Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking them to review Feb. 24 testimony from ex-Blackwater executives and Army officials More…
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing on Blackwater/Paravant’s subcontract with Raytheon and the Army to train Afghan security forces has just ended, but not before Blackwater pushed all the blame onto Raytheon.
Fred Roitz, Blackwater’s top contract compliance officer, told the panel that Raytheon instructed Blackwater to hide its shell More…
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) got Fred Roitz of Blackwater — sorry, “Xe Services,” the new name for the company — to say that Blackwater shell company “Paravant” came into existence shortly before “Paravant” got a subcontract from defense giant Raytheon to train Afghan security forces. But then Levin read from More…
Leave aside the fact that Blackwater/Paravant employees subcontracted to train Afghan security forces never received authorization from the U.S. military to carry guns in Afghanistan. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) wanted to clarify that Blackwater/Paravant at least informed the military when its armed guards moved around their battlespace.
“It was More…
In an interview with Senate staff, former “Paravant” vice president Brian McCracken said that the only reason a company called Paravant ever existed was because Blackwater wanted a piece of Raytheon’s contract with the Army to train Afghan security officials — without the “baggage” of the Blackwater name. (You know, More…
The Senate Armed Services Committee right now is in a brief recess, but the likelihood of getting information out of two invited witnesses formerly employed by Blackwater is already looking pretty slim. One of them, Brian McCracken, a Raytheon employee who used to be an executive with the Blackwater arm More…
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s Blackwater-in-Afghanistan hearing is just getting underway, but here’s an early highlight, courtesy of the committee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). When Raytheon, the contractor that hired a Blackwater arm called Paravant as a subcontractor to train Afghan troops, objected to Blackwater guards’ drunken firing More…
Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to More…
There was supposed to be one this week in the Senate Armed Services Committee, but — as I told our editorial meeting with some embarrassment — it wasn’t placed on the panel’s calendar. Here’s why: the Obama administration and the military asked for a delay until President Obama addresses More…
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