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…
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…
That’s what Laura Rozen is hearing:
Controversial defense contractor Blackwater, now known as Xe, is being told that it is likely to win a major contract to do police training mentoring and logistics in Afghanistan, a source tells POLITICO.
Abu Muqawama, reading a story from The Washington Post about the cost overruns of the Army’s/SAIC’s/Boeing’s Future Combat Systems, remarks:
SAIC’s executive vice president for government affairs, Arnold Punaro, is rumored to be the next Army Secretary. It is my understanding that Punaro is a great American, but
Word coming from the Hill: Bill Lynn, the former top Raytheon lobbyist tapped to become deputy secretary of defense, will finally get his floor vote in the Senate at 5 p.m. following three hours of scheduled debate. Reuters reported earlier today that Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa.) is going More…
Even though there’s a new administration in Washington promising broad ethics reforms, it looks like the old way of doing things may still be alive and well in President Obama’s Defense Department.
If appointed, Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of defense, former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn, wouldn’t have to More…
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