It is with a mix of emotions that I announce the departure of The Washington Independent’s national security reporter — and in many ways the cornerstone of the site — Spencer Ackerman. Spencer joined TWI when it was still just an idea, and he’s as responsible as anyone for turning More…
The private security company, renamed Xe Services, objects to my use of the verb “stole” to refer to the guns it got from the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2008. A letter from its general counsel reads, in part:
Xe Services LLC disagrees with several statements and opinions in
The Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe has a good story about a concerted push by Gen. William Caldwell and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar, the two highest-level officials directly responsible for the training and performance of Afghan police, to rid the police force of the incompetence and corruption that remain More…
On Feb. 23, I broke a story about how the Senate Armed Services Committee determined that Blackwater employees in Afghanistan signed for hundreds of AK-47s and pistols using the name “Eric Cartman,” evidently a reference to the popular “South Park” character.
On March 17 — which Dave Weigel tells 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…
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