Xe

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.

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 [...]

The firm faces a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from a 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad.

For all the criticism faced by Erik Prince, the founder of private security company Blackwater — since renamed Xe — no one’s ever called him a killer. But according to Jeremy Scahill, the reporter most doggedly investigating the company, new sworn statements filed in a civil case against Xe on behalf of Iraqi civilians killed [...]

The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus reports that the U.S. military command in Afghanistan is considering hiring private security contractors to post as guards at military bases. Danger Room’s Nathan Hodge contextualizes the move, and writes, “Private security firms should be mindful of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s directive, which instructs the troops to “respect and protect” the [...]

There’s a haunting paragraph in Nancy Youssef’s dispatch from Kabul today. She writes about the influx of U.S. diplomats and other civilians to Kabul — generally considered a Good Thing, even if their activities may be less necessary in the capitol than in the provinces but whatever — and how their presence is, ironically, making [...]

Has anyone written an essay about the misery that deja vu yields? Because:
Four U.S. contractors affiliated with the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide fired on an approaching civilian vehicle in Kabul earlier this month, wounding at least two Afghan civilians, according to the company and the U.S. Army.
The contractors were off duty, apparently. One [...]

Good for Gen. Ray Odierno:
Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, recently issued a directive asking his subordinate commanders to reduce the use of civilian contractors on at least 50 bases and small installations across Iraq and, where possible, provide employment to Iraqis instead. …
“This initiative supports our desired end state of a stable, [...]

Via Danger Room, it appears the Blackwater private security company has gone in for a bit of cynical rebranding:
Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning its tarnished brand name as it tries to shake a reputation battered by oft-criticized work in Iraq, renaming its family of two dozen businesses under the name Xe.