The State Department’s $10 billion, five-year contract with private security firms is finally out. Guess who’s still a part of it? I have an exclusive over at Danger Room about how an arm of Blackwater successfully formed a “joint venture” to stay in the picture. Here’s what I’d highlight for you: Don’t see any of [...]

Yeah, it was just a pander. The painful truth is that the State Department doesn’t have any alternatives to protect its diplomats in conflict areas like Iraq. Not only does the military not want to take on the mission, but it would be problematic for U.S. troops to use the protection of diplomats as a [...]

I’m several days late on this, but whatever Blackwater’s relationship is/was with JSOC, company founder Erik Prince had a snide parting shot for Gen. McChrystal on CNBC: Gen. McChrystal’s a great warrior. Very well respected by the troops, as is Gen. Petraeus. Politically acceptable to do the mission, he was CENTCOM commander. It’s not like [...]

Am I crazy or do prosecutors appear to be indicting these guys in the hope of getting testimony against higher-level Blackwater officials? And what does CIA and State think of the Justice Department going against the company?

Video Games – E3 2010 – Fresh InkIn Invincible Iron Man #25 that is. Matt Fraction, who’s written some of the best Shellhead stories in years, describes new villain Detroit Steel as “a sort of Blackwater-meets-NASCAR corporate-sponsored armored enhanced guy available for hire to the highest bidder for whatever cause around the round.” Nathan, I [...]

My editor got a letter from Blackwater’s general counsel requesting that I correct a post I wrote yesterday reminding people that Blackwater had “stolen” guns from the U.S. military in Afghanistan. So I provided a thorough and detailed portrait of how the Senate Armed Services Committee determined that Blackwater obtained the guns in question.

Maybe this ought to count more as a setback than a loss — it’s, as the kids say, complicated — but a ruling from the Government Accountability Office has temporarily derailed a contract that Blackwater sought to train the Afghan police. Check out my story over at the Washington Independent, especially the comment that likens [...]

This sounds like a goddamn plan, right? You want to signal you’re sick and tired of corruption in the Afghan police. So you get ready to give the contract for training the police to a company that stole weapons from those police, ignored a lack of Central Command approval for carrying guns and, like, killed [...]

Around lunchtime on February 23, I attended an embargoed briefing for a couple reporters in Carl Levin’s office. Levin wanted to share the results of an investigation his Senate Armed Services Committee staff launched into Blackwater’s operations in Afghanistan. He distributed a document summarizing the investigation, a couple double-sided pages long, and I read through [...]

Blackwater killed civilians in Iraq; shot at civilians in Afghanistan; set up a shell company to get its Afghanistan contract with the Army; and stole guns intended for the Afghan police. That scratches the surface of that company’s transgressions. There’s also alcohol and cocaine and steroid abuse. And it still might get a billion dollar [...]