Blackwater, AGAIN!

By Robert McCabe
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 12, 2010

Presidential Airways Inc., an affiliate of the firm formerly known as Blackwater, has been awarded a $39 million "task order" from the Defense Department to move passengers and cargo by helicopter in Afghanistan.

Presidential Airways is based on the grounds of U.S. Training Center Inc., which has a Moyock, N.C., mailing address. Owned by Xe Services LLC, U.S. Training Center was known as Blackwater until February 2009.

According to its Web site, Presidential Airways provides airlift and other aviation services to the U.S. government as well as state and local governments and "friendly nations around the world." Among the services it provides are vertical replenishment for the Navy's Pacific Fleet, helicopter support services for the State Department in Iraq and airlift services for the Defense Department in Afghanistan, the Web site said.

The latest task order, announced this week, calls for Presidential Airways to provide helicopters, personnel, equipment, maintenance and supervision from March 5 to Nov. 30. The task order came from the U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Joe Yorio, president and CEO of Xe Services, filed an application March 4 with the North Carolina secretary of state for a new limited liability company called Xe Aviation. Yorio is listed as manager for Xe Aviation, which was formed Jan. 19.

Officials at Xe Services did not return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment Wednesday and Thursday.

In January 2008, Presidential Airways Inc. was awarded a $50.8 million contract for air transportation services using heavy fixed-wing aircraft in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. The sole-source contract was expected to run through June 2011 and was also awarded by the U.S. Transportation Command.

In 2006, the National Transportation Safety Board found that unprofessional behavior by a Presidential flight crew was a key cause of a Nov. 27, 2004, plane crash in Afghanistan in which six men died.

At the time, the company was transporting personnel, supplies, spare parts and mail in the Afghanistan combat zone under a $35 million Air Force contract.

Robert McCabe, (757) 446-2327, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com

Let The Sun Shine In......

How Food and Water Are Driving a 21st-Century African Land Grab
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/07-3

Polls Close in Iraq Election
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/07

Revealed: The Shocking Truth About Tasers
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/07-1

US Concerned Over Blackwater's Work in Afghanistan
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/06

Senate Debates Indefinite Detentions
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/06-2

Ill. Judge Won't Toss Torture Suit Naming Rumsfeld
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/06-1

and more...

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The empire’s operatives exposed: The Krongards, 9/11, and Blackwater/Iraq

From the archives: Connecting the dots, those revealed in the past with those revealed recently:

By Larry Chin Online Journal Associate Editor Nov 19, 2007,

New bombshell testimony before Congress has revealed that Alvin B. “Buzzy” Krongard, the former CIA executive director connected to 9/11 insider trading, is a consultant and advisory board member of Blackwater USA, the New World Order’s leading intelligence-related corporate mercenary death squad now under investigation for war crimes, murder, arms smuggling, and fraud in Iraq.

“Buzzy” Krongard’s Blackwater role was confirmed by “Buzzy”’s brother, Howard “Cookie” Krongard, who (not ironically) is the Bush/Cheney administration’s State Department’s inspector general, and the official under fire for stonewalling and quashing attempted probes of Blackwater’s operations.

It was during the last Wednesday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman (D-CA), that “Cookie” Krongard denied, then confirmed later in the same testimony, the fact that his own brother was a Blackwater advisory board member throughout the period in which “Cookie” engaged in the cover-up of Blackwater. It is not known if “Cookie” Krongard lied, or was lied to, but he has now recused himself from “all matters having to do with Blackwater."

As thoroughly documented by Michael C. Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, until 1997, A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard was the vice chairman of investment bank A.B.Brown (Alex. Brown). A.B. Brown and its previous incarnations have been involved with Bush family business ventures for generations, including deals with the Carlyle Group. It was also one of many major investment houses implicated for money laundering in congressional probes.

Brothers in illegal arms

Krongard joined the CIA in 1998 as the counsel to CIA Director George Tenet, and was named CIA executive director (the CIA’s #3 position) by George W. Bush in March 2001. The Deutsche Bank/Alex.Brown private banking operation headed by Krongard through 1998, and taken over by Krongard’s colleague Mayo Shattuck III, was one of the major hubs of 9/11 insider trading, where put options were purchased on United Airlines and other 9/11-related stocks. As written by Ruppert, “the trades could only have been made by people high enough in the US, Israeli and European intelligence community (including Russia) to know about the attacks and -- more importantly -- which of the many planned attacks were going to be successful.”

It is no surprise that Howard “Cookie” Krongard has, along with brother “Buzzy," enjoyed high official Bush/Cheney positions, and profits, from the “war on terrorism" -- apparently continuously from 9/11 all the way to the present Iraq occupation and quagmire.

These and other damning facts add to the multitude of direct lines leading from 9/11 to Iraq and beyond, and have been exposed piecemeal in recent years and months (in media reports that are largely ignored and misunderstood by the masses). They confirm and underscore years of exhaustive existing evidence about the true nature of the “war on terrorism," its imperial architects from across the international political spectrum, and its multinational universe of “soldiers” (exemplified by the Krongards), and intelligence proprietaries, cut-outs, and political and media fronts.

The New World Order’s “above the law” criminals -- from the Krongards and the entire Blackwater apparatus, to Bush, Cheney, Blair, and the entire membership of the Bilderberg Group -- have committed unprecedented atrocities out in the open, and have more than earned the kind of “interrogations” that they and their armed-to-the-teeth functionaries continue to inflict on political adversaries and innocent patsies in CIA prisons all over the world.

Tragically, particularly in the present milieu, it is more than likely that the Krongards will not be touched, any more than Bush, Cheney, et al will receive the punishment they deserve.

Not only have no “heads rolled” since 9/11, but virtually all of the 9/11/ “war on terrorism” criminals continue to hold the highest offices of power, brazenly committing new crimes in the open, while holding the people of world in contempt. The criminals, and their crimes, are on television, every hour on the hour. Witness the fact that Rudolf Guiliani, who was thoroughly exposed as a hands-on participant in the 9/11 operation in Mike Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon, is a leading 2008 presidential candidate. Senator Joe Biden, one of many members of Congress who enjoyed breakfast on 9/11 with Pakistani ISI chief and 9/11 “money man” Mahmoud Ahmad, is also running for president.

Given the bipartisan complicity of the US Congress, it is likely that the Blackwater probes, like all congressional “investigations” in modern history, are simply more limited hangouts, designed to strengthen, not expose, what remains a massive ongoing cover-up of imperial crimes.

In a time of open and unprecedented political lawlessness and corruption, and mass public ignorance and acquiescence, true investigation remains the bitter and tragic duty of a minority of courageous individuals willing to seek the facts. They are contained on the pages of this publication, and the following list of sources on the Krongards:

Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, Chapter 14: 9/11 Insider Trading, or “You Didn’t Really See That, Even Though We Saw It”

Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly Into CIA's Highest Ranks

(Mike Ruppert, From the Wilderness, October 15, 2001

Profits of Death: Insider Trading and 9/11 (Tom Flocco, From the Wilderness, December 27, 2001)

Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater:The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
 

Email Online Journal Editor

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Blackwater's Unwritten Death Contract

Does any of this come as a surprise to anyone?

Blackwater, or XE as they are now called, are a corrupt, sociopathic, religiously insane gang. That's all that needs to be said about these cuckoo birds.

The only question is, as usual; when will they be held accountable?

By Ray McGovern
August 20, 2009

Hats off to Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times for reporting that it was after CIA Director Leon Panetta’s holdover lieutenants finally told him that, under President Bush, they had farmed out assassinations to their Blackwater subsidiary, that he abruptly stopped the project and told Congress.

I use “they” advisedly, since the CIA officials who had kept Panetta in the dark continue to function as Panetta’s top managers at the agency.

Until now, it was not clear what prompted Panetta to set up hurried consultations in late June with the intelligence oversight committees of the House and Senate. And an odd odor still hangs over the affair.

After being briefed by Panetta, one committee member described him as “stunned” that his lingering lieutenants had kept information on the program from him until nearly five months into his tenure.

And yet there is not the faintest hint that anyone on either committee dared to ask why Panetta continues to leave such tainted officials in very senior positions.

Mazzetti quotes officials as admitting that “the C.I.A. did not have a formal contract with Blackwater” for a program with “lethal” authority.

What Mazzetti does not mention — and what he, like the vast majority of Americans, may not know — is that there is a one-sentence umbrella “contract” available for use as authorization for such activities. It is a legal loophole of sorts, through which Bush and Cheney drove a Mack truck.

Bush administration lawyers were not the first to read considerable leeway into that loophole — one sentence in the language of the National Security Act of 1947. The sentence can be (ab)used as authorization for all manner of crimes — irrespective of existing law or executive order.

A Cheney-esque “unitary executive” perspective and a dismissive attitude toward lawmakers reinforced George W. Bush’s predilection to exploit this ambiguous language, taking it further than it had ever been taken in the past.

The Act (as slightly amended) stipulates that the CIA Director shall:

“Perform such functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the President or the National Security Council may from time to time direct.”

There’s the “umbrella contract.” While more than one past President (I served under seven during my tenure at CIA) has taken advantage of that open language, the Bush administration translated the dodging into a new art form.

This, in turn, was sustained by Frankenstein cottage industries like Blackwater to launch and operate the administration’s own Gestapo. I use the word advisedly; do not blanch before it.

As for outsourcing, the Nazi Gestapo enjoyed umbrella authorization from the Fuhrer; they and the SS knew what was wanted, and famously “followed orders.”

There was absolutely no need to go back to supreme authority for approval to contract out some of their work. German legislators turned out to be even more intimidated than ours — if you can imagine it.

Charlatans Can Apply…and Stay

As for an American President’s freedom of action, all a President need do is surround himself with eager co-conspirators like the sycophant former Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, (not to mention his, and Panetta’s, lingering lieutenants) who give allegiance to their secret world of unchecked power, rather than to the Constitution of the United States.

True, a Vice President thoroughly versed in using the levers of power can be a valuable asset. But the sine quo non for successful subversion of our Constitutional process is this: cowardly members of Congress so afraid of being painted pastel on terrorism that they abdicate their oversight responsibility.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney made “terrorification” of Congress a high priority, and congressional leaders caved, winking even at torture, kidnapping, warrantless eavesdropping, etc., etc., etc.

Speaking of contracting, Congress’ oversight role was, in a very real sense, “contracted out” — to eight invertebrate leaders from the House and Senate whose unconscionable, see-no-evil acquiescence was driven solely by their felt need to appear tough on terrorism.

“After 9/11 everything changed,” is certainly an overused aphorism. But it does apply to the spirit and soul of our country, after President Bush was given the pulpit at National Cathedral.

Vengeance is ours, said the President. And the vast majority of Christian leaders were cowed into razoring out of their Bibles “Blessed are the Peacemakers.”

The clergy clapped, and so did the Congress and the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM). Don’t you remember?

The situation bears a striking resemblance to that described by writer Sebastian Haffner in Berlin in 1933 after the Reichstag fire (Germany’s 9/11):

“What was missing is what in animals is called ‘breeding.’ This is a solid inner kernel that cannot be shaken by external pressures, something noble and steely, a reserve of pride, principle, and dignity to be drawn on in the hour of trial. It is missing in Germans.

“As a nation they are without backbone. That was shown in March 1933. At the moment of truth, when other nations rise spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed, yielded to a nervous breakdown, and became a nightmare to the rest of the world.” [Defying Hitler, p. 135]

Stormy Applause

And our Congress? During the President’s infamous State-of-the-Union address on Jan. 28, 2003 (yes, the one with the uranium-from-Africa-to-Iraq and other make-believe), Bush got the most unbridled applause when, after bragging about the 3,000 “suspected terrorists” whom he said had been arrested, he added:

“And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.”

The lawmakers’ reaction and the cheering that followed in the FCM reminded me of the short italicized note that Pravda regularly tacked onto the bottom of paragraphs recording the text of similarly fulsome leadership speeches: Burniye aplaudismenti; vce stoyat! — Stormy applause; all rise!

Even so, Soviet leaders generally avoided (as not quite presidential) the seeking of applause for thinly veiled allusions to extrajudicial killing.

It is Congress that is collectively responsible for abdicating its oversight responsibility, while cheering on creeps like Cofer Black, CIA’s top counter-terrorism official from 1999 to May 2002 and now one of Blackwater’s senior leaders.

In his prepared testimony to a joint congressional 9/11 inquiry on Sept. 26, 2002, the swashbuckling Black said this about “operational flexibility”:

"All I want to say is that there was ‘before’ 9/11 and ‘after’ 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves came off. ... I know that we are on the right track today and as a result we are safer as a nation. ‘No Limits’ aggressive, relentless, worldwide pursuit of any terrorist who threatens us is the only way to go and is the bottom line.”

What were those “gloves” to which you referred, Mr. Black? Do you mean that legal restrictions were gone? And “No Limits?” Is it the case that there now are no limitations on your pursuit of terrorists?

From what do you derive that kind of authorization, Mr. Black? These are just sample questions that, apparently, occurred to none of the congressional inquiry members to ask.

And authorization? In the Bush/Cheney White House, all it took was a presidential signature, like that appearing in strokes of large felt-tipped pen under the two-page executive memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002.

Last December the Senate Armed Forces Committee, without dissent, concluded that this memo, “opened the door” to abusive interrogation by exempting al Qaeda and Taliban detainees from Geneva protections. Alberto Gonzales, in an inadvertent blunder, released that memo five years ago.

Special presidential memos (often referred to as “Findings”) authorizing covert action like the lethal activities of the CIA and Blackwater have not yet surfaced. They will, in due course, if the patriotic truth tellers who have now spoken to the Times and the Washington Post about CIA and Blackwater continue to put the Constitution and courage above secrecy oaths.

The Savage Mood

CIA operative Gary Schroen told National Public Radio that, just days after 9/11, Cofer Black sent him to Afghanistan with orders to “Capture bin Laden, kill him, and bring his head back in a box on dry ice.” As for other al Qaeda leaders, Black reportedly said, “I want their heads up on pikes.”

Schroen told NPR he had been stunned that, for the first time in 30 years of service, he had received orders to kill targets rather than to capture them. Contacted by the radio network, Black would not confirm the exact words of the order to Schroen, but did not dispute Schroen’s account.

This quaint tone reverberated among macho pundits in the FCM. Washington Post veteran Jim Hoagland, who was extremely well plugged in to the Bush administration, on Oct. 31, 2001, wrote an open letter to President Bush.

Apparently no Halloween prank, Hoagland strongly endorsed the wish for “Osama bin Laden’s head on a pike,” a wish he attributed to Bush’s “generals and diplomats.” The consummate insider, Hoagland then almost gave the real game away, giving Bush a list of priorities:

“The need to deal with Iraq’s continuing accumulation of biological and chemical weapons and the technology to build a nuclear bomb can in no way be lessened by the demands of the Afghan campaign. You must conduct that campaign so that you can pivot quickly from it to end the threat Saddam Hussein’s regime poses.”

I have the feeling we are in for many more chapters recording how the savage mood in Washington played out during the last seven years of the Bush/Cheney administration.

Yes, Ray, but when, if ever, will something be done about it?

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. PELICAN BLOGS HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR ARE PELICAN BLOGS ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.


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Let The Sun Shine In......

CIA....Blackwater.....Death Squads....XE

 

Sound vaguely familiar? Think Contras and other Central American, South American  Hit Squads!

BuCheny undid years of cleaning up America's act. Junior finished what his poppy started.

These people don't live on the same plant ordinary earth citizens do. 

They need to be held accountable!!!!

 

Didn't George Bush send Blackwater to New Orleans after Katrina.? 

XE: accountable to no one? I don't think so, Tim, not matter what they call themselves!!!!!

 

 

August 20, 2009

C.I.A. Sought Blackwater’s Help in Plan to Kill Jihadists

By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.


Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.


The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.


It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.


Officials said the C.I.A. did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune. Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.


Blackwater, which has changed its name, most recently to Xe Services, and is based in North Carolina, in recent years has received millions of dollars in government contracts, growing so large that the Bush administration said it was a necessary part of its war operation in Iraq.


It has also drawn controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to give the company an operating license.
Several current and former government officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing details of a still classified program.


Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined to provide details about the canceled program, but he said that Mr. Panetta’s decision on the assassination program was “clear and straightforward.”


“Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so,” Mr. Gimigliano said. “He also knew it hadn’t been successful, so he ended it.”


A Xe spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.


Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, also declined to give details of the program. But she praised Mr. Panetta for notifying Congress. “It is too easy to contract out work that you don’t want to accept responsibility for,” she said.


The C.I.A. this summer conducted an internal review of the assassination program that recently was presented to the White House and the Congressional intelligence committees. The officials said that the review stated that Mr. Panetta’s predecessors did not believe that they needed to tell Congress because the program was not far enough developed.


The House Intelligence Committee is investigating why lawmakers were never told about the program. According to current and former government officials, former Vice President Dick Cheney told C.I.A. officers in 2002 that the spy agency did not need to inform Congress because the agency already had legal authority to kill Qaeda leaders.


One official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that he believed that the C.I.A. had broken the law by withholding details about the program from Congress. Rather, the official said, Mr. Panetta said he believed that the program had moved beyond a planning stage and deserved Congressional scrutiny.


“It’s wrong to think this counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a cafeteria napkin,” the official said. “It went well beyond that.”


Current and former government officials said that the C.I.A.’s efforts to use paramilitary hit teams to kill Qaeda operatives ran into logistical, legal and diplomatic hurdles almost from the outset. These efforts had been run by the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, which runs operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks.


In 2002, Blackwater won a classified contract to provide security for the C.I.A. station in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the company maintains other classified contracts with the C.I.A., current and former officials said.
Over the years, Blackwater has hired several former top C.I.A. officials, including Cofer Black, who ran the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.


C.I.A. operatives also regularly use the company’s training complex in North Carolina. The complex includes a shooting range used for sniper training.


An executive order signed by President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 barred the C.I.A. from carrying out assassinations, a direct response to revelations that the C.I.A. had initiated assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba and other foreign politicians.


The Bush administration took the position that killing members of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that attacked the United States and has pledged to attack it again, was no different from killing enemy soldiers in battle, and that therefore the agency was not constrained by the assassination ban.


But former intelligence officials said that employing private contractors to help hunt Qaeda operatives would pose significant legal and diplomatic risks, and they might not be protected in the same way government employees are.


Some Congressional Democrats have hinted that the program was just one of many that the Bush administration hid from Congressional scrutiny and have used the episode as a justification to delve deeper into other Bush-era counterterrorism programs.


But Republicans have criticized Mr. Panetta’s decision to cancel the program, saying he created a tempest in a teapot.


“I think there was a little more drama and intrigue than was warranted,” said Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.


Officials said that the C.I.A. program was devised partly as an alternative to missile strikes using drone aircraft, which have accidentally killed civilians and cannot be used in urban areas where some terrorists hide.
Yet with most top Qaeda operatives believed to be hiding in the remote mountains of Pakistan, the drones have remained the C.I.A.’s weapon of choice. Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has embraced the drone campaign because it presents a less risky option than sending paramilitary teams into Pakistan.

B.S.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company


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Let The Sun Shine In......

Contractors say Blackwater supplied forbidden guns

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer Mike Baker, Associated Press Writer Thu May 21, 8:43 pm ET

RALEIGH, N.C. – The security firm formerly known as Blackwater armed some of its workers in Afghanistan despite U.S. military documents that prohibited them from carrying guns, said two former contractors who were fired after they were involved in a fatal shooting in the country.

Justin Cannon and Steven McClain said Thursday that they frequently asked superiors why the company distributed the AK-47 assault rifles without Department of Defense authorization.

"We were just told, 'Continue doing your job. Don't worry about it. That's above your paygrade,'" Cannon, 27, of Texas, said in an interview with The Associated Press. The men were involved in a shooting earlier this month that killed an Afghan and injured two others, and they recently returned to the U.S., saying they were cleared to leave after an interview with military investigators.

Blackwater, now known as Xe, has said the company's subsidiary, Paravant, fired the men "for failure to comply with the terms of their contract." McClain showed a letter detailing his termination, and it listed a violation of alcohol policy as the only specific reason for firing.

Both men said they weren't drinking and hadn't drank since arriving in Afghanistan in November. Their attorney, Daniel J. Callahan, said he believes the company is making up the alcohol issue so it can avoid scrutiny over contractors being armed.

"Blackwater's concerned about getting kicked out of Afghanistan as it got kicked out of Iraq," said Callahan, with Santa Ana, Calif.-based Callahan & Blaine. "They're trying to use these four men as scapegoats."
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell declined to immediately comment on the accusations.

McClain and Cannon said the company issued weapons to the contractors even though they were supposed to train the Afghan National Army on other styles of weapons used by NATO forces. And they said the company told them to carry the weapons, even when they weren't training, and that it was no secret that they had the guns.

"These weapons pretty much went wherever we went," Cannon said. "If we go to the classroom, we take our weapons. If we go to the range, we take our weapons. If we leave the compound at all, we take our weapons."

They had the guns with them as usual on the night of May 5. The men said they had dinner with some interpreters and then went to drive them to a taxi stand several miles away. On the way, the men said a speeding vehicle slammed into the first car of their two-vehicle convoy, causing it to roll.

McClain, 25, of California, said he was hurt and that he and his passengers had to climb out of the sport utility vehicle's back window.

Cannon said the people in his SUV got out to help but saw that the car that had caused the accident had turned and sped toward them. Cannon said he and another contractor, Chris Drotleff, fired their weapons. He wasn't sure how many rounds were fired.

"At that point, the vehicle was the threat," Cannon said. "I thought I was about to get creamed by a 2,000-pound car."

The brother of one of the wounded Afghans has said the car was full of shopkeepers heading home from work and that the people in the vehicle misinterpreted one of the Americans hitting the car as an order to move.

A passenger was hit in the stomach and died two days later, said Shah Agha, whose brother Farid was driving the car. Farid was shot in the hand and another person was injured outside the vehicle, Agha said.
McClain said three of the men, including Armando Hamid, who were fired in the aftermath of the shooting have left Afghanistan while a fourth, Drotleff, is still there. Callahan had accused the company of holding the men against their will. But they said Thursday that Blackwater told them to stay but didn't physically detain them. They left the compound Saturday night.

Xe, which is based in North Carolina, dumped its brand name Blackwater earlier this year as it tried to distance itself from its operations in Iraq. The State Department is not renewing the company's lucrative security work in there, which comprises an estimated one-third of Xe's revenues.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects names of person identified as fired and person who stayed behind in Afghanistan in 16th graf. Moving on general news and financial services.)


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Let The Sun Shine In......