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State Department Details Blackwater Violations of US Laws
WASHINGTON — The company formerly known as Blackwater violated U.S. export control laws nearly 300 times, ranging from attempts to do business in Sudan while that country was under U.S. sanctions to training an Afghan border patrol official who was a native of Iran, the State Department said Monday.
Erik Prince of Xe, formerly Blackwater. Prince recently moved to the United Arab Emirates, and has put Xe Services up for sale.(Chuck Kennedy / MCT)
The alleged violations were spelled out in
documents released Monday by the State Department as part of a $42
million settlement with Blackwater that will allow the company, now
known as Xe Services LLC, to continue receiving U.S. government
contracts.
The agreement appears to spell the end of a three-and-a-half-year, multi-agency federal probe into Xe Services' unauthorized exports of defense technologies and services. While elements of the case were presented to a federal grand jury, the company and its currently serving officers have avoided criminal prosecution.
The State Department said Monday that Xe Services' alleged violations, while widespread, "did not involve sensitive technologies or cause a known harm to national security." Additionally, it said, they took place while Xe "was providing services in support of U.S. government programs and military operations abroad."
Under the agreement with the U.S. government, the Moyock, N.C., company was levied a $42 million fine, but Xe is allowed to use $12 million of that to strengthen the company's export control compliance programs. Xe won't be barred from further U.S. government contracts, and a government policy of denying most of the firm's export control applications, in place since December 2008, will be lifted.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Blackwater founder Erik Prince, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Prince recently moved to the United Arab Emirates, and has put Xe Services up for sale.
McClatchy first reported in June that Xe Services and the U.S. government were negotiating a multimillion-dollar fine to settle allegations that it violated laws regulating the export of defense equipment and know-how overseas. The article detailed Blackwater's extensive efforts to secure business in southern Sudan at a time when the country was under U.S. sanctions for its sponsorship of terrorism.
A 41-page State Department document released Monday provides some new details about Blackwater's Sudan plans and provides a peek into the secretive company's training of foreign military personnel around the globe.
For example, an October 2006 Blackwater proposal to the south Sudanese government called for the company to provide military training to individuals who held citizenship in both Sudan and neighboring Uganda, but "would be deemed Ugandans for training purposes." Blackwater obtained Ugandan passports for the prospective trainees from the south Sudanese government.
At the time, Sudan was under U.S. sanctions, but Uganda wasn't.
Most of the 288 violations of export control laws cited in the document involve Blackwater providing unauthorized military or security training to foreign nationals or failing to vet adequately the backgrounds of those it was training. The concern is that U.S. enemies could benefit inadvertently from such training.
Persons trained by Blackwater under a U.S. government contract to train the Afghan Border Police included "one (who) was born in Pakistan and the other in Iran, a proscribed country," the document says.
Blackwater provided military training to security forces in almost every corner of the globe, often without proper authorization from the U.S. government, the documents show. Countries that received those services included Azerbaijan, Canada, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Niger, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Blackwater also violated firearms regulations on numerous occasions, the documents allege. In one case, it diverted weapons intended for use in supporting U.S. military operations in Iraq to the company's private contracts in that country.
The company "did not fully cooperate" during the first 18 months of the State Department investigation, which began in February 2007, and made several false statements to the government that it later revised, the documents said.
ON THE WEB
The State Department agreement with Xe Services
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Feds won't charge Blackwater in Sudan sanctions case
State Dept. planning to field a small army in Iraq
Blackwater indicted for violating federal firearms laws
- Posted in
34 Comments so far
Show AllHey, Up for sale. Maybe the Obama should buy them!
obomber IS already owned by the mic !
Why buy it when he can use the services at taxpayers' expense?
The company pays fines - nobody goes to jail. American justice system? Non-existent.
$Billion+ in us tax dollars to facilitate their crimes then a paltry 30 mil slap on the wrist. Un-F'ingbelievable. The best money can buy: Brand Amerika!
I wonder how the Turks will view this. It was their efforts which triggered the arms investigation. New U.S. weapons traced back to XE/Blackwater armories appeared in Turkish Mafioso and terrorist group PKK hands.
The weapons 'somehow' magically traveled from Blackwater warehouses in Virginia to open-air arms bazaars in northern Iraq.
Apparently nobody who negotiated the settlement talked to families of victims killed by the illicit trade in weapons - or they just don't care.
But, hey, is this a great country, or what?
Business as usual.
It my opinion that elements inisde the US Government worked hand in glove with Blackwater to help bypass these export controls. The rather lax punishment followed by more contracts suggests XE received Guarantees that "if caught" they would be taken care of.
The CIA and other such elements in the US Government have done this before. It a simple way to bypass their own laws in order to help destabilize a region.(see iran contra)
From time to time too much detail is "leaked" or "exposed" so the equivalent of the Plunge protection team goes to work.
When in the hell is the US Government going to move to prosecute these gangster swine?
AD
Newz??? da gangsta swine ARE part of the fascist amerikan imperialist empire !
While I am grateful for ANY charges leveraged against Blackwater (under whatever name it incorporates under)... the real sins of this company involve its wanton destruction of lives... for profit.
That Eric Prince defines himself as a Christian, and yet found it easy to profit from the direct taking of human lives, in my view constitutes the most unconscionable, and reprehensible aspect of his big bucks operation.
As usual, the big fish only gets fried for the smallest transgressions, while the crux of its enterprise remains off the record, essentially secured for further business deals.
Cindy Sheehan spent more time Under arrest then this thug. The system is Corrupt. It can not be salvaged.
I know, the new guy Mattis has recently spoken in glowing terms about the JOY of killing (i.e. murdering civilians). This serial killer is lauded as a hero, but the one (Julian Assange) who speaks out to expose the deadly follies of war made-for- hire, is a step away from being placed under global house arrest. Or worse.
As you know, I've done my best to describe the unbalanced, upside-down world that results when Mars (in modern parlance, the MIC) rules! I don't think the evidence could be clearer... and then, too, there's the U.S. budget, shamefully delivering 50% of communal fiscal supplies straight to agencies of certain death (to others). The crimes against humanity have of late been seamlessly sewn into the fiber of American commerce, and now function as official policy. I shudder for all of U.S. as the boomerang of karma will not be gentle. Just as the young man who signs up for active military service today really has no excuse for not understanding what's going on; so, too, do our nation's citizens. The "game" feels check-mated insofar as the Supreme Court, "both" parties, and congressional personnel all answer unequivocally to the same source... big money.
The worst possible partner in crime is seen in the MIC's merger with mammon. Nothing has changed since Biblical times, "The LOVE of $ remains the root of all evil." And when evil, in uniform, becomes the muscle behind greed's reach into foreign regions, then we end up with what America now presents. It's not like Smedley Butler or Jack Perkins didn't summon the alarm bells. However, the media watch dogs did their best to drown out these significant soundings with a plethora of other noises, the bulk of which are insignificant.
"The crimes against humanity have of late been seamlessly sewn into the fiber of American commerce, and now function as official policy." –(Siouxrose)
–Excellently stated, as usual, Sioux.
Allow me to make one critical distinction:
These 'crimes' are not "sewn into the fiber of America" by something that is 'external' to it, but emanate entirely from 'within,' as they are incarnate and constitutive of America, hence inseparable from it. They are not 'add ons.'
So much so that they are more an 'immanence, rather than something created by historical choices; a continuance that was there from the beginning, rather than something aberrant that can be corrected or even modified, as if it were somehow just a temporary anomaly.
The very existence of Erik Prince and the fact he will die a very rich man is the ineluctable 'truth' of America, totalized. That he even continues to draw breath is a crime that cannot be ended, as it is a crime of spirit, of the demiurgic distillation of all that is 'Holy' in America.
Erik Prince is the American avatar. An avatar of death.
When you have that going for you in America your shit does not stink.
EP and the like ARE the anti-christ. They espouse pricnciples against the teachings of Jesus Christ, The Prince of Peace. EP is The Prince of War.
Do you laugh or cry at this one?
At the same time that the Hillary's State Department outlines some of Blackwater/Xe's crimes, it has recently announced that it is creating a global private army of its own to "protect U.S. interests" around the world.
Of course, it is giving contracts to Blackwater/Xe, among others, to create and man the new mercenary group.
I think that it's interesting that Prince put Blackwater, aka Xe Services, up for sale. My guess is that after a few months, some private equity consortium will buy the mercenary organization and give Prince top dollar.
The consortium will be comprised of former politicians, CIA and NSA operatives and corporate executives that will contrive a method of purchase that utilizes Amerikkkan tax dollars and little or none of their own money.
"Erik Prince of Xe, formerly Blackwater, recently moved to the United Arab Emirates, and has put Xe Services up for sale."
currently on D.D.C. (Distance, distance and cover.)
They are regrouping for another buzzarian windfall of American service and goose stepping... let it ring, let it ring.
Erik, you look like an incorrigible little bastard who has been caught yet again. Go to your new home. Stay there. Don't come back.
Good thing Blackwater didn't do anything serious like help register poor people of color to vote or they'd be defunded and dismantled like ACORN.
Yet another example of the utter failure of the rule of law in the US.
From BP to Wall Street to Blackwater to the White House, well-connected people can commit criminal acts with impugnity.
There is 'NOTHING LOWER IN LIFE' than a man that will go anywhere to kill anyone for $$$$$.
Mercenaries are creatures without consciences!
Yep, the American military is weak and unprofessional. We have to get "hired guns" to provide security for the most important people in our government. I just wish the media would report this, the fact that our military is second-rate.
"...The concern is that U.S. enemies could benefit inadvertently from such training...."
gee... and today's irony is... gov't is upset about wikileaks activity benefiting our enemies... but... blackwater gets MILLIONS in govt. contracts while engaging in conduct... that... could benefit our enemies inadvertently...
lesson... don't protest... don't engage in civil disobedience... get a govt. contract and get paid to do it...
seems to me a certain teenager wandering around afghanistan at the wrong time... is sitting on his sorry ass for 20 years... while eric prince has sultan's pillows under his...
hey... naaaahhhhhhhhh... think we could get somebody over at massoud to head back for another "engagement"... just sayin'...
The company formerly known as Blackwater
The Artist Formerly Known as [Erik] Prince
Heard he's moving to Dubai.
That's one way of avoiding prison I guess.
Asshole!
He will be living in a very hot place. Probably to acclimatize himself for his likely future.
Erik Prince projects a very Patriotic aura.
Not to worry about little Eric's fate....
He'll be so close to 90 million people who
despise him and the USA that his chance of surviving
is nil.
This could all be disinformation.... the most likely
"safe haven" for this fascist is India.
Would someone please explain this?
Blackwater/Xe is fined 42 million for criminal acts ( or were they just misdemeanors?) and yet, the government continues to hire this company. So, the company is fined 42 million and what will the government do with this money? Use it to pay them again?
I would like the 42 million to stay right here and create some GREEN jobs, instead of some BLACK opps.
I also liked the codepink story, and I don't think Erik Prince will be leaving the country at all. Hide in plain sight worked for selling off American equipment, so why bother to move, since the "news" already said he was gone.
Enough.........Is Cofer Black of the CIA still a vice chairman in Ze? The State Department, I am sure, investigated how Blackwater was able to get (forge) Ugandan Passports....which sounds so CIA! Kind of like the visas issued, in Saudi Arabia, for the terrorists training in the United States for 9/11. God, are we dumb Americans!
Herbert,
You raise a good point. As Michael Springman has pointed out the visas were issued at the infamous US Embassy in Jeddah. (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=344x77)
But it gets much worse that that.
You may recall, four of the 9/11 hijackers -- al Mihdhar, al Hazmi, al Shehi, and Atta -- were being watched by a data mining operation (Project Able Danger) run out of the DIA. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger)
Mohammed Atta entered the United States, then left to travel abroad at least twice, then returned during the time period of the summer of 2000 until the summer of 2001. Atta failed to present a proper M-1 visa when he re-entered the United States in January 2001. He had previously overstayed his tourist visa and therefore was inadmissible under 8 USC 1182(a)(7)(B). Yet he had no problem re-entering the US.
Marwan al Shehhi also arrived in the summer of 2000, left to travel abroad and then re-entered the US in January 2001. This despite the fact that the German government had provided CIA with the name "Marwan" along with his telephone number. German intelligence had received his name and number as a result of their own surveillance of the Hamburg cell—the same cell that Atta and Jarrah were members.
Ziad Jarrah, the pilot of Flight 93, was a roommate with Mohammed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi while they lived in Hamburg, Germany. Jarrah left and returned to the United States six times between the summer of 2000 and the 9/11 attacks. Jarrah attended flight school in June 2000 without properly adjusting his immigration status, thereby violating his immigration status and rendering him inadmissible under 8 USC 1182 (a)(7)(B) each of the subsequent six times he re-entered the United States between June 2000 and August 5, 2001.
(for much more on this topic see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/enabling-danger-part-one_b_5951.html)
Something stinks to high heaven here!
Would someone please explain this?
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
"Prince recently moved to the United Arab Emirates, and has put Xe Services up for sale."
"Persons trained by blackwater under a U.S. government contract to train the Afghan Border Police included "one (who) was born in Pakistan and the other in Iran, a proscribed country," the document says."
sounds like a property either halliburton or unical might be interested in acquiring, a perfect opportunity to reduce paperwork.
...peace...
Break federal law, lie to the government, keep your contracts.
I'll have to remember that when tax time rolls around!
"that will allow the company, now known as Xe Services LLC, to continue receiving U.S. government contracts"
In Colorado, one can't open a medical marijuana business if one has a record, but one can open a killing business as long as they have enough money?
http://www.ryanhartman.wordpress.com