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In reply to the discussion: Know your BFEE: Blackwater Lobbyist Will Manage the House Intelligence Committee [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)Now they can call in the drones.
C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones
By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI
The New York Times
August 21, 2009
WASHINGTON From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washingtons most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaedas leaders, according to government officials and current and former employees.
The divisions operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the companys contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also provide security at the covert bases, the officials said.
The role of the company in the Predator program highlights the degree to which the C.I.A. now depends on outside contractors to perform some of the agencys most important assignments. And it illustrates the resilience of Blackwater, now known as Xe (pronounced Zee) Services, though most people in and outside the company still refer to it as Blackwater. It has grown through government work, even as it attracted criticism and allegations of brutality in Iraq.
SNIP...
In interviews on Thursday, current and former government officials provided new details about Blackwaters association with the assassination program, which began in 2004 not long after Porter J. Goss took over at the C.I.A. The officials said that the spy agency did not dispatch the Blackwater executives with a license to kill. Instead, it ordered the contractors to begin collecting information on the whereabouts of Al Qaedas leaders, carry out surveillance and train for possible missions.
The actual pulling of a trigger in some ways is the easiest part, and the part that requires the least expertise, said one government official familiar with the canceled C.I.A. program. Its everything that leads up to it thats the meat of the issue.
CONTINUED...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21intel.html
Gee. That's something else to hate Risen for.