Hiring contractors for a covert assassination programme cemented a burgeoning relationship, writes GREG MILLER
A CIA decision to hire contractors from Blackwater USA for a covert assassination programme was part of a broader constellation of connections between the agency and the widely criticised security company.
The 2004 contract cemented what was then a burgeoning relationship with Blackwater, setting the stage for a series of departures by senior CIA officials who took high-level positions with the company. The revolving door helped fuel a backlash against what many inside the agency and on Capitol Hill came to regard as an overuse of outside companies, many of which made millions of dollars after filling their staffs with former CIA employees.
“I have believed for a long time that the intelligence community is over-reliant on contractors to carry out its work,” said Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee. “This is especially a problem when contractors are used to carry out activities that are inherently governmental.”
Feinstein’s comment underscored how the disclosure of the Blackwater contract has renewed questions about the nature of the work the CIA has been willing to outsource since the September 11th, 2001, attacks. In recent years, the agency has also faced criticism for its use of contractors in interrogating prisoners.
Experts say there may not be any legal barrier against using contractors to kill terrorism suspects or subject them to brutal interrogation methods. Still, they say, there tends to be deep public discomfort with the idea of delegating certain activities – whether issuing pardons, making arrests or pulling triggers – to people who are not direct employees of the government.
“The use of force has been traditionally thought of as inherently governmental,” said Jeffrey Smith, the former general counsel at the CIA. “The use of a contractor actually employing lethal force is clearly troublesome, but I’m not sure it’s necessarily illegal.”
US officials familiar with the targeted killing programme say Blackwater’s involvement was limited in scope and duration, and that the arrangement was ended several years before CIA director Leon E Panetta ended the programme two months ago.
The programme had been kept secret from Congress for almost eight years before Panetta informed lawmakers of its existence in June. CIA officials stressed, however, that it was not operational and did not lead to the capture or killing of a single terrorism suspect.
The CIA delivered a report to Congress earlier this month after conducting an internal inquiry into the programme, which was launched in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks but was cancelled and restarted several times under different regimes at the agency.
Officials familiar with the report say the agency did not have a formal contract with Blackwater in connection with the targeted killing programme. Instead, the agency hired the company’s founder, Erik D Prince, a former Navy Seal team member, and other Blackwater executives to help turn an idea for forming al-Qaeda hit squads into an operational programme.
The effort ranged from consulting with senior executives to carrying out training exercises at Blackwater’s headquarters in North Carolina.
Company officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services LLC to escape the notoriety that followed a series of bloody incidents in Iraq, where it was accused of employing excessive force in its work providing protection for US state department employees. In one case, Blackwater guards were accused of opening fire in a crowded Baghdad square and killing 17 civilians.
Blackwater had been hired in a similar capacity with the CIA in 2002, providing security at agency facilities in Afghanistan.
Two years later the CIA turned to Blackwater executives for help with the assassination programme largely because the company, which has hired dozens of former US special operations soldiers, was seen as having deeper expertise than the agency itself on clandestine lethal operations.
The use of contractors for the task was not considered an issue under the secret authorities the agency had been granted by then US president George W Bush.
Over the next several years, the ties between the CIA and Blackwater deepened considerably as a series of CIA executives took senior roles at the company.
Among them were Cofer Black, former head of the CIA’s counterterrorism centre; Robert Richer, former number two for operations; Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, former executive director; and Enrique “Ric” Prado, who was military chief of the counter-terrorism centre.
Former CIA director Michael V Hayden defended the use of contractors on Thursday. “We go to contractors because they possess certain experience or certain knowledge that we don’t have inherently inside our workforce,” he said.
“We generally use the best athlete available in the draft.”