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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2009
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CIA Hired Blackwater to Help Plan al-Qaeda Killings

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(Newser) – We knew the US outsourced a lot of its work in Iraq to Blackwater, but this takes the cake: The CIA hired the infamous military contractor in 2004 to help it figure out how to track down and kill al-Qaeda operatives, reports the New York Times. The move to hire an outside agency to assist with assassinations raises a host of thorny questions, but in this case the covert operation never resulted in the capture or killing of a militant. The bad news? It still cost several million dollars.

The agency never had a formal pact with Blackwater, now known as Xe Securities, but it had "individual agreements" with its top leaders, including Erik Prince, writes Mark Mazzetti. It's unclear whether Blackwater employees were to take part in the actual killings or just in planning and surveillance. The program ended well before Leon Panetta took over at the CIA, but this is apparently what prompted him to call his emergency meeting in June to brief members of Congress.

It is too easy to contract out work that you don’t want to accept responsibility for.
- Sen. Dianne Feinstein

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Deebles
Aug 19, 09 11:09 PM CDT
Nice for Eric--that backslapping relationship with Bush. If he had driven generators to New Orleans after Katrina he would have been arrested for trying to make a buck. Does no one see the irony here? Especially the part that they hired the dregs who are called Dogs of War because they are mercanaries? Any person who will kill for money is despicable. That they can't accomplish the mission that they were paid for is a given. Every fucking Seal or Delta force crud who walked from an army that gave them some kind of legitimacy and sold their tax-payer funded training to a for-profit Dog of War knows without my mentioning it that that slime will never wash off. Reply
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2-bits
Aug 19, 09 11:49 PM CDT
Absolutely. The privatization of our armed scares the ever living shit out of me. These circles of corporate-government power feel far more real than whatever the 9/11 truthers keep coming up with. It makes me want to run far far away, or fight it. But where do I run, and how do I fight? Words seem trite, and more to the point, useless in this endeavor. Maybe I am just a nervous wreck of a person who jumps at threats that only exist in my mind. Maybe they really are after me. I fear that these sorts of organizations are the future. And what can you do to a corporation with a private army that's friends with the government? End ramble.
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2-bits
Aug 19, 09 11:50 PM CDT
By the way, it's awesome that you are back. This place was definitely a little lamer without you, Deebles / Neeley (for those who haven't made the connection).
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2-bits
Aug 20, 09 12:08 AM CDT
Looking back that may have been a little inarticulate, panicky, and irrelevant. But I stand by it, whatever it means. :)
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Deebles
Aug 20, 09 12:18 AM CDT
Thank you 2-bits. Deebles was a name my son gave me because he was too cool to call me momma like his brother. I drop it and take a name that is less him and more me, because after two and a half years his death has to get smaller or there will be no me at all.
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