Report: Blackwater Played Fast and Loose With Rules
(Feb. 23) — Weapons signed out by a character from “South Park,” a dangerous joyride with AK-47s and hundreds of missing weapons that had been intended to help equip Afghan security forces.
It sounds like a cartoon parody of war, but these are just a few of the problems the Senate Armed Services Committee said it found during a six-month investigation into Xe Services, better known by its former name, Blackwater Worldwide. …
The investigation’s findings are set to be the subject of a Senate hearing Wednesday, but panel Chairman Carl Levin previewed some of the allegations today. The Michigan Democrat said the company displayed a “reckless use of weapons” in Afghanistan.
“Blackwater operated in Afghanistan without sufficient oversight or supervision and with almost no consideration of the rules it was legally obligated to follow,” Levin said in a statement. “The means by which Blackwater acquired weapons for its contractor personnel in Afghanistan showed just how little regard company personnel had for those rules.”
A six-month Senate investigation into Xe Services, formerly Blackwater Worldwide, slams the company for what one lawmaker calls its “reckless use of weapons” in Afghanistan. Here, a Blackwater helicopter flies over Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007.
Though the ongoing investigation focuses on armed contractors in Afghanistan, the panel on Wednesday is expected to discuss its specific finding regarding a $20 million subcontract given to Paravant, a subsidiary of Xe. The contract, which was to provide weapons training to the Afghan security forces, was part of a larger $11 billion contract run by Raytheon Technical Services.
Paravant first garnered attention last May, when two of its employees were involved in a shooting incident that killed and injured Afghan civilians. The employees involved in the shooting had allegedly been drinking.
It was then revealed that the previously unknown Paravant was affiliated with Blackwater, which has suffered a slew of bad publicity, including criticism of its involvement in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 civilians. Paravant, according to Levin, was merely a shell company created to avoid the “baggage” associated with Blackwater.
The latest revelations will likely only further batter the private security contractor’s already tarnished image. In addition to the May shooting, the Senate investigation found that Paravant had been involved in another previously unpublicized shooting that took place in December 2008.
Johnnie Walker, a program manager with Paravant, told the committee the incident took place after an employee responsible for training Afghan police decided to practice shooting from a moving vehicle. The employee, who wanted to “ride it like a stagecoach,” accidentally fired his weapon when the vehicle hit a bump.
The bullet struck another Paravant employee, who was left partially paralyzed.
Another focus of the investigation was Blackwater’s alleged unauthorized use of weapons meant for the Afghan police. Blackwater employees did not have any authority to carry weapons, but, according to Levin, contractors working for Paravant took hundreds of AK-47s from a storage facility — dubbed Bunker 22 — that held weapons meant for the Afghan National Police.
In September 2008, the investigation found, more than 200 AK-47s were taken out of Bunker 22 and signed for by an employee named “Eric Cartman,” which is the name of a character on the animated series “South Park.” Hundreds of those weapons remain unaccounted for, according to the committee.
Asked whether Blackwater had lied to the committee when it said earlier that all weapons had been accounted for, Levin said the company had made “false statements.”
Senate aides indicated that even getting Blackwater to cooperate with the investigation was at times difficult. One key employee refused to testify, and thousands of pages of documents requested by the committee from the company several months prior were delivered just days before the scheduled hearing.
While the investigation focuses on problems with Blackwater, the committee also found fault with the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, the Army command responsible for overseeing the contract. Even though a report on the December 2008 shooting was sent to the command, the Orlando, Fla.-based Army command only learned of the report when told about it by the committee’s staff, Levin said.
A spokesperson for the Army command in charge of the contract declined to comment on the matter. A Raytheon spokesperson declined to comment pending the Wednesday hearing, and a message could not be left with Xe’s spokesperson, whose mailbox was full; the spokesperson also did not respond to an e-mail query.
Representatives from Raytheon, Blackwater and the Army are expected to testify at Wednesday’s hearing.