Spencer Ackerman, doing some fantastic reporting, shows how Blackwater got its latest lucrative federal contract, despite supposedly being banned from doing so over incidents involving employees shooting civilians:
Eight private security firms have won State's giant Worldwide Protective Services contract, the big Foggy Bottom partnership to keep embassies and their inhabitants safe. Two of those firms are longtime State contract holders DynCorp and Triple Canopy. The others are newcomers to the big security contract: EOD Technology, SOC, Aegis Defense Services, Global Strategies Group, Torres International Services and International Development Solutions LLC.
Don't see any of Blackwater's myriad business names on there? That's apparently by design. Blackwater and the State Department tried their best to obscure their renewed relationship. As Danger Room reported on Wednesday, Blackwater did not appear on the vendors' list for Worldwide Protective Services. And the State Department confirms that the company, renamed Xe Services, didn't actually submit its own independent bid. Instead, they used a blandly-named cut out, “International Development Solutions,” to retain a toehold into State's lucrative security business. No one who looks at the official announcement of the contract award would have any idea that firm is connected to Blackwater.
Of course, Blackwater has never been banned from receiving any federal contract money because of its various misdeeds because shooting up brown people in foreign countries is less politically controversial than registering minorities to vote or opposing racial discrimination in lending practices.
