CIA cancels pact with Blackwater: NYT

NEW YORK – Amid an outcry over its black deeds, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has cancelled a contract with Blackwater (Xe Worldwide) that allowed the security company to load bombs on CIA drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Citing intelligence officials, the newspaper said the contract gave Blackwater employees an operational role in one of the CIA’s most significant covert programmes, which has killed dozens of militants with Predator and Reaper drones.

The contract with the company, now called Xe Services, was cancelled this year by CIA Director Leon Panetta, the report said.CIA spokesman George Little said Panetta had ordered that the agency’s employees take over the jobs from Xe employees at the remote drone bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the paper noted. Panetta had also ordered a review of all contracts with the company, according to the report “At this time, Blackwater is not involved in any CIA operations other than in a security or support role,” Little was quoted by The Times as saying.

The disclosure about the terminated contract comes a day after The Times reported that Blackwater employees had joined CIA operatives in secret operations against suspected Islamic militants in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Blackwater’s role in the raids grew out of contracts that the company had with the spy agency to provide security for the C.I.A. in Kabul and Baghdad. The company had a dual role in the drone programme, said current and former employees and intelligence officials. Contractors on the secret bases assembled and loaded Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs onto drones, and they also provided security at the CIA bases.

The C.I.A. did not allow contractors to select targets for the drone attacks or pull the trigger on the strikes, the report said. That work was done at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

But Blackwater’s direct role in the drone operations sometimes led to disputes between the contractors and CIA employees, as the spy agency sometimes accused Blackwater employees of poor weapon assembly if the missile or bomb missed a target, it said. In one instance last year, a 500-pound bomb dropped off a Predator before the drone had launched its payload, leading to a frenzied search along the Afghan-Pakistani border. A company employee said the bomb was eventually found not far from the intended target.

The Nation