The Washington Post reports that Blackwater received millions of dollars to train CIA operatives in kidnapping and high level assassinations. Jeremy Scahill discusses the implications of outsourcing to Blackwater and concealing the effort from Congress and writes more at The Nation.
Now the New York Times is reporting that in 2004 the CIA hired Blackwater “as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda.” According to the Times, “it is unclear whether the CIA had planned to use the contractors to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance.”
The Times reports that “the CIA did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune.”
