Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of theWar on Terror (55 page)
Authors: Erik Prince
“a hollow lie”
: Dan Neil, “The 50 Worst Cars of All Time: 1975 Trabant,”
Time
, www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658533_1658030,00.html, captured August 15, 2013.
“leakproof” drip pans for Black Hawk helicopters
: Eric Lichtblau, “Earmark Puts $17,000 Pans on Army Craft,”
New York Times
, May 18, 2012.
“With good financial oversight”
: Aleen Sirgany, “The War on Waste,”
CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley
, February 11, 2009.
to the tune of $7 billion
: “Financing Peacekeeping,” United Nations Peacekeeping, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/financing.shtml, captured August 15, 2013.
20 percent of which was paid by U.S. taxpayers
: Brett D. Schaefer, “How Much Does the U.N. Cost Us?,”
National Review
, September 14, 2012.
Less than 150 of those UN troops
: “Fact Sheet: United Nations Peacekeeping,” United Nations, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/documents/factsheet.pdf, captured August 15, 2013.
billed out for the UN’s flat rate of $1,028
: “Financing Peacekeeping,” United Nations Peacekeeping, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/financing.shtml, captured August 15, 2013.
UN now pays about $525 million a year
: Colum Lynch, “U.S. and Europe Fight over Cuts in Peacekeeping,”
Foreign Policy
, October 10, 2011.
eclipses the country’s entire $459 million annual national budget
: Ibid.
put up little resistance in late 2012
: “Congo Army Clashes with M23 Rebels Close to Eastern City of Goma,” Reuters, July 14, 2013.
$1.4 billion annual operating budget
: Robyn Dixon, “U.N. Force in Congo, MONUSCO, Criticized as Ineffective,” December 22, 2012.
Executive Outcomes to help battle the Revolutionary United Front
: James Rupert, “Diamond Hunters Fuel Africa’s Brutal Wars,”
Washington Post
, October 16, 1999.
rebels overthrew the new democratic government and began the killing
: Ibid.
hired guns from British security contractor
: Tabassum Zakaria, Susan Cornwell, and Hadeel Al Shalchi, “For Benghazi Diplomatic Security, U.S. Relied on Small British Firm,” Reuters, October 17, 2012.
protection of the diplomats was the responsibility of three members
: Accountability Review Board report, U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf, captured August 15, 2013.
“asking for the sun, the moon, and the stars”
: Michael R. Gordon, “Official Tells Panel a Request for Libya Was Denied,”
New York Times
, October 10, 2012.
“Taliban is on the inside of the building”
: Ibid.
State Department documented some fifty “security incidents”
: Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan M. Collins, “Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi,” Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, December 30, 2012.
“big enough for forty men to go through”
: Eli Lake, “U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Bombed Twice in Run-Up to 9/11 Anniversary,”
Daily Beast
, October 2, 2012.
there were five DS agents at the mission
: Accountability Review Board report, U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf, captured August 15, 2013.
Around nine p.m. on September 11
: Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan M. Collins, “Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi,” Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, December 30, 2012.
saw militants streaming through the compound’s main gates
: Fred Burton and Samuel M. Katz, “40 Minutes in Benghazi,”
Vanity Fair
, August 2013.
Three of the five DS agents rushed to the outbuilding
: Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan M. Collins, “Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi,” Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, December 30, 2012.
“The compound is under attack”
: David Ignatius, “In Benghazi Timeline, CIA Errors but No Evidence of Conspiracy,”
Washington Post
, November 1, 2012.
CIA reportedly scrambled a six-man security team
: Ibid.
drove two vehicles to the firefight
: Ibid.
They picked up an agency translator and three Libyan
: Ibid.
no bulletproof windows or other advanced protections
: Jill Reilly, “Safe House Where Ambassador Died Had No Marine Guard and His Body Was Missing for Five Hours: Full Scale of Chaos Surrounding Libyan Killings Revealed,”
Daily
Mail
, September 12, 2012.
He forced his way out an emergency escape
: Accountability Review Board report, U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf, captured August 15, 2013.
until the heat and smoke shut him out entirely
: Ibid.
Shortly before ten thirty p.m. those CIA
: Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan M. Collins, “Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi,” Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, December 30, 2012.
repeatedly driven back by the inferno
: Ibid.
load into the armored vehicle with Smith’s body and escape
: Accountability Review Board report, U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf, captured August 15, 2013.
fighting their way out of the compound and back to the annex
: Ibid.
The Americans rushed to the rear building
: Jennifer Griffin, “CIA Operators Were Denied Request for Help During Benghazi Attack, Sources Say,” Fox News, October 26, 2012.
erupting on the rooftop and killing the two
men
: Ibid.
packed into vehicles and headed for the Benghazi airport
: David Ignatius, “In Benghazi Timeline, CIA Errors but No Evidence of Conspiracy,”
Washington Post
, November 1, 2012.
in video evidence, was still alive
: “Witness: Stevens Was Breathing When Found,” Associated Press, September 17, 2012.
looters drove him to Benghazi Medical Center
: Ethan Chorin, “What Libya Lost,”
New York Times
, September 13, 2012.
Libyans brought his body to the airport
: Sharyl Attkisson, “Officials Instructed Benghazi Hospital to List Stevens as ‘John Doe,’” CBS News, May 30, 2013.
some sort of agreement with the CIA personnel
: Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman, and Margaret Coker, “CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 1, 2012.
he too would now be facing prosecution
: Guy Adams, “Iraq Mercenaries Boss Triggers Rage with Blackwater Video Game,”
Independent
, September 8, 2011.
AFTERWORD:
THE CIA AND ERIK PRINCE
like having a brand-new Ferrari in the garage
: Richard H. Shultz Jr., “Showstoppers,”
Weekly Standard
, January 26, 2004.
“150 fighters, pilots and specialists”
: Bob Woodward, “Secret CIA Units Playing a Central Combat Role,”
Washington Post
, November 18, 2001.
“to influence political economic, or military conditions”
: Jennifer D. Kibbe, “The Rise of the Shadow Warriors,”
Foreign Affairs
, March/April 2004.
Erik Prince’s hero
:
Adam Ciralsky, “Tycoon,
Contractors, Soldier, Spy,”
Vanity fair,
January 2010.
“600–700 covert operators”
: Kibbe, “Rise of Shadow Warriors.”
the figure was closer to one to one
: Mark Hemingway, “Warriors for Hire: Blackwater USA and the Rise of Private Military Contractors,”
Weekly Standard
, December 18, 2006.
there were 10,000 contractors from 114 different firms
: Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “National Security Inc.,”
Washington Post
, July 19, 2010.
“revenue from General Dynamics”
: Ibid.
“They were gutted in the 1990s”
: Eli Lake, “Court Docs Reveal Blackwater’s Secret CIA Past,”
Daily Beast
, March 14, 2013.
Prince recalls that he was eager to help
:
Ciralsky, “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy.”
Prince did not give up easily
:
See Chapter 4.
Prince says that he himself
:
Ciralsky, “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy.”
Blackwater recruited primarily from veterans
:
Ibid.
aircraft belonging to its aviation arm
: Adam Ciralsky, “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy,”
Vanity Fair
, January 2010.
“Paresi
. . .
was highly skeptical of the security plan”
: Joby Warrick,
The Triple Agent: The Al Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA
(New York: Doubleday, 2011), p. 162.
“known for his unflappable calm and his Zen-like insistence”
: Ibid., p. 165.
“exasperated him” but he “also understood his place”
: Ibid., p. 165.
“Hands up!”
: Ibid., p. 8.
“the drivers and the gunslingers”
: James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, “Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret C.I.A. Raids,”
New York Times
, December 11, 2009.
“There was no bench strength”
: R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick, “Blackwater Tied to Clandestine CIA Raids,”
Washington Post
, December 11, 2009.
encouraged them to do “whatever it takes”
: James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, “Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret C.I.A. Raids,”
New York Times
, December 11, 2009.
“the military and Blackwater became blurred”
: Ibid.
“It became a very brotherly relationship”
: Ibid.
“would have flies walking across their eyeballs”
: Mark Mazzetti,
The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
(New York: Penguin Press, 2013), p. 12.
“regularly invited top CIA officers to the Kentucky Derby”
: Ibid., p. 122.
number of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan
: Bill Roggio and Alexander Mayer, “Charting the Data for US Airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004–2013,”
Long War Journal
, www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php, captured August 19, 2013.
Blackwater personnel traveled to Nellis Air Force Base
: James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, “C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones,”
New York Times
, August 21, 2009.
Panetta finally terminated Xe’s drone operations contract
: Mark Mazzetti, “Blackwater Loses a Job for the C.I.A.,”
New York Times
, December 12, 2009.
“continually and increasingly mystified by this relationship”
: James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, “30 False Fronts Won Contracts for Blackwater,”
New York Times
, September 3, 2010.
Blackwater had “cleaned up its act”
: Ibid.
“undergone some serious changes”
: Jeff Stein, “CIA Gives Blackwater Firm New $100 Million Contract,”
Washington Post
, June 23, 2010.
“secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives”
: Mark Mazzetti, “CIA Sought Blackwater’s Help to Kill Jihadists,”
New York Times
, August 20, 2009.
“Wary of attracting undue attention”
: Adam Ciralsky, “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy,”
Vanity Fair
, January 2010.
Prince had already been recruited
:
Ibid.
“I was looking at creating a small, focused capability”
: Ibid.
“I grew up around the auto industry”
: Ibid.
“unconventional means of penetrating ‘hard target’ countries”
: Ibid.
“We have a rapidly growing, worldwide network”
: James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, “30 False Fronts Won Contracts for Blackwater,”
New York Times
, September 3, 2010.
“team of foreign nationals helped find and fix a target”
: Adam Ciralsky, “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy,”
Vanity Fair
, January 2010.
Prince also embraced
:
Ibid.
“institutional osteoporosis”
: Ibid.
“I put myself and my company at the CIA’s disposal”
: Ibid.
“what happened to me was worse”
: Ibid.
“cartoonish show of force”
: Eli Lake, “Court Docs Reveal Blackwater’s Secret CIA Past,”
Daily Beast
, March 14, 2013.
“defendants conspired to commit offenses against the United States”
:
United States of America v. Gary Jackson, William Wheeler Mathews, Jr., Andrew Howell, Ronald Slezak, Ana Bundy
, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Northern Division, No. 2:10-CR-8-FL.
One Blackwater employee
:
Ibid.
the CIA had its own secure telephone line
:
Eli Lake, “Court Docs Reveal Blackwater’s Secret CIA Past,”
Daily Beast,
March 14, 2013.