What Robert Gates Didn’t Say – And US Media Hides – About Blackwater In Pakistan

Two Pakistani employees of an American defense contractor engaged by the US Embassy in Islamabad have been linked to two attacks on Pakistani military and the assassination of a Brigadier. If this is not alarming, then consider that US Ambassador Anne Patterson’s name has come up in an investigation where thousands of dollars were paid in bribes to Interior Ministry to smuggle illegal weapons into Pakistan. Not to mention how Washington is empowering India in Afghanistan at Pakistan’s cost. When Pakistan takes countermeasures, US officials like Mr. Gates and Mr. Holbrooke accuse Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassing US diplomats. Time for some straight talk.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted during an interview with a Pakistani TV station that Blackwater [now ‘Xe International’] and DynCorp are operating in Pakistan. Immediately after the statement, Pentagon tried to put a spin on his words.

But US meddling inside Pakistan –by posting private US defense contractors under diplomatic cover of the US embassy – is a reality for most Pakistanis. Some of these Americans have been caught disguised as Taliban right in the heart of Islamabad. Some Pakistanis were manhandled by some of these American militiamen on the streets of at least two Pakistani cities in recent months. Since Pakistan is not Iraq or Afghanistan despite all the US direct and indirect misinformation, these US covert operators were arrested on several occasions.

The mainstream US media continues to keep the good American people and the world opinion in the dark about this. But this is probably one of the biggest untold stories in America’s war on terror. This is about United States trying to put boots on the ground inside Pakistan through the help of a pro-US government in Islamabad that shares [or at least key figures in it] the US objective of containing and limiting the ability of Pakistan’s military to influence the country’s foreign policy. This is about Pakistan wanting to keep an independent foreign policy versus Pakistan blindly serving US policy on Afghanistan, India and China.

Mr. Gates tried to put a gloss on this US covert meddling when he said, ‘Well, they’re [Blackwater and DynCorp] operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.’

Not true. The truth is that the issue is so serious that, according to Pakistani investigators, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson is a suspect in a case of bribes amounting to little over US $ 270,000 paid by DynCorp in 2009 to senior officials at the federal Interior Ministry in Pakistan. The money went in exchange for allowing illegal weapons into Pakistan to be used by private US defense contractors without informing the country’s security departments and intelligence agencies. Ms. Patterson personally lobbied Pakistani officials for this concession to DynCorp. She even wrote a letter to Pakistani officials, followed by a letter by her Deputy Head of Mission Mr. Gerald Feierstein, asking Pakistani Interior Ministry officials to issue permits for weapons to be used by DynCorp in the ‘entire territory of Pakistan.’ The US ambassador is directly linked to the probe, which has resulted in the arrest of a key aide to Pakistan’s Minister of State for the Interior. But the government of President Zardari will not dare allow Pakistani investigators to pursue US Ambassador’s role in the scandal.

A key question in the probe is how the US Embassy and DynCorp allowed the cargo of illegal weapons into Pakistan. According to one lead, a huge cache of weapons reached a Pakistani tribal leader on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, who in turn wrote to the Interior Ministry announcing he was ‘gifting’ the weapons to a Pakistani subcontractor of DynCorp.

Incidents like this and others raised alarm bells inside Pakistani security departments and the intelligence community. In effect, key figures in President Zardari’s government were found to have given approval for the entry of a large number of US citizens into Pakistan for ‘official US government business’ without explaining what that is. When Pakistani authorities tried to get to the bottom of how private US defense contractors ended up inside Pakistan in large numbers and what they were exactly doing here, US officials and media launched what appears to be a media trial of Pakistan, accusing the country of ‘harassing’ US diplomats and denying visas to them because of alleged anti-Americanism.

The unwillingness of the Zardari government to confront Washington and Pakistan’s generally weak media outreach skills allowed Washington to pain this as a case of anti-Americanism fueled by war on terror.

‘Conspiracy theories’ is another label that US officials and media have increasingly used recently as a cover to hide serious violations of diplomatic norms and sovereignty involving undercover private US operatives inside Pakistan. This is how the Wall Street Journal tried to delegitimize serious Pakistani concerns raised during Mr. Gates’ visit in a report filed from Islamabad whose opening line read as follows, “U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is overseeing wars with Sunni militants in Iraq and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, he’s facing a different foe: the pervasive conspiracy theories that fuel widespread anti-American feelings here.”

The truth is that there are no conspiracy theories but real events, reported and documented, that raise questions over US political, diplomtic, and covert meddling inside Pakistan. Here is a list:

1. NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE: In July 2009, four US ‘diplomats’ were arrested inside the maximum security perimeter around Pakistan’s premier nuclear facility at Kahuta. They failed to tell Pakistani investigators what they were doing there and how they managed to slip through the security checkpoints in the area. US Embassy intervened to rescue the four ‘diplomats’ after almost three hours in detention, citing diplomatic immunity. President Zardari’s government refused to let Pakistani security authorities press charges.

2. SUSPICIOUS CONDUCT: On Oct. 6, 2009, Pakistani police arrested two Dutch diplomats roaming the streets of Islamabad without a number plate carrying advanced weapons. Pakistani police were surprised when security personnel from the US Embassy reached the scene to rescue the Dutch. The Americans used their contacts within the Zardari government to get everyone released. Later, Pakistan Foreign Office summoned US and Dutch diplomats for a private meeting over the incident. But the Pakistani government refused to demand a public explanation from US and Dutch diplomats despite recommendations from police and security officials.

3. FACILITATING INDIAN ACTIVITIES: In this high profile case in May 2009, a US diplomat arranged a small meeting between an Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani federal government officials at a private house. The invited Pakistanis worked in civilian positions, including one with access to Prime Minister’s Office. It appeared that the US diplomat was basically facilitating the Indian to meet senior officials who otherwise would be inaccessible for him. Pakistan Foreign Office took serious exception to the meeting, publicly reprimanded the Pakistani officials who attended the meeting but stopped short of seeking explanation from the US embassy. According to Pakistani investigators, for a US diplomat to indulge in facilitating possible espionage linked to an Indian diplomat was a matter of grave concern. It also fitted with the US policy of exercising tremendous pressure on the pro-US government in Islamabad to give concessions to India at the expense of Pakistani strategic interests.

4. COVERT US MILITIAS IN THE HEART OF PAKISTAN: In September 2009, undercover US agents were found to have recruited a total of 100 former elite Pakistani military commandos to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes. A 100 more were under training at a secret facility camouflaged as a workshop on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital when it was raided by Pakistani police. It turned out that DynCorp was training the men. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson brought DynCorp to Pakistan by telling Pakistani officials that the private defense contractor would provide security to embassy buildings. But she never explained why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias on Pakistani soil without informing the Pakistani government or military or the intelligence agencies. Some of those who were under training at the time of the raid said that DynCorp focused on recruiting retired officers who had links and contacts within the Pakistani military and could glean information from their sources. [See video and pictures]

5. PUSHY US DIPLOMATS: The US Embassy in Islamabad has made it its business to mount pressure on owners of Pakistani newspapers to curtail or expel columnists and commentators critical of US policy. Of special target are those who expose how US Embassy is meddling in Pakistani affairs and expanding the US footprint inside Pakistan. Last year, Ambassador Patterson sent a letter to one of the largest Pakistani media groups accusing a columnist of endangering American lives and succeeded in pushing her out. The US Embassy is also recruiting opinion makers within the Pakistani media, academia and military in order to promote the US agenda even at the cost of Pakistani interests, dismissing critics as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and accusing them of anti-Americanism. A senior Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain exposed US activities in the following words, “Pro-American lobby in Pakistan is growing in direct proportion to the scaling up of suspicions about the US. The main task of this lobby is to reduce the complexity of the US’s objectives towards Pakistan to romantic levels of trust (…) A motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers — they are the darlings of the US embassy staff. They are the instruments of positive outreach and public diplomacy that US diplomats are so keen to expand in Pakistan.”

6. HARASSING PAKISTANIS: Private US security contractors, or militiamen, have been involved in at least three incidents registered by the Pakistani police where armed Americans physically assaulted unarmed ordinary Pakistanis in public places. In one case, the nephew of a senior member of President Zardari’s own government was manhandled and locked up in the toilet of a gas station by men described as armed military-looking civilian Americans.

7. RESISTING POLICE CHECKS: In at least five incidents, US ‘diplomats’ disguised as Taliban, complete with beards and Pashto language skills, were stopped at several police checkpoints in Islamabad and Peshawar. In some cases, these American ‘diplomats’ tried to speed through police barriers. In one recent case, this resulted in a brief police chase, where a Pakistani officer dragged the US ‘diplomats’ back to the police picket and forced the Americans to apologize to Pakistani police officers. Again, no charges were pressed because these private US agents carried diplomatic passports.

8. ENGINEEING DOMESTIC POLITICS: As recently as December 2009, US ambassador in Islamabad was found meeting senior Pakistani politicians at private homes of mutual friends in unannounced meetings restricted to 3 to 4 persons. The ambassador asked her guests to publicly support the embattled pro-US President Zardari. US diplomats in Islamabad and officials in Washington have been blatantly interfering in Pakistani politics. In addition to helping form the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad, made up of pro-US parties, US officials have been busy trying to save both Mr. Zardari and his key political adviser and ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani. US officials in Washington have been briefing sympathetic US journalists about this. In one case, columnist Trudy Rubin had this to say while discussing Pakistan in an article published last month: “Here is the first piece of good news: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari seems to have weathered a campaign by opponents, including the military, to force him out of office. Zardari has deep flaws, but his ouster would have hampered efforts to fight the jihadis. So would the removal, now averted, of Pakistan’s effective ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom the Pakistani military had unfairly blamed for conditions that Congress imposed on aid to Pakistan.”

9. BRIBES AND ILLEGAL WEAPONS: This case is stunning because of the direct involvement of US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson in lobbying for DynCorp. The company ended up bribing Interior Ministry officials to smuggle banned weapons into Pakistan and then went on to raise private militias and hire retired Pakistani military officers to run rapid deployment teams and possibly even spy on the Pakistani military.

10. DEMONIZATION OF PAKISTAN: Since 2007, US officials and US media has systematically demonized Pakistan worldwide, creating false alarm over Pakistan’s strategic arsenal. US officials and media have also pushed to bracket Pakistan along with Iraq and Afghanistan in order to justify a possible military intervention. When Pakistan resisted US meddling recently, US media again went on rampage, accusing Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassment of US diplomats. Additionally, there has been a marked increase of lectures and studies by US think-tanks inviting unknown separatist individuals and groups to speak and fan ethnic separatism inside Pakistan and theorize on the breakup of the country.

11. ABETTING TERROR INSIDE PAKISTAN: The suspicions about why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias inside the federal Pakistani capital almost turned real when a suspect in the attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in October 2009 was allegedly found to have been recruited by DynCorp. In a second case, another suspected DynCorp recruit was found involved in assassinating a senior Pakistani military officer as he drove to work. In other words, two Pakistani employees of a US defense contractor engaged by the US embassy have been linked to two terrorist attacks on the Pakistani military. Add to this that Pakistan’s military and intelligence are a favorite punching bag for the United States and its allies, like India and Britain, and the picture of what the US is doing in Pakistan becomes even more disturbing.

These points explain how ill-motivated the US complaints about delaying visas and alleged anti-Americanism in Pakistan are. This is what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Gates are loath to share with the American people and the world public opinion.

Blackwater in Pakistan: Gates Confirms

JEREMY SCAHILL

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that Blackwater is operating in Pakistan. In an interview on Express TV, Gates, who was visiting Islamabad, said, “They [Blackwater and another private security firm, DynCorp] are operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”

Today, the country’s senior minister for the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Bashir Bilour, also acknowledged that the company is operating in Pakistan’s frontier areas. Bilour told Pakistan’s Express News TV that Blackwater’s activities were taking place with the “consent and permission” of the Pakistani government, saying he had discussed the issue with officials at the US Consulate in Peshawar, who told him that Blackwater was training Pakistani forces.

When Gates was asked what the US response would be if the Pakistani parliament passed a law banning private security companies, Gates said, “If it’s Pakistani law, we will absolutely comply.”

As Gates’s comments began to make huge news in Pakistan, US defense officials tried to retract his statement. As the Wall Street Journal reported, “Defense officials tried to clarify the comment Thursday night, telling reporters that Mr. Gates had been speaking about contractor oversight more generally and that the Pentagon didn’t employ Xe in Pakistan.”

Bilour’s statements are consistent with what a former Blackwater executive and a US military intelligence source told me in December–that Blackwater is working on a subcontract for Kestral, a Pakistani security and logistics firm. That contract, say my sources, is technically with the Pakistani government, which helps cloak Blackwater’s presence. From my article in The Nation:

Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive. “Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship,” he said. “They’ve met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for one another.” Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater, according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route for the US military in Afghanistan.

According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also integrate with Kestral’s forces in sensitive counterterrorism operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry’s paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as “frontier scouts”). The Blackwater personnel are technically advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets blurred in the field. Blackwater “is providing the actual guidance on how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral’s folks are carrying a lot of them out, but they’re having the guidance and the overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams when they’re executing the job,” he said. “You can see how that can lead to other things in the border areas.” He said that when Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. “You’ve got BW guys that are assisting…and they’re all going to want to go on the jobs–so they’re going to go with them,” he said. “So, the things that you’re seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military group came in and raided this house or did this or did that–in some of those cases, you’re going to have Western folks that are right there at the house, if not in the house.” Blackwater, he said, is paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting services. “That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say, ‘Hey, no, we don’t have any Westerners doing this. It’s all local and our people are doing it.’ But it gets them the expertise that Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work.”

When I tried to get confirmation of Blackwater’s work with Kestral, I was bounced around from agency to agency. Eventually, a spokesman for the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to US corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. “We cannot help you,” said department spokesman David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. “You’ll have to contact the companies directly.” Blackwater’s spokesman Mark Corallo said the company has “no operations of any kind” in Pakistan other than one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to my inquiries.

Kestral’s lobbyist, former assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, would not provide comment on the contract either. Noriega, according to federal lobby records, was recently hired by Kestral to lobby the US government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues “regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States.”

All of this appears to be a contradiction of previous statements made by the Defense Department, by Blackwater, by the Pakistani government and by the US Embassy in Islamabad, all of whom claimed Blackwater was not in the country. In September the US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, denied Blackwater’s presence in the country, stating bluntly, “Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan.” In December in The Nation, after I reported on Blackwater’s work for JSOC and Ketral in Pakistan, the Pentagon did not issue any clear public denials, and instead tried to pass the buck to the State Department, which in turn passed it to the US Embassy, which in turn issued an unsigned statement saying the story was false. Shortly after my story came out in The Nation, ABC News reported that in 2006, “12 Blackwater “tactical action operatives” were recruited for a secret raid into Pakistan by the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command, according to a military intelligence planner. The target of the planned raid, code-named Vibrant Fury, was a suspected al Qaeda training camp, according to the planner.”

In Pakistan, there appears to be egg on the face of the country’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who has said on numerous occasions that he would resign if it is proven that Blackwater is operating inside Pakistan. Today, Express TV rebroadcast Malik saying in November, “There is no Blackwater.”

What’s that old saying? “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.”

What Robert Gates Didn’t Say – And US Media Hides – About Blackwater In Pakistan

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted during an interview with a Pakistani TV station that Blackwater [now ‘Xe International’] and DynCorp are operating in Pakistan. Immediately after the statement, Pentagon tried to put a spin on his words. But US meddling inside Pakistan –by posting private US defense contractors under diplomatic cover of the US embassy – is a reality for most Pakistanis. Some of these Americans have been caught disguised as Taliban right in the heart of Islamabad. Some Pakistanis were manhandled by some of these American militiamen on the streets of at least two Pakistani cities in recent months. Since Pakistan is not Iraq or Afghanistan despite all the US direct and indirect misinformation, these US covert operators were arrested on several occasions.

The mainstream US media continues to keep the good American people and the world opinion in the dark about this. But this is probably one of the biggest untold stories in America’s war on terror. This is about United States trying to put boots on the ground inside Pakistan through the help of a pro-US government in Islamabad that shares [or at least key figures in it] the US objective of containing and limiting the ability of Pakistan’s military to influence the country’s foreign policy. This is about Pakistan wanting to keep an independent foreign policy versus Pakistan blindly serving US policy on Afghanistan, India and China.

Mr. Gates tried to put a gloss on this US covert meddling when he said, ‘Well, they’re [Blackwater and DynCorp] operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.’

Not true. The truth is that the issue is so serious that, according to Pakistani investigators, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson is a suspect in a case of bribes amounting to little over US $ 270,000 paid by DynCorp in 2009 to senior officials at the federal Interior Ministry in Pakistan. The money went in exchange for allowing illegal weapons into Pakistan to be used by private US defense contractors without informing the country’s security departments and intelligence agencies. Ms. Patterson personally lobbied Pakistani officials for this concession to DynCorp. She even wrote a letter to Pakistani officials, followed by a letter by her Deputy Head of Mission Mr. Gerald Feierstein, asking Pakistani Interior Ministry officials to issue permits for weapons to be used by DynCorp in the ‘entire territory of Pakistan.’ The US ambassador is directly linked to the probe, which has resulted in the arrest of a key aide to Pakistan’s Minister of State for the Interior. But the government of President Zardari will not dare allow Pakistani investigators to pursue US Ambassador’s role in the scandal.

A key question in the probe is how the US Embassy and DynCorp allowed the cargo of illegal weapons into Pakistan. According to one lead, a huge cache of weapons reached a Pakistani tribal leader on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, who in turn wrote to the Interior Ministry announcing he was ‘gifting’ the weapons to a Pakistani subcontractor of DynCorp.

Incidents like this and others raised alarm bells inside Pakistani security departments and the intelligence community. In effect, key figures in President Zardari’s government were found to have given approval for the entry of a large number of US citizens into Pakistan for ‘official US government business’ without explaining what that is. When Pakistani authorities tried to get to the bottom of how private US defense contractors ended up inside Pakistan in large numbers and what they were exactly doing here, US officials and media launched what appears to be a media trial of Pakistan, accusing the country of ‘harassing’ US diplomats and denying visas to them because of alleged anti-Americanism.

The unwillingness of the Zardari government to confront Washington and Pakistan’s generally weak media outreach skills allowed Washington to pain this as a case of anti-Americanism fueled by war on terror.

‘Conspiracy theories’ is another label that US officials and media have increasingly used recently as a cover to hide serious violations of diplomatic norms and sovereignty involving undercover private US operatives inside Pakistan. This is how the Wall Street Journal tried to delegitimize serious Pakistani concerns raised during Mr. Gates’ visit in a report filed from Islamabad whose opening line read as follows, “U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is overseeing wars with Sunni militants in Iraq and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, he’s facing a different foe: the pervasive conspiracy theories that fuel widespread anti-American feelings here.”
The truth is that there are no conspiracy theories but real events, reported and documented, that raise questions over US political, diplomtic, and covert meddling inside Pakistan. Here is a list:

1. NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE: In July 2009, four US ‘diplomats’ were arrested inside the maximum security perimeter around Pakistan’s premier nuclear facility at Kahuta. They failed to tell Pakistani investigators what they were doing there and how they managed to slip through the security checkpoints in the area. US Embassy intervened to rescue the four ‘diplomats’ after almost three hours in detention, citing diplomatic immunity. President Zardari’s government refused to let Pakistani security authorities press charges.

2. SUSPICIOUS CONDUCT: On Oct. 6, 2009, Pakistani police arrested two Dutch diplomats roaming the streets of Islamabad without a number plate carrying advanced weapons. Pakistani police were surprised when security personnel from the US Embassy reached the scene to rescue the Dutch. The Americans used their contacts within the Zardari government to get everyone released. Later, Pakistan Foreign Office summoned US and Dutch diplomats for a private meeting over the incident. But the Pakistani government refused to demand a public explanation from US and Dutch diplomats despite recommendations from police and security officials.

3. FACILITATING INDIAN ACTIVITIES: In this high profile case in May 2009, a US diplomat arranged a small meeting between an Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani federal government officials at a private house. The invited Pakistanis worked in civilian positions, including one with access to Prime Minister’s Office. It appeared that the US diplomat was basically facilitating the Indian to meet senior officials who otherwise would be inaccessible for him. Pakistan Foreign Office took serious exception to the meeting, publicly reprimanded the Pakistani officials who attended the meeting but stopped short of seeking explanation from the US embassy. According to Pakistani investigators, for a US diplomat to indulge in facilitating possible espionage linked to an Indian diplomat was a matter of grave concern. It also fitted with the US policy of exercising tremendous pressure on the pro-US government in Islamabad to give concessions to India at the expense of Pakistani strategic interests.

4. COVERT US MILITIAS IN THE HEART OF PAKISTAN: In September 2009, undercover US agents were found to have recruited a total of 100 former elite Pakistani military commandos to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes. A 100 more were under training at a secret facility camouflaged as a workshop on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital when it was raided by Pakistani police. It turned out that DynCorp was training the men. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson brought DynCorp to Pakistan by telling Pakistani officials that the private defense contractor would provide security to embassy buildings. But she never explained why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias on Pakistani soil without informing the Pakistani government or military or the intelligence agencies. Some of those who were under training at the time of the raid said that DynCorp focused on recruiting retired officers who had links and contacts within the Pakistani military and could glean information from their sources. [See video and pictures]

5. PUSHY US DIPLOMATS: The US Embassy in Islamabad has made it its business to mount pressure on owners of Pakistani newspapers to curtail or expel columnists and commentators critical of US policy. Of special target are those who expose how US Embassy is meddling in Pakistani affairs and expanding the US footprint inside Pakistan. Last year, Ambassador Patterson sent a letter to one of the largest Pakistani media groups accusing a columnist of endangering American lives and succeeded in pushing her out. The US Embassy is also recruiting opinion makers within the Pakistani media, academia and military in order to promote the US agenda even at the cost of Pakistani interests, dismissing critics as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and accusing them of anti-Americanism. A senior Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain exposed US activities in the following words, “Pro-American lobby in Pakistan is growing in direct proportion to the scaling up of suspicions about the US. The main task of this lobby is to reduce the complexity of the US’s objectives towards Pakistan to romantic levels of trust (…) A motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers — they are the darlings of the US embassy staff. They are the instruments of positive outreach and public diplomacy that US diplomats are so keen to expand in Pakistan.”

6. HARASSING PAKISTANIS: Private US security contractors, or militiamen, have been involved in at least three incidents registered by the Pakistani police where armed Americans physically assaulted unarmed ordinary Pakistanis in public places. In one case, the nephew of a senior member of President Zardari’s own government was manhandled and locked up in the toilet of a gas station by men described as armed military-looking civilian Americans.

7. RESISTING POLICE CHECKS: In at least five incidents, US ‘diplomats’ disguised as Taliban, complete with beards and Pashto language skills, were stopped at several police checkpoints in Islamabad and Peshawar. In some cases, these American ‘diplomats’ tried to speed through police barriers. In one recent case, this resulted in a brief police chase, where a Pakistani officer dragged the US ‘diplomats’ back to the police picket and forced the Americans to apologize to Pakistani police officers. Again, no charges were pressed because these private US agents carried diplomatic passports.

8. ENGINEEING DOMESTIC POLITICS: As recently as December 2009, US ambassador in Islamabad was found meeting senior Pakistani politicians at private homes of mutual friends in unannounced meetings restricted to 3 to 4 persons. The ambassador asked her guests to publicly support the embattled pro-US President Zardari. US diplomats in Islamabad and officials in Washington have been blatantly interfering in Pakistani politics. In addition to helping form the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad, made up of pro-US parties, US officials have been busy trying to save both Mr. Zardari and his key political adviser and ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani. US officials in Washington have been briefing sympathetic US journalists about this. In one case, columnist Trudy Rubin had this to say while discussing Pakistan in an article published last month: “Here is the first piece of good news: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari seems to have weathered a campaign by opponents, including the military, to force him out of office. Zardari has deep flaws, but his ouster would have hampered efforts to fight the jihadis. So would the removal, now averted, of Pakistan’s effective ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom the Pakistani military had unfairly blamed for conditions that Congress imposed on aid to Pakistan.”

9. BRIBES AND ILLEGAL WEAPONS: This case is stunning because of the direct involvement of US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson in lobbying for DynCorp. The company ended up bribing Interior Ministry officials to smuggle banned weapons into Pakistan and then went on to raise private militias and hire retired Pakistani military officers to run rapid deployment teams and possibly even spy on the Pakistani military.

10. DEMONIZATION OF PAKISTAN: Since 2007, US officials and US media has systematically demonized Pakistan worldwide, creating false alarm over Pakistan’s strategic arsenal. US officials and media have also pushed to bracket Pakistan along with Iraq and Afghanistan in order to justify a possible military intervention. When Pakistan resisted US meddling recently, US media again went on rampage, accusing Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassment of US diplomats. Additionally, there has been a marked increase of lectures and studies by US think-tanks inviting unknown separatist individuals and groups to speak and fan ethnic separatism inside Pakistan and theorize on the breakup of the country.

11. ABETTING TERROR INSIDE PAKISTAN: The suspicions about why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias inside the federal Pakistani capital almost turned real when a suspect in the attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in October 2009 was allegedly found to have been recruited by DynCorp. In a second case, another suspected DynCorp recruit was found involved in assassinating a senior Pakistani military officer as he drove to work. In other words, two Pakistani employees of a US defense contractor engaged by the US embassy have been linked to two terrorist attacks on the Pakistani military. Add to this that Pakistan’s military and intelligence are a favorite punching bag for the United States and its allies, like India and Britain, and the picture of what the US is doing in Pakistan becomes even more disturbing.

These points explain how ill-motivated the US complaints about delaying visas and alleged anti-Americanism in Pakistan are. This is what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Gates are loath to share with the American people and the world public opinion.

© 2007-2009. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists
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without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

What Robert Gates Didn’t Say – And US Media Hides – About Blackwater In Pakistan

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted during an interview with a Pakistani TV station that Blackwater [now ‘Xe International’] and DynCorp are operating in Pakistan. Immediately after the statement, Pentagon tried to put a spin on his words. But US meddling inside Pakistan –by posting private US defense contractors under diplomatic cover of the US embassy – is a reality for most Pakistanis. Some of these Americans have been caught disguised as Taliban right in the heart of Islamabad. Some Pakistanis were manhandled by some of these American militiamen on the streets of at least two Pakistani cities in recent months. Since Pakistan is not Iraq or Afghanistan despite all the US direct and indirect misinformation, these US covert operators were arrested on several occasions.

The mainstream US media continues to keep the good American people and the world opinion in the dark about this. But this is probably one of the biggest untold stories in America’s war on terror. This is about United States trying to put boots on the ground inside Pakistan through the help of a pro-US government in Islamabad that shares [or at least key figures in it] the US objective of containing and limiting the ability of Pakistan’s military to influence the country’s foreign policy. This is about Pakistan wanting to keep an independent foreign policy versus Pakistan blindly serving US policy on Afghanistan, India and China.

Mr. Gates tried to put a gloss on this US covert meddling when he said, ‘Well, they’re [Blackwater and DynCorp] operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.’

Not true. The truth is that the issue is so serious that, according to Pakistani investigators, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson is a suspect in a case of bribes amounting to little over US $ 270,000 paid by DynCorp in 2009 to senior officials at the federal Interior Ministry in Pakistan. The money went in exchange for allowing illegal weapons into Pakistan to be used by private US defense contractors without informing the country’s security departments and intelligence agencies. Ms. Patterson personally lobbied Pakistani officials for this concession to DynCorp. She even wrote a letter to Pakistani officials, followed by a letter by her Deputy Head of Mission Mr. Gerald Feierstein, asking Pakistani Interior Ministry officials to issue permits for weapons to be used by DynCorp in the ‘entire territory of Pakistan.’ The US ambassador is directly linked to the probe, which has resulted in the arrest of a key aide to Pakistan’s Minister of State for the Interior. But the government of President Zardari will not dare allow Pakistani investigators to pursue US Ambassador’s role in the scandal.

A key question in the probe is how the US Embassy and DynCorp allowed the cargo of illegal weapons into Pakistan. According to one lead, a huge cache of weapons reached a Pakistani tribal leader on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, who in turn wrote to the Interior Ministry announcing he was ‘gifting’ the weapons to a Pakistani subcontractor of DynCorp.

Incidents like this and others raised alarm bells inside Pakistani security departments and the intelligence community. In effect, key figures in President Zardari’s government were found to have given approval for the entry of a large number of US citizens into Pakistan for ‘official US government business’ without explaining what that is. When Pakistani authorities tried to get to the bottom of how private US defense contractors ended up inside Pakistan in large numbers and what they were exactly doing here, US officials and media launched what appears to be a media trial of Pakistan, accusing the country of ‘harassing’ US diplomats and denying visas to them because of alleged anti-Americanism.

The unwillingness of the Zardari government to confront Washington and Pakistan’s generally weak media outreach skills allowed Washington to pain this as a case of anti-Americanism fueled by war on terror.

‘Conspiracy theories’ is another label that US officials and media have increasingly used recently as a cover to hide serious violations of diplomatic norms and sovereignty involving undercover private US operatives inside Pakistan. This is how the Wall Street Journal tried to delegitimize serious Pakistani concerns raised during Mr. Gates’ visit in a report filed from Islamabad whose opening line read as follows, “U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is overseeing wars with Sunni militants in Iraq and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, he’s facing a different foe: the pervasive conspiracy theories that fuel widespread anti-American feelings here.”
The truth is that there are no conspiracy theories but real events, reported and documented, that raise questions over US political, diplomtic, and covert meddling inside Pakistan. Here is a list:

1. NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE: In July 2009, four US ‘diplomats’ were arrested inside the maximum security perimeter around Pakistan’s premier nuclear facility at Kahuta. They failed to tell Pakistani investigators what they were doing there and how they managed to slip through the security checkpoints in the area. US Embassy intervened to rescue the four ‘diplomats’ after almost three hours in detention, citing diplomatic immunity. President Zardari’s government refused to let Pakistani security authorities press charges.

2. SUSPICIOUS CONDUCT: On Oct. 6, 2009, Pakistani police arrested two Dutch diplomats roaming the streets of Islamabad without a number plate carrying advanced weapons. Pakistani police were surprised when security personnel from the US Embassy reached the scene to rescue the Dutch. The Americans used their contacts within the Zardari government to get everyone released. Later, Pakistan Foreign Office summoned US and Dutch diplomats for a private meeting over the incident. But the Pakistani government refused to demand a public explanation from US and Dutch diplomats despite recommendations from police and security officials.

3. FACILITATING INDIAN ACTIVITIES: In this high profile case in May 2009, a US diplomat arranged a small meeting between an Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani federal government officials at a private house. The invited Pakistanis worked in civilian positions, including one with access to Prime Minister’s Office. It appeared that the US diplomat was basically facilitating the Indian to meet senior officials who otherwise would be inaccessible for him. Pakistan Foreign Office took serious exception to the meeting, publicly reprimanded the Pakistani officials who attended the meeting but stopped short of seeking explanation from the US embassy. According to Pakistani investigators, for a US diplomat to indulge in facilitating possible espionage linked to an Indian diplomat was a matter of grave concern. It also fitted with the US policy of exercising tremendous pressure on the pro-US government in Islamabad to give concessions to India at the expense of Pakistani strategic interests.

4. COVERT US MILITIAS IN THE HEART OF PAKISTAN: In September 2009, undercover US agents were found to have recruited a total of 100 former elite Pakistani military commandos to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes. A 100 more were under training at a secret facility camouflaged as a workshop on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital when it was raided by Pakistani police. It turned out that DynCorp was training the men. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson brought DynCorp to Pakistan by telling Pakistani officials that the private defense contractor would provide security to embassy buildings. But she never explained why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias on Pakistani soil without informing the Pakistani government or military or the intelligence agencies. Some of those who were under training at the time of the raid said that DynCorp focused on recruiting retired officers who had links and contacts within the Pakistani military and could glean information from their sources. [See video and pictures]

5. PUSHY US DIPLOMATS: The US Embassy in Islamabad has made it its business to mount pressure on owners of Pakistani newspapers to curtail or expel columnists and commentators critical of US policy. Of special target are those who expose how US Embassy is meddling in Pakistani affairs and expanding the US footprint inside Pakistan. Last year, Ambassador Patterson sent a letter to one of the largest Pakistani media groups accusing a columnist of endangering American lives and succeeded in pushing her out. The US Embassy is also recruiting opinion makers within the Pakistani media, academia and military in order to promote the US agenda even at the cost of Pakistani interests, dismissing critics as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and accusing them of anti-Americanism. A senior Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain exposed US activities in the following words, “Pro-American lobby in Pakistan is growing in direct proportion to the scaling up of suspicions about the US. The main task of this lobby is to reduce the complexity of the US’s objectives towards Pakistan to romantic levels of trust (…) A motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers — they are the darlings of the US embassy staff. They are the instruments of positive outreach and public diplomacy that US diplomats are so keen to expand in Pakistan.”

6. HARASSING PAKISTANIS: Private US security contractors, or militiamen, have been involved in at least three incidents registered by the Pakistani police where armed Americans physically assaulted unarmed ordinary Pakistanis in public places. In one case, the nephew of a senior member of President Zardari’s own government was manhandled and locked up in the toilet of a gas station by men described as armed military-looking civilian Americans.

7. RESISTING POLICE CHECKS: In at least five incidents, US ‘diplomats’ disguised as Taliban, complete with beards and Pashto language skills, were stopped at several police checkpoints in Islamabad and Peshawar. In some cases, these American ‘diplomats’ tried to speed through police barriers. In one recent case, this resulted in a brief police chase, where a Pakistani officer dragged the US ‘diplomats’ back to the police picket and forced the Americans to apologize to Pakistani police officers. Again, no charges were pressed because these private US agents carried diplomatic passports.

8. ENGINEEING DOMESTIC POLITICS: As recently as December 2009, US ambassador in Islamabad was found meeting senior Pakistani politicians at private homes of mutual friends in unannounced meetings restricted to 3 to 4 persons. The ambassador asked her guests to publicly support the embattled pro-US President Zardari. US diplomats in Islamabad and officials in Washington have been blatantly interfering in Pakistani politics. In addition to helping form the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad, made up of pro-US parties, US officials have been busy trying to save both Mr. Zardari and his key political adviser and ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani. US officials in Washington have been briefing sympathetic US journalists about this. In one case, columnist Trudy Rubin had this to say while discussing Pakistan in an article published last month: “Here is the first piece of good news: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari seems to have weathered a campaign by opponents, including the military, to force him out of office. Zardari has deep flaws, but his ouster would have hampered efforts to fight the jihadis. So would the removal, now averted, of Pakistan’s effective ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom the Pakistani military had unfairly blamed for conditions that Congress imposed on aid to Pakistan.”

9. BRIBES AND ILLEGAL WEAPONS: This case is stunning because of the direct involvement of US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson in lobbying for DynCorp. The company ended up bribing Interior Ministry officials to smuggle banned weapons into Pakistan and then went on to raise private militias and hire retired Pakistani military officers to run rapid deployment teams and possibly even spy on the Pakistani military.

10. DEMONIZATION OF PAKISTAN: Since 2007, US officials and US media has systematically demonized Pakistan worldwide, creating false alarm over Pakistan’s strategic arsenal. US officials and media have also pushed to bracket Pakistan along with Iraq and Afghanistan in order to justify a possible military intervention. When Pakistan resisted US meddling recently, US media again went on rampage, accusing Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassment of US diplomats. Additionally, there has been a marked increase of lectures and studies by US think-tanks inviting unknown separatist individuals and groups to speak and fan ethnic separatism inside Pakistan and theorize on the breakup of the country.

11. ABETTING TERROR INSIDE PAKISTAN: The suspicions about why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias inside the federal Pakistani capital almost turned real when a suspect in the attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in October 2009 was allegedly found to have been recruited by DynCorp. In a second case, another suspected DynCorp recruit was found involved in assassinating a senior Pakistani military officer as he drove to work. In other words, two Pakistani employees of a US defense contractor engaged by the US embassy have been linked to two terrorist attacks on the Pakistani military. Add to this that Pakistan’s military and intelligence are a favorite punching bag for the United States and its allies, like India and Britain, and the picture of what the US is doing in Pakistan becomes even more disturbing.

These points explain how ill-motivated the US complaints about delaying visas and alleged anti-Americanism in Pakistan are. This is what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Gates are loath to share with the American people and the world public opinion.

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CIA: BUNGLERS OR CON MEN?

The Blackwater operations run from Camp Chapman close to the Pakistani border could have been for anyone, Iran, Israel, India or one of their dozens of clients. Here are some startling revelations.

Were the seven CIA employees killed in the recent terror attack at Camp Chapman in Afghanistan really CIA? Sources now tell us that some were Blackwater operatives, not CIA at all.
Is the CIA and Blackwater one in the same? Are either one or both working for the United States or has the disease of privatization created a culture of greed and incompetence that has left the United States vulnerable and defenseless? Are we simply “out of our depth” in Afghanistan?

WHO IS PULLING THE STRINGS?

Blackwater/Xe is a multinational corporation with endless divisions who, not only work for the CIA but governments and intelligence agencies around the world. No one has ever successfully penetrated their cover organizations to find who they really are or who they really represent. The Blackwater operations run from Camp Chapman could have been for anyone, Iran, Israel, India or one of their dozens of clients.
We don’t know, the CIA certainly doesn’t know, nobody knows. Was the attack that killed Americans an attack on the CIA, an attack on Blackwater or a carryover from a local drug war? All we do know is that everything we have been told is subterfuge and not necessarily meant to serve the intelligence and security interests of the United States of America.
The secret base in eastern Khost province in Afghanistan is in an area convenient to move personnel and “other things” in and out of Pakistan. The base itself is supposed to be designated for the use of USAID, a division of the State Department meant to aid foreign governments but which has been a front for covert operations for decades, one of the worst kept secrets in the world.
The camp itself is guarded by Afghani tribesmen, not US personnel. No information about their ethnic affiliations, training or qualifications is available. However, the idea of a highly secure CIA compound being guarded under such circumstances is an absurdity beyond human comprehension.
American military and civilian operations inside Afghanistan have proven to be utterly incapable of finding any group within Afghanistan to work with that is free of penetration by Taliban elements. Many lives have been lost already from numerous incidents of Afghani military, police and security personnel turning on American allies.

THE REAL FACE OF TERRORISM

The region of Camp Chapman is a staging area for terrorist operations, not only against Americans in Afghanistan but against Pakistan as well. Some of the terrorist groups are working for India and Israel, some for the Taliban and, frankly, most are working for both.
America and the CIA are totally out of their depth, ill informed, uninformed and being played, not only by our supposed Kabul allies, but by India, Israel and our private contractors who are playing both sides against the middle.

BLACKWATER AND PAKISTAN

Camp Chapman, now identified as a Blackwater command post near the Pakistan border has an unclear mission. Continual reports coming out of Pakistan indicate that Blackwater and/or other US contracting firms have become involved in criminal activities and terrorism.
Top Pakistani military analyst, Brigadier General Asif Haroon Raja has tied Blackwater and other US contractors to the assassination of Pakistani army officers, attacks on government installations and ties to terrorist groups who have killed hundreds of civilians.
Raja has indicated that, rather than being employed as CIA contractors in search of high profile terrorists, these contractors are working with, among others Israel and India coordinating terrorist operations meant to destabilize the government of Pakistan, America’s only military ally in the region.
If US contractors are working inside Pakistan, under cover of the CIA but actually serving the intelligence services of India or Israel, primary enemies of Pakistan, but also countries who are doing nothing to aid the US in Afghanistan, this would represent a serious threat to US security.
It has been reported that US personnel have been arrested carrying explosives and weapons near Pakistani nuclear facilities. Are they working for Israel or are they working for Iran? How would we know?

WHAT DRUGS?

Is there a danger in having unsupervised privateer mercenary operators working in the midst of the world’s largest narcotics production area? What if such a company also owned private airlines that can fly from country to country without any supervision by customs or drug enforcement organizations?
With the press filled with reports of organized crime activities tied to mercenary contractors working for the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports of murder, drug running, money laundering and arms smuggling, is there some possibility that tying groups involved in these acts to CIA intelligence gathering capabilities a poor strategy for success?
Why are the papers filled with accusations of every imaginable crime from mowing down civilians with automatic weapons to blowing up mosques and yet no mention of the remote possibility of participation in the regions $50 billion plus per year drug industry?
In fact, is participation in drug production, smuggling and related money laundering the only real secret we seem to be keeping?

THE BUSINESS OF FAILURE

America mourns 7 dead citizens, victims of an attack, maybe terrorism, maybe “business,” now uncertain as to who were loyal Americans and who were private contractors working for the highest bidder. CIA secrecy keeps us from knowing our heroic dead. Criminal absurdity keeps us from knowing the truth.
Decades ago, the CIA got involved with the Mafia in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro, someone who has outlived everyone sent to kill him.
We are told that we never hear of the successes, only the failures. However, the failures are of such a devastating and catastrophic nature, the communist takeover of Cuba, the fall of Iran and the Iran/Contra scandal, the Chile coup, bungled buddies: Noriega and bin Laden, the Russian coup against Gorbachev, Vietnam, 9/11, the Ames spy case, the Iraq War, Afghanistan and so many others, that the “secret successes” are unlikely to measure up.
What could possibly be done to take a failed organization and make it worse? We only need to sit and watch, you can be assured that everything possible, humanly and otherwise, will be done as it always has.
Is it possible that decades of claimed incompetence and bungling is simply a cover for serving masters other than the United States of America? Can 70 years of consorting with dictators, swindlers, gangsters, war criminals, drug lords and politicians have blurred the CIA’s vision?

The Blackwater chronicles

Irfan Hussain

In an age of globalisation where everything from manufacturing to accounting is outsourced, it should come as no surprise that governments now contract out many security functions that were once considered an inherent part of military duties.

Leading the charge to grab as many of these lucrative contracts was, until recently, the Blackwater empire. Now, embroiled in a string of legal actions and embarrassing headlines, it is struggling to survive.

Blackwater first came to public attention when four of its employees were killed by Iraqi insurgents, and their bodies burned and dragged around the streets of Fallujah. However, the company really hit the headlines on September 16, 2007, when its gunmen killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. In the following outcry, the firm allegedly paid a million dollars in bribes to Iraqi officials, a charge it has denied.

Its recent re-branding as Xe Services last February has not helped much in drawing a line under its controversial activities. Its contract with the State Department to protect American diplomats has been terminated, as has been the agreement with CIA to assist the agency arm its drones in secret bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nevertheless, Xe’s subsidiary, Presidential Airlines, continues to drop supplies to US Special Forces bases in remote parts of Afghanistan.

In Pakistan’s context, the firm has become synonymous with public perception about American interference in the country. Despite repeated denials, Blackwater/Xe is widely viewed as yet another symbol of Washington’s intrusive policies. This impression was recently reinforced by a New York Times story alleging that the firm’s operatives worked hand in glove with the CIA in covert anti-terrorist operations.

In the wake of President Obama’s recent announcement of the surge that will add 30,000 soldiers to the present strength of 68,000 in Afghanistan, few realise how deeply the concept of defence outsourcing has become entrenched. For instance, there are already 104,000 American private security contractors in Afghanistan.

Mostly ex-servicemen, these people perform a variety of tasks that, in earlier conflicts, were almost entirely carried out by government personnel. Ranging from perimeter security to mobile protection, these functions include logistics and intelligence. Paradoxically, the US administration is barred by law from outsourcing ‘inherently governmental functions.’ Departments stretch this to include all sorts of tasks because nobody has actually defined exactly what these functions are.

One reason to reach outside the ranks of officialdom is that many of these tasks are temporary, and can be performed by short-term contractors. In conflict zones, it is difficult to hire trained people for security services without relying on ex-servicemen. The biggest attraction, of course, is that the size of the military presence can be kept small, and casualties among contractors do not attract the same attention that dead and wounded soldiers do. As P.W. Singer of the Brookings Institution wryly put it: ‘What we created was not a coalition of the willing. We’re relying on the coalitions of the billing.’

I first became interested in the Blackwater story when Sheila, my daughter-in-law, asked me what the firm was doing in Pakistan. This was when many people were insisting that it was playing a nefarious role, and I had dismissed the charge as yet another conspiracy theory.

However, when I began researching the story, I came across some very curious facts and allegations. In an investigative report in the latest Vanity Fair, Adam Ciralsky quotes Erik Prince, the founder and CEO of Blackwater/Xe, as claiming that he was not just a CIA contractor, but also an agency ‘asset.’ Cynical observers suggest that Prince has made this claim to pre-empt court proceedings.

Prince became such an integral part of the army’s and the CIA’s campaign against militants that according to Ciralsky, he was known as ‘Mr Fix-it on the war on terror.’ Such were the ties between Prince and the Bush administration that Blackwater won $1.5 billion in contracts between 2001 and 2009, and raked in $600 million in 2008 alone.

One American journalist who has researched deeply into the subject is Jeremy Scahill, a reporter with The Nation, and author of Blackwater. He has written about the firm’s birth in 1997, and its phenomenal growth after 9/11.

Among other allegations about Prince, perhaps the most bizarre relate to his connection to the Knights of Malta, an extreme-right Roman Catholic organisation that traces its roots back to the Crusades. Some ex-employees have accused Prince of being a Christian supremacist sanctioning the killings of Muslims because he believes he has been charged by God to ‘rid the world of Muslims and Islam.’

Others point to the fact that he supports an orphanage in Afghanistan. Whatever the truth, Prince does seem to think he has been chosen for a mission to defend America. He cites a recent near-death experience in his interview with Ciralsky in the Vanity Fair article. Apparently, he was in Islamabad when he received word that his son had nearly drowned in the family swimming pool in the United States. Changing his itinerary, he caught the next flight back, checking out of the Marriott hours before it was nearly flattened in a huge suicide blast a couple of years ago.

Even as Blackwater/Xe struggles to survive in a suddenly hostile environment, military contracting is expected to grow in the United States. With the coming surge, more security firms will be awarded lucrative contracts. At the height of the US presence in Iraq, as many as 190,000 contractors were on the government payroll.

While they have been likened to mercenaries, they have not yet been openly inducted into the frontline. However, as the New York Times article shows, some of them at least are involved in covert operations. It is a matter of time before they begin participating in the fighting unless governments agree on rules of engagement that would bar hired guns from joining regular troops.

One problem is that these contractors are outside the official chain of command, and do not have to conduct themselves in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

Soldiers and spies, on the other hand, have careers and pensions to protect. As we saw, the Blackwater employees accused of using lethal force in Iraq were simply fired without undergoing the rigours of imprisonment. However, some of them have now been brought before a court, and may yet pay the price for their actions. But so far, at least, Erik Prince has yet to face judgment.

CIA asked us to eliminate Dr. A Q Khan: Blackwater chief

LAHORE: In a stunning revelation, US private security service agency, Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, has claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had asked the agency to kill Pakistani nuclear scientist, A Q Khan.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Prince said the CIA had asked the Blackwater to eliminate Khan, however, authorities in Washington “chose not to pull the trigger.”

“Dr Khan’s inclusion in the target list would suggest that the assassination effort was broader than has previously been acknowledged,” Prince said.

Prince has also admitted to Blackwater’s participation in some of the CIA’s most sensitive operations, including raids on suspected militants in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prince said Blackwater’s, which now known as Xe Worldwide Services, role changed remarkably after its officials started providing security cover to CIA operatives in the field.

Raids on suspected insurgents in Iraq, known as “snatch and grab” operations, were mostly carried out during nights between 2004 and 2006.

Blackwater is involved in bombings in Pakistan: Gen. Durrani

“My assessment is that they — either themselves or most probably through others, through the locals — do carry out some of the explosions”.

Former chief of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mohammad Asad Durrani sits down with Press TV and talks about the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan. The following is the transcript of the interview:

Press TV: General Durrani, US intelligence officials say that the CIA has cancelled the Blackwater contract but other reports indicate that there are at least three thousand Blackwater agents in Pakistan. What do make of these conflicting reports?

General Durrani: This may be true that the Blackwater’s contract has been cancelled but then this is also understood that such people are under a different name, whether it is Xe or Dyncorp or in any other form of private contractor-ship that they can be employed. In our case, such people have been around for a number of years now. Lately their number has increased. Some rationalization had been made that these people were required to provide security to more Americans coming because of the package they have worked out for Pakistan. But then on ground, there [are] a number of them, some of them in training facilities trying to suggest that they are there to train the police or the army or the air force.

Of course, I can also add that none of these organizations are very happy that they have been offered. Some of them have even refused training because they believe that they can be trained by them. But, in that form they are there. Others are certainly providing security and there is also a third group, which goes around, especially in the frontier area, with the NGOs and bring(s) the intelligence collection. So, the number I am not aware of but there is a contingent which is present in Pakistan.

Press TV: Analysts say that Blackwater agents are involved in bombings and that they are fomenting insecurity in Pakistan. What is your opinion?

General Durrani: My assessment is that they — either themselves or most probably through others, through the locals — do carry out some of the explosions. You see the idea is that there are other groups that are not acting on their behalf, which are acting locally because of so many reasons. They are not happy with our policy. They are not happy with whatever is happening in Afghanistan. The idea is to carry out such actions, like carrying attacks in the civilian areas to make the others look bad in the eyes of the public. Even those groups who are not targeting the civilians or were not going essentially for Pakistani targets … people should turn against them. And the second idea, which I think more or less they have succeeded, is to force the Pakistani [government] to even under take such operations where I was not initially willing to go.

Press TV: CIA officials say Blackwater has been in Pakistan to help with drone attacks. Is this the only reason why the CIA has hired Blackwater agents?

General Durrani: You see I am not aware of this statement as [of] yet. The headquarters, some of them come here to direct or carry out what we call target identification. I doubt it very much that this would be the job of people whom I consider to have been understandably involved with Blackwater operations. These operations of target identification have to be done un-reclusively. They should not look like Americans; they are people who are trained to match with the background. Intelligence work; and I cannot say that the Blackwater’s people are trained in such manner, learning the language, learning the local customs, so that they can go into those trouble areas.

Press TV: Blackwater is known for killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why has the Pakistani government allowed such a notorious US security firm to operate in the country?

General Durrani: You’re absolutely right. I think this is about the best question that one can pose. People either were naive that they did not believe that these were Blackwaters or these people would not get involved in it. The second theory goes around that they may have come with the consent and with the knowledge of some of the people that we have in the government — among which I do not know, I cannot say very much. If it is not the ambassador of the United States who has cleared them, who has sent them, or people here, these agencies, who have accepted them. But that is one of the perceptions. But essentially it is correct that anyone who comes and we allow those people [to] come without proper security clearance, without proper vetting and investigation, then it is indeed our fault.