The founder of Blackwater, once the world’s most notorious security contracting firm, seemed stumped by his interrogator’s question. Could Erik Prince — a former Navy SEAL who reportedly worked as an undercover CIA operative — specify how much of his best-selling memoir he wrote himself? “I don’t know, because — I don’t know,” Prince said […]
Absent on Wednesday in a Washington courtroom, where a federal jury entered guilty verdicts of murder and manslaughter against four Blackwater Worldwide guards in the killings of 14 Iraqi civilians, was a man synonymous with the United States’s infatuation with contractors. He is Erik Prince — billionaire, former Navy Seal, ex-CIA spy — the founder […]
Days After Former CEO Calls For Private Guards In Iraq, Blackwater Is Found Guilty Of Iraqi Massacre
Blackwater Worldwide guards were found guilty Wednesday of killing 14 Iraqis and wounding 17 others after they fired machine guns and threw hand grenades into Baghdad’s Nisour Square seven years ago. Jurors ultimately rejected the guards’ claims that they were acting in self-defense, as none of the victims were insurgents. The conclusion of the 11-week […]
As someone who spent many years operating in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other underdeveloped countries facing existential security threats, I was recently asked about my reaction to President Obama’s plan for fighting ISIS. My immediate response is that the President’s current plan seems half-hearted at best. American air power has significant reach and accuracy, but ultimately […]
As the U.S. military returned to combat in Iraq this summer, a group of jurors in Washington DC were hearing arguments over a dark chapter of the last war. Though some elements of the 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad road junction by Blackwater private security guards remain shrouded in mystery even […]