Blackwater (company)
Constellis, formerly Blackwater, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1997, by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acquired by a group of private investors. In 2014, Academi merged with Triple Canopy to form Constellis Holdings.
Constellis and its predecessors provide contract security services to the United States federal government. Since 2003, it has provided services to the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 2007, Blackwater received widespread notoriety for the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, when a group of its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20. Four employees were convicted in the United States and were later pardoned on December 22, 2020, by President Donald Trump.
History
Origins as training center
Blackwater USA was formed on December 26, 1996, by Al Clark and Erik Prince in North Carolina, to provide training support to military and law enforcement organizations. In explaining its purpose, Prince stated: "We are trying to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did for the Postal Service."Prince purchased approximately of the Great Dismal Swamp, a vast swamp on the North Carolina–Virginia border that is now mostly a national wildlife refuge. "We needed 3,000 acres to make it safe," Prince told reporter Robert Young Pelton. There he created his private training facility and his contracting company, Blackwater, which he named for the peat-colored water of the swamp.
The Blackwater Lodge and Training Center officially opened on May 15, 1998, with a, $6.5 million facility headed by Robert Anderson. It comprises several ranges: indoor, outdoor, urban reproductions; an artificial lake; and a driving track in Camden and Currituck counties. The company says it is the largest training facility in the country. The concept was not a financial success but was kept solvent by sales from sister company Blackwater Target Systems.
2002–2007: Blackwater Security Company
Jeremy Scahill has claimed that Blackwater Security Company was the brainchild of Jamie Smith, a former CIA officer who became vice president of Blackwater USA and the founding director of Blackwater Security Company, holding both positions simultaneously. However, this claim is denied by Prince and Blackwater executive Gary Jackson, who describe firing Smith from his position as a low-level administrator for "non-performance" after a thirty-day contract. Smith has been accused of further embellishing his military and contracting record to defraud investors at SCG International Risk.2003–2006: First contracts
BSC's first assignment was to provide twenty men with top-secret clearance to protect the CIA headquarters and another base that was responsible for hunting Osama bin Laden. Blackwater was one of several private security firms employed following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. BSC was originally formed as a Delaware LLC and was one of over sixty private security firms employed during the Iraq War to guard officials and installations, train Iraq's new army and police, and provide other support for coalition forces.Gulmurod Khalimov, former war minister of the Islamic State, trained with Blackwater and the U.S. Army five times between 2003 and 2015. Khalimov was an officer and sniper of the OMON special forces unit of Tajikistan at the time. The United States Department of State confirmed this in 2015. However, Khalimov was quoted as saying in Russian, “Listen, you American pigs: I’ve been to America three times. I saw how you train soldiers to kill Muslims. You taught your soldiers how to surround and attack, in order to exterminate Islam and Muslims”.
Blackwater was hired during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to protect government facilities, as well as by private clients, including communications, petrochemical, and insurance companies. Overall, the company received over US$1 billion in U.S. government contracts. The company consisted of nine divisions and a subsidiary, Blackwater Vehicles.
In August 2003, Blackwater received its first Iraq contract, a $21 million contract for a personal security detachment and two helicopters for Paul Bremer, head of the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
In July 2004, Blackwater was authorized by the U.S. Department of State to perform orders issued under the Worldwide Personal Protective Services umbrella contract. Blackwater's first mission under WPPS I was to provide private security for the provisional U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Although Triple Canopy, Inc. and DynCorp International also qualified for WPPS I directives, Blackwater was issued the majority of diplomatic security task orders in Iraq and was authorized to deploy 482 personnel in Iraq over the course of 2 years. The total breadth of Blackwater's activities in Iraq for non-diplomatic security operations, as well as other potential deployments in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Israel authorized under the WPPS I contract are unknown. Between July 1, 2004, and June 6, 2006, Blackwater received $488 million from the WPPS I contract, despite the entire five-year contract having a set maximum value of approximately $332 million. The substantial cost of Blackwater's services was investigated by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and eventuated in the use of a competitive bidding system in the revised WPPS II umbrella contract.
On September 1, 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater dispatched a rescue team and helicopter to support relief operations. Blackwater moved about 200 personnel into the area impacted by Hurricane Katrina, most of whom were working under a contract with the Federal Protective Service to protect government facilities, but the company held contracts with private clients as well. Blackwater's presence after Katrina cost the federal government $240,000 per day.
In July 2005, the U.S. State Department first awarded the WPPS II contract to succeed WPPS I with a new competitive bidding system and a strict maximum value of $1.2 billion per contractor. Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp were the only private security firms qualified for WPPS II task orders, authorised for deployments in "non-permissive environments" such as Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq. In May 2006 the WPPS II contract began issuing task orders in Iraq, ultimately authorizing Blackwater to deploy 1,020 staff in the country. Blackwater's responsibilities included the United States embassy in Baghdad. At the time it was a privately held company and published limited information about internal affairs. The total cost of Blackwater's work under WPPS II remains unknown, however, it was disclosed that Blackwater was paid over $832 million for their work in Iraq under WPPS I and WPPS II directives from 2001 to 2006.
Leadership
, the company's vice-chairman from 2006 through 2008, was director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was the United States Department of State coordinator for counterterrorism with the rank of Ambassador-at-Large from December 2002 to November 2004. After leaving public service, Black became chairman of the privately owned intelligence-gathering company Total Intelligence Solutions, Inc., as well as vice-chairman of Blackwater.Robert Richer was vice president of intelligence until January 2007, when he formed Total Intelligence Solutions. He was formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.
2006–2007: New training centers
In November 2006, Blackwater USA announced that it had acquired an facility west of Chicago in Mount Carroll, Illinois, called Impact Training Center. This facility has been operational since April 2007 and serves law enforcement agencies throughout the Midwest.Blackwater tried to open an training facility three miles north of Potrero, a small town in rural east San Diego County, California, located east of San Diego, for military and law enforcement training. The opening had faced heavy opposition from local residents, residents of nearby San Diego, local Congressmember Bob Filner, and environmentalist and anti-war organizations. Opposition focused on a potential for wildfire increases, the proposed facility's proximity to the Cleveland National Forest, noise pollution, and opposition to the actions of Blackwater in Iraq. In response, Brian Bonfiglio, project manager for Blackwater West, said: "There will be no explosives training and no tracer ammunition. Lead bullets don't start fires." In October 2007, when wildfires swept through the area, Blackwater made at least three deliveries of food, water, personal hygiene products and generator fuel to 300 residents near the proposed training site, many of whom had been trapped for days without supplies. They also set up a "tent city" for evacuees. On March 7, 2008, Blackwater withdrew its application to set up a facility in San Diego County.
2007–2009: Blackwater Worldwide
In October 2007, the month after the Nisour Square massacre, Blackwater USA began the process of changing its name to Blackwater Worldwide and unveiled a new logo. The change deemphasized the "cross hair" reticle theme, simplifying it slightly.On July 21, 2008, Blackwater Worldwide stated that it would shift resources away from security contracting because of the extensive risks in that sector. Said company founder and CEO Erik Prince, "The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk."
2009–2010: Xe Services LLC
In February 2009, Blackwater announced that it would be once again renamed, this time to "Xe Services LLC", as part of a company-wide restructuring plan, intended to re-focus the company on its logistics, aviation and training aspects, rather than its security operations.Prince announced his resignation as CEO on March 2, 2009. He remained as chairman of the board but was no longer involved in day-to-day operations. Joseph Yorio was named as the new president and CEO, replacing Gary Jackson as president and Prince as CEO. Danielle Esposito was named the new chief operating officer and executive vice president.