Weep for the Spurned Billion Dollar Mercenary!

In what is sure to be some interesting book publicity, Erik Prince has gone sobbing to the WSJ about the shoddy treatment the government that paid him billions treated him. In the piece, he continues to reveal new details about some of the operations CIA paid him to do, including the kill team training first revealed in 2009.

A chief target of Mr. Prince’s ire is Mr. Panetta, who in 2009 shut down the covert training operation for CIA “hit teams” that former Blackwater officials said took place on Mr. Prince’s Virginia property.

The CIA had been sending officers for training at Blackwater’s North Carolina training facility. But it wanted something closer to its Langley, Va., headquarters, former company officials said. So they asked Mr. Prince to build a small shooting range on his rural Virginia land.

“They needed a place that was only 35 minutes away from work,” said Gary Jackson, the former Blackwater president. “Erik was OK with that, and he has the property, and we had the money.” The trainings, including live-fire exercises, drew some complaints over the years from neighbors, Mr. Jackson said.

[snip]

When that information became public in 2009, right after Mr. Panetta canceled the Blackwater hit-team training, the CIA director ended the company’s role in maintaining the drones.

Mr. Prince said he is convinced that Mr. Panetta outed him as a CIA “asset” at a closed congressional hearing that year, adding that it was unthinkable for a CIA director to reveal the real name of a covert operative to lawmakers.

[snip]

“No one was out to scapegoat anyone in the relationship with Blackwater, but there were some issues that arose that prompted a serious look at contracts with the company,” said one former CIA official involved in the discussions. “There was a perception that they were trying to run some of their own operations untethered from agency oversight.” [my emphasis]

Only the last bit is really new (though it is suggested in a profile of the mafia hitman involved in the program).

But remember this real point is not that Panetta outed Prince to the House Intelligence Committee, it’s that he briefed these “programs” at all. According to Jan Schakowsky, under Cheney Blackwater had been working directly with the White House on counterterrorism policy (which makes sense since Cofer Black came up with that policy in the first place).

I reminded, by the way, that Barb Milkulski told John Brennan that Panetta was the only CIA Director who didn’t “jerk around” the intelligence committees.

Imagine how sad Prince must be that his mercenary company beginning to do its own operations got cut off when Congress actually learned about it!

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12 replies
  1. der says:

    Somewhere there are 5 guys with Middle Eastern sounding names training to – “invade our country, kill our leaders and enforce Sharia law.” No that’s christianity, (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0111.coulterwisdom.html) never mind. And because Erik Prince has now been outed it’s going to happen, so he moved to Abu Dhabi, the Middle of the Middle East. In exile, like Jason Bourne. Safer there I’m guessing, except from al Qaeda, who’s on the run. Because Cofer Black.

    It never ends.

  2. GKJames says:

    For my tax money, the CIA shouldn’t be in the deadly force business in the first place. Of course, that idea went out the window — permanently, probably — when 9/11 created the perfect environment for a chance at serious lucre without accountability. For me, the enduring question relates to the government’s agreement with Blackwater. Specifically, what obligation do we as taxpayers have to indemnify Blackwater for third-party claims arising out of actions by Prince et al. Presumably, we’re also on the hook for attorneys’ fees. Cheney, the gift that keeps on giving….

  3. C says:

    Mr. Prince said he is convinced that Mr. Panetta outed him as a CIA “asset” at a closed congressional hearing that year, adding that it was unthinkable for a CIA director to reveal the real name of a covert operative to lawmakers.

    Under his logic CIA assets should not be revealed to congressional oversight even to the specific congressional committees that are tasked with overseeing them even in an entirely closed session.

    How far have we fallen as a democratic nation that a “respectable” news outlet would accept the above claim and fail to even critique it in the article?

  4. Anonsters says:

    @GKJames:

    For my tax money, the CIA shouldn’t be in the deadly force business in the first place. Of course, that idea went out the window — permanently, probably — when 9/11. . . .

    Hate to break it to you, but that idea went out the window in the late 1940s. The CIA went into the covert action business almost immediately after it was created (despite the completely correct legal advice of L. Houston that such action was outside CIA’s charter and so illegal). That’s been a major part of the problem for its whole existence. The operational tail wags the intelligence dog (in the words of Walter Bedell Smith, the 4th Director of Central Intelligence).

  5. Anonsters says:

    @C:

    Under his logic CIA assets should not be revealed to congressional oversight even to the specific congressional committees that are tasked with overseeing them even in an entirely closed session.

    If we’re talking about the names of individual CIA officers in the clandestine service, then no, their names shouldn’t be revealed to anyone other than the people in CIA who manage them.

  6. bloodypitchfork says:

    @Anonsters:quote:”If we’re talking about the names of individual CIA officers in the clandestine service, then no, their names shouldn’t be revealed to anyone other than the people in CIA who manage them.” unquote
    Notwithstanding your opinion, if people read the 1947 Central Intelligence Act, I submit they would be astounded. I was. For instance…how Congress could actually write a law that says things like this….(excuse the long post please)

    (snip)…….
    quote”
    (g) Exemption from certain requirements

    The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency may exempt a designated employee from mandatory compliance with any Federal regulation, rule, standardized administrative policy, process, or procedure that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency determines—

    (1) would be inconsistent with the nonofficial cover of that employee; and

    (2) could expose that employee to detection as a Federal employee.
    (h) Taxation and social security
    (1) In general

    Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a designated employee—

    (A) shall file a Federal or State tax return as if that employee is not a Federal employee and may claim and receive the benefit of any exclusion, deduction, tax credit, or other tax treatment that would otherwise apply if that employee was not a Federal employee, if the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency determines that taking any action under this paragraph is necessary to—

    (i) protect from unauthorized disclosure—

    (I) intelligence operations;

    (II) the identities of undercover intelligence officers;

    (III) intelligence sources and methods; or

    (IV) intelligence cover mechanisms; and

    (ii) meet the special requirements of work related to collection of foreign intelligence or other authorized activities of the Agency; and

    (B) shall receive social security benefits based on the social security contributions made.
    (2) Internal Revenue Service review

    The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency shall establish procedures to carry out this subsection. The procedures shall be subject to periodic review by the Internal Revenue Service.”unquote

    As if those tidbits weren’t enough to boggle my mind, especially learning a CIA agent is the only Fed employee on the planet that is allowed to file a false IRS income tax form, after 2 hours of burning my brain, I finally reached the final sentence in the Act. This is beyond unbelievable.
    (snip)…
    quote:
    “(j) Finality of decisions

    Any determinations authorized by this section to be made by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency or the Director’s designee shall be final and conclusive and shall not be subject to review by any court.”unquote

    SHALL NOT BE SUBJECT TO REVIEW BY ANY COURT!!

    And here I’ve spent nearly 60 years believing we have a Constitution that enumerates the powers of the three branches of government and assures equality by virtue of checks and balances. Dumb me.

  7. Anonsters says:

    @bloodypitchfork:

    SHALL NOT BE SUBJECT TO REVIEW BY ANY COURT!!

    If it’s the not-subject-to-review language, then I hate to break it to you again, but jurisdiction-stripping’s perfectly consistent with the Constitution.

    Article III, s. 1: “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

    Article III, s. 2: “In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

    Those two provisions give Congress the power, first, to regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court is only expressly given original jurisiction for a limited slice of cases. Since Congress is empowered to create inferior tribunals, they’re also empowered to vest jurisdiction consistent with Article III in those courts to whatever extent they want, including not at all (after all, they didn’t even have to create inferior tribunals if they didn’t want—the result would probably have been that state courts would’ve heard everything).

    If it’s the content of the law itself you’re worried about, all I can say is that it’s a law passed by Congress and signed by the president, which is how the system works.

    If you want a better system, then you should campaign for a constitutional amendment that expressly vests full jurisdiction over the cases mentioned in Article III in federal courts and that expressly divests Congress of the power to regulate (read: limit) the jurisdiction of federal courts.

  8. Frank33 says:

    The Intelligence Community needs privatized terror groups, Blackwater, DynCorp, to create a world where multinational corporations rule us. Al Qaeda was created by Ollie North, Graham Fuller and Robert Gates, and the other Intelligence Community goons.

    But, the hired murderer Erik Prince is now in the propaganda business, helping Total Information Awareness spread False History. Prince has his lying pants on fire as he lies about Undie #1 pants on fire. So CIA secret guy Prince has now gone public with Total Information Awareness propaganda.

    “If it wasn’t for a sweaty groin, that airplane would have blown up,” Prince said. “His father warned the CIA station in Abuja, they ignored intercepts, State Department never did a thing with his visa.” Prince said that despite $80 billion a year in spending, U.S. intelligence had nothing to do with thwarting the Nigerian national.

    US Intelligence had nothing to do with “thwarting” except Undie was not thwarted. The Intelligence Community loves the word “thwart” but they put Undie on board Flight #253. And apparently the State Dept. had nothing to do with his Visa. Patrick Kennedy, of the State Dept. testified to Congress, the opposite.

    Prince talks, and hilarity ensues. Prince promises not to run for President. Prince is going to Africa.

    “America is way too quick to trade freedom for the illusion of security,” he told The Daily Beast. “Whether it’s allowing the NSA to go way too far in what it intercepts of our personal data, to our government monitoring of everything domestically and spending way more than we should…

    Today, Prince said, he is focusing his business on expanding markets in Africa. He said he will never work for the U.S. government again. When asked if he would run for president, Prince said there was no chance that he would.

  9. Mary McCurnin says:

    One of the things that creeps me out is that Prince was my first husband’s middle name. It is a family name and he was from east TN. I pray there is no real connection to the Blackwater killers. (ok, I don’t really pray)

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