CIA Scam: Rent a Killer!

Employees of the controversial private American security company Blackwater were hired to do part of the dirty work begun as a CIA liquidation program. The mercenary organization, now renamed Xe Services, assisted in planning, training and overseeing the liquidation action.

“Idema’s people fired a few bursts into the ceiling of the room, then they herded the women together into another room … the mercenary commander pulled a sack over 50-year-old constitutional judge Mohammed Siddig’s head and tied his hands behind his back. The same was done to six of his male family members and a handyman who was present. Then the eight men were shoved into the cars in front of the house … When the Afghan police finally stormed the private torture chamber twelve days later, three of the Afghan men were still hanging by their feet from the ceiling …”

That was how Franz Hutsch described this not atypical action by U.S. mercenary special forces in Kabul in his book “Exporting Death.” During his trial, mercenary commander Idema testified: “We were in direct contact via e-mail, fax and telephone with the office of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on a daily basis … they knew what we were doing here.”

Such squads were sent out not only by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), but also by the Central Intelligence Agency, all under direct command of the president of the United States. These so-called “contractors,” the preferred designation for the mercenaries, were ordered to carry out the grossest dirty work. The New York Times reported these stories based on information received from current and former employees of the U.S. government. According to them, terrorist leaders were to be hunted down and murdered as part of a secret CIA program uncovered several weeks earlier. Nonetheless, it is claimed that despite spending millions of dollars on the program, it failed to result in the capture or killing of a single terrorist.

Under the Bush administration, many security contracts were awarded to private firms, also among them contracts for the interrogation of prisoners. Such practices also shine new light on the German Intelligence Service’s (BND) role in these interrogations. In connection with several kidnappings, a certain “Sam” – who spoke faultless German – was repeatedly mentioned. No one was ever able to positively identify him, but since citizens of many nations are common among the mercenaries, it’s highly likely that “Sam” could be a German citizen. That could be justification for reconvening the board of inquiry into the matter as has been demanded by the Left Party and the Greens.

In order to keep the program as secret as possible, the “Agency” (CIA) did not contract with the Blackwater firm, but rather directly with Blackwater’s personnel, among them Blackwater CEO Erik Prince. The involvement of non-governmental personnel in a program that made life and death decisions gave U.S. agencies concern over accountability for such actions, according to anonymous government sources at the New York Times.

In January 2009, Blackwater’s license to operate inside Iraq was revoked because of shootings in September 2007, during which several contractors opened fire on Iraqi civilians, killing seventeen.