Blackwater USA received no-bid contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and post-Katrina New Orleans from the current Bush administration. Blackwater USA has a 6,000 acre training facility as part of its headquarters, in North Carolina. The firm has additional offices in Baghdad, Iraq, and Kuwait City, Kuwait. Blackwater Training Center was founded in 1996 to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing of firearms and related security training. Located on over 6000 acres in Moyock, North Carolina (just south of the Virginia border).
Blackwater has the finest private firearms training facility in the U.S. Blackwater has set a new standard for firearms and security training and is recognized as the industry leader in providing government outsource solutions in training, security, canine services, aviation support services, range construction and steel target equipment. Since its inception, Blackwater has trained over 50,000 military and law enforcement personnel and provided solutions to hundreds of satisfied customers." Blackwater is one of two companies which make up The Prince Group, the other being Prince Manufacturing. The Prince Group tapped former Pentagon Inspector General, Joseph E. Schmitz, for chief operating officer and general counsel in September of 2005.
The Prince Group bought Aviation Worldwide Services in May of 2003. AWS consists of STI Aviation, Inc., Air Quest, Inc., and Presidential Airways, Inc. These companies provide the logistical and air support for Blackwater operations. Blackwater itself consists of Blackwater Training Center, Blackwater Target Systems, Blackwater Security Consulting and Blackwater Canine. On the morning of Tuesday, January 23, 2007, a helicopter owned by Blackwater crashed in "the heavily Sunni Fadhil neighborhood in north-central Baghdad [on the east side of the Tigris River], where witnesses reported clashes between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces," the Associated Press reported. According to a U.S. military official, "five civilians were killed". A "senior Iraqi defense official said the aircraft was shot down" by "a gunman with a PKC machine gun."
Blackwater USA confirmed the five men were employed by the North Carolina-based company as security professionals. Although accounts varied, all were consistent that at least one person operating the aircraft had been shot and badly hurt before the crash," the Associated Press reported January 23, 2007. On Wednesday, January 24, 2007, the Associated Press reported that U.S. and Iraqi officials said that four of the five Blackwater employees were "shot execution style in the back the head." A senior U.S. Department of Defense official said that it was unknown whether the four were alive when shot."
Although a senior Iraqi military official said a machine gunner downed the helicopter. A U.S. military official in Washington said there were no indications that the aircraft, owned by Blackwater USA, had been shot out of the sky. Two Sunni insurgent groups, separately, claimed responsibility for the crash. The helicopter was shot down after responding to assist a U.S. Embassy ground convoy that came under fire in a Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad, said a U.S. diplomatic official in Washington. ... The doomed helicopter swooped into electrical wires before the crash. U.S. officials said it was not clear if gunfire brought the aircraft down or caused its pilot to veer into the wires during evasive manuevers."
A second helicopter also was struck, but there were no casualties among its crew, said the diplomatic official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to make statements. Before Tuesday's crash, at least 22 employees of Blackwater Security Consultants or Blackwater USA had died in Iraq as a result of war-related violence, according to the Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks foreign troop fatalities in Iraq. Of those, 20 were Americans, and two were Polish," the Associated Press reported.
Blackwater and private military contractors in general came under increased public scrutiny following the public killing and mutilation of four employees in Fallujah, Iraq on March 31, 2004. This increased scrutiny lead the firm to hire the Alexander Strategy Group for crisis management, public and media relations. According to Russel Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, a few days after the Fallujah killings, "Blackwater Security Consulting engaged in full-scale battle in Najaf, with the company flying its own helicopters amidst an intense firefight to resupply its own commandos
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