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Sure, the CIA might have hired the world's most controversial mercenary army to do a few highly-classified favors for them. But according to one of the agency's former top counterterrorism agents, Blackwater might not have even known what the CIA's real missions actually were.
That's what Robert Grenier suggested to Jeremy Scahill. They're an unlikely pair. Grenier is a decades-deep spymaster whose career peaked with a 2005-6 stint leading the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. Scahill is Blackwater's foremost journalistic pursuer. They joined forces late last month for an evening program at the International Spy Museum in Washington. And one of the subjects up for a rare public discussion was the agency's ongoing relationship with Blackwater.
In January, company founder Erik Prince, gave an extraordinary interview to Vanity Fair portraying Blackwater as what the magazine called the CIA's "Mr. Fix-It in the war on terror." Reportedly, that included a never-quite-launched assassination program. Or, as Prince put it, "I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions." But Grenier thinks Prince has it twisted.
Scahill recounts their conversation on his blog for The Nation. Yes, the agency relied heavily on contractors in the years after 9/11, Grenier said, owing to onerous federal hiring restrictions. But that doesn't mean the agency clued its contract employees into everything it was up to.
"It may well be that you're dealing with an individual and let's just say for the sake of discussion that he's a Blackwater employee and perhaps that individual knows some other individual--perhaps foreigners with whom he or she has dealt in the past -- that you want to gain access to and bring in on the team," Grenier told Scahill. "And maybe you want them to know what they're supposed to be doing and maybe you don't. Maybe you're going to have them only partially aware of what they're doing and not aware of what the ultimate purpose for it."
Uh, like for what? "If, let us say, that one wanted to find individuals, probably foreign nationals who can go out and mount an effective surveillance against a particular target for whatever purpose -- intelligence collection or whatever -- then you are going to be looking for the right group of individuals who provide you with the right combination of skills that you are seeking."
In English: there's a set of skills that Blackwater has that CIA needs but doesn't possess. Maybe it's a technological fix. Maybe it's a set of connections to individuals of ill repute. Maybe it's the right kind of identity-protecting cover. Who knows. But if the CIA goes to Blackwater to purchase that assistance, the company isn't going to know the whole story about about the mission CIA needs accomplished. Or, as Ted Leo once sang: CIA, only you know what you've done.
Who knows who's telling the truth here. But it would be yet another strange twist in the CIA's history with Blackwater if the company was unaware of what the agency was actually hiring it to do. Or Grenier could be obfuscating. Either way, Blackwater will just have to content itself with another $100 million in CIA moneyto guard operatives in dicey parts of the world.
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