Blackwater was CIA's extension, founder Erik Prince admits
/Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater - now known as Academi - claims his firm “became a virtual extension of the CIA,” taking orders from the agency.
In an interview published Thursday by the Daily Beast, Prince revealed how deeply connected Blackwater was to the Central Intelligence Agency, especially in the early 2000s. Last month, federal prosecutors dropped felony charges against Blackwater personnel after it was revealed that the employees had been acting under the orders of the US government. After a three-year-long prosecution, most of the company’s executives walked free and two men received nothing more than probation, house arrest and $5,000 fines.
But the tens of thousands of pages of court documents from the case shed light on an argument the company made throughout those three years – that Blackwater itself was an extension of the CIA.
“Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told the Daily Beast.“In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the agency either could not or would not do in-house.”
Initially, lawmakers believed the CIA was “looking for skills and capabilities, and they had to go to outside contractors like Blackwater to make sure they could accomplish their mission,” said retired Congressman Pete Hoekstra. But the relationship was in fact much closer than believed.
