The way Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater USA tells it while testifying yesterday before House Democrats, you would think that he and his private army, the largest of its kind in the world, bleeds red, white and blue.

has come under a great deal of scrutiny after a Sept. 16^th melee in a square that left a reported 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

Prince’s company is only one of many defense contractors that have been accused of shooting first and maybe asking questions later, however no private military contractor has been criminally prosecuted for alleged wrongdoing in Iraq.

As previously reported in a TLR article, Blackwater has more vehicles and a larger air force than the Iraqi army and police combined!

Prince came under fire from N.Y. Democrat Carolyn Maloney for his response to the 2006 Christmas Eve incident, when a drunken employee killed a bodyguard to Iraq’s vice president and then was whisked out of the country with the full knowledge of our State Department.

Maloney’s chastisement came when an internal Blackwater email released at the hearing showed the man only forfeited his bonuses and a return air ticket worth a total of $14,697 after Prince said that the man had been fined and fired.

Now I will say that Erik Prince is as cool as they come as he read this prepared statement:

“Based on everything we currently know, the Blackwater team acted appropriately while operating in a very complex war zone on Sept. 16^th. There has been a rush to judgment”.

Whatever the outcome, Blackwater USA has just been awarded another $92 million contract and has secured more than $1 billion in federal contracts to date.

Even though Blackwater is now being investigated by the FBI, do not feel sorry for them or any of the other defense contractors now getting rich from their “no-bid” federal contracts.

What concerns me is that these companies have been operating at will, with no oversight or interruption until now. That four plus years of running their own show and it will be interesting to see how well they respond to the scrutiny of a pissed off Congress and American public after all of the truth is revealed……. probably long after the war is over!

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