Aftermath News

Blackwater revives mission

UNION-TRIBUNE | Apr 23, 2008

Security contractor plans training center

By Anne Krueger

Although Blackwater Worldwide has given up its plans to build a training center in East County, the government contractor is still seeking a presence in San Diego County.

The North Carolina company is planning to open an indoor training center in Otay Mesa to train Navy personnel after abandoning its controversial proposal to build a larger facility on a ranch in Potrero.

Brian Bonfiglio, a Blackwater vice president, said the facility will operate out of a 61,600-square-foot building in a business park on Siempre Viva Road, just south of Brown Field. Bonfiglio expects it will cost “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to get the building ready for training, which could begin by summer.

“This is a cost-efficient means in which we can support the Navy,” Bonfiglio said of the facility, which is a little larger than a football field.

Bonfiglio said Blackwater officials began searching for sites early this year, at the same time the company was pursuing plans to build a training center in Potrero, a rural community about 40 miles east of San Diego.

Blackwater’s plans there sparked intense opposition from those who said the facility would bring noise and traffic to the quiet community. Opponents also objected to the role of Blackwater’s security guards in Iraq, pointing to a Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad in which Blackwater employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians.

On March 7, Blackwater dropped plans to build on the 824-acre Potrero site after noise tests showed gunfire shots exceeded county standards.

Opponents were quick to speak out yesterday against Blackwater’s latest plans.

Jeanette Hartman, chairwoman of the Sierra Club’s land use committee, said she is opposed to any new Blackwater facility.

“We don’t need to go any further into training for violence in this country. We need more training for peace,” Hartman said. “I’ll be happy when they open a peace center.”

Raymond Lutz, an El Cajon-area resident who maintains an anti-Blackwater Web site, said he has concerns about the new Otay Mesa facility, including whether it has the proper permits. But Lutz said the indoor site is better than the Potrero proposal.

“We’re not ruining a pristine valley,” Lutz said. “If you had to site it somewhere, this is a better location.”

The building is at the end of a complex of warehouse structures and is owned by the Los Angeles company Hometex, which will lease it to Blackwater. Bonfiglio gave a reporter a tour of the still largely vacant interior yesterday.

Already in place was a ship simulator – a miniature version of a Navy ship – that Bonfiglio said will be used to train sailors for crisis situations at sea. An enclosed shooting range, with bafflers to cut down on noise, is being built.

Navy personnel will be trained in two classrooms holding up to 24 students each. Bonfiglio said the training at the Otay Mesa site will be on a much smaller scale than the Potrero proposal, where up to 300 students a day were planned.

Although the facility has a shooting range, it will emphasize training Navy personnel to be better prepared for terrorist attacks, Bonfiglio said.

“This training isn’t about guns,” he said. “It’s about prevention.”

Kelly Broughton, director of the city of San Diego’s Development Services Department, said a permit for the Otay Mesa site was requested in February by Raven Development Group. Bonfiglio said the company is responsible for developing Blackwater’s training centers and ranges across the country.

The permit was granted March 19. Broughton said the building was already permitted for use as a vocational trade school, and Blackwater’s training center would be allowed under that category.

“As long as it was an educational facility, if they’re training future police or security guards, that would be considered a vocational trade,” Broughton said.

Bonfiglio said Blackwater has had a contract to train Navy personnel since 2002 through a subcontractor, American Shooting Center in Kearny Mesa. The training will be transferred to the Otay Mesa site once Navy inspectors give their approval to the new facility, he said.

Bonfiglio said Blackwater hasn’t determined whether American Shooting Center would assist with training in Otay Mesa.

“We want to improve on the curriculum. We want to improve on the teaching,” Bonfiglio said. “We want to improve on the facilities.”

Bonfiglio said other agencies may use the facilities occasionally if it doesn’t interfere with the Navy’s training. He emphasized that no independent contractors working for Blackwater would be trained there.

Marc Halcon, owner of American Shooting Center, said he wasn’t aware of Blackwater’s plans.

“I’m surprised,” Halcon said. “I was under the impression that they had pulled out of San Diego. They never indicated to me that they were going to do this.”

Sources Tell ABC News the Extension, Worth About $240 Million, Was Requested by U.S. Embassy Officials in Baghdad

ABC | Apr 4, 2008

By BRIAN ROSS

Although it has been accused of tax fraud, improper use of force, arms trafficking and overbilling, the Blackwater firm will have its $1.2 billion contract for private security in Iraq renewed by the State Department, a spokesman confirmed Friday.

The one-year extension, worth an estimated $240 million, was requested by officials at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, two sources close to the arrangement tell ABC News.

Meanwhile, a grand jury, federal prosecutors and congressional investigators are probing a host of allegations against the company.

The grand jury is reportedly investigating whether Blackwater security guards used excessive force in killing 13 Iraqi civilians in a violent incident in central Baghdad last September. At the time, many speculated the incident would effectively end the firm’s work for the State Department when its contract came up for renewal in May 2008.

Federal prosecutors are probing allegations that Blackwater personnel smuggled weapons, night-vision scopes and other sensitive material into Iraq. The firm has denied any involvement in such a scheme.

A congressional panel is investigating whether the company illegally dodged millions in taxes by misclassifying its employees as “independent contractors.” The allegation, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said at the time, was “incorrect.”

And a State Department investigation in 2005 found Blackwater sometimes double-billed employees’ time, resulting in “duplication of profit.”

Blackwater has more than 850 personnel in Iraq under contract to the U.S. government in Iraq.

The Herald | Jan 21, 2008

MERCENARY guards who killed 17 Iraqi civilians when they opened fire on traffic in a busy Baghdad square last September are likely to escape trial or prosecution because of loopholes in US law.

The Blackwater private security firm employees facing indictment by a federal grand jury were given immunity by the US State Department when their company was hired four years ago to escort convoys and provide bodyguards for diplomats.

Despite pressure from the US military to have all security contractors brought under the same rules of engagement as soldiers, Blackwater’s special deal is likely to make bringing the alleged culprits to court “difficult”.

The security company has repainted all of the vehicles involved, removing potential evidence indicating whether they had come under attack.

Blackwater insists its guards returned fire after being shot at, although no weapons were found on any of the civilian victims at the scene.

The Iraqi government has demanded a full investigation, criminal charges where appropriate and the ending of Blackwater’s work in the country.

Human Rights First, a leading US campaigning group, said that existing laws are sufficient to bring prosecutions, despite State Department interference.

They issued a report claiming that failure to bring contractors to account for civilian deaths was the result of a lack of political will by the White House and infighting between US government departments.

. . .

Related

Blackwater in Baghdad: “It was a horror movie”

A 2005 photo showed a Blackwater helicopter releasing CS gas at a checkpoint in Baghdad.  Riot control agents in war zones are banned by an international convention on chemical weapons endorsed by the United States

’05 Use of Gas by Blackwater Leaves Questions

NY Times | Jan 10, 2008

By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The helicopter was hovering over a Baghdad checkpoint into the Green Zone, one typically crowded with cars, Iraqi civilians and United States military personnel.

Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.

“This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous,” Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. “It’s not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness.”

Both the helicopter and the vehicle involved in the incident at the Assassins’ Gate checkpoint were not from the United States military, but were part of a convoy operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor that is under scrutiny for its role in a series of violent episodes in Iraq, including a September shooting in downtown Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead.

None of the American soldiers exposed to the chemical, which is similar to tear gas, required medical attention, and it is not clear if any Iraqis did. Still, the previously undisclosed incident has raised significant new questions about the role of private security contractors in Iraq, and whether they operate under the same rules of engagement and international treaty obligations that the American military observes.

“You run into this issue time and again with Blackwater, where the rules that apply to the U.S. military don’t seem to apply to Blackwater,” said Scott L. Silliman, the executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at the Duke University School of Law.

Officers and noncommissioned officers from the Third Infantry Division who were involved in the episode said there were no signs of violence at the checkpoint. Instead, they said, the Blackwater convoy appeared to be stuck in traffic and may have been trying to use the riot-control agent as a way to clear a path.

Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Blackwater, said the CS gas had been released by mistake.

“Blackwater teams in the air and on the ground were preparing a secure route near a checkpoint to provide passage for a motorcade,” Ms. Tyrrell said in an e-mail message. “It seems a CS gas canister was mistaken for a smoke canister and released near an intersection and checkpoint.”

She said that the episode was reported to the United States Embassy in Baghdad, and that the embassy’s chief security officer and the Department of Defense conducted a full investigation. The troops exposed to the gas also said they reported it to their superiors. But military officials in Washington and Baghdad said they could not confirm that an investigation had been conducted. Officials at the State Department, which contracted with Blackwater to provide diplomatic security, also could not confirm that an investigation had taken place.

About 20 to 25 American soldiers were at the checkpoint at the time of the incident, and at least 10 were exposed to the CS gas after “rotor wash” from the hovering helicopter pushed it toward them, according to officers who were there. A number of Iraqi civilians, both on foot and in cars waiting to go through the checkpoint, were also exposed. The gas can cause burning and watering eyes, skin irritation and coughing and difficulty breathing. Nausea and vomiting can also result.

Blackwater says it was permitted to carry CS gas under its contract at the time with the State Department. According to a State Department official, the contract did not specifically authorize Blackwater personnel to carry or use CS, but it did not prohibit it.

The military, however, tightly controls use of riot control agents in war zones. They are banned by an international convention on chemical weapons endorsed by the United States, although a 1975 presidential order allows their use by the United States military in war zones under limited defensive circumstances and only with the approval of the president or a senior officer designated by the president.

“It is not allowed as a method or means of warfare,” said Michael Schmitt, professor of international law at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. “There are very, very strict restrictions on the use of CS gas in a war zone.”

news.com.au | Dec 19, 2007

THE US embassy in Iraq is investigating another deadly shooting incident involving its Blackwater bodyguards — this time of the New York Times’ dog.

Staff at the newspaper’s Baghdad bureau said Blackwater bodyguards shot Hentish dead last week before a visit by a US diplomat to the Times compound.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the dog had attacked one of Blackwater’s bomb-sniffer dogs while a security team was sweeping the compound for explosives.

“The K-9 handler made several unsuccessful attempts to get the dog to retreat, including placing himself between the dogs.

When those efforts failed, the K-9 handler unfortunately was forced to use a pistol to protect the company’s K-9 and himself,” she said in an email to Reuters.

The US embassy employs about 1000 armed Blackwater staff to protect American diplomats in Baghdad.

The firm’s role became a serious issue in Iraqi-US relations when its guards opened fire on a Baghdad street in September, killing 17 people. Blackwater says its employees acted lawfully in that incident, which is under investigation.

State Department investigators had made two follow-up visits to the Times compound to investigate the shooting of Hentish, correspondent Alissa Rubin said.

“They were very solicitous and I thought took the incident very seriously,” Rubin said. “It’s not a dog that everyone’s close to in the compound.

“But it’s a dog that’s been around a long time. It lived its whole life there.”

Hoping to get into the peacekeeping business, the private Blackwater security firm is acquiring a fleet of aircraft, ships and ground vehicles. Here are a pair of bomb-proof Grizzlies, parked outside the company’s headquarters.

Wired | Dec 18, 2007

By Sharon Weinberger

Facing a growing backlash over its operations in Iraq, the private security firm Blackwater is formulating a new business pitch — to expand into U.N.-style peacekeeping and humanitarian aid.

The company is buying a fleet of aircraft and ground vehicles, including its own airship, hoping to win contracts to secure failed states before the U.N. arrives.

“We can give what we call one-stop shopping, turnkey solutions,” says John Wrenn, who heads Global Stability Initiatives at the newly re-branded Blackwater Worldwide.

Linked to several violent incidents in Iraq, including the Sept. 16 shootings in Baghdad that sparked an international media furor and congressional hearings, the company over the past few months has attempted a public relations overhaul, modifying its name, revamping its logo, and engaging in a massive PR counter-assault to defend against its “cowboy” image.

Blackwater is one of dozens of private companies providing security services in Iraq and other war zones. It is part of a growing military outsourcing industry that exploded during the Iraq conflict and is only likely to get bigger. Proponents believe private security companies, or PSCs, are the future of military operations — and peacekeeping.

As Blackwater fights to keep its State Department security contracts in Iraq, the company is expanding into areas where its competitors have not. Blackwater recently purchased the McArthur, a naval vessel intended for disaster response and training, but that can also be used as a “mothership” for launching peacekeeping operations.

Blackwater now produces the Grizzly, a bomb-resistant vehicle that sports a unique diamond-shaped hull. In addition to a fleet of fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, Blackwater has also moved into unmanned airships, building the Polar 400, a dirigible that would fly between 5,000 and 15,000 feet, and is designed to monitor border areas or track terrorists. The airship could provide surveillance, or eventually, transport into war-ravaged areas.

All this new technology is part of a broader company expansion. Blackwater argues that it can provide a “transition force” to take over security for failed states after military operations are finished.

Blackwater believes it could, in addition to providing security, also deliver aid and oversee disaster relief. This is work now done primarily by non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and humanitarian groups. Blackwater executives have suggested sending a private peacekeeping force into Darfur, for instance.

“They would be the guys that go in and provide security, taking the handover from the military, and create the safe zones and start to provide the services, until the U.N. takes over,” Wrenn says.

That’s where the technology comes in. The Grizzly vehicle can ferry peacekeepers, or in an ambulance version, could be used to transport NGO workers and patients. And the airship could provide surveillance, or be used to ferry supplies for disaster relief.

“The beauty of an airship is you don’t need big runways and airports,” Wrenn says. “You can use them to deliver supplies where airplanes can’t go.”

Doug Brooks, president of International Peace Operations Association, which represents private security contractors (though not Blackwater, which pulled out of the group in October), says in many parts of the world, “private companies are in fact holding peace operations together.”

The industry, in Brooks’ view, is in part a natural consequence of the West’s unwillingness to commit its military forces to troubled regions, leading to what he calls “Westernless peacekeeping.” Globally, such contracting is a $20 billion industry, and growing, he contends.

Critics, however, note that the Blackwater name is a huge obstacle to its plans for expanded peacekeeping. Erik Prince, a billionaire and former Navy SEAL, founded Blackwater as a training company a decade ago, but its rapid growth, particularly into private security detail work in Iraq, has landed the company in the middle of a debate over “mercenaries,” a term that Blackwater and similar companies detest. The Blackwater controversy now includes an alleged conflict of interest between the State Department’s recently resigned inspector general and his brother, a one-time Blackwater board member; questions about the tax status of its contractors; and an ongoing fight over a West Coast training facility.

Peter W. Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a leading expert on private contractors, says Blackwater’s recent PR campaign may not be enough to fix the company’s image. “You can change your logo, you can have a public relations blitz. It’s nice but it’s not going to change this,” Singer says. “These long-term attitudes are sinking in.”

While Blackwater’s push to diversify is understandable — given the potential liability of its personal security work — its move into manufacturing is unusual for a services company.

Robert Young Pelton, the author of Licensed to Kill, a book on PSCs, calls many of Blackwater’s technologies “wacky,” comparable to something cooked up in the Batcave.

“They tend to be strange versions of existing products,” he says. “The blimp is not technology; it’s just a hot-air balloon, the oldest technology in aviation. What (Prince) has done is come up with homemade, kludged ideas. The government may or may not buy them.”

Though he is skeptical of Blackwater’s prospects as a global peacekeeping force, Pelton says that Prince’s vision is noble, even if it lends itself to black comedy. He compares Erik Prince to the Dark Prince of comics. “Batman lives his life as a mild-mannered billionaire, and then at night goes out and saves the world,” says Pelton. “It’s all right to have a big idea, but the big idea has never been tested, and if you play it forward and send Backwater to Darfur, imagine the various permutations of disaster if his current activities are employed over there.”

If Pelton thinks Prince is Batman, Wrenn has his own version of how Blackwater should be viewed.

“It’s like Bonanza,” says Wrenn. “The Cartwright family were cowboys, but wearing white hats. They were the good guys, the people you want your neighbors to be. Yeah, they carry guns, but it’s the nature of the business.”

On matters of interrogation and torture techniques he defers to his campaign’s counterterrorism czar, Cofer Black, consort to the Whore of Babylon.

MWC | Dec 16, 2007

by Robert Weitzel

Mitt Romney, like his great-grandfather who had five wives, is a polygamist. His problem? The Mormon Church—as well as the United States government—outlawed polygamy for its “Saints” in 1890.

But Mitt has been married monogamously to Ann for 38 years. His problem? He is a political polygamist whose multiple marriages of convenience, and the ease with which he maneuvers between conjugal visits, should be as disturbing to the American electorate as a Utah harem.

Our problem? Mitt seems to be equally at home with “our nation’s symphony of faith” as he is with our nation’s largest mercenary army, Blackwater Worldwide, the Whore of Babylon.

On December 6, Romney delivered his “Faith in America” speech at George H.W. Bush’s Presidential Library. It was his John Kennedy moment. Like Kennedy, he wanted to assure the American people that “no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions.”

That done, he went on for another 30 paragraphs establishing his own saintly bona fides and schmoozing every major religious voting bloc in his “symphony of faith.”

But it was when he spoke of a compassionate responsibility for every child of God regardless of creed or race or nationality that he began using language only the Whore of Babylon could decode: “I am moved by the Lord’s words, ‘I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink (waterboarding): I was a stranger, and ye took me in (extraordinary rendition, black sites and Guantanamo): naked, and ye clothed me (orange jumpsuits and hoods).’”

On a November 28 CNN/YouTube Republican debate, Romney assured John McCain, “I know what waterboarding is, Senator,” but then refused to call it by its real name, torture. He went on to say that anyone deemed a threat to the United States belongs at Guantanamo where they can “meet GIs and CIA interrogators.” It was his Heinrich Himmler moment.

Romney made a point of saying that on matters of interrogation and torture techniques he defers to his campaign’s counterterrorism czar, Cofer Black, consort to the Whore of Babylon.

Black, who Jeremy Scahill, author of the book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, calls “one of the biggest thugs to serve in US government,” was a 28 –year veteran of the CIA who escalated the extraordinary rendition (kidnapping, transportation and torture) program under President Clinton. He was head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, when he failed America and 3000 people died.

Full Story
. . .

Related

CNN, NY Times, LA Times, AP omit Romney connection to Blackwater USA

“The painful saga of modern Arab-Muslim history evokes the battles fought in Crusades of the 11th centry - when the Knights of Malta began their operations as a Christian militia whose mission it was to defend the land conquered by the Crusaders. These memories return violently to mind with the discovery of links between the so-called security firms in Iraq such as Blackwater have historic links with the Order of Malta. You cannot exaggerate it. The Order of Malta is a hidden government or the most mysterious government in the world.”

- Jordanian MP Jamal Muhammad Abidat, from an editorial in the United Arab Emirates daily Al-Bayan entitled “The Knights of Malta - more than a conspiracy”. Abidat describes the role played by the Knights of Malta during the Crusades, and that the Order is playing a similar role in the Middle East today, citing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 78th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, His Most Eminent Highness Fra’ Andrew Bertie (R), accorded the ecclesiastical precedence of a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, with the diplomatic honors due to a sovereign head of state, on state visit to Poland May 14th, 2007 reviewing Polish military troops in Warsaw with the President of the Polish Republic Lech Kaczynski.

ADN Kronos | Dec 14, 2007

Rome, 14 Dec. (AKI) - The Roman Catholic Order of Malta on Friday rejected suggestions that it is in any way involved in military activity in Iraq or any other country in the world.

The organisation responded to a message posted a week ago on Islamist websites close to al-Qaeda, urging jihadists to carry out a terrorist attack on its embassy in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

The message urging the attack followed an editorial in the UAE daily al-Bayan, by Jordanian MP Jamal Muhammad Abidat claiming the order was playing a direct role in conflicts in the Middle East, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Such statements, as well as causing deep upset because they are unfounded, have been expressed about an humanitarian organisation that helps the weak and disadvantaged in 120 countries around the world with medical and humanitarian programs,” the organisation said in a statement.

The order, better known as the Knights of Malta, stressed that more than once there had been confusion in many countries about names and symbols that were similar to its organisation.

“The Order of Malta’s mission is exclusively to help the poor, the sick and the most needy,” the statement said.

“Created in Jerusalem more than nine centuries ago, its focus today is international public rights. With its headquarters in Rome, it is neutral, impartial and apolitical.”

The organisation has 12,500 members and 80,000 volunteers that helps the elderly, children, the disabled, lepers, refugees and those with terminal illnesses on five continents without distinctions between race or religion.

The message posted on 6 December called for Egyptians to attack the organisation’s Cairo office.

“Do not stint on your attacks, Egyptians, either with car or truck bombs,” read the message.

In the newspaper article, Abidat gave a Muslim interpretation of the Order’s history, describing the role played by the Knights of Malta during the Crusades. Abidat claimed the Order is playing the same role in the Middle East today.

Order of the Knights of Malta

“The painful saga of modern Arab-Muslim history evokes the battles fought in Crusades of the 11th century - when the Knights of Malta began their operations as a Christian militia whose mission it was to defend the land conquered by the Crusaders.”

Abidat accused the Order of Malta of being run by men who are close to US president George W. Bush and neo-conservative political circles.

“You cannot exaggerate it. The Order of Malta is a hidden government or the most mysterious government in the world,” said Abidat in the editorial.

The Rome-based Order of Malta, whose full name is the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, is also known as The Knights of Malta.

It began as an organisation founded in Jerusalem in 1080, to care for poor and sick pilgrims to the Holy Land.

The Order of Malta retains its claim of sovereignty under international law and has been granted permanent observer status at the United Nations. It issues its own passports, stamps and coins and has formal diplomatic relations with 99 states.

. . .

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SMOM INFO - COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

AHN News | Dec 13, 2007

by Danilo Gagelonia

San Diego, CA (AHN) - Government security contractor Blackwater Worldwide announced Wednesday it will proceed with plans to construct 11 firing ranges, a driving track and a helipad in a valley north of Potrero, small hamlet some 45 miles east of San Diego, Calif.

Residents on Tuesday had recalled five town officials who endorsed the project.

Company vice president Brian Bonfiglio, who oversees Blackwater West, said, “Regardless of who’s sitting in that seat, we are proceeding.”

Residents are worried the training camp would bring traffic, noise and pollution to Potrero.

They’re also against Blackwater’s activities in Iraq where company guards were involved in the disputed killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September and now a focus of congressional and criminal investigations.

Bonfiglio said,”If my project was in with the county three years ago we wouldn’t be having this problem because the views on the war were very different. Everyone who’s tired of the war sees us as attached to that.”

Final decision on the project is with the San Diego County board of supervisors, which won’t be announced until after environmental impact reports are completed in 2008.

AFP | Dec 12, 2007

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — A tiny town in southern California is up in arms over an attempt by under-fire private security firm Blackwater to build a massive training center on its doorstep, official records showed Wednesday.

Residents of Potrero early Wednesday voted to replace five local planners who expressed support for Blackwater’s proposed 824-acre (333 ha) facility at a disused poultry farm in the town, roughly 42 miles (67 kilometers) east of San Diego.

Local media reported that residents of Potrero — which has a population of around 800 — were opposed to the center on the grounds that it would increase noise and disturbance. Concerns had also been raised that Blackwater may somehow become involved in policing the nearby US-Mexico border.

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters said on Wednesday residents had voted to replace the five members of a planning group that had supported the bid. A final decision on Blackwater’s training center will be taken by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

Blackwater has faced severe criticism following an incident in Baghdad in September in which 17 Iraqis were killed after guards employed by the firm opened fire in a crowded neighborhood.

The Iraqi government described the shooting as a crime but the company maintains its staff only began shooting after coming under attack as they protected a convoy.