The Blackwater Worldwide, formerly known as Blackwater USA, a private military company founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL heir to a rich family fortune. Considered one of the most important PMC (Private Military Company) in the world, with prominent roles as a security contractor in Iraq on behalf of the U.S. administration. In particular, is the main contractor for the State Department, which provides nearly 1,000 security operatives (almost all ex-military), mostly assigned to operations of protection of diplomatic personnel in the theater of war. In addition to the direct protection activities, the operators of the Blackwater provide different types of specialized technical and logistical support. Blackwater has, at its headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina, a huge training area (equipped with many polygons and special structures of training) of 7.000 acres, where every year about 35,000 are trained or improved security operators (contractors, military personnel, police officers in many U.S. states). The training activities are deemed to be of the highest professional level, and are characterized from the extreme realism of the scenarios exercise sessions. [1] In 2004, the killing and the destruction of the bodies of four Blackwater security operators in an ambush in Fallujah forces pushed U.S. military to launch a broad military operation to regain control of the city ("Battle of Fallujah"). In the weeks following the event, however, the families of the workers killed sued the Blackwater to the many faults of the operating procedures that had forced their relatives, sacrificing safety to the interests of "economizing" of operations. Blackwater also suffered heavy critical towards extremely aggressive operational policies held by its agents in Iraq to ensure a strong security framework, Blackwater convoys routinely use tactical procedures preventive and dissuasive very dangerous for the population and the passers-by of the areas crossed. September 16, 2007, these procedures have resulted in a fire incident in Baghdad in which 17 Iraqis (of which at least 14 innocent civilians) were killed by the fire of the operators of Blackwater. The incident has generated numerous controversies, has led to a revision of operating procedures imposed on the Blackwater by the State Department, and to initiate an investigation of the Congress of the United States, where other complaints were also assessed with respect to the work Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 22:50:42 +0000
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