Xe Services LLC

History

Xe Services LLC (Xe)was formed in February 2009 as a re-branding of Blackwater Worldwide after the Blackwater brand came under scrutiny following reports that contractors of the company had orchestrated a bloody civillian cull in an Iraqi Square in 2007. Blackwater itself was founded in 1997 by former navy seal Erik Prince in Moyock, North Carolina.

Controversies/Issues

In a rare audio recording which emerged in May 2010, Prince addresses a friendly audience, unaware that his speech is being recorded. In the speech Prince states

"Aren’t you concerned that your folks aren’t covered under the Geneva Convention in dealing in the likes of Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan?" And I say, "Absolutely not," because these people, they crawled out of the sewer, and they have a 1200 A.D. mentality. They’re barbarians. They don’t know that there’s—they don’t even know where Geneva is, let alone that there was a convention there. This infers that Prince shows little regard for tghe Geneva convention which stipulaties the humanitarian treatment of all war victims and also gives insight to his attitudes towards race.

Quotes

Erik Prince has been witnessed by former employees as stating that he "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe".

Illegal weapon smuggling

statements given to the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by two of Prince’s former employees states clearly that Prince is or was involved in illegal activity both abroad and on U.S. soil. One of the key accusations within the statement of John Doe #1 (JD1), so called for fear of reprisals, is outlined in point 21 where Prince is implicated in the illegal arms trade. The witness alleges that Prince has been involved in illegally supplying his operatives in Iraq with weaponry banned by the U.S. contracting authorities (ironically on humanitarian grounds). These weapons were, it is alleged, flown into Iraq using one of Prince’s companies Presidential Airways Inc. In a statement from another ex-operative of Blackwater the allegation of weapon smuggling re surfaces when the witness states that on opening bags of ‘dog food’ another Blackwater employee had pulled out a number of illegal weapons. According to both statements, the illegal weapons smuggled into Iraq have been used by Blackwater operatives in the exercise of ‘excessive and unnecessary force’ in many cases wounding or killing innocent civilians. John Doe #2 (JD2) also states that a number of these incidents, witnessed by JD2, went uncontested by Blackwater and were never reported to the State Department as stipulated in their contract. JD2 also states that there was no attempt to ascertain whether the civilians involved were in need of medical attention or, indeed, whether they were dead.

People

Erik Prince founder and owner of Xe Services.

Contracts

The U.S. Department of State, on September 29th 2010, allocated a chunk of its $10billion Worldwide Protective Services (WPS) programme contract to International Development Solutions LLC . This company has apparent links to Blackwater and would appear to be the most recent in a long list of 'shell' or 'front' companies set up by Blackwater to win contracts in the face of controversy surrounding Blackwater agents’ conduct.