Levin Takes Aim at Blackwater Contracts

Sen. Carl Levin is asking the Pentagon to carefully consider whether it wants to do more business with Blackwater, the controversial military contractor firm out of North Carolina that is reportedly bidding on a $1 billion Afghan police training contract.

Levin is also asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether the company, along with Raytheon, misled the Army in 2008, when Blackwater set up a wholly owned subsidiary to win a $25 million contract to train Afghan forces.

“As you know,” Levin wrote in a Feb. 25 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “a series of incidents in Iraq, including the tragic shooting incident in Nisour Square, led many to conclude that Blackwater was not a suitable contracting partner for the U.S. government, and contributed to the company’s decision to change its name.”

Levin made his two-pronged attack on Blackwater, now knows as Xe Services, a day after hearing testimony from company and government officials related to the 2008 contract. Witnesses told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Raytheon, as a primary contractor, made it clear that the name Blackwater should not appear on a bid for the training work. Blackwater submitted a bid under the name of Paravant, and an Army contracting officer told the committee he was unaware that the company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Blackwater.

During the course of the contract in Afghanistan, Paravant workers carried weapons without authorization and were involved in shootings that left one of their own critically injured two Afghan civilians dead, according to testimony. Levin and others have expressed concern that the contractors’ actions in Afghanistan reflect badly on all American forces, and so threaten the U.S. mission there.

An Army investigation into the May 2009 shootings of two Afghan civilians found evidence that two contractors “violated alcohol consumption policies, were not authorized to possess weapons [and] violated use of force rules.” The contractors, Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff, are now facing criminal charges.

Levin told Gates he should review the transcript of the hearing “and consider the deficiencies in Blackwater’s performance under the weapons training contract before a decision is made to award the police training work” to the company.

In a separate letter of Attorney General Eric Holder, Levin said cited committee witness testimony indicating that Blackwater set up Paravant at the request of Raytheon, which was concerned about Blackwater’s reputation.

“The deception is troubling,” Levin told Holder, and explained that Paravant submitted a bid that described itself as a company with years of experience and with more than 2,000 people deployed, even though the company had only been just formed and had no employees. The Army contracting officer who approved the contract told Levin’s committee he was not aware that Paravant and Blackwater were the same company.

The awarding was made only months after the State Department said it had lost confidence in Blackwater’s credibility and management ability, Levin wrote.

“If the Army contracting officer had known he was approving a subcontract with Blackwater, perhaps he would have taken the Department of State’s finding … into account when deciding whether to approve that subcontract,” Levin wrote.

A Defense Department spokesman told Military.com that DoD would not comment on Levin’s letter.

Xe did not return Military.com’s request for comment.