Academi

In July 2004, Blackwater was authorized by the U.S. Department of State to perform orders issued under the Worldwide Personal Protective Services (WPPS I) umbrella contract. Blackwater's first mission under WPPS I was to provide private security for the provisional U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Although Triple Canopy, Inc., and DynCorp International also qualified for WPPS I directives, Blackwater was issued the majority of diplomatic security task orders in Iraq and was authorized to deploy 482 personnel in Iraq (excluding sub-contractors) over the course of 2 years. The total breadth of Blackwater's activities in Iraq for non-diplomatic security operations, as well as other potential deployments in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Israel authorized under the WPPS I contract are unknown. Between July 1, 2004, and June 6, 2006, Blackwater received $488 million from the WPPS I contract, despite the entire five-year contract having a set maximum value of approximately $332 million. The substantial cost of Blackwater's services was investigated by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and eventuated in the use of a competitive bidding system in the revised WPPS II umbrella contract.

On September 1, 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater dispatched a rescue team and helicopter to support relief operations. Blackwater moved about 200 personnel into the area impacted by Hurricane Katrina, most of whom (164 employees) were working under a contract with the Federal Protective Service to protect government facilities, but the company held contracts with private clients as well. Blackwater's presence after Katrina cost the federal government $240,000 per day.

In July 2005, the U.S. State Department awarded its first WPPS II contract under a new competitive bidding system with a strict maximum value of $1.2 billion per contractor. Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp were the only private security firms qualified for WPPS II task orders, authorised for deployments in "non-permissive environments" such as Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq. In May 2006 the WPPS II contract began issuing task orders in Iraq, ultimately authorizing Blackwater to deploy 1,020 staff in the country. Blackwater's responsibilities included the United States embassy in Baghdad. At the time it was a privately held company and published limited information about internal affairs. The total cost of Blackwater's work under WPPS II remains unknown; however, it was disclosed that Blackwater was paid over $832 million for their work in Iraq under WPPS I and WPPS II directives from 2001 to 2006.

Leadership

Cofer Black, the company's vice-chairman from 2006 through 2008, was director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was the United States Department of State coordinator for counterterrorism with the rank of Ambassador-at-Large from December 2002 to November 2004. After leaving public service, Black became chairman of the privately owned intelligence-gathering company Total Intelligence Solutions, Inc., as well as vice-chairman of Blackwater.

Robert Richer was vice president of intelligence until January 2007, when he formed Total Intelligence Solutions. He was formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.

2006–2007: New training centers

In November 2006, Blackwater USA announced that it had acquired an 80-acre (32 ha) facility 120 miles (190 km) west of Chicago in Mount Carroll, Illinois, called Impact Training Center. This facility has been operational since April 2007 and serves law enforcement agencies throughout the Midwest.

Blackwater tried to open an 824-acre (3.33 km2) training facility three miles north of Potrero, a small town in rural east San Diego County, California, located 45 miles (72 km) east of San Diego, for military and law enforcement training. The opening had faced heavy opposition from local residents, residents of nearby San Diego, local Congressmember Bob Filner, and environmentalist and anti-war organizations. Opposition focused on a potential for wildfire increases, the proposed facility's proximity to the Cleveland National Forest, noise pollution, and opposition to the actions of Blackwater in Iraq. In response, Brian Bonfiglio, project manager for Blackwater West, said: "There will be no explosives training and no tracer ammunition. Lead bullets don't start fires." In October 2007, when wildfires swept through the area, Blackwater made at least three deliveries of food, water, personal hygiene products and generator fuel to 300 residents near the proposed training site, many of whom had been trapped for days without supplies. They also set up a "tent city" for evacuees. On March 7, 2008, Blackwater withdrew its application to set up a facility in San Diego County.

2007–2009: Blackwater Worldwide

In October 2007, the month after the Nisour Square massacre, Blackwater USA began the process of changing its name to Blackwater Worldwide and unveiled a new logo. The change deemphasized the "cross hair" reticle theme, simplifying it slightly.

On July 21, 2008, Blackwater Worldwide stated that it would shift resources away from security contracting because of the extensive risks in that sector. Said company founder and CEO Erik Prince, "The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk."

2009–2010: Xe Services LLC

In February 2009, Blackwater announced that it would be once again renamed, this time to "Xe Services LLC", as part of a company-wide restructuring plan, intended to re-focus the company on its logistics, aviation and training aspects, rather than its security operations.

Prince announced his resignation as CEO on March 2, 2009. He remained as chairman of the board but was no longer involved in day-to-day operations. Joseph Yorio was named as the new president and CEO, replacing Gary Jackson as president and Prince as CEO. Danielle Esposito was named the new chief operating officer and executive vice president.

2010–2014: Academi

In 2010, Xe was acquired by USTC Holdings, an investor consortium, who sought to further re-brand the company. The sale formally ended Erik Prince's operational and management role in the company. Xe was officially renamed "Academi" in 2011. Academi's Board of Directors included former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former White House Counsel and Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Jack Quinn, retired Admiral and former NSA Director Bobby Ray Inman, and Texas businessman Red McCombs, who served as chairman of the board. Quinn and Ashcroft were independent directors, without other affiliations to Academi.

In May 2011, Academi named Ted Wright as CEO. Wright hired Suzanne Rich Folsom as Academi's chief regulatory and compliance officer and deputy general counsel. The Academi Regulatory and Compliance team won National Law Journal's 2012 Corporate Compliance Office of the Year Award.

In 2012, retired Brigadier General Craig Nixon was named the new CEO of Academi.

In March 2006, Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, allegedly suggested at an international conference in Amman, Jordan, that the company was ready to move towards providing security professionals up to brigade size (3,000–5,000) for humanitarian efforts and low-intensity conflicts. The company denies making this claim.

Mark Manzetti, writing in The New York Times on August 19, 2009, reported that the CIA had hired Blackwater "as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda." Newly appointed CIA director Leon Panetta had recently acknowledged a planned secret targeted killing program, one withheld from Congressional oversight. Manzetti's sources, which tied the program to Blackwater, declined to have their names made public. The CIA was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. Several million dollars were spent on planning and training, but it was never put into operation and no militants were caught or captured. Manzetti notes that it was unknown "whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program." Jeremy Scahill reported in The Nation in November 2009 that Blackwater operated alongside the CIA in Pakistan in "snatch and grab" operations targeting senior members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The report cited an unnamed source who has worked on covert U.S. military programs, who revealed that senior members of the Obama administration may not be aware that Blackwater is operating under a U.S. contract in Pakistan. A spokesman for Blackwater denied the claims, stating that they have "only one employee in Pakistan."

Five Blackwater contractors were killed on January 23, 2007, in Iraq when their Hughes H-6 helicopter was shot down on Baghdad's Haifa Street. The crash site was secured by a personal security detail, callsign "Jester" from 1/26 Infantry, 1st Infantry Division. Three insurgents claimed to be responsible for shooting down the helicopter, although this has not been confirmed by the United States. A U.S. defense official has confirmed that four of the five killed were shot execution style in the back of the head, but did not know whether the four had survived the crash.

In late May 2007, Blackwater contractors opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days, one of the incidents provoking a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi Interior Ministry commandos, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The first incident occurred when a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad. The following incident occurred when an Iraqi vehicle drove too close to a convoy. However, according to incident testimony, the Blackwater guards tried to wave off the driver, shouted, fired a warning shot into the car's radiator, finally shooting into the car's windshield. On May 30, 2007, Blackwater employees shot an Iraqi civilian said to have been "driving too close" to a State Department convoy that was being escorted by Blackwater contractors. Following the incident, the Iraqi government allowed Blackwater to provide security by operating within the streets of Iraq.

On August 21, 2007, Blackwater Manager Daniel Carroll threatened to kill Jean Richter, a U.S. State Department Investigator, in Iraq. In June 2014, a New York Times investigation reported that it had secured an internal State Department memo stating this. Richter later returned from Iraq to the U.S. and wrote a scathing review of the lax standards to which Blackwater was held accountable, only two weeks before a serious Blackwater incident in which 17 Iraqi civilians were shot and killed by Blackwater employees under questionable circumstances. The death threat incident was confirmed by a second investigator, a Mr. Thomas, who was also present at the meeting. The shooting incident that followed has been described by some as a "watershed" moment, and a factor which contributed to Iraq's later decision to refuse to allow U.S. troops to stay beyond 2011.

Documents obtained from the Iraq War documents leak of 2010 argue that Blackwater employees committed serious abuses in Iraq, including killing civilians.

Prosecution

U.S. Congress

On October 2, 2007, Erik Prince attended a congressional hearing conducted by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform following the controversy related to Blackwater's conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blackwater hired the public relations firm BKSH & Associates Worldwide, a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller, to help Prince prepare for his testimony at the hearing. Robert Tappan, a former U.S. State Department official who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, was one of the executives handling the account. Burson-Marsteller was brought aboard by McDermott Will & Emery and Crowell & Moring, the Washington law firms representing Blackwater. BKSH, a self-described "bipartisan" firm (Hillary Clinton, when pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination, was also a client), is headed by Charlie Black, a prominent Republican political strategist and former chief spokesman for the Republican National Committee, and Scott Pastrick, former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee.

In his testimony before Congress, Prince said his company lacked remedies to deal with employee misdeeds. When asked why Andrew Moonen had been "whisked out of the country" after the shooting death of the vice-presidential guard, he replied, "We can't flog him, we can't incarcerate him." When asked by a member of Congress for financial information about his company, Prince declined to provide documentation, saying, "we're a private company, and there's a key word there – private." Later he stated that the company could provide it at a future date if questions were submitted in writing. When the term "mercenaries" was used to describe Blackwater employees, Prince objected, characterizing them as "loyal Americans."

A staff report compiled by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on behalf of Representative Henry Waxman questioned the cost-effectiveness of using Blackwater forces instead of U.S. troops. Blackwater charged the government $1,222 per day per guard, "equivalent to $445,000 per year, or six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier," the report alleged. During his testimony on Capitol Hill, Erik Prince disputed this figure, saying that it costs money for the government to train a soldier, to house and feed them, they don't just come prepared to fight. "That sergeant doesn't show up naked and untrained," Prince stated. Moreover, he pointed out that Blackwater's employees were trained in special operations and exceeded the capabilities of the average soldier.

In the wake of Prince's testimony before Congress, the U.S. House amended the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act in October 2007. The new legislation, H.R.2740 - the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act of 2007, expanded the original scope to MEJA to encompass all security contractors working overseas, not only those working under the Department of Defense. This subsequently led to the prosecution by U.S. courts of some U.S. military contractors, but only for incidents involving attacks on U.S. nationals. The legal status of Blackwater and other security firms in Iraq was a subject of contention. Two days before he left Iraq, L. Paul Bremer signed "Order 17" giving all Americans associated with the CPA and the American government immunity from Iraqi law. A July 2007 report from the American Congressional Research Service indicates that the Iraqi government still has no authority over private security firms contracted by the U.S. government. On October 5, 2007, the State Department announced new rules for Blackwater's armed guards operating in Iraq. Under the new guidelines, State Department security agents will accompany all Blackwater units operating in and around Baghdad. The State Department will also install video surveillance equipment in all Blackwater armored vehicles, and will keep recordings of all radio communications between Blackwater convoys in Iraq and the military and civilian agencies that supervise their activities.

In December 2008, a U.S. State Department panel recommended that Xe should be dropped as the main private security contractor for U.S. diplomats in Iraq.

On January 30, 2009, the State Department told Blackwater Worldwide that it will not renew its contract in Iraq. However, in 2010 it was awarded a $100 million contract from the CIA.

Regardless of these developments, Xe defended its work in Iraq. A company spokeswoman stated: "When the US government initially asked for our help to assist with an immediate need to protect Americans in Iraq, we answered the call and performed well. We are proud of our success – no-one under our protection has been killed or even seriously wounded."

In August 2010, the company agreed to pay a $42 million fine to settle allegations that it unlawfully provided armaments and military equipment overseas. However, the company is still allowed to accept government contracts. The settlement and fine conclude a U.S. State Department investigation that began in 2007.

Iraqi courts

On September 23, 2007, the Iraqi government said that it expects to refer criminal charges to its courts in connection with the Blackwater shootings. However, on October 29, 2007, immunity from prosecution was granted by the U.S. State Department, delaying a criminal inquiry into the September 16 shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians. Immediately afterwards, the Iraqi government approved a draft law to end any and all immunity for foreign military contractors in Iraq, to overturn Order 17. The U.S. Department of Justice also said any immunity deals offered to Blackwater employees were invalid, as the department that issued them had no authority to do so. It is unclear what legal status Blackwater Worldwide operates under in the U.S. and other countries, or what protection the U.S. extends to Blackwater Worldwide's operations globally. A number of Iraqi families took Blackwater to court over alleged "random killings committed by private Blackwater guards".

Legal specialists say that the U.S. government is unlikely to allow a trial in the Iraqi courts, because there is little confidence that trials would be fair. Contractors accused of crimes abroad could be tried in the United States under either military or civilian law; however, the applicable military law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, was changed in 2006, and appears to now exempt State Department contractors that provide security escorts for a civilian agency. Prosecution under civilian law would be through the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which allows the extension of federal law to civilians supporting military operations; however, according to the deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's criminal division, Robert Litt, trying a criminal case in federal court would require a secure chain of evidence, with police securing the crime scene immediately, while evidence gathered by Iraqi investigators would be regarded as suspect.

The Iraqi government announced that Blackwater must leave Iraq as soon as a joint Iraqi–U.S. committee finishes drafting the new guidelines on private contractors under the current Iraqi–U.S. security agreement. On January 31, 2009, the U.S. State Department notified Blackwater that the agency would not renew its security contract with the company. The Washington Times reported on March 17, 2009, that the U.S. State Department had extended its Iraq security contract with Blackwater's air operations arm, Presidential Airways, to September 3, 2009, for a cost of $22.2 million.

On January 31, 2010, three current and former U.S. government officials confirmed the Justice Department is investigating whether officials of Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining the firm's security work in Iraq after the shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad, which left 17 Iraqis dead and stoked bitter resentment against the United States. The officials said that the Justice Department's fraud section opened the inquiry late in 2009 to determine whether Blackwater employees violated a federal law banning American corporations from paying bribes to foreign officials. In 2012 the Department of Justice closed the investigation without filing any charges.

Lawsuits

In the March 2004 court case Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security, Blackwater was sued by the families of four contractors killed in Fallujah. The families said they were suing not for financial damages, but for the details of their sons' and husbands' deaths, saying that Blackwater had refused to supply these details, and that in its "zeal to exploit this unexpected market for private security men," the company "showed a callous disregard for the safety of its employees." On February 7, 2007, four family members testified in front of the House Government Reform Committee. They asked that Blackwater be held accountable for future negligence of employees' lives, and that federal legislation be drawn up to govern contracts between the Department of Defense and defense contractors. Blackwater then countersued the lawyer representing the empty estates of the deceased for $10 million on the grounds the lawsuit was contractually prohibited from ever being filed. In January 2011, U.S. district judge James C. Fox dismissed the suit.

On November 27, 2004, an aircraft operated by Presidential Airways and owned by its sister company, Blackwater AWS, crashed in Afghanistan; it had been a contract flight for the United States Air Force en route from Bagram to Farah. Three soldiers and three civilian crew members aboard the plane were killed. Several relatives of the victims filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Presidential in October 2005.

On October 11, 2007, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit against Blackwater under the Alien Tort Claims Act on behalf of an injured Iraqi and the families of three of the 17 Iraqis killed by Blackwater employees during the September 16, 2007, Blackwater Baghdad shootings. The suit, Abtan v. Blackwater, alleged that Blackwater had engaged in war crimes, created a "culture of lawlessness", and routinely deployed employees who used steroids and other psychoactive drugs.

In June 2009, an amended lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, alleging that Blackwater employees shot and killed three members of an Iraqi family, including a nine-year-old boy, who were traveling from the Baghdad airport to Baghdad on July 1, 2007. The suit further accused Blackwater employees of murder, weapons smuggling, money laundering, tax evasion, and child prostitution. Two affidavits filed as part of the suit by former employees accuse Blackwater of encouraging the murder of Iraqi civilians, and of murdering or having murdered employees who intended to testify against the company. The lawsuit was ultimately settled confidentially in 2010, with plaintiffs accepting cash payments from the company.

Federal prosecution

In August 2012, the company agreed to pay $7.5 million in fines, without admitting guilt, to the U.S. government to settle various charges involving pre-Academi personnel. February 2013, the majority of the remaining charges were dropped when it was shown that, in many cases, the Blackwater employees had been acting under the orders of the U.S. government. Once the court decision had been finalized, Academi pointed out that "[t]he court decision involves former Blackwater executives, none of whom have ever worked for ACADEMI or the current ownership."

After the Nisour Square killings of 17 Iraqi civilians and the injury of 20 more by Blackwater convoy guards in a Baghdad traffic circle in September 2007, charges were brought against five guards. One pleaded guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for his testimony for the prosecution. Three were eventually convicted in October 2014 of 14 manslaughter charges and in April 2015 sentenced to 30 years plus one day in prison. These sentences were deemed unfair upon appeal and these three await resentencing. Another was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison; however, this verdict was overturned in August 2017.

On December 22, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors serving long prison terms: Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard. The pardons do not establish innocence; however, they were criticised, both in the U.S. and in Iraq, as condoning killing of innocent civilians.