Free Republic

BAGHDAD (AFP) — US security firm Blackwater ended its operations in Iraq on Thursday, closing a controversial era for the company whose guards shot dead 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. "The task order for security protection operations held by Blackwater comes to an end today in Baghdad," American embassy spokeswoman Susan Ziadeh said, adding that Triple Canopy will replace it. The US State Department on March 31 awarded Virginia-based Triple Canopy a contract reportedly worth nearly a billion dollars to take over protection of US government personnel in Iraq. Linked agreements such as that for Presidential Airways, part of...

WASHINGTON — A leading U.S. security firm, whose officers have been charged with killing Iraqis, has been replaced. The State Department has replaced Blackwater Worldwide as a leading security contractor in Iraq. Blackwater, now known as Xe, has been replaced by Triple Canopy a month before the contract with the former was scheduled to expire. "The department awarded Triple Canopy the ground task order for protective security details in Baghdad after a thorough evaluation of proposals from each company that had submitted bids," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said. In a briefing on April 1, Duguid said Triple, based in...

Private security companies, which have contributed 20,000 personnel to the occupation of Iraq, formed an alliance on April 6 in the wake of the March 31 attack in Fallujah that killed four employees of Blackwater USA. This attack was apparently a set-up by real (or fake) members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. The purpose of the alliance is to share information and to help each other out when things get rough. The number of people from companies like Blackwater USA, Meyer and Associates, and Triple Canopy, Inc., is slated to increase to 30,000 after the June 30 handover of...