[Peace-discuss] Blackwater-Spying

[Roger Epperson]

(Washington Post) Blackwater Delves Into Spying
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110307Z.shtml

    Blackwater's Owner Has Spies for Hire
    By Dana Hedgpeth
    The Washington Post

    Saturday 03 November 2007

Ex-US operatives dot firm's roster.
    First it became a brand name in security for its
work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it's taking on
intelligence.

    The Prince Group, the holding company that owns
Blackwater Worldwide, has been building an operation
that will sniff out intelligence about natural
disasters, business-friendly governments, overseas
regulations and global political developments for
clients in industry and government.

    The operation, Total Intelligence Solutions, has
assembled a roster of former spooks - high-ranking
figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense
intelligence - that mirrors the slate of former
military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is
Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at
CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency's
more controversial programs, including the rendition
and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the
detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas.

    Its chief executive is Robert Richer, a former CIA
associate deputy director of operations who was
heavily involved in running the agency's role in the
Iraq war.

    Total Intelligence Solutions is one of a growing
number of companies that offer intelligence services
such as risk analysis to companies and governments.
Because of its roster and its ties to owner Erik
Prince, the multimillionaire former Navy SEAL, the
company's thrust into this world highlights the
blurring of lines between government, industry and
activities formerly reserved for agents operating in
the shadows.

    Richer, for instance, once served as the chief of
the CIA's Near East division and is said to have ties
to King Abdullah of Jordan. The CIA had spent millions
helping train Jordan's intelligence service in
exchange for information. Now Jordan has hired
Blackwater to train its special forces.

    "Cofer can open doors," said Richer, who served 22
years at the CIA. "I can open doors. We can generally
get in to see who we need to see. We don't help pay
bribes. We do everything within the law, but we can
deal with the right minister or person."

    Total Intel, as the company is known, is bringing
"the skills traditionally honed by CIA operatives
directly to the board room," Black said. Black had a
28-year career with the CIA.

    "They have the skills and background to do
anything anyone wants," said RJ Hillhouse, who writes
a national security blog called The Spy Who Billed Me.
"There's no oversight. They're an independent company
offering freelance espionage services. They're
rent-a-spies."

    The heart of Total Intel operations is a suite on
the ninth floor of an office tower in Ballston,
patterned after the CIA counterterrorist center Black
once ran, with analysts sitting at cubicles in the
center of the room and glass offices of senior
executives on the perimeter.

    A handful of analysts in their 20s and 30s sit
hunched over Macintosh computers, scanning Web sites,
databases, newspapers and chat rooms. The lights are
dimmed. Three large-screen TVs play in the background,
one tuned to al-Jazeera.

    The room, called the Global Fusion Center, is
staffed around the clock, as analysts search for
warnings on everything from terrorist plots on radical
Islamic Web sites to possible political upheavals in
Asia, labor strikes in South America and Europe, and
economic upheavals that could affect a company's
business.

    "We're not a private detective," Black said. "We
provide intelligence to our clients. It's not about
taking pictures. It's business intelligence. We
collect all information that's publicly available.
This is a completely legal enterprise. We break no
laws. We don't go anywhere near breaking laws. We
don't have to."

    Total Intel was launched in February by Prince,
who a decade ago opened a law enforcement training
center in Moyock, N.C., that has since grown into a
half-billion-dollar business called Blackwater
Worldwide. Prince has nine other companies and
subsidiaries in his Prince Group empire, offering a
broad range of security and training services. (One,
Blackwater Security Consulting, is under scrutiny
because of a Sept. 16 shooting incident in Iraq that
involved some of its armed guards and in which 17
Iraqi civilians were killed.) Prince built Total Intel
by buying two companies owned by Matt Devost, the
Terrorism Research Center and Technical Defense, and
merging them with Black's consulting group, the Black
Group. Devost, a cyber security and risk management
expert, is now president of Total Intel.

    Devost runs day-to-day operations, overseeing 65
full-time employees. At the Global Fusion Center,
young analysts monitor activities in more than 60
countries. They include a 25-year-old Fulbright
scholar fluent in Arabic and another person with a
master's degree in international affairs, focused on
the Middle East, who tracks the oil industry and
security in Saudi Arabia.

    Black and Richer spend much of their time
traveling. They won't say where. It's a CIA thing.
Black called at midnight recently to talk about Total
Intel from "somewhere in the Middle East."

    "I don't spend a lot of time telling people where
I am as part of my business," he said. "I am discreet
in where I go and who I see. I spend most of my time
dealing with senior people in governments, making
connections."

    Black, who also serves as vice chairman of
Blackwater Worldwide, said he also does "a lot more
mundane things like go to conferences and trade
shows," looking for business opportunities. "I'm going
to have to go," he said. "My guy is motioning for me.
I have to go meet people."

    Who?

    People.

    Government people? Business people?

    All kinds.

    The company won't reveal its financial
information, the names of its customers or other
details of its business. Even looking at an analyst's
screen at its Global Fusion Center wasn't allowed.

    "No, no," Richer said, putting his hands up.
"There may be customers' names on there. We don't want
you to see."

    In their conference room overlooking the Global
Fusion Center, Total Intel executives fired off a list
of some of their work. Are some recent bombings at
major cities in India isolated incidents or should you
pull your personnel out? What are the political
developments in Pakistan going to mean for your
business? Is your company popping up on jihadist Web
sites? There's been crime recently in the ports of
Mexico, possibly by rogue police officers. Is the
government going to be able to ensure safety?

    Since 2000, the Terrorism Research Center portion
of the company has done $1.5 million worth of
contracts with the government, mainly from agencies
like the Army, Navy, Air Force, Customs and the U.S.
Special Operations Command buying its data
subscription or other services.

    To Black and Richer, one of the most surprising
things about being in the private sector is finding
that much of the information they once considered top
secret is publicly available. The trick, Richer said,
is knowing where to look.

    "In a classified area, there's an assumption that
if it is open, it can't be as good as if you stole
it," Richer said. "I'm seeing that at least 80 percent
of what we stole was open."

    As he's no longer with the CIA, Richer said he's
found that people are more willing to share
information. He said a military general in a country
he would not name told him of the country's plan to
build its next strike fighter. "I listened," Richer
said.

    "We talked business and where we could help him
understand markets and things like that." At the end
of the conversation, Richer said, he asked the man,
"Isn't that classified? Why are you telling me this?"

    Richer said the man answered, "If I tell it to an
embassy official I've created espionage. You're a
business partner."



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