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Exit Interview: Outgoing Blackwater Chief on Why He Owes No Apologies
Sara D. Davis / AP Photo
After 11 years at the helm of the controversial military company he founded, Erik Prince is stepping down. In an interview with The Daily Beast, he talks about why he’s proud of Blackwater’s work, the future of the company, and whether he expects the Obama administration to keep his firm on the payroll.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Erik Prince, the outgoing CEO of Blackwater Worldwide, said his decision to step down from the company today, along with longtime executive Gary Jackson, is part of the business' natural evolution.
“We've been at this for 11 years,” Prince, a former Navy SEAL, said. “The military rotates leadership every 1½ to two years. Myself and Gary, we've grown this thing from when it was nothing and it was time to turn it over to the next generation of leadership.”
“I’d say [Blackwater] performed above and beyond the scope of our contract and did exactly what our customers hired us to do,” Prince said.
Prince said that Blackwater's new president, Joe Yorio, would be better suited to cement its position as a large-scale international company rather than the smaller domestic operation he founded in 1997. He likened the process to “sending the business off to college.”
“In Joe Yorio you find a guy who's smarter at business than I am,” Prince said. “I'm an entrepreneur and idea guy; he's a professional businessman.”
The move comes amidst a brutal stretch for Blackwater Worldwide in which the company has suffered major financial setbacks and watched its public image disintegrate in the press.
In December, federal prosecutors charged five Blackwater employees with 14 counts of manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter, the result of an investigation into a 2007 shootout in Baghdad in which some 17 Iraqis were killed. According to prosecutors, at least 14 Iraqis—all civilians—were killed directly by Blackwater employees, who allegedly fired a grenade into a girls' school and shot at unarmed innocents fleeing the battle. A sixth employee has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the case. The remaining defendants' attorneys contend they were acting in self defense.
The case cemented Blackwater’s reputation for trigger-happy recklessness that's led critics in Washington and the military to condemn the company for failing to professionally carry out its operations.
When asked about the charges, Prince declined to address specific allegations regarding its employees serving in Iraq.
“I'd say we performed above and beyond the scope of our contract and did exactly what our customers hired us to do,” Prince said.
In December, he rebutted critics who derided the company as beholden to no law but its own with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that the current trial showed that its members were within the scope of the law and that their operations save American lives.
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Thanks to Eric and the Blackwater organization. Your service to this great Nation is greatly appreciated by this American. Disregard the appeasers. Continue to do what you can to protect our Nation.
Can you say Douche Bag?
A. Blackwater does not do offensive operations? I guess that's how those 17 civilians got killed.
B. Blackwater is needed because the U.S. military is smaller than it used to be? Other way around. Blackwater and other mercenary firms and their allies in the Bush junta saw a profit opportunity by outsourcing yet another public function and took it.
C. Blackwater is poster boy for everything wrong with America. Giant profits first, violence second, people last.
Prince and his colleagues are scum.
Good riddance. What does it say about the US if it has to rely on mercenaries. And that crap about how these are veterans serving their country again? If they wanted to keep serving their country they'd put a real uniform back on.
I really love the Adolf haircut.
These mercenaries have no business performing the duties of our military personnel. The reason that the ranks of this group of murderers for hire has grown is because of the huge pay compared with our military personnel. Pay our military more, and the ranks will grow. Save us money on "contracts" with these murderers and our real military heros will reap the rewards. Further, I don't want the likes of this man or his band or killers policing the streets of America in any way shape or form.
I am with most of the other posters here, except Peter0000 (he is such a zero he repeats it 4X). If military veterans want to serve the country they can re-enlist. They will be honored for doing so, instead of being looked upon as mercenaries out to serve their own wallets. The idea that you can serve your country in a military capacity and make a fortune is nuts. And if the need is great enough, bring back the draft. Don't follow Peter's advice and appease big business.
There is no lower form of scum on the planet than mercenaries. Mercenaries are accountable to now one, and they cut and run when the money isn't there, a nation as great as America should be spending the money wasted on mercenary scum like Erik Prince and using it to give our troops, who actually risk their lives instead of shooting civilians, to get them better equipment, better pay and better care when they are wounded fighting our countries war.
It's sickening that any tax payer money should spent paying cowards like Erik Prince, and for what, to ruin America's reputation and commit murder and rape in Iraq.
Nothing burns me up more than this topic.
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I for one would like to know what Prince's firm and employees were doing the few weeks prior to 911 and post 911? Any deployments to New York?
I love Mercenaries... awesome stuff.
"BIG BOY RULES":
GET PAID BIG MONEY TO TRAVEL TO FOREIGN LANDS, MEET INTERESTING PEOPLE, AND KILL THEM! (and not have to put up with military-govt. chicken shit)
SIGN ME UP ASAP!
LMAO, all these "MERC" haters... (i.e. uppity liberals) I dont see them going out and enlisting/serving America, too busy reading the Daily Beast (yes, Im a Conservative American Patriot who reads the daily Beast... gotta know your enemy! -HA)
This guy is a scumbag and should be in jail for conspiracy to commit murder and not doing interviews. From gunning down civilians to raping their employees Blackwater has shown that it is one class act (insert sarcasm).
Kinky neo con: You neo cons are all kinky with your trips to the mens bathroom and support of gay prostitutes so no need to preface. Also, how old are you? 15? PS: Conservative and Patriot don't really go too well together these days. Instead of signing up why don't you come spend a night in my neighborhood without a gun? Then we would see who the real pu*sy is.
Why was my post removed? Nothing incendiary about it.
Quite possibly the last thing the American military need to be doing is hiring contractors to point guns at people.
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Where is MarineLtCol? Surely this must make his blood boil! But no. Free markets. Don't pay the Marines more, just hire a mercenary for ten times as much.
Prince for President in '12!
The guys at BlackWater are unusually courageous men who do a dangerous job without complaining- compared to the Bush hater/Metro-sexual Bottom-boyz (whose courage extends to shooting up other players on Grand Theft Auto in between bong hits.)
Thank you Mr. Prince for your service to your country and for protecting all of those who "chose" to use your service and the men that "chose" to work for your company and were previously in the military and put their lives on the line for our freedoms. Like the one to post on this blog freely.
You may not like what they did (even though you all act like you have first hand knowledge of what they actually did as if you were present) but there are many politicians...democrat and republicans as weill as others that are thankful and happily "chose" their services for a reason...because they are good at it. Good for them! Everyone works to make a living. Dont bash them for doing a superior job. I wonder what all of you would have done in the charged BW mens place when you are faced in their situation.
As for Erik Prince...thank God for men and women like him that have the guts and pride to serve our country.. when they could have lived off their parents wealth...he made something of himself. Whether you like it or not.
"at least 14 Iraqis-all civilians-were killed directly by Blackwater employees, who allegedly fired a grenade into a girls' school and shot at unarmed innocents fleeing the battle"
How can you reason with someone who lavishes praise on an organisation that is accused of this and numerous other similar atrocities? America is about cherishing life regardless of an individual's ethnicity or religion. Those who overlook these atrocities to support their own hateful, prejudiced and racist point of view are clearly as unamerican as a person can be.
@kinky-neo-con:'I love Mercenaries... awesome stuff.'
I see, you're so patriotic that you want our nation to hire mercenaries instead of paying our troops an actual living wage?
Brilliant.
Unfortunately war is not all peace and love. And war has been apart of civilization since the beginning of time and will always be part of the world till the end. And most likely will be cause of the end.
Our troops and those that work after their service, the good guys....shouldnt be judged so harshly by a possible few that are bad. If you want to change how war has become a business....then you need to change the laws of war.
Just because I support the good guys of the service and of other organizations doesnt mean i am racist, hateful or prejudiced or even unAmerican....far from it and if you are so reasonable and right...you would look to the good that these people might do, not just the bad a few. I feel sorry for people llike you who are so caught up in bashing a few and not see the reality of the situation. No one wnats war or for familys to die. But in war it happens and until you stop war it will continue.
Just as it will happen in Iraq...it will happen in Afghanistan under President Obama. If you dont think troops and services such as Blackwater are not going to be used, you are wrong. Because they already are.
War may not be all peace and love, but civilized people still fight in civilized ways. That's why we have the Geneva Conventions. The good guys are always the civilians, and anyone who willfully and wantonly kills civilians is a murderer. The life of one civilian is worth far more than all the mercenaries in the world.
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"Maybe you are from nothing - and think nothing of crawling after yet another GREEDY, INCOMPETENT, CRIMINAL, REPUBLICAN HERO - look at me, I said maybe, but unlike you - the rest of us have had to work hard for our money and love our country and everything the liberties, principles, and freedoms of America stand for - and we will not surrender them to another MURDERING REPUBLICAN. No good woman - we will not."
How sad and pathetic that statement is, since you have no clue if I am a man, woman, independent, dem, repub, or liberatarian......but you "assum" you know where I have come from.
It is sad that just because someone may have another opinion from yours....it has to be wrong and incometent, criminal etc....blah blah blah.
Thank God or whatever higher being you believe in....for our service men and women that have given their lives or even a drop of sweat to allow us to banter back and forth with no consequences.
Unlike your rude and crude untruths, everyone has a voice and I dont have to yell or have disrespect in anothers beliefs or opinons or political status.
Erik Prince had a choice to serve his country or live comfortably and he chose to serve his country like so many others. I see no crime or being greedy in that.
Your tax dollars are spent by your politicans. Why dont you channel your anger and negative energy towards them who spend them? It may be more productive.
OH..ps. I am from a middle class family that works their hind ends off for everything they have and very proud of it. Nothing has been handed to me as a single mother who instills the same hard working morals to her children. Nothing is free. Including FREEDOM.
Thank you.
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