Blackwater Worldwide, Wal-Mart of modern war

ANALYSIS:

Say whatever you want about Blackwater Worldwide - and hardly a day goes by when something isn’t being said about it - it does not put all its eggs in one basket.

Long before the company’s recent announcement that it would seek to de-emphasize its personal security work in the future, it had created a diversified corporate structure. To use military terminology, it is a combined arms operation.

While most attention is focused on Blackwater Security Consulting, the unit that provides contractors for work in Iraq and elsewhere, there is far more to it than that.

Blackwater has long sought to be a one-stop shopping center, a sort of Wal-Mart for all the U.S. government’s military outsourcing needs, and a review of its business units shows it has gone a long way toward meeting that goal.

Consider Greystone Ltd., which is a Blackwater entity. A private security service, it is registered in Barbados and employs third-country nationals for offshore security work. Its Web site advertises its ability to maintain and train “a work force drawn from a diverse base of former special operations, defense, intelligence and law enforcement professionals ready on a moment’s notice for global deployment.” Tasks can be from very small-scale up to major operations to facilitate large-scale stability operations requiring large numbers of people to assist in securing a region.

Need something delivered by air? Look no further than Aviation Worldwide Services. AWS was founded by Richard Pere and Tim Childrey, and is based in Melbourne, Fla. Several of the MD-530 helicopters used by Blackwater Security Consulting in Iraq are operated by AWS.

AWS owns and operates three subsidiaries: STI Aviation Inc., Air Quest Inc. and Presidential Airways Inc. In April 2003 it was acquired by Blackwater USA. Blackwater also operates an airport at its North Carolina facility, called Blackwater Airstrip Airport.

Of course, some of these units have had their own controversies.

Presidential Airways is a charter cargo and passenger airline based at Melbourne International Airport. It holds a Secret Facility Clearance from the Pentagon. It operates several CASA 212 aircraft in addition to a Boeing 767.

Among other services, according to a European Parliament report, Presidential Airways has provided rendition flights to the CIA.

One of the firm’s aircraft crashed on Nov. 27, 2004, in Afghanistan; it had been a contract flight for the U.S. Air Force en route from Bagram to Farah. All aboard, three soldiers and three civilian crew members, died. Several of their survivors filed a wrongful-death suit against Presidential in October 2005.

In December 2006, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a critical report about the crash. It raised many questions about the safety of U.S. military personnel due to lack of oversight of contractors.

The NTSB found that the crew deliberately avoided the standard route and took a joy ride in another direction, eventually becoming trapped in a canyon and slamming into a mountainside. The report said that if the company had proper procedures for tracking aircraft and communicating with them, rescuers would have arrived in time to help Army Spc. Harley Miller, who survived the initial crash.

Presidential Airways was faulted for failing “to provide sufficient oversight of its flight crews, did not ensure that specific routes were defined and flown and had inadequate communications and flight-locating capability.”

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