Starting from a secret department in North Carolina, the company before known like Blackwater it assumed a more important paper in the program of counter-terrorism of Washington: the use of airplanes operated by remote control to kill leaders of Al Qaeda, according to government’s authorities and current and old employees of the company.

The operations of the department are accomplished in secret bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the employees of the company set up and carry missiles Hellfire and bombs of 230 kilos guided by laser in Predator airplanes operated by remote control, a work that before was done by employees of the Central Agency of Intelligence of the USA, CIA. They also make the safety of the secret bases, informed officials.

The paper of the company in the Predator program makes clear the level of dependence of CIA in relation to outsourced companies to do some of the most important tasks of the agency. And it illustrates the capacity of recovery of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, in spite of most of the people inside and out of the company still if they refer to her as Blackwater. It grew with the work for the government, in spite of having attracted critics and violence accusations in Iraq.

The paper of the outsourced companies of intelligence expanded after the attacks of September 11, once the espionage agencies were forced to fill out the created gaps after their workforce was reduced during the nineties, after the end of the Cold war.

More than a fourth of the workforce of the intelligence services are formed by outsourced companies, entrusted of missions as collection and analysis of information and, until recently, of the terrorism suspects’ interrogation.

Via: NYT.