Lack of Oversight and Accountability--That's The Whole Point

Highly trained personnel employed with the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide sometimes operated side by side with CIA field officers in Iraq and Afghanistan as the agency undertook missions to kill or capture members of insurgent groups in those countries, according to a former government official and a source familiar with the operations.

The actions taken by the private personnel went beyond the protective role specified in a classified Blackwater contract with the CIA and included active participation in raids overseen by CIA or special forces personnel, these sources said. They emphasized that roles and responsibilities often are blurred or altered in a battlefield setting, and that Blackwater personnel were drawn into the operations on an ad-hoc basis because they were present and had the necessary skills.

The above story is not at all surprising to me, after reading Legacy of Ashes, a history of the CIA.  The CIA has historically recruited all kinds of mercenaries to do their covert operations.  That's their modus operandi. 

Still, the involvement of Blackwater's officers in raids is likely to raise new questions about the degree to which deadly actions in Iraq and Afghanistan were outsourced to contract personnel who operated without direct contractual authority or without the kind of oversight and accountability applied to CIA and military personnel.

Hah! Oversight and accountability? For CIA covert agents and assets? You've got to be kidding me.  That's the whole point, to not be traceable back to the US government if caught.  'Plausible deniability,' as they say. 

Our 16 intelligence agencies have an annual budget approaching $50 billion.  As long as we're okay with that, then groups like Blackwater are going to get their share, and most of the time, we the public will know absolutely nothing about it.  That is what is being done in our name and with our money.