UPDATE: SIGAR released corrected data on Thursday showing that Academi received $309 million in Pentagon contracts to supply Afghan counternarcotics operations–not the initially reported $569 million. The new figure puts Academi second, behind Northrop Grumman, in receiving the largest contracts servicing the Afghan drug war. The headline has been changed to reflect the new information. Read the latest story here.
A mercenary force infamous for a 2007 massacre in central Baghdad has received nearly $600 million from US taxpayers to clamp down on Afghan opium production—an effort that’s been widely reported as a complete failure.
New data released Tuesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) shows that the lion’s share of private contracting dollars spent by the Department of Defense in counter-narcotics operations is going to the security firm Academi—a corporation formerly known as Blackwater.
“Academi Training Center provided training, equipment, and logistical support to Afghan counternarcotics entities, including the Afghan National Interdiction Unit, the Ministry of Interior, and the Afghan Border Police,” SIGAR details.
Between 2002 and 2013, Academi received $569 million from the Pentagon for counternarcotic operations—a sum that accounted for 32 percent of all money spent on contractors involved in drug interdiction.
Other major defense and security companies like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon also did counternarcotics work in Afghanistan but none won bids worth half the value of the contracts secured by Academi.
Despite the national security investments, Afghanistan is still the world’s leading producer of opium. In a report released last December, SIGAR said that “Afghan farmers are growing more opium than ever before.”
The total value of the Afghan crop, often used to produce heroin, grew by roughly $1 billion between 2012 and 2013, capping off a steady increase in production since the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
Academi boasts of having 20,000 deployed soldiers worldwide annually conducting more than 80,000 security assignments. In 2010, the firm changed its name from “Blackwater,” after it was purchased by a group of investors.
Under its former moniker in 2007,the company gained notoriety after a group of employees opened fire on civilians in Nisour Square, in Baghdad. The assault killed 17 Iraqis and injured 20 others, and led the Iraqi government to temporarily revoke the firm’s business license
According to internal State Department memos released by investigative journalists James Risen, government officials said at the time of the shootings that, “Blackwater contractors saw themselves as above the law” and had created “an environment full of liability and negligence.”
The documents also allege that a Blackwater manager derailed a State Department investigation into the Nisour Square shooting by threatening to kill the government’s lead investigator.
Last October, three former employees of Blackwater were found guilty on manslaughter charges stemming from the 2007 massacre. On Monday, ahead of their sentencing, they asked a judge for leniency on the 30 year mandatory minimum prison sentence each is facing.
A fourth man was convicted on murder charges.
