Blackwater Bribed Iraqi Officials

The company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide is in hot water again, this time for $1 million in secret payments to keep Iraqi officials quiet. Four former executives of the firm now known as Xe Services are speaking anonymously about remittances that were intended to silence criticism from and buy support of Iraqi officials following an incident in 2007 where Blackwater security guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Blackwater's contracts in the country were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Gary Jackson, the company's president at the time, allegedly approved the bribes, and chairman and founder Erik Prince didn't rebut the accusations when confronted by the company's vice chairman.