April 2006: Blackwater Vice Chairman Suggests Taking over Peacekeeping Operations

Blackwater Vice Chairman Cofer Black suggests that Blackwater troops be deployed to trouble spots around the world where there are humanitarian crises, such as the massacres in the Darfur region of Sudan. “Blackwater spends a lot of time thinking, ‘How can we contribute to the common good?’” Black tells the Special Operations Forces Exhibition in Jordan. He argues that big military operations tend to get mired in NATO’s bureaucracy and that Blackwater could easily send “a brigade-sized peacekeeping unit,” typically about 5,000 troops, “for a fraction of the cost of NATO operations.” [Boston Globe, 11/2/2007]