Scahill, Jeremy. Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. New York: Nation Books, 2007. 452 pages.

Blackwater was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a Christian fundamentalist, with part of the $1.35 billion from the sale of his father's auto-parts business. Eventually Blackwater contracted with the U.S. State Department to guard diplomats in Iraq. They recruited a bunch of trigger-happy ex-SEALs and ex-Special Forces cowboys, and earned more than $600 million in revenue in 2008. A third of that was from the U.S. contract, and the rest from an aviation business and a military training operation in Moyock, North Carolina.

On September 16, 2007, Blackwater was involved in a shooting incident that left 17 Iraqis dead. This book went to press earlier that year, at a time when Blackwater still enjoyed a little bit of favorable publicity for its work in Iraq. As of 2009, the Justice Department has charged five of Blackwater's men for their alleged role in the incident, and the government of Iraq has denied Blackwater a license to work in Iraq. Blackwater USA changed its name to Blackwater Worldwide, and now it's been changed again to Xe, in an effort to rid themselves of the Blackwater stigma. The parent company is called EP Investments LLC. While this book does an excellent job of covering Blackwater's rise to stardom, just two years later the company finds itself in very different circumstances.
ISBN 1-56025-979-5

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