The CIA has terminated a contract with the security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide that allowed the company to load bombs on CIA drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, intelligence officials said on Friday.
The contract gave employees with the company an operational role in one of the CIA’s most significant covert programs, which has killed dozens of militants with remotely piloted Predator and Reaper drones. The company’s involvement highlighted the extent to which the CIA had outsourced critical jobs to private companies since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The contract with the company, now called Xe Services, was canceled this year by CIA Director Leon Panetta, a CIA spokesman said. In August, the New York Times first revealed the existence of the contract, which was run by a division of the company called Blackwater Select, which handles classified contracts.
George Little, the CIA spokesman, said that Panetta had ordered that the agency’s employees take over the jobs from Xe employees at the remote drone bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that Panetta had also ordered a review of all contracts with the company.
“At this time, Blackwater is not involved in any CIA operations other than in a security or support role,” Little said.
The disclosure about the terminated contract comes a day after the Times reported that Blackwater employees had joined CIA operatives in secret “snatch and grab” operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Blackwater’s role in the raids grew out of contracts that the company had with the spy agency to provide security for the CIA in Kabul and Baghdad.
The company had a dual role in the drone program, said current and former employees and intelligence officials.
Contractors on the secret bases assembled and loaded Hellfire missiles and 230kg laser-guided bombs onto drones, and they also provided security at the CIA bases.
The CIA did not allow contractors to select targets for the drone attacks or pull the trigger on the strikes. That work that was done at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
But Blackwater’s direct role in the drone operations sometimes led to disputes between the contractors and CIA employees, as the spy agency sometimes accused Blackwater employees of poor weapon assembly if the missile or bomb missed a target.
In one instance last year, a 230kg bomb dropped off a Predator before the drone had launched its payload, leading to a frenzied search along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
A company employee said the bomb was eventually found not far from the intended target.
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