Xe aims for a piece of expanding Afghan contracts

As the United States builds up its military presence in Afghanistan, private contractors are flocking there in even greater numbers. And Xe, the company formerly known as Blackwater, is in the hunt to get a share of the new work.

According to a report last week from the Congressional Research Service, there were about 64,000 uniformed U.S. troops in Afghanistan in September and 104,101 military contractors - 62 percent of the Defense Department work force there.

The Obama administration's planned deployment of 30,000 more troops in the coming months could require as many as 56,000 more contractors, the report estimated.

Xe, the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company, is already on the ground in Afghanistan despite its controversial history in Iraq, and is in the running for additional contracts.

A company executive faced skeptical questioning Friday at a hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, a bipartisan fact-finding panel created by Congress.

Fred Roitz, executive vice president, told the commission that Xe has security and training contracts in Afghanistan. Among other duties, he said, the company trains and mentors the Afghan border police, teaching such things as rifle skills, arrest procedures and narcotics interdiction.

Xe also is one of five pre-qualified companies competing for a new Defense Department contract to train the Afghan national police.

Commissioner Charles Tiefer, a Democratic appointee, asked Roitz whether Xe has provided the Pentagon with a full accounting of its performance under the State Department diplomatic security contract it held in Iraq from 2004 until this year.

Yes, Roitz responded: "Our past performance was generally good on that contract.

"We did have some issues a few years ago," he conceded.

Tiefer pressed, Did Xe include an accounting of the shooting incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in September 2007 in which 17 Iraqi civilians died, prompting the Iraqi government to refuse the company an operating license?

Roitz did not respond directly but cited a State Department report on the incident which he said found "lessons learned" and concluded that while individual guards may have been culpable, the company was not at fault.

Five former Blackwater guards are scheduled for trial in February on manslaughter charges stemming from the Nisoor Square incident. The company faces multiple civil suits filed on behalf of more than 60 Iraqis killed or wounded in that and other incidents.

Even though the company has lost its big Iraq security contract, it still has more than 2,000 contractors deployed worldwide, Roitz said.

The police training contract for which Xe is in the running had been run by the State Department but is being shifted to the Defense Department's Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office.

Falls Church-based DynCorp International, which has held the contract since 2003, is barred from bidding on it now because it is not one of that office's pre-qualified bidders. DynCorp has filed a protest, asking that the contract be opened up to full competition.

DynCorp was paid $118 million under the contract for the six months ended Oct. 2.

Commission Co-Chairman Christopher Shays, a former Republican congressman from Connecticut, said contractors play a vital role that is likely to grow as the U.S. buildup in Afghanistan goes forward.

One question that still needs to be answered, he said, is whether it is appropriate for contractors to be training the war-torn nation's armed forces.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com