State Department Readies Billions For Mercenaries, Despite Hillary Clinton's Pledge: Wired

Report: State Department Readies Billions For Mercenaries, Possibly Including Blackwater, Despite Hillary Clinton's Pledge

Get ready to meet America's new mercenaries. They could be the same as the old ones.

Two State Department sources who requested anonymity say a new multi-billion contract for private security firms to protect diplomats is "about to drop." And one winner could well be Blackwater, or whatever it's calling itself these days. So much for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's one-time campaign pledge to ban "Blackwater and other private mercenary firms."

Neither source would say which private security firms have won the four-year contract or how much it will ultimately be worth. The last Worldwide Protective Services contract, awarded in 2005, went to Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp. Rough estimates place that contract's value at $2.2 billion.

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