[10][11] Blackwater USA was formed on December 26, 1996,[2] by Al Clark[12] and Erik Prince in North Carolina, to provide training support to military and law enforcement organizations.

[17] However, this claim is denied by Prince and Blackwater executive Gary Jackson, who describe firing Smith from his position as a low-level administrator for "non-performance" after a thirty-day contract.

[18] BSC's first assignment was to provide twenty men with top-secret clearance to protect the CIA headquarters and another base that was responsible for hunting Osama bin Laden.

[21][22][23][24][25] Blackwater was hired during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to protect government facilities, as well as by private clients, including communications, petrochemical, and insurance companies.[why?

[35][36] In November 2006, Blackwater USA announced that it had acquired an 80-acre (32 ha) facility 120 miles (190 km) west of Chicago in Mount Carroll, Illinois, called Impact Training Center.

In October 2007, when wildfires swept through the area, Blackwater made at least three deliveries of food, water, personal hygiene products and generator fuel to 300 residents near the proposed training site, many of whom had been trapped for days without supplies.

"[46] In February 2009, Blackwater announced that it would be once again renamed, this time to "Xe Services LLC", as part of a company-wide restructuring plan,[47][48] intended to re-focus the company on its logistics, aviation and training aspects, rather than its security operations.

[69] USTC's primary training facility, located on 7,000 acres (28 km2) in northeastern North Carolina, comprises several ranges, indoor, outdoor, urban reproductions, a man-made lake, and a driving track in Camden and Currituck counties.

[citation needed] In 2011, the Pentagon contracted USTC to provide "intelligence analyst support and material procurement" for NATO in the ongoing Afghan drug war.

[74] According to Blackwater USA, it features "state of the art navigation systems, full GMDSS communications, SEATEL Broadband, dedicated command and control bays, helicopter decks, hospital and multiple support vessel capabilities".

[75] The company trains canines to work in patrol capacities as war dogs, explosives and drug detection, and various other roles for military and law enforcement duties.

After the September 11 attacks, Cofer Black, the former head of counter terrorism at the CIA, requested that the federal government hire more contractors to operate overseas.

[83] Presidential Airways (PAW) is a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Regulations Part 135 charter cargo and passenger airline based at Melbourne Orlando International Airport.

[87][88] A CASA 212 aircraft, tail number N960BW, operated by Presidential Airways crashed on November 27, 2004, in Afghanistan; it had been a contract flight for the United States Air Force en route from Bagram to Farah.

In a letter released on February 8, 2011, the new owners informed state officials that they are shutting down the Moyock, North Carolina, operation and moving some employees to a new business location in Melbourne, Florida.

[108] In March 2006, Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, allegedly suggested at an international conference in Amman, Jordan, that the company was ready to move towards providing security professionals up to brigade size (3,000–5,000) for humanitarian efforts and low-intensity conflicts.

[110] Mark Manzetti, writing in The New York Times on August 19, 2009, reported that the CIA had hired Blackwater "as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda.

"[111] Newly appointed CIA director Leon Panetta had recently acknowledged a planned secret targeted killing program, one withheld from Congressional oversight.

The report cited an unnamed source who has worked on covert U.S. military programs, who revealed that senior members of the Obama administration may not be aware that Blackwater is operating under a U.S. contract in Pakistan.

"[118][119] For work in Iraq, the company has drawn contractors from their international pool of professionals, a database containing "21,000 former Special Forces operatives, soldiers, and retired law enforcement agents," overall.

[101] For instance, Gary Jackson, the firm's president, has confirmed that Bosnians, Filipinos, and Chileans "have been hired for tasks ranging from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

As supplies and ammunition ran low, a team of Blackwater contractors 70 miles (113 km) away flew to the compound to resupply and bring an injured U.S. Marine back to safety outside of the city.

[134] In 2009, FBI investigators were unable to match the bullets from the shooting to those guns carried by Blackwater contractors, leaving open the possibility that insurgents also fired at the victims.

[135] In a 2010 interview, Erik Prince, the company's founder, said the government is looking for dirt to support what he dismissed as "baseless" accusations that run the gamut from negligence, racial discrimination, prostitution, wrongful death, murder, and the smuggling of weapons into Iraq in dog-food containers.

"[164] A staff report compiled by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on behalf of Representative Henry Waxman questioned the cost-effectiveness of using Blackwater forces instead of U.S. troops.

[165] During his testimony on Capitol Hill, Erik Prince disputed this figure, saying that it costs money for the government to train a soldier, to house and feed them, they don't just come prepared to fight.

Prosecution under civilian law would be through the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which allows the extension of federal law to civilians supporting military operations; however, according to the deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's criminal division, Robert Litt, trying a criminal case in federal court would require a secure chain of evidence, with police securing the crime scene immediately, while evidence gathered by Iraqi investigators would be regarded as suspect.

[183] The Washington Times reported on March 17, 2009, that the U.S. State Department had extended its Iraq security contract with Blackwater's air operations arm, Presidential Airways, to September 3, 2009, for a cost of $22.2 million.

[188][189][190] On November 27, 2004, an aircraft operated by Presidential Airways and owned by its sister company, Blackwater AWS, crashed in Afghanistan; it had been a contract flight for the United States Air Force en route from Bagram to Farah.

[203] On December 22, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors serving long prison terms: Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard.