CBS News has learned in an exclusive report that the State
Department has awarded a part of what was formerly known as Blackwater
Worldwide a contract worth more than $120 million for providing security
services in Afghanistan.
Private security firm
U.S. Training Center, a
business unit of the Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater, now called Xe
Services, was awarded the contract Friday, a State Department
spokeswoman said Friday night.
. . .
The Justice Department is also trying to prosecute a case against five
Blackwater guards who had opened fire on a crowded Baghdad street in
2007. Last December, a federal judge
dismissed
the U.S. government's case against the guards in the deaths of
unarmed Iraqi civilians killed in the shooting because prosecutors used
sworn statements the guards gave under a promise of immunity. Federal
prosecutors are continuing to appeal the dismissal.