Report: Blackwater OK'd payments to Iraqis

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Blackwater tried to buy the silence of Iraqi officials after the company's security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians, former company officials said.

The former company officials told The New York Times executives of Blackwater Worldwide had authorized secret payments totaling about $1 million to Iraqi officials in return for the officials' agreeing to mute criticism and to support the company after the September 2007 shootings in Baghdad.

Blackwater, the Times said, approved the payments in December 2007 after U.S. and Iraqi investigators had determined the shootings were unjustified and Iraqi officials called for the company to leave the country.

The newspaper reported four former Blackwater executives said Gary Jackson, then the company's president, approved the bribes and that the money went from Amman, Jordan, where the company has offices, to Iraq. The officials, however, told the Times they did not know if the cash went to Iraqi officials or the names of potential recipients.

Blackwater worried it could be refused an operating license it needed to keep contracts, worth hundreds of millions, with the U.S. State Department and private clients, the report said.

The company has since changed its name to Xe.

The bribery attempt divided company officials, the Times said. It quoted officials as saying Cofer Black, then the company's vice chairman, had asked the company's chairman and founder, Erik Prince, about the bribery plan, and Prince did not deny it.