NEW YORK, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Hardly had Blackwater CEO
Erik Prince completed a blitz of television interviews this week defending
his private security firm when officials in Iraq said they wanted the
company out of their country in the wake of the shooting deaths of Iraqi
civilians on September 16. Bill Moyers Journal, airing tonight at 9 on PBS,
looks at what's behind Prince's press offensive and the questions he didn't
answer and wasn't asked.
The program features an interview with award-winning investigative
journalist Jeremy Scahill, who is the author of the best-selling book:
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Scahill's
interview provides a chilling look at Blackwater which he says provides
"the largest private army on the US government payroll in Iraq."
"No private actor in the occupation of Iraq has had more of a
devastating impact on events in Iraq than Blackwater," Scahill tells
Moyers.
While in recent reports State Department officials said Blackwater
probably will be out of the business of guarding diplomats after its escort
contract expires next May, Scahill outlines the diverse company activities
that have allowed Prince, who founded the company, to grow Blackwater into
a huge business that isn't reliant on its Iraq contracts and has lucrative
domestic interests. Watch a clip from the interview now at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnVbulr2Pvw
"You have companies now that have been funded with billions of dollars
in public money using that money to then build up the infrastructure of
private armies some of which could take out a small national military," he
says. "This is a man who is building up nothing short of a parallel
national security apparatus."
Scahill has been following the rise of Blackwater for more than three
years and says it has contracts to provide training to military and law
enforcement in the US and has been the beneficiary "of the most radical
privatization agenda in our nation's history."
"We're seeing it full blown in the war machine," says Scahill. "The
very existence of the nation-state I think is at stake here."
Bill Moyers Journal airs Friday, October 19 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check
local listings). The episode will be available online immediately following
the broadcast and Jeremy Scahill will take questions on The Moyers Blog at
http://www.pbs.org/moyers.
Contact: Rick Byrne
Public Affairs Television
212-560-8406
byrner@thirteen.org
SOURCE Bill Moyers Journal
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Related links:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers
CONTACT:
Rick Byrne, Public Affairs Television,
+1-212-560-8406, byrner@thirteen.org, for Bill Moyers Journal
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