CIA Director Leon Panetta says the agency has hired Xe (zee) Services — the company once known as Blackwater — for a $100 million contract to provide security in Afghanistan.
He says Xe underbid others by $26 million and that a CIA review concludes that the contractor has cleaned up its act.
Panetta says Moyock, N.C.-based Xe does not engage in actual CIA operations, but instead helps secure agency bases in war zones. Seven CIA employees, including security contractors, were killed in a suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan, in December.
Blackwater guards allegedly opened fire on unarmed civilians in Baghdad in 2007, killing 17 people. A federal grand jury has indicted five Blackwater officials on conspiracy weapons and obstruction of justice charges.