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NBC and CBS both assigned reporters to follow up on Blackwater USA, now the State Department has decided to use cameras and tape recorders to monitor the conduct of diplomatic bodyguards in Iraq. CBS' David Martin reflected that the new scrutiny "seems like a vote of no confidence…the State Department is no longer willing to take Blackwater's word." Besides the Iraq security contracts that represent its "biggest bonanza," as CBS' Bob Orr put it, the North Carolina based firm also trains police SWAT teams and military sharpshooters. Its boss Erik Prince was a White House intern during the first Bush Presidency and has become a loyal campaign contributor to Republican Party causes, donating $217,000--compared with $5,000 to the Democrats--over the past decade. From Baghdad, NBC's Richard Engel demonstrated the monumental task that has been contracted to Blackwater and other civilian security firms. He called the main distribution center for reconstruction aid "just enormous. There is warehouse after warehouse. It is five times the size of the Pentagon. All of the convoys that move these goods are dependent on private security. Without them the army would need thousands more soldiers here."
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