“Welfare Recreation”

The notorious private security firm Blackwater, currently Xe, was charging the government to fly a Filipina prostitute into Afghanistan and pay her a monthly salary as “morale welfare recreation”. “The troubled American private security company Blackwater faced fresh controversy today when two former employees accused it of defrauding the US government for years, including billing for a Filipina prostitute on its payroll in Afghanistan. According to Melan Davis, a former employee, Blackwater listed the woman for payment under the ‘morale welfare recreation’ category. The company, which allegedly employed her in Kabul, billed the ­government for her plane tickets and monthly salary, Davis said. Blackwater, renamed Xe last year apparently because of the bad publicity attached to its original name, is among the biggest private security firms employed by the state department and Pentagon in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most notorious incident involving Blackwater was the shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007. Charges against Blackwater employees in the US over the incident were dropped last year, prompting the Iraqi government to order hundreds of its security staff out of the country within the next few days.”