Blackwater: Layoffs

_WashingtonPost (2008-11-05) Robert O Harrow _

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Blackwater: Layoffs

It turns out that trucking wasn't as lucrative as private security for Blackwater Worldwide.

One week after the government spurned the contractor's bid to build a lightweight tactical vehicle, Blackwater laid off an undisclosed number of employees from the manufacturing facility on the company's vast property in Moyock, N.C.

It's the second manufacturing setback for Blackwater, which had also developed a mine resistant rig known as an MRAP in the vain hope the Defense Department would change from the model currently in use, the Associated Press reported.

"We have stopped building all trucks," spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell told the Associated Press.

Government Inc. decided to write about this minor setback only because we believe Blackwater could be in the news -- and on the radar screen of the next administration -- in the not too distant future.

It's going to be interesting to see whether the coming debate over the government's extensive use of the company becomes a proxy for broader questions about the government's extensive use of contractors -- for everything from trucks to security forces.

By Robert O'Harrow | November 5, 2008; 5:46 AM ET