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Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War

2009

Synopsis

The world first learned of Blackwater USA in March 2004 when several of its men were ambushed and killed inFallujah, Iraq. Their bodies were badly beaten, and two were then hung from a bridge as a sign of Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation. In the years that followed, Blackwater grew to become one of the U.S. government’s most trusted partners in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite headline-grabbing controversies such as the shooting of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007.

Based on her extraordinary access to Blackwater founder Erik Prince and dozens of his key executives, author Suzanne Simons offers a riveting, eye-openingportrait of the former Navy SEAL andthe company that became the face ofprivate warfare in the twenty-first century. Prince sat atop an empire that not only included a massive training complex for military and law enforcement but alsocomprised an entire aviation division thatcatered to military needs in the world’s most dangerous locations and a privatespy company run by former top CIA men. Master of War is an intimate look at the riseand fall of an extraordinary company - led by a contemporary prince, unaccountable to American voters, with the instruments of war at his disposal.

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