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Cofer Black, vice chairman of army-for-hire contractor, Blackwater USA, is Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s national security advisor. It raises the remote possibility that a mercenary, a believer in outsourced war, could wind up as a cabinet member in charge of national security affairs.
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CIA career up to 1999
At the CIA, Black trained for the clandestine service and volunteered for Africa due to his childhood experiences there. During his CIA career, Black served a total of six foreign tours in field management positions.
Initially, he worked as a case officer in Lusaka, Zambia during the Rhodesian War next door. He transferred to Somalia for two years during a Cold War proxy conflict between Ethiopians and Somalis in the sands of the Ogaden desert. He worked in South Africa during the National Party government's's war against guerrilla movements opposing the apartheid system. While assigned to Kinshasa, Zaire, Black was involved in the Reagan Administration's covert action program to arm anti-communist guerrillas in neighboring Angola.
In 1993, Black transferred from London, England to Khartoum, Sudan, where he served as CIA Station Chief until 1995. This was at a low point in U.S.-Sudanese relations, particularly over the latter country's sponsorship of terror and the harboring of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Black oversaw the collection of human intelligence on terrorist cells and support structures, and toward the end of his tenure, he was targeted by Al Qaeda for assassination. Black was also responsible for the collection of intelligence that directly led to the 1994 capture of the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.
In 1995, Black was named the Task Force Chief in the Near East and South Asia Division. From June 1998 through June 1999, he served as the Deputy Chief of the Latin America Division.<2>
]Director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, 1999-2002
In June 1999 CIA chief George Tenet named Cofer Black director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC).<3> In this capacity, Black served as the CIA Director's Special Assistant for Counterterrorism as well as the National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism.<4> Black's promotion was a part of Tenet's grand "Plan" for dealing with al-Qaeda. Black was the operational chief in charge of this effort. Tenet also put "Richard", one of his own assistants, in charge of the CTC's bin Laden tracking unit.
Black still headed the CTC at the time of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofer_BlackMeanwhile, Blackwater is deep in the camp of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Cofer Black is Romney's senior adviser on counterterrorism. At the recent CNN/YouTube debate, when Romney refused to call waterboarding torture, he said, "I'm not going to specify the specific means of what is and what is not torture so that the people that we capture will know what things we're able to do and what things we're not able to do. And I get that advice from Cofer Black, who is a person who was responsible for counterterrorism in the CIA for some thirty-five years." That was an exaggeration of Black's career at the CIA (he was there twenty-eight years and head of counterterrorism for only three), but a Romney presidency could make Blackwater's business under Bush look like a church bake sale.
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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/scahill