AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Jeremy Scahill, who covered, of course, Hurricane Katrina in the aftermath, Democracy Now! correspondent, wrote Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Jeremy, what’s happening today?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, last Friday, Blackwater sent out an email. This, of course, is the famous mercenary company that not only has operated in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was actually in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and beyond, in 2005 made $70 million in federal money just off of its Hurricane Katrina contracts. Last Friday, Blackwater sent out an email to its network of independent contractors. The company boasts of having some 20,000-plus individuals that it can call out at a moment’s notice. And the contract was looking for personnel that would be interested in deploying in, what the email said, areas affected by Hurricane Gustav.

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