The Obama administration has awarded a second contract to the private military firm Blackwater in less than a week. The Washington Post reports Blackwater has landed a $100 million deal to guard CIA facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The news comes just days after Blackwater offshoot US Training Center won a $120 million contract to guard US consulates in two Afghan towns. At a hearing of the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan this week, a top State Department official was repeatedly asked whether Blackwater’s past performance, notably the massacre of seventeen Iraqi civilians in September 2007, had been factored into the decision to grant it a new contract. The official, International Programs assistant director Charlene Lamb, initially claimed Blackwater’s past performance was weighed equally with two other factors. But after conferring with a colleague following additional questioning, Lamb retracted her statement.

Charlene Lamb: “Let us get back to you. We were not prepared to answer that question today, and this is out of my ballpark.”

Clark Kent Ervin: “So you don’t have any idea what the relative weight was?”

Charlene Lamb: “I don’t want to guess, sir, please.”