Spencer Ackerman November 9, 2007, 2:49 PM

Washington versus Cornwallis. Napoleon versus Wellington. 50 Cent versus Ja Rule. And now: DynCorp versus Blackwater!

The Raleigh News & Observer’s Joseph Neff reports that on a recent conference call with investors, DynCorp CEO Herb Lanese had some not-particularly-nice words about his chief competitor in the security contracting world. Like:

But I do want you to know that in this narrow space in which we compete with Blackwater, we believe we are a very different company.

For example, we are highly selective in our hiring practices. We operate very, disciplined security teams. We enforce a strict, no-alcohol policy, strict no-alcohol — not eight hours prior to going up on a work assignment, but no alcohol period.

And:

And we’ve developed our own rules for the use of force that are more detailed than those issued by the U.S. government. In fact, our rules for the use of force are based on the most conservative elements of the three sets of rules in effect in Iraq.

And:

We’re not in the game of firing people after we hire them. We’re in the game of being selective in hiring the right people upfront. That is a really important distinction.

Oh, snap! Who knew: it turns out Herb Lanese rolls straight gangsta. Erik Prince, are you just gonna take that?

Iraq Contractors