Although the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) called Blackwater's contracts with State -- and before that with the Coalition Provisional Authority -- "no-bid contracts," Blackwater CEO Erik Prince wouldn't comment on SIGIR's definitions. But he said that because his company's security services were on the "GSA Schedule" -- that's the General Services Agency's list of services that contractors offer to the government for purchase -- they are "considered a bid." Prince said, "[I]t's like buying something from the Sears catalog," and he expected that his competitors had the same arrangement with State.

Waxman read from a July 2004 SIGIR assessment that said several Blackwater contracts were "sole-source directed." Prince said that no member of his company, to his knowledge, reached out to anyone in the White House or Congress for assistance in getting contracts (nor, he added, did his wife's well-connected GOP family), despite how rapidly Blackwater's contracts in Iraq ballooned from 2003 to the present.

Update: Prince, after conferring with aides, said that "one of the contracts I said was GSA schedule was in fact sole-source." He said he didn't know anything further and would get information to the committee about which contract that was and why.