The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned. The contract was due to expire this month. 
In this July 2005 file photo, contractors of the US private security firm Blackwater secure the site... 
In this July 2005 file photo, contractors of the US private security firm Blackwater secure the site of a roadside bomb attack near the Iranian embassy in central Baghdad. The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned.
(Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)
Sources say the department has agreed to temporarily continue using the subsidiary known as Presidential Airways to provide helicopter transport for embassy employees around Iraq until a new contract with another security company, Dyncorp International, is fully implemented. Presidential Airways is an arm of U.S. Training Center, which is a subsidiary of the company Xe, formerly and still commonly known as Blackwater.
In this July 2005 file photo, contractors of the US private security firm Blackwater secure the site... In this July 2005 file photo, contractors of the US private security firm Blackwater secure the site of a roadside bomb attack near the Iranian embassy in central Baghdad. The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned.
(Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images)
Sources say the department has agreed to temporarily continue using the subsidiary known as Presidential Airways to provide helicopter transport for embassy employees around Iraq until a new contract with another security company, Dyncorp International, is fully implemented. Presidential Airways is an arm of U.S. Training Center, which is a subsidiary of the company Xe, formerly and still commonly known as Blackwater.