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 In a new Vanity Fair article, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince fashions himself as a swashbuckling Wild Bill Donovan recruited by the CIA to pull off the toughest, most clandestine operations. He comes off as vain and insecure. But if his account is correct, it rips open a closed package of secrets. 
 
 Prince offers details on the targeted assassination program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated earlier this year. He reveals something long-rumored but kept secret, even from the journalists who leaked details of the program. According to Prince, the Blackwater team traveled to Germany, surveilled Al Qaeda financier Mamoun Darkazanli, and prepared to assassinate him. The CIA did not inform its own station chief that the team was in the country, and they did not inform the host country. What Prince describes is a serious violation of NATO intelligence sharing arrangements -- and certainly provides an example of why the CIA's association with Blackwater became so controversial within the agency. It would also contradict what CIA Director Leon Panetta and others have told Congress, namely, that the program was never operational. As recently as two months ago, Prince and a team were overseeing intelligence missions in one of the Axis of Evil countries -- Iran, probably -- from a location inside the United States. ||||| The security firm formerly known as Blackwater is looking for new ownership, announcing Monday it is pursuing a sale of the company that became renowned and reviled for its involvement with the U.S. government in Iraq and elsewhere. 
 
 The Moyock, North Carolina-based company now called Xe Services announced its decision in a brief statement that gave few details. 
 
 "Xe's new management team has made significant changes and improvements to the company over the last 15 months, which have enabled the company to better serve the U.S. government and other customers, and will deliver additional value to a purchaser," the statement said. 
 
 Owner and founder Erik Prince said selling the company is a difficult decision, but constant criticsm of Xe helped him make up his mind. 
 
 "Performance doesn't matter in Washington, just politics," Prince said in a further statement. 
 
 The private company became famous as Blackwater, which provided guards and services to the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It became one of the most respected defense contractors in the world, but also attracted sharp criticism over its role in those missions. 
 
 It has been trying to rehabilitate its image since a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 people, outraged the Iraqi government and led to federal charges against several Blackwater guards. The accusations later were thrown out of court after a judge found prosecutors mishandled evidence. 
 
 In March, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin suggested the Pentagon should consider banning Xe from a $1 billion deal to train Afghan police. The Michigan Democrat said he thought the company's involvement was hindering the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. 
 
 Prince, who founded the company in 1997 along with former colleagues from the Navy SEALs, said he does not anticipate having any role in Xe after the sale. 
 
 The process of finding a buyer and completing the deal is expected to take several months, according to spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke. 
 
 The announcement comes less than three months after Xe sold its aviation division for $200 million to Wood Dale, Illinois-based AAR Corp in a bid to strengthen Xe's balance sheet. 
 
 More recently, five former executives, including Gary Jackson, the company's ex-president, were indicted on charges of conspiring to violate federal firearms laws. Jackson was among the top officials who left the company last year in a management shakeup. 
 
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 Associated Press Writer Mike Baker contributed to this report.
– Erik Prince says he and Blackwater—the defense contractor now known as Xe—got a raw deal from the government. "I put myself and my company at the CIA's disposal for some very risky missions," the firm's founder tells Vanity Fair. "But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus." Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic says if Prince's venting is correct, it "rips open a closed package of secrets," specifically about the now-terminated assassination program the company ran in cahoots with the CIA. A Blackwater team tracked an al-Qaeda financier to Germany and prepared to kill him, and the CIA informed neither its own station office nor German officials. That's a "serious violation of NATO intelligence sharing arrangements," writes Ambinder, and it contradicts Leon Panetta's claim that the program was never operational.