“There’s still a lot of misinformation out there,” she added, “but I think we have taken positive steps toward correcting the record.”

In the aftermath of the Sept. 16 shootings in Baghdad that Iraqi authorities said left 17 Iraqis dead, the formerly reclusive Mr. Prince has conducted a series of media interviews intended to polish Blackwater’s tarnished brand. The company has changed the name of its major operating division from Blackwater USA to Blackwater Worldwide and toned down its warlike logo. It has sent out a mass e-mail message to workers, suppliers and clients hoping to inspire them to send letters to members of Congress and make other public statements of support.

As reports poured out of Baghdad about the September shootings by several Blackwater guards, the company felt it could not adequately defend itself. The company operates under confidentiality agreements with the State Department, which employs 845 Blackwater guards to protect its diplomats in Iraq. But after Mr. Prince testified for more than three hours before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Oct. 2, the company said it felt free to speak out.

Image Blackwater Worldwides powerful advocates have included Kenneth W. Starr, top, and Fred F. Fielding, above. Credit... Top, Jeff Chiu/Associated Press; Doug Mills/The New York Times

“It was no picnic to keep our contractual obligations not to talk,” said one person close to Blackwater, who insisted on not being named. “We wrote the book on how not to get good P.R.”

In the days leading up to the hearing before the oversight panel, which is led by Representative Henry A. Waxman, a liberal California Democrat who has no love for Blackwater, the company hired Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations firm. Blackwater said it hired the company on a temporary basis to help prepare Mr. Prince for his testimony.

Mark J. Penn, Burson-Marsteller’s chairman and a senior adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, said in an e-mail message that he had no direct contact with Blackwater and that the work was landed by BKSH, a subsidiary. BKSH is a political consulting firm led by Charles R. Black Jr., an adviser to President Bush and his father, and R. Scott Pastrick, a top Democratic fund-raiser. Mr. Penn said that a BKSH associate had worked briefly in Iraq and met several Blackwater personnel, who steered the work to his firm.