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Iraqi Kurds Out-Lobby Iraqi Arabs In Washington
This week, we learned that the White House knew about last year's deal between Texas-based Hunt Oil and the Kurdish Regional Government.
Apparently the threat it posed to the fragile negotiations in Baghdad didn't concern the president as much as he suggested in public.
The Kurds have made a lot of friends in Washington during the past few years -- especially among Republicans.
It's a relationship that's bolstered by aggressive lobbying by the Kurds. The Kurdish Regional Government has 11 active contracts with U.S. lawyers and lobbyists, according to the State Department's database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Kurds have been shelling out far more money on K Street than any other group or government in Iraq.
A key ally for the Kurds is the firm Barbour Griffith Rogers, the lobbying shop founded by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, formerly head of the Republican National Committee. BGR receives $700,000 a year from the Kurdish Regional Government. Their agreement says the firm will "arrange meetings" with U.S. media and government officials.
The firm has a separate agreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party for a $262,500 annual fee, according to the FARA database.
The Kurdish Regional Government also has a deal with the Republican-linked firm Russo, March and Rogers for running a "media campaign" and a "public relations campaign."
The Washington Post last year also noted the Kurds efforts to reach out to evangelical Christians.
In the past year, the Kurds have spent more than $3 million to retain lobbyists and set up a diplomatic office in Washington. They are cultivating grass-roots advocates among supporters of President Bush's war policy and evangelicals who believe that many key figures in the Bible lived in Kurdistan. And they are seeking to build an emotional bond with ordinary Americans, like those forged by Israel and Taiwan, by running commercials on national cable news channels to assert that even as Iraq teeters toward a full-blown civil war, one corner of the country, at least, has fulfilled the Bush administration's ambition of a peaceful, democratic, pro-Western beachhead in the Middle East.
The Kurds are probably watching this year's campaign very closely.
These people are geniuses.
July 4, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
If lobbying worked for the jews in creating Israel, why shouldn't it work for the kurds?
July 4, 2008 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
In every other developed country lobbyists are illegal and go to prison if they try. In America they rule the roost. We're in a lot of trouble. Anybody see a connection? We have an actual law, written by lobbyists and delivered to our elected representatives, that makes it illegal for medicare to negotiate for better prices on drugs. Can any one think of any way that that is good for American taxpayers? We have a bunch of crooks in elected offices and we need to weed them out. The only way to do that is if we know what they're up to. Obama has a plan to put all negotiations and all law proposals on the web so that we can follow where our money goes. If you want to know who the crooks are, follow the money trail!!!
July 5, 2008 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Karela...
I believe Obama knows full well that if any of his plans upset the status quo... that plan will either be changed or thrown away.
The president CANNOT do much of anything without funds and as long as we continue to vote in the mob (made up of Republicans and Democrats), we will continue our slide downhill.
Congress can stop funding anytime it chooses. The Republican and Democrat crooks will continue to further THEIR agenda, not ours.
BTW: Anyone want to bet the money coming from BOTH of these lobbyist groups originated from the good old USA taxpayers?
July 5, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder what the Hunt Deal actually looks like?
Doesn't sound as insidious as those no-bid contracts the Bush Adminisration has secretly arraigned with Iraq's Oil Ministry. You can't really fault the Kurdish Regional Government for moving ahead. At least the Kurds do seem to have a more democratic system in place that the rest of Iraq which seems destine to fall to Iran control due the obvious and seriously corrupt deals between the US and lone greedy players in Iraq. So obviously corrupt are these deals BushCo made that the Iraq citizenry will never agree to to any of it, and Iran merely playing out the clock on BushCo.
July 6, 2008 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fracturing Iraq into three competing Balkanized regions was one of the three or four over-arching, long-term USer goals for Iraq. It has two important consquequences: as an exercise in "divisa et impera" for control over the resources, but also it reduces any chance of Iraq being an effective foe for Israel...
July 7, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink