Former Bush administration official David Welch and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) worked with the now-deposed Libyan regime of Muammar Qaddafi as he attempted to stay in power, according to documents found in the building that used to house Libya’s intelligence headquarters, Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal reports.
The documents allegedly show that Welch, now an executive at the multinational company Bechtel, met with senior Libyan officials Abubakr Alzleitny and Mohammed Ahmed Ismai on Aug. 2, 2011. According to the files, Welch met with the officials at the Four Seasons Hotel in Cairo, where he advised Gaddafi’s team of propaganda measures, AJE reported. TPM was unable to reach Welch at his office in London.
Another document Elshayyal found in the compound appeared to indicate that two Libyan officials talked with Kucinich. The document included the web address of a May 27 story by the Washington Post’s Felicia Sonmez about the House vote on ending U.S. involvement in Libya.
The document suggests that Kucinich wanted any evidence of corruption at the Libyan National Transitional Council, any possible links within rebel ranks to al-Qaeda, and any evidence “that The Leader had already planned to step down before the uprisings.” The information would be used in a “lawsuit against NATO/UN/USA,” to publicity reform the image of the regime and to help negotiating positions, according to a document.
“Al Jazeera found a document written by a Libyan bureaucrat to other Libyan bureaucrats,” Kucinich said in a statement to TPM. “All it proves is that the Libyans were reading the Washington Post, and read there about my efforts to stop the war.”
“I can’t help what the Libyans put in their files. My opposition to the war in Libya, even before it formally started, was public and well known,” Kucinich said.
“My questions about the legitimacy of the war, who the opposition was, and what NATO was doing, were also well known and consistent with my official duties,” he continued. “Any implication I was doing anything other than trying to bring an end to an unauthorized war is fiction.”
Notably, Kucinich’s statement did not outright deny that he had a conversation with Libyan officials. His office did not respond to a request for clarification.
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Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
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