Blackwater

The Blackwater Charges: What's Being Alleged?

Zachary Roth | August 6, 2009, 4:14PM

A series of shocking and lurid charges have been made against Erik Prince and Blackwater, the defense contracting behemoth he founded, in sworn statements filed in federal court Monday. Prince and or his company are variously accused of being motivated by an apocalyptic Christian worldview which glorified killing Muslims; of "encourag[ing] and reward[ing] the destruction of Iraqi life;" of illegally smuggling weapons into Iraq; of destroying incriminating evidence; of using child prostitutes; and even of murdering government informants.

The charges -- which come from a former Blackwater employee, and a former US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company -- appear to be largely unsubstantiated. Their existence was first reported by The Nation, and has since been covered by numerous blogs and a few mainstream outlets.

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Topics: Blackwater, Erik Prince, Iraq, Iraq Contractors

Barack Obama

Author Of Hyped Iraq Memo Also Wrote Unhinged Attack On Health-Care Reform

Zachary Roth | July 30, 2009, 1:07PM

A senior American military adviser in Baghdad, whose memo arguing that the U.S. should leave Iraq is currently the top story on the New York Times website, is also the author of an unhinged online screed against health-care reform.

The health-care post, by Colonel Timothy Reese, sketches far-fetched scenarios about forced abortions and accuses President Obama of being "deceitful" in telling Americans they can keep their doctor under his plan. Its harsh tone raises questions about an active duty officer inserting himself into the political arena. And it suggests that that his widely-publicized military advice -- which was posted on the same blog as the health-care post -- should perhaps be treated more skeptically than is currently being done.

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Topics: Barack Obama, Iraq, Right-wing extremism

Dick Cheney

Cheney Still Pushing Bogus Saddam-Al Qaeda Link

Zachary Roth | May 21, 2009, 1:10PM

Here's something else that's noteworthy from Cheney's speech. He again falsely implied that Saddam was working with al Qaeda:

We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.

It's unclear which "Mideast terrorists" those were. After all, Saddam had for over 30 years been the leader of a major Mideast country. It would be surprising if you couldn't find that he had "ties" to terrorists of some kind. But Cheney's purpose in bringing it up is clearly to suggest that Saddam had meaningful connections to the terrorists who hit us on 9/11. That's long been known to be a lie.

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Topics: Dick Cheney, Iraq

Iraq

Detainee Said He Was Brought To Gitmo To Give Info On Iraqi Army

Zachary Roth | May 18, 2009, 3:40PM

More possible evidence that the Bush administration used torture to get information about Iraq?

Back in 2004, the Associated Press reported on the plight of several Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Among them was one Iraqi:

The Iraqi, Arkan Mohammed Ghafil al Karim, says he deserted from Saddam Hussein's army and was later imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban for two years. He says he was brought to Guantanamo in 2002 so that the American military could learn about Iraq's army ahead of the invasion of that country.

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Topics: Guantanamo, Iraq, Torture

Torture

Zubaydah, Waterboarded Multiple Times, Was Pressured To Reveal Saddam-Qaeda Ties

Zachary Roth | May 15, 2009, 4:38PM

Here's another possible piece of evidence that the Bush torture program was used to bolster the political case for the Iraq war.

That 2004 intelligence committee report on Iraq intel that we just wrote about also contains a short section, on page 324, on the information provided by Abu Zubaydah:

The CIA provided four reports detailing the debriefings of Abu Zubaydah, a captured senior coordinator for Al Qaida responsible for training and recruiting. Abu Zubaydah said he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaida. He also said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al Qaida members who he thought had good contacts with Iraqis. For instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al Qaeda associate, Abu Mus'ab al -Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence ... REDACTED ... During the debrefings, Abu Zubaydah offered his opinion that it would be extremely unlikely for Bin Laden to have agreed to ally with Iraq, due to his desire to keep organization on track with its mission and maintain its operational independence.

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Topics: Iraq, Torture

Torture

Report: Questions On Qaeda-Saddam Ties Were "Among The First Presented" To KSM

Zachary Roth | May 15, 2009, 3:47PM

A great find by the Huffington Post offers additional evidence that the Bushies used torture to try to Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda :

A line buried on page 353 of the July 2004 Select Committee on Intelligence report on pre-Iraq war intelligence reads:

CTC [Counter Terrorist Center] noted that the questions regarding al-Qaida's ties to the Iraqi regime were among the first presented to senior al-Qaida operational planner Khalid Shaikh Muhammad following his capture.

"Among the first presented".

Yesterday we rounded up the other evidence that torture was used to bolster the political case for war with Iraq.

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Topics: Iraq, Torture

Torture

Focus Shifting To Evidence Bushies Ordered Torture To Boost Case For Iraq War

Zachary Roth | May 14, 2009, 6:21PM

At last, the torture debate looks to be heading toward what's been the big question lurking in the background all along: was the Bush administration using torture in large part to make a political case for the invasion of Iraq?

Writing on The Daily Beast, former NBC producer Robert Windrem reports that in April 2003, Dick Cheney's office suggested that interrogators waterboard an Iraqi detainee who was suspected of having knowledge of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda.

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Topics: CIA, Dick Cheney, Iraq, Torture

Nancy Pelosi

Is Pelosi Tying Torture Program To Push For Iraq War?

Zachary Roth | May 14, 2009, 12:19PM

Here's a very interesting line from the statement Nancy Pelosi just gave:

We also now know that techniques, including waterboarding, had already been employed, and that those briefing me in September 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information.

At the same time, the Bush Administration was misleading the American people about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (our itals)

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Topics: CIA, Iraq, Nancy Pelosi, Torture

Defense Department

Lawmaker On Withdrawn IG Report: "The American People Have Been Misled"

Zachary Roth | May 6, 2009, 5:03PM

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) led the congressional charge against the Pentagon's use of retired military analysts to shill for the Iraq war on TV -- a program that was exposed in that Pulitzer-winning New York Times report.

Now the Pentagon Inspector General's office has withdrawn a report into the affair, which had largely exonerated the department, finding that it "did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product." And DeLauro isn't mincing words about the news.

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Topics: Defense Department, Iraq, Media

John McCain

Sergeant Who Smeared Fellow Soldier, New Republic Writer Executed Four Iraqi Men

Brian Beutler | April 17, 2009, 11:46AM

A senior enlisted U.S. Army soldier--Master Sergeant John Hatley--was convicted two days ago by a military jury in Germany of executing four handcuffed, blindfolded Iraqi men by shooting them in the backs of their heads.

That's a newsworthy (and, of course, gruesome) story in and of itself, but there's a story behind the story.

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Topics: Iraq, John McCain

Barack Obama

Obama Admin Backs Bushies On Missing Emails

Zachary Roth | February 23, 2009, 5:27PM

Change we can believe in? Maybe not so much.

The Obama administration is siding with the Bush administration in trying to kill a lawsuit brought by watchdog groups that seeks to gain access to Bush White House emails, reports the Associated Press.

At issue are emails from key periods of the Bush years, including the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, and the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak.

In response to the suit brought by two groups, CREW and the National Security Archive, the Bush White House recently said that it had found 14 million of the e-mails and had taken steps to archive others. But the plaintiffs called those steps inadequate.

Now the Obama Justice Department is seeking to have the suit dismissed, just as the Bush DOJ did.

"The new administration seems no more eager than the last" to deal with the issue, Anne Weismann of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Associated Press.

The AP adds:

Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government.

The Justice Department "apparently never got the message" from Obama, Blanton said.

Sounds about right.

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Topics: Barack Obama, George Bush, Iraq, Justice Department, Valerie Plame

Defense Contractors

Blackwater Is Dead! Long Live ... Xe?

Zachary Roth | February 13, 2009, 5:06PM

This should do the trick.

Blackwater Worldwide, the contractor that emerged over the last few years as Exhibit A for ugly Americans in Iraq, has decided that the best response is to ... change its name.

And check out the name they picked: "Xe." (Apparently it's pronounced like the letter 'Z.' Raising the question: Why not just call it "Z"?)

They've also renamed Blackwater Lodge & Training Center, the subsidiary that does much of their controversial overseas operations. It's now the "U.S. Training Center Inc." (Which doesn't exactly mesh with "Xe," but whatever.)

According to the Associated Press, Blackwater (or should we say "Xe"?) president Gary Jackson said in a memo to employees, announcing the changes, that they reflect a shift in the company's focus away from private security and toward operating training facilities around the world.

You can see how "Xe" would be the obvious name to reflect such a shift.

It's not hard to guess why Blackwater (or wait, Xe) wants to get out of the private security business. In 2007, Blackwater guards opened fire in a Baghdad square, killing 17 Iraqis. Five ex-Blackwater guards were charged with voluntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial.

And recently, thanks largely to that incident and other cases where Blackwater has been accused of using excessive force, the Iraqi government declined to renew the company's contract to operate in the country. Soon after, the State Department announced that, in any case, it wouldn't renew Blackwater's contract to operate in Iraq.

No word yet on whether Iraq and State will reconsider now that that the company is called "Xe."

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Topics: Defense Contractors, Iraq, Iraq Contractors

Blackwater

State To Blackwater: It's Over Between Us (At Least In Iraq)

Zachary Roth | January 30, 2009, 3:36PM

Et tu, State Department?

Earlier this week, we told you that the Iraqi government had decided not to renew Blackwater's contract to operate in Iraq, thanks to a 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards opened fire in a Baghdad square, killing 17 Iraqis, among several other cases of excessive force. Five ex-Blackwater guards were charged with voluntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial in connection with the 2007 incident.

Now, the State Department, which depended on Blackwater as its biggest contractor providing security to US diplomats in Iraq, has followed suit, according to the Associated Press, declining to renew the controversial company's contract to protect department personnel in Iraq when it expires in May.

The decision was a result of the Iraqi government's move, according to a department official.

In the AP's words, the state Department is "still considering its options" as to how to proceed.

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Topics: Blackwater, Erik Prince, Iraq, Iraq Contractors

Blackwater

Iraq Won't Renew Blackwater License

Zachary Roth | January 29, 2009, 3:56PM

Are Blackwater's days in Iraq numbered?

The Iraqi government has said it won't be issuing a new operating license for the contractor, which is the prime security company for the US Embassy in the country.

It's hard to blame the Iraqis. Blackwater has several times been accused of using excessive force. In 2007, its guards opened fire in a crowded street, killing 17 civilians. The guards were charged with voluntary manslaughter and are awaiting trial.

According to Iraqi officials, it was this incident that prompted them not to renew the license, reports the Washington Post.

There's a bit of a catch though. The Post adds:

Blackwater employees who have not been accused of improper conduct will be allowed to continue working as private security contractors in Iraq if they switch employers, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

And according to Wired magazine, that's exactly what could easily happen. It reports:

The State Department has a contract for "Worldwide Personal Protective Services" with three firms: Blackwater, DynCorp, and Triple Canopy. If Blackwater is no longer allowed to operate in Iraq, a lawyer steeped in the field tells Danger Room, there's no legal reason why the other two firms can't scoop up Blackwater's employees. "State simply issues a new task order to DynCorp or Triple Canopy, who turn around and hire some or all of Blackwater's employees," he says.

So we may ultimately find out whether the string of violent acts we've seen from Blackwater guards were the result of the company's culture itself -- or the types of personnel they hired.

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Topics: Blackwater, Erik Prince, Iraq

Barack Obama

Clinton Lawyer: Obama's Order Designed To Pry Loose Key Bush Docs

Zachary Roth | January 23, 2009, 11:25AM

Already, a consensus of experts has formed to tell TPMmuckraker and others that President Obama's executive order on presidential records, issued Wednesday, could impact efforts to pry loose key documents from the Bush White House.

And the man who served as President Clinton's lead attorney for executive privilege issues yesterday went further, suggesting that that was exactly Obama's goal.

Neil Eggleston, a White House counsel under Clinton, told TPMmuckraker that in his view, the Obama White House issued the order with specific ongoing cases in mind -- that is, with the goal of bolstering those efforts to obtain Bush's records.

Congress and good-government groups are currently fighting to get access to key Bush White House documents that might shed light on a range of subjects, from the level of White House involvement in the US Attorney firings, to the Valerie Plame leak probe, to the decision to invade Iraq. "This is absolutely about all those issues," said Eggleston.

At its heart, said Eggleston, Obama's order is about "who gets to assert executive privilege." It says that former presidents can claim such privilege, but they have no automatic ability to prevent the release of their records if the current administration deems it to be in the national interest. That echoes the view of other experts who have examined the order, including the conservative legal scholar Doug Kmiec, who spoke to TPMmuckraker yesterday.

In a sense, said Eggleston, it's a directive to the National Archivist. "It says: 'Archivist -- if Bush calls up and says don't release certain papers, don't listen to what he says, listen to what I say.'"

Eggleston, now a partner at Debevoise and Plimpton's Washington office, cautioned that if a decision were made to release certain Bush records, and the former president chose to go to court to stop it, it's not absolutely certain that he would lose -- since no executive order can alter the constitution's executive privilege guarantee. But he said that the order would at the very least be likely to sway a court towards openness.

So if we do eventually learn the full story of the Bushies' involvement in the US Attorney firings, and get access to information about their record on a range of other issues, it looks like we may have the new president to thank.

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Topics: Barack Obama, George Bush, Iraq, U.S. Attorneys, Valerie Plame

Defense Department

Pentagon Releases Report On TV Pundits Program

Zachary Roth | January 16, 2009, 4:13PM

It's Friday at 4pm on the last business day of the Bush administration.

So of course, the Pentagon has just released its report on its TV pundit program, which it used to promote the Iraq war, that the New York Times uncovered last year.

It's here.

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Topics: Defense Department, Iraq

Barack Obama

Top Pentagon Official: Obama Team Still "The Opposition"

Zachary Roth | December 31, 2008, 5:57PM

The Hill reports today:

Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama's transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day.

It's worth pointing out that another roughly 160 political appointees were kept on. But here at TPMmuckraker, we were more interested in what came next.

The paper reported that, in response to the Obama team's move, Jim O'Beirne, the special assistant to the secretary of defense for White House liaisons, sent an email to the dismissed DOD staffers, in which he suggested that they were being removed by political opponents as a result of their effectiveness in carrying out Bush administration policies.

Reports The Hill:

In the email, O'Beirne tried to assure the soon-to-be displaced employees that the decisions were based on "policy change in the Obama administration" and not based on performance.

However, he said, if employees "harbor residual doubts" then they can "content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."

"In that regard, you may take justifiable satisfaction that you were among the first to be chosen," O'Beirne wrote.

Now, this way of thinking -- that being removed by "the opposition" (that is, the man who'll be our president) is a badge of honor, because it shows that you were committed to implementing the policies of the previous president -- is misguided coming from anyone.

But The Hill doesn't note that in the case of O'Beirne, a longtime GOP operative who's married to the conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne, it's perhaps not surprising. Consider this excerpt from a Washington Post story from 2006:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

In other words, O'Beirne led the disastrous process in which key posts in the Coalition Provisional Authority were given to Heritage Foundation research assistants who knew nothing about Iraq but were loyal to the GOP. And we all know how that turned out.

So perhaps it's to be expected that O'Beirne would continue to see government only through the prism of politics. Still, it's an outlook that's rarely expressed so crassly.

Thanks to reader W.M. for the tip.

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Topics: Barack Obama, Defense Department, Iraq, Jim O'Beirne

Iraq

Pentagon Report Confirms Failure Of Iraq Reconstruction Effort

Zachary Roth | December 15, 2008, 11:09AM

The New York Times and Pro Publica got an advanced look at a report on the American reconstruction of Iraq -- and it's not pretty.

The report concludes, in the words of the Times and Pro Publica, that even now, "the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale."

And it quotes Colin Powell saying that, in the months after the invasion, DOD "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces -- the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'"

But here's our favorite detail:

When the Office of Management and Budget balked at the American occupation authority's abrupt request for about $20 billion in new reconstruction money in August 2003, a veteran Republican lobbyist working for the authority made a bluntly partisan appeal to Joshua B. Bolten, then the O.M.B. director and now the White House chief of staff. "To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the President," wrote the lobbyist, Tom C. Korologos. "His election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt." With administration backing, Congress allocated the money later that year.

There was no evidence in the story that the Times and Pro Publica had offered Korologos a chance to respond, so TPMmuckraker contacted him. He responded in an email:

They did NOT give me a chance to comment. That all came from a 3 page memo I wrote on strategy for passing that first Iraq supplemental in 2003. Some $60 (b) billion was for the military side and $20 (b) billion was for the civilian side. The next sentence said, "The quicker we succeed at CPA the quicker our 150,000 boys will come marching home again."

That response doesn't do much to change the clear impression created by the IG report that Korologos cited President Bush's need to get reelected as a reason to support spending $20 billion of taxpayer money. And that OMB ultimately went along with the request.

Here are some other eyebrow-raising nuggets from the report:

In an illustration of the hasty and haphazard planning, a civilian official at the United States Agency for International Development was at one point given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would need to be reopened and repaired. The official searched through the agency's reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan. Whatever the quality of the agency's plan, it eventually began running what amounted to a parallel reconstruction effort in the provinces that had little relation with the rest of the American effort.

And...

Money for many of the local construction projects still under way is divided up by a spoils system controlled by neighborhood politicians and tribal chiefs. "Our district council chairman has become the Tony Soprano of Rasheed, in terms of controlling resources," said an American Embassy official working in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood. " 'You will use my contractor or the work will not get done.'"

And here's a passage that won't exactly boost Donald Rumsfeld's already rock-bottom reputation for knowing what he was talking about:

On the eve of the invasion, as it began to dawn on a few American officials that the price for rebuilding Iraq would be vastly greater than they had been told, the degree of miscalculation was illustrated in an encounter between Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, and Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who had hastily been named the chief of what would be a short-lived civilian authority called the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several alternative rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.

"What do you think that'll cost?" Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expansive plan.

"I think it's going to cost billions of dollars," Mr. Garner said.

"My friend," Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "if you think we're going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken."

In a way he never anticipated, Mr. Rumsfeld turned out to be correct: before that year was out, the United States had appropriated more than $20 billion for the reconstruction, which would indeed involve projects across the entire country.

The report was compiled by Stuart Bowen, a Republican lawyer who serves as the special inspector general for postwar reconstruction in Iraq. The Times and Pro Publica obtained their copies from people outside Bowen's office. The report will be presented February 2nd at a Congressional hearing.

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Topics: Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq, Iraq Corruption, Pentagon

Blackwater

Indictments Unsealed In Blackwater Shooting Case

Zachary Roth | December 8, 2008, 12:27PM

Moments ago, officials with the Department of Justice wrapped up a press conference at which they are publicizing the charges -- previously contained in a sealed indictment -- against the five former Blackwater guards charged with manslaughter in the deadly September 2007 shootings of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

The case has been assigned to a US District Court in Washingotn DC, but defense lawyers want the case moved to Utah, where one of the former guards lives, and where they would presumably find a more conservative, pro-gun jury, reports the Associated Press.

The ex-guards could face 30-year sentences under an anti-machine gun law designed to target drug offenders.

We're also seeing an interesting emerging defense strategy of suggesting that DOJ is bowing to Iraqi pressure: "We are confident that any jury will see this for what it is: a politically motivated prosecution to appease the Iraqi government," Steven McCool, who represents one of the defendants, told the AP.

One ex-Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgewater, has already come to a plea deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

Blackwater is the largest security contractor in Iraq.

Late Update: In a lengthy statement emailed to TPMmuckraker, Blackwater responds:

Blackwater does not have access to all of the information gathered by federal investigators. Based on the information available to us, we understand that these individuals acted within the rules set forth for them by the government and that no criminal violations occurred.

...

As noted by the Department of Justice during its press conference, Blackwater as a company has not been charged with any crimes, and neither have any of the hundreds of other Blackwater professionals serving in Iraq.

.

Late Late Update: Read the court documents:
- Indictment against Blackwater
- Jeremy Ridgewater charges
- Jeremy Ridgewater plea deal

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Topics: Blackwater, Erik Prince, Iraq, Iraq Contractors, Justice Department

Curt Weldon

Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey's Solutions for Defense Solutions

Matt Berman | December 3, 2008, 4:49PM

Looks like our old friends at Defense Solutions are back in the news.

You remember them. They're the Pennsylvania-based defense company that retained former GOP congressman Curt Weldon -- who's currently under investigation for corruption in regard to his ties to his daughter's lobbying firm -- as a strategic advisor.

Weldon recently pushed deals on behalf of Defense Solutions between Russian and Ukrainian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments. Brokering such deals is legally murky, according to Wired magazine, because Libya and the Russian arms export agency are on U.S. blacklists.

And Defense Solutions' CEO, Tim Ringgold was accused by a Ukrainian government official of forging his name on a signed letter officiating that deal.

So we were interested to see the company make a special appearance this weekend in the long New York Times story on Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey's myriad conflicts of interest.

McCaffrey, the Times reports, was hired by Defense Solutions on June 15, 2007 to advocate for a similar arms deal. But he didn't mention that affiliation, says the Times, when he wrote a letter to General David Petraeus "strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. 'No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,' he said."

The paper continues:

Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help -- "He's got the heart of a lion" -- or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.

McCaffrey has had no luck so far getting the deal through for Defense Solutions, but they haven't given up hope yet - the Times reports that he is currently back advocating in Iraq on a trip sponsored by the Pentagon.

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Topics: Curt Weldon, David Petraeus, Iraq, Lobbyists

Sheldon Adelson

Report: Pro-War Group Going Out of Business

Zachary Roth | November 24, 2008, 5:11PM

Call it a sign of the times...

It looks like Freedom's Watch, the pro-war pressure group bankrolled by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and talked up by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, is wrapping up its operations -- apparently without too much to show for its efforts.

The advocacy organization is likely to permanently shut its doors at the end of the year, according to sources who spoke to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

As we noted earlier this month, Adelson has been down on his financial luck lately. His casino company Las Vegas Sands recently said it may default on debt and face bankruptcy.

The group, which advocates an open-ended commitment in Iraq and unquestioning support for Israeli hawks, spent $30 million to influence the recent congressional elections.

But spokesman Ed Patru, a former spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, wouldn't say how the group's favored candidates fared. "Our focus was to impact the debate," said Patru.

In other words, it's safe to assume, not well.

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Topics: Iraq, Sheldon Adelson

Iraq

Report: NSA Listened In On Blair's Personal Calls

Zachary Roth | November 24, 2008, 11:40AM

Did U.S. intelligence listen in on the personal phone calls of Tony Blair and former Iraqi president Ghazi Al-Yawer?

That's what David Murfee Faulk, a former Arab linguist who worked at a secret NSA facility, has told ABCNews.com. Murfee Faulk says he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" exchanged between Al-Yawer and his then-fiancee.

The U.S. and Britain have pledged not to collect information covertly on each other, several former intelligence officials told ABCNews.com -- though this would by no means be the first time the U.S. was found to have done so.

Last month, Murfee Faulk and another former worker at the NSA facility revealed to the news network that the agency had listened in on private calls made by American journalists, aid workers, and soldiers stationed in Iraq. A Senate panel has said it is investigating those claims.

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Topics: Intelligence, Iraq, Tony Blair, Wiretapping

Blackwater

Blackwater Admits Probes Of Weapons Shipments

Zachary Roth | November 18, 2008, 10:04AM

Contracting giant Blackwater has confirmed the existence of multiple federal investigations into its work in shipping weapons to Iraq, reports Congress Daily.

The North Carolina company is facing separate investigations by a grand jury in the state, and by the State Department.

But in a statement, it took issue with some details from news reports last week. "The investigations ... do not allege that the company failed to obtain licenses or failed to ensure the government was aware of its actions," it said.

Rather, it said, "[t]he investigations concern Blackwater's not properly annotating the licenses, not timely submitting required reports, and not retaining required records."

Still, it essentially admitted the most eyebrow-raising charge -- that it had shipped weapons inside sacks of dog food -- saying that this was done to prevent theft.

Separately, federal prosecutors have drafted an indictment against Blackwater guards in connection with the deadly shooting of 17 Baghdad civilians last year, though no decisions on charges have been made.

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Topics: Blackwater, Erik Prince, Iraq, Iraq Contractors, Justice Department

Blackwater

Sources: Blackwater Used Dog Food Bags To Hide Weapons

Zachary Roth | November 14, 2008, 2:21PM

Yesterday, we noted that the State Department plans to fine Blackwater USA for illegally shipping weapons to Iraq without the proper permits.

Now, ABCNews.com adds some more detail to the picture, reporting that a federal grand jury is probing whether the company used sacks of dog food to hide weapons and silencers it was shipping into Iraq.

State Department rules forbid Blackwater from using "offensive" weapons, including silencers, which, an expert tells ABCNews.com, would only be used for assassinations.

The report adds:

Larger items, including M-4 assualt weapons, were secreted on shipping pallets surrounded by stacks of dog food bags, the former employees said. The entire pallet would be wrapped in cellophane shrink wrap, the former employees said, making it less likely US customs inspectors would look too closely.

Earlier today, the Associated Press reported that an indictment had been drafted in connection to the deadly shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians last year, in which 6 Blackwater guards have been implicated. No decision has yet been made to file charges.

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Topics: Blackwater, Erik Prince, Iraq, Iraq Contractors

Blackwater

Report: Indictment Drafted In Blackwater Shootings

Zachary Roth | November 14, 2008, 1:00PM

Federal prosecutors have drafted an indictment against 6 guards working for Blackwater USA, who were involved in deadly shootings last year of 17 Baghdad civilians, according to the Associated Press.

But it's not yet certain that charges will be filed. AP reports:

The draft is being reviewed by senior Justice Department officials but no charging decisions have been made. A decision is not expected until at least later this month, people close to the case said.

The shootings by Blackwater guards, which witnesses described as an unprovoked attack, took place at a busy Baghdad intersection in September of last year.

Earlier this week, the company was fined by the State Department for shipping automatic weapons to Iraq without permits.

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Topics: Blackwater, Iraq, Iraq Contractors, Justice Department

Blackwater

Blackwater To Be Fined Amid Allegations Over Shrink-Wrapped Weapons

Zachary Roth | November 13, 2008, 11:11AM

Blackwater USA, the State Department's largest personal security contractor in Iraq, is set to be hit with a multi-million dollar fine for shipping automatic weapons to that country without the necessary permits, reports McClatchy. Some of the weapons are believed to have ended up on Iraq's black market.

The State Department has been looking into whether Blackwater employees shipped weapons hidden in shrink-wrapped pallets from the companies headquarters in North Carolina to Iraq. No criminal charges have been filed in the case.

But according to one official, the department found that Blackwater shipped 900 weapons to Iraq without the paperwork required by arms export control regulations.

Since the weapons case became public in September 2007, Blackwater has received $1.2 billion in federal contracts, by one estimate.

The company is also being investigated by the Justice Department in connection with the killing last year of 17 Iraqi civilians.

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Topics: Blackwater, Iraq, Iraq Contractors, Justice Department

Iraq

Agree To Disagree? Maliki, Bush Admin Clash On Status Of Pullout Agreement

Justin Elliott | August 25, 2008, 5:06PM

Some interesting news broke today that has been buried amid the orgy of convention coverage: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said -- apparently in a speech to tribal leaders in the Green Zone -- that the U.S. and Iraq had agreed that all "foreign soldiers" would leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Maliki was promptly shot down by the White House, which maintained there is no pullout date.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have been working toward an agreement for months, with the U.S. seeking a legal basis for stationing troops in Iraq when U.N. authority expires at the end of this year.

Here's how Campbell Robertson of the International Herald Tribune reported Maliki's comments today:

Iraq and the United States have agreed on a date for the departure of all American troops as part of a broader security pact they are negotiating, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said Monday.

"There is actually an agreement concluded between the two parties over the definite date, which is 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil," Maliki said.

Maliki made the comments in a speech to tribal leaders in the Green Zone in Baghdad, but it was far from clear that the issue had been settled.

In its own version of the story, Agence France-Presse runs a slightly different Maliki quote:

"There is an agreement between the two sides that there will be no foreign soldiers in Iraq after 2011," Maliki said in a statement issued by his office.

AFP also includes a stern denial from Bush Administration spokesman Tony Fratto, who maintains that "we have not yet finalized an agreement." Fratto even seems to back away from Condoleezza Rice's recent endorsement -- however mushy -- of a "timetable" for withdrawal. Fratto's comment, after the jump:

Read more »

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Topics: Iraq

Iraq

Massive Private Contractors' Role In Iraq Documented By New Congressional Report

Andrew Tilghman | August 12, 2008, 11:28AM

Today private military contractors supporting the U.S. occupation in Iraq far outnumber U.S. troops inside the country.

All together, these non-uniformed workers have cost nearly $100 billion, accounting for roughly 20 percent of the total U.S. budget for the five-year war.

That's according to the most comprehensive study to date (.pdf) of private contractors in Iraq, released today by the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO estimates that more than 190,000 contractors were working on U.S.-funded contracts in the Iraq theater as of early 2008. This is somewhat higher than past estimates and far outnumbers the roughly 150,000 U.S. troops inside the country.

The report provides the first reliable breakdown of who these contractors are and where they come from.

Only about 20 percent are U.S. citizens, who work jobs such as armed security or logistical services for firms such as Blackwater or KBR.

Under 40 percent of contractors are citizens of the country where they work, mainly Iraq, some Kuwait and Jordan. (Surrounding countries such as Kuwait and others are considered part of the "Iraq theater" where logistical services essential to the occupation are provided.)

And the report for the first time estimates that about half are from other countries, mostly poor, unskilled workers from places like India or the Philippines These migrant workers are paid far less than Americans yet are critical to the day-to-day operations of the occupation.

The full cost -- in both money and lives -- related to these contractors has gone largely unreported. There are no reliable estimates on non-Americans who have been injured or died working for the U.S. military.

Working as bodyguards, engineers, translators, drivers, construction workers cooks, janitors and laundry operators, these workers have helped the Pentagon hold down the number of military personnel sent to Iraq and avoid public discussion of a draft.

The CBO study notes that U.S. dependence on contractors is radically higher than during prior conflicts. Contractors in Iraq are proportionally about 5 times higher than in Vietnam.

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Topics: Iraq

Iraq

House Judiciary To Probe Allegations White House Ordered Forged Letter Linking Saddam-Al Qaeda

Andrew Tilghman | August 11, 2008, 6:49PM

After pundits have commented about the muted reaction to author Ron Suskind's explosive allegations last week, the House Judiciary Committee said today it will "review" the reports of White House and CIA misconduct.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) didn't mention anything about hearings or subpoenas in his press release this afternoon. But the committee chairman did say he instructed his staff to look into the report that former CIA Director George Tenet in late 2003 ordered agents to concoct a letter showing false evidence linking Saddam to 9/11.

"Mr. Suskind reports that the Bush Administration, in its pursuit of war, created and promoted forged documents about Iraq," Conyers said in the press release. "I am particularly troubled that the decision to disseminate this fabricated intelligence is alleged to have come from the highest reaches of the administration."

After Suskind's new book was released last week, the White House promptly denied the accusation and two of Suskind's key CIA sources criticized the report, claiming Suskind misrepresented their remarks. Suskind responded by releasing a partial transcript of one taped interview with a key CIA source.

While that allegedly forged letter got all the press attention last week, Conyers indicated he would review several other questions raised in the book, "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism."

A number of issues raised in Mr. Suskind's book to be reviewed include:

· The origin of the allegedly forged document that formed the basis for Bush's 2003 State of the Union assertion that Iraq sought yellowcake uranium from Niger;

· The role of this document in creating the false impression that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had a working relationship with Iraq;

· The relationship between this document and other reported examples of the Bush Administration considering other deceptive schemes to justify or provoke war with Iraq, such as the reported consideration of painting a U.S. aircraft with UN colors in order to provoke Iraq into military confrontation;

· Allegations that the Bush Administration deliberately ignored information from Iraq's chief intelligence officer that Iraq possessed no WMDs;

· The payment of $5 million to Iraq's chief intelligence officer and his secret settlement in Jordan, beyond the reach of investigators;

· The September 2007 detainment and interrogation of Mr. Suskind's research assistant, Greg Jackson, by federal agents in Manhattan. Jackson's notes were also confiscated.

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Topics: Iraq, Ron Suskind

Iraq

Suskind's Report About Forged Iraq-Al Qaeda Letter Holding Up Under Scrutiny

Andrew Tilghman | August 8, 2008, 3:16PM

Ron Suskind's bombshell report -- that the CIA essentially forged a letter in late 2003 linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11 and nuclear weapons -- has been getting knocked around all week.

And so far, it's holding up well under scrutiny.

The specific allegations first reported on Monday say former CIA Director George Tenet ordered a former Marine and CIA agent to create a letter indicating that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta was trained in Iraq and also that Iraq was receiving suspicious shipments from Niger (the implication being the now infamous "yellowcake uranium").

The assignment for the agent, Rob Richer, the former number-two in command at the Operations Directorate, was to track down Saddam's former intel chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush, in Jordan and convince him to write the letter in his own handwriting on Iraqi government letterhead, backdated to July 2001.

The order to concoct the letter was drawn up on White House stationary, Richer told Suskind. The book says the CIA ultimately carried out the order, but it does not say how.

The fake letter became public in December 2003 and fueled global media speculation about an Iraq-al Qaeda link. At that time, the U.S. military had failed to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and American domestic support for the war was fading.

The story's veracity took a hit early in the week when Richer, who is now retired, issued a public statement Monday denying any involvement. Well, actually, the White House issued that statement for him, along with its own vague denial that Suskind's report was "absurd."

Today Suskind took the unusual step of publishing a transcript of his taped interview with Richer in June. Richer left the agency in 2005, saying that he lacked confidence in the agency's leadership.

Also today the story got new legs -- and additional details -- from Joe Conason's column in Salon. Conason takes us back to the time of the bogus letter's first appearance.

That letter first popped up in a credulous report in London's Sunday Telegraph, where the reporter cites a key source as Ayad Allawi. You might remember him, the CIA lackey who was propped up as Iraq's interim prime minister in 2004, only to see his political career end when Iraqis held elections a year later.

Conason also notes that Allawi was visiting CIA headquarters just a few days before that story broke in the Telegraph.

The most interesting question raised about Suskind's accuracy came yesterday from Philip Giraldi, a former CIA agent, writing in the American Conservative. According to him, the Bush Administration did order up a forged letter, but did it through the Pentagon and Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans. Giraldi notes the the military has its own false documents center used to draw up fake papers for special ops officers traveling under cover as businessmen.

That does sound plausible, given that the CIA was always more circumspect of the Saddam-al Qaeda links that were popular with the neocons in Feith's office across the river.

Looking back at all the aftershocks this week, what stands out for us is the narrow, legalistic denials that the White House and others coughed up this week.

Take a close look at what Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, told Politico:

"The allegation that the White House directed anyone to forge a document from Habbush to Saddam is just absurd."

Is it false, or just absurd? Did they direct anyone to forge any documents? From Habbush to someone else? Or from someone else to Saddam? Sounds like an attorney wrote that one.

And here's what Tenet said in a statement also issued by the White House.

"There was no such order from the White House to me nor, to the best of my knowledge, was anyone from CIA ever involved in any such effort."

In the transcript Suskind released today, he asked Richer about what kind of paper trail is created when setting an operation like this in motion. Richer said there was only one, closely guarded, piece of paper that originated from the White House.

Rob: It probably passed through five or six people. George probably showed it to me, but then passed it probably to Jim Pavitt, the DDO, who then passed it down to his chief of staff who passed it to me. Cause that's how--you know, so I saw the original. I got a copy of it. But it was, there probably was--

Ron: Right. You saw the original with the White House stationery, but you didn't--down the ranks, then it creates other paper.

Rob: Yeah, no, exactly."

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Topics: CIA, Iraq

KFC Fallujah

KFC In Fallujah? Too Finger-Licking Good To Be True

Justin Elliott | August 4, 2008, 5:12PM

Last Thursday, Fox News ran a brief segment on a KFC restaurant opening in Fallujah before segueing into an interview with former CENTCOM Commander Tommy Franks, who was asked to comment on the presence of an American fast food restaurant in the notoriously violent Iraqi city. "Do they have a drive-thru window?" Steve Doocy asks. "They get in and get out. And, so far, they do it safely," answers Brian Kilmeade:

Now, call us cynical, but something about that segment seemed off -- oddly upbeat even. On Friday I put in a call to KFC headquarters to ask if the Fallujah chicken joint is the real deal. KFC told me they were looking into the matter. Today, Yum! Restaurants International spokesman Christophe Lecureuil wrote me back:

I understand you wanted some details about the store in Falluja that looks like a KFC. This store is not approved by KFC International and we have working with the US Military to warn the troops of this situation.

Details are still hard to come by. Lecureuil said that the company doesn't have more information at this stage because "we've just started investigating the matter." Asked how KFC was working with the military, Lecureuil wrote only that: "Concerning the military, we have a long-standing and excellent relationship with them as we have quite a few KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut stores in military bases outside the US."

So where did the Fallujah KFC myth come from?

The story seems to have popped up two weeks ago in a report by a Marine public information officer. Cpl. Chris T. Mann is a PIO for Regimental Combat Team 1, which is part of the 1st Marine Division. The following photo accompanied his post on the regimental website:

And the footage that Fox used can be traced back to a 5-minute clip at LiveLeak.com, which shows scenes of chicken frying amid assorted KFC-branded signage. Another marine, Public Affairs Chief Josh Higgins of Regimental Combat Team 1, referenced the same "KFC" in a recent article for the Greenville, TN, newspaper.

In an email Saturday, 1st Lt Brian Block, a media officer for Multi National Force - West, told me that Cpl. Mann would be out on a mission for the next couple of days. We've also called the number of the faux KFC itself, but no one at the restaurant seems to speak English.

All we know for sure right now is that the original Fox report -- that a KFC franchise opened in Fallujah -- was bogus.

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Topics: Iraq, KFC Fallujah

Anthrax

DOJ Plans To Close Anthrax Probe As Questions, Critics Mount

Andrew Tilghman | August 4, 2008, 2:00PM

The Department of Justice says it may close its investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks -- and possibly release previously sealed court records -- as early as today.

The move comes as questions and criticisms of the FBI's handling of the case grow more intense and also less than a week after the suicide of the alleged key suspect in the case, government scientist Bruce Ivins.

Closing the investigation would send a signal that Ivins was guilty and acted alone. But last week's suicide has thrust the anthrax investigation back into the spotlight and prompted new questions about the unsolved case as well as public statements and press reports surrounding the attacks in the fall of 2001.

The AP reports:

Among the unanswered questions in the investigation is how Ivins could have created the fine anthrax powder that, distributed in the mail, killed five people and terrorized the nation. Ivins' lab didn't deal with powdered anthrax and there is disagreement over whether he could have created it -- and if he did, how he kept it a secret.

The New York Times reports that investigators lack some key evidence against Ivins, such as anything linking the scientist to the central New Jersey town where the anthrax letters were mailed. An unnamed source calls the case against Ivins "circumstantial" and said at least 10 other people from the lab at Fort Detrick, MD, had access to the same flask containing that anthrax, the Times reports.

In an article on Sunday, The Washington Post wrote that federal prosecutors may disband the grand jury that was hearing evidence against Ivins, adding that no other criminal charges are expected in the case.

A lawyer for Ivins, Paul F. Kemp, has consistently maintained his client's innocence.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon has been working overtime on this story for the past few days and lays out a reconsideration of the anthrax investigation, its press reports and its time line. He bring attention to the mounting pressure on ABC News to disclose the confidential sources behind its report in 2001, which stated that federal agents had evidence that the anthrax came from Iraq.

Greenwald also raises questions about Ivins' therapist, who came forward several days ago describing Ivins's homicidal thoughts.

In a statement today, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD), who was a target in the attacks, criticized the FBI and said he has little faith in its investigation.

Finally, as we noted earlier today, evidence is emerging that White House officials may have pressured the FBI to tag Al Qaeda as a suspect during the initial weeks of the probe.

Late Update: After reports that federal investigators couldn't place Ivins at the New Jersey mailbox where the anthrax letters were dropped, sources at DOJ leaked the AP a new story this afternoon. Their best guess is that Ivins made the seven-hour round trip up to the Princeton area after work one night, possibly because he had a weird obsession with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, which has a chapter up there.

That might have been enough to secure a grand jury indictment, but that sounds like a stretch for the jury to buy. We'll never know.

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Topics: Anthrax, Iraq, Justice Department

Oil

Top NeoCon Richard Perle Seeks Oil Deal With Iraqi Kurds

Andrew Tilghman | July 29, 2008, 9:32AM

Richard Perle has almost always gone along with the Bush administration's policies.

But now the longtime neoconservative policy wonk is trying to get in on an oil-drilling deal with Iraqi Kurds despite the administration's public opposition to such deals there.

Perle, one of the most influential proponents of 2003 invasion of Iraq, is in talks to join a consortium of investors with the Kurdish Regional Government, today's Wall Street Journal reports.

The Bush administration has publicly discouraged energy firms from making unilateral deals with Iraqi Kurds until after Iraq's federal government in Baghdad agrees to a law for sharing future revenues. Disagreements over oil money have inflamed sectarian tensions in Iraq and undermined political unity.

But investigators are looking into whether the Bush administration privately gave the go-ahead to energy firms seeking the lucrative deals with the Kurds.

The Journal reports that Perle is talking with a Turkish firm, AK Group International, and also a representative from the government of Kazakhstan. They are targeting the co-called "K18 concession" which is near the city of Erbil and is estimated to hold 150 million or more barrels of oil.

Houston-based Endeavour International would conduct the exploration and drilling, according to the Journal.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, Perle was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon. He is currently a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington.

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Topics: Iraq, Oil, Richard Perle

Hunt Oil

Iraqi Kurds Out-Lobby Iraqi Arabs In Washington

Andrew Tilghman | July 4, 2008, 2:22PM

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.

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Topics: Hunt Oil, Iraq, Iraq Contractors, Iraq Corruption, Kurdistan Regional Government

House Oversight

Hunt Oil and the Bush Admin: A Timeline of Correspondence

Kate Klonick | July 2, 2008, 6:57PM

As we reported earlier, Chairman Waxman of the House Oversight Committee claimed today that the Bush Administration knew about the Hunt Oil deal way before it happened-- something the administration has denied regularly.

According to Waxman, there were nearly a dozen contacts between various levels of the administration and Hunt Oil as the deal was taking place. Hunt regularly informed the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board of his intentions to seek a deal with the Kurdistan government. Management at Hunt also regularly met and communicated with the U.S. Regional Reconstruction Team (RRT), as well as State Department personnel.

So let's go through a little time line of the events and communication leading up to Sept. 8, 2007-- the day the Hunt Oil deal was finalized with the Kurdistan government.

June 12 and 15: Hunt Oil officials meet with officials from the RRT for the Kurdistan region, "to investigate investment prospects" in the Kurdish region. Hunt Oil General Manager Ken McDonald, asks RRT members if the deal between Hunt Oil and Kurdistan is in violation of U.S. policy:

I specifically asked if the USG had a policy toward companies entering into contracts with the KRG and [redacted] replied that there was no policy, neither for nor against.

July 12, 2007: Ray Hunt, president and CEO of Hunt Oil sends a letter to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, letting them know he is pursuing an oil deal in Kurdistan:

We were approached a month or so ago by representatives of a private group in Kurdistan as to the possibílity of our becoming interested in that region. We had one team of geoscientists travel to Kurdistan several weeks ago and were encouraged by what we saw. We have a larger team going back to Kurdistan this week but who they will actually meet with while they are there and what the relationships of those people might be with the Government of Kurdistan are both unclear at this time.

August 2007: Hunt Oil representatives exchange a series of emails with State Department personnel discussing their return to Kurdistan.

August 30, 2007: Ray Hunt sends another letter to the Advisory Board to let them know he will be in Kurdistan the week of September 3:

While my schedule is still fluid, there is a high likelihood that I will meet with President Masoud Barzani, the Prime Minister, the Oil Minister and various other individuals associated with the government of Kurdistan.

September 5, 2007: McDonald informs the RRT in Erbil that "Hunt is expecting to sign an exploration contract" with the Kurdistan Regional Government. That same day, the RRT leader sends an e-mail summary of the meeting to the Embassy in Baghdad and the State Department headquarters in Washington. A second synopsis of the meeting is sent to the Embassy in Baghdad in a situation report the following day.

September 8, 2007: The Hunt Oil contract is finalized with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

September 13, 2007: A State Department official contacts Hunt Oil to describe another "good opportunity for Hunt" in Iraq, prompting a Hunt Oil official to write Ray Hunt: "This is really good for us. . .I find it a huge compliment that he is 'tipping' us off about this . . .This is a lucky break."

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Topics: House Oversight, Iraq, Iraq Contractors, Iraq Corruption, Oversight Committee

Iraq

RAND Report Comes Down Hard on Franks, DOD, State Dept.

Kate Klonick | July 1, 2008, 1:10PM

As we reported, the RAND Corporation, released a long quashed critical report yesterday on the role of the White House, Defense Department and State Department in Iraq.

"After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq" was put on the RAND Corporation website late Monday. The New York Times dug into more detailed excerpts in a Blog post from their Baghdad Bureau.

The report confirms much of the conventional wisdom of our failures there, as well as what has said by military leaders-- that after the fall of Saddam Hussein there were too few people, and not enough planning.

But not for lack of trying. The report states that while there was "a range of possible postwar challenges" and "suggested strategies for addressing them," "few if any, made it into the serious planning phases" to be incorporated into Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Like the most recent study released by the Army, the RAND report also lays blame on Gen. Tommy Franks and his inopportune decision to restructure the operations in Iraq after the fall of Saddam-- a tactic that made creating a "stable, reasonably democratic Iraq" more "difficult to achieve."

On the role of the DOD in the chaos surrounding post-Saddam Iraq, the report faults the decision to make the Department of Defense the lead agency in 2003:

While this may have made sense in theory, it did not work in practice. . . DoD's lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution continued to pose problems throughout the occupation period.

The report also comes down hard on the "Future of Iraq" project designed by the State Department:

Press reports have widely described the Future of Iraq project as a State Department "plan" for the reconstruction of Iraq. Such a characterization is unwarranted. Plans require a concrete set of prioritized steps that should be taken in a given situation, and a plan ideally assigns responsibility for each of those steps. The Future of Iraq project did not contain any such prioritization; it was not something that could be taken off the shelf and immediately executed.

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Topics: Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq

Iraq

Buried RAND Report to Resurface Today

Kate Klonick | June 30, 2008, 12:54PM

Earlier this year, it was revealed that the Army quashed public release of a 2005 report by the RAND corporation, their federally-financed research arm, that came to some "sharp conclusions" about who was responsible for the myriad of shortcomings in Iraq.

According to the New York Times, that report will finally be released today:

In 2005, the RAND Corporation submitted a report to the Army, called "Rebuilding Iraq," that identified problems with virtually every government agency that played a role in planning the postwar phase. After a long delay, the report is scheduled to be made public on Monday.

The Times also describes the most recent study by the Army, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign," the second volume of an ongoing history of the Iraq conflict.

Prepared from over 200 interviews conducted by military historians, the report attempts to avoid controversial elements of the conflict, often unsuccessfully:

[T]he study documents a number of problems that hampered the Army's ability to stabilize the country during Phase IV, as the postwar stage was called.

"The Army, as the service primarily responsible for ground operations, should have insisted on better Phase IV planning and preparations through its voice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff," the study noted. "The military means employed were sufficient to destroy the Saddam regime; they were not sufficient to replace it with the type of nation-state the United States wished to see in its place."

The study also discusses Gen. Tommy Frank's reorganizing of senior command in 2003, a move that served to further handicap the already paltry strategy for creating stability in Iraq:

A fundamental assumption that hobbled the military's planning was that Iraq's ministries and institutions would continue to function after Mr. Hussein's government was toppled.

"We had the wrong assumptions and therefore we had the wrong plan to put into play," said Gen. William S. Wallace, who led the V Corps during the invasion and currently leads the Army's Training and Doctrine Command.

Faced with a brewing insurgency and occupation duties that they had not anticipated, Army units were forced to adapt. But organizational decisions made in May and June 2003 complicated that task

.

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Topics: Iraq

Iraq

Today's Must Read

Andrew Tilghman | June 30, 2008, 10:07AM

A couple weeks ago, we learned that Iraq's oh-so-very-sovereign Ministry of Oil was about to award a round of no-bid contracts to several western oil companies that would bring the large multinationals back into Iraq for the first time in more than 35 years.

The Bush Administration insisted that they were not going to interfere in this deal, which was between Iraq's democratic leaders and private-sector companies.

But today's New York Times report confirms what many people have suspected for years -- that U.S. officials are working behind the scenes to influence the future of Iraq's massive oil reserves.

In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said.
...
The American government lawyers provided specific advice, the State Department official said, like: "These are the clauses you may want. You will need a clause on arbitration. You will need this clause to make this work."

Near the end of the story, the Times reports:

Advisers from the State, Commerce, Energy and Interior Departments are assigned to work with the Iraqi Oil Ministry, according to the senior diplomat. In addition, the United States Agency for International Development has a contract for Management Systems International, a Washington consulting firm, to advise the oil and other ministries. The agency's program is called Tatweer, the Arabic word for development.

A Washington consulting firm? Actually, Management Systems International is a subsidiary of a massive Australian company, Coffey International Ltd. focusing on mining, oil and gas infrastructure projects.

And guess who some of their clients are? Global oil companies including Cheveron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP.

So the company that touts big oil as clients is helping the Iraqi government negotiate with those companies -- and getting paid by the U.S. government to do so.

But USAID and the consulting firm they hired don't call that a conflict of interest, the call it "mentoring."

"The legal department of the Ministry of Oil passed us a draft of the contract," Samir Abid, a Canadian of Iraqi origin who is an employee of the Tatweer program, said in a telephone interview. "They passed it to us and asked for our comments because we were mentoring them."

U.S. officials suggested that the Iraqi's needed their help since they haven't dealt with western oil companies since the 1970s. That's when, you might recall, Saddam Hussein kicked out all the international oil firms and nationalized the Iraq National Oil Company.

The Times wrote Sunday, in a story about Iraq's oil in the Week in Review section, many oil experts say that Iraq is among the easiest places in the world to pull oil out of the ground.

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Topics: Iraq, Oil

Iraq

Today's Must Read

Andrew Tilghman | June 23, 2008, 10:03AM

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government has spent nearly $500 million on an Arabic language television and radio station.

Now an investigation finds that the project has not only been poorly run and hemorrhaged taxpayer money but is also airing bizarrely anti-American and anti-semitic coverage despite repeated complaints from the State Department and Congress.

ProPublica, in a joint investigation with 60 Minutes, finds that the al-Hurra network -- "the Free One" in Arabic -- has completely failed in its initial mission to counter the influence of the Qatar-based al-Jazeera news network in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

For starters, there are problems with the staff, which often does not have any Arabic language skills or a background in broadcast journalism:

Alhurra's president, Brian Conniff, does not speak Arabic and is unable to understand anything broadcast on the radio and television networks he is paid to manage. Conniff has no journalism experience and worked previously as a government auditor. His news director, Daniel Nassif, grew up in Lebanon and has no background in television. Before coming to the network, he helped promote the political aspirations in Washington of a Lebanese Christian former general.

Then there is the accounting, which has failed to track millions in taxpayer dollars:

Financial accountability also appears to be lacking. In its four years, the network has been unable to provide full documentation to auditors to account for its spending, according to two people familiar with the records and a 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office.

(The GAO report is here.)

Meanwhile, the station may have been doing more harm that good for America's image in the Middle East. Along with the story, ProPublica also publishes a series of documents showing the complaints about al-Hurra filtering into the State Department and Congress in recent years.

Read more »

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Topics: Iraq, Iraq Corruption