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September 28, 2007
A Review of an Alleged Million-Dollar Bribe
Update on Jeff Mazon, a KBR contract officer being accused of taking bribes from businesses seeking work to support the US military in Iraq: Country Club Hills man accused in Iraq war kickback scheme.
Mazon faces four counts of major fraud and eight counts of wire fraud. Under way in federal court in Rock Island, Mazon's trial has shed light on other allegations of wartime contracting abuse, implicating another contracting firm. Neither he nor his lawyer returned a call for comment. -- Daily Southtown
Sources tell me the man who allegedly bribed Mazon, Ali Hijazi, is still free in Kuwait doing business, despite extradition requests by the US Justice Department. (.... Perhaps Hijazi knows too much and no one wants him blathering in US courts?) Hijazi's company, La Nouvelle, has been the subject of inflated contracts during congressional hearings when Republicans were in control of Congress and they disclaimed allegations of La Nouvelle's padded contracts as wartime exigencies.
Interestingly enough, Mazon's story is related to allegations that the US embassy contractor in Baghdad had also been engaged in bribing KBR contract officers.
Posted by davidphinney at 04:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 21, 2007
'War-Zone Procurement System in Disarray'
Up, up and away:
Criminal investigators are now scrutinizing $6 billion in spending on Pentagon contractors operating in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan that (allegedly) provide essential supplies to American troops -- including food, water and shelter, according to congressional testimony Thursday. That's up from a previously acknowledged $3 billion.
An additional $88 billion in Pentagon spending in the region is also being audited. The New York Times reports on the congressional hearing:
"In a combat environment, we didn’t have the checks and balances we should have in place," said Shay D. Assad, director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. "So people who don't have ethics and integrity are going to be able to get away with things."
Posted by davidphinney at 06:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Embassy Contractor Accused of Bribes
The Kuwaiti company building the U.S. embassy in Baghdad has been accused of agreeing to pay $200,000 in kickbacks in return for two unrelated Army contracts in Iraq. See the AP report.
ALSO: The limited partnered investigation by the embassy contractor and Philippine officials of possible labor trafficking is officially closed. (Sounds like consensual labor smuggling and visa violations by a contractor to the US State Department).
The Manila Times concludes: "Illegal trafficking of Filipinos into warstruck Iraq by a Kuwait-based construction firms has remained unabated. Special Ambassador to the Middle East Roy Cimatu has confirmed that the First Kuwait International, the subject of a previous complaint by a Filipino senator, continued to recruit Filipinos despite a deployment ban in Iraq since 2004."
Meanwhile, Filipino overseas workers are being deployed in Iraq in violation of the continuing Philippine ban, the country's special envoy to the Middle East Ambassador Roy Cimatu said.
Keep watching this story. There is more to follow.
Posted by davidphinney at 04:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 18, 2007
US State Department Inspector General Probed for 'Cover Ups'
The US State Department's chief investigative arm is on the hot seat for allegations that Inspector General Howard J. Krongard routinely thwarts investigations for political reasons to cover up embarrassing contracts with the US State Department and the Bush administration.
According to a letter by the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government, Krongard's staff has suffered from a sweeping exodus of resignations because of Krongard's antagonism towards investigations.
One investigation regards allegations of labor trafficking and worker abuse at the $592-million embassy project in Baghdad. Interestingly enough, I approached Krongard last January about the complaints following a congressional hearing on another matter.
Krongard's jaw dropped when I told him I had transcripts of workers who claimed they had been coerced to work at military camps in Iraq by the contractor building the embassy. Krongard told me he couldn't comment because it was under investigation. He told me to call his office the next day but no phone calls were ever returned.
Of course, Krongard never spoke to the people making the complaints about workers at the embassy. And his investigation was specious at best: He gave the contractor a heads up about his investigation months in advance of personally arriving at the embassy site. He then asked the contractor to select six workers out of an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 for him to interview. He then reported "nothing came to our attention," in April 2007 indicating poor treatment of the workers after questioning from Aljazeera about the allegations.
When Krongard was asked at a congressional hearing last July why he didn't speak to embassy workers John Owens and Rory Mayberry about their complaints that the contractor was smuggling workers into Iraq and then hosting them to less-than acceptable conditions, Krongard said he didn't feel it was necessary. He said he had read my work on the subject and that was sufficient.
One problem: My stories that included Mayberry and Owens first appeared mid-October 2006. Krongard made his inspection the month before in September. Krongard must be telepathic. Then again, some believe Krongard was party to telling the contractor to clean up its act before he visited the embassy site.
That July hearing prompted the Philippine government ot investigate the contractor and the conditions its citizens were working under. Some 100 Filipino workers were then repatriated from Iraq who were working around Iraq for the contractor. Interestingly enough, the Philippine investigators, like Krongard, only spoke to the embassy contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting during their probe. They never contacted Owens or Mayberry.
Here is Waxman's press release and link to the letter to Krongard.
Posted by davidphinney at 03:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2007
A Meeting of Minds: Fighting them (and us) 'Over There'
President Bush's repeatedly argues that it's better to fight terrorists in Iraq than what for them to attack the United States again. He also claims that al-Qaeda wants to "drive us out" of Iraq. However, U.S. intelligence intercepted an internal al-Qaeda communique that al-Qaeda has us just where it wants us -- stuck in Iraq.
The letter written by senior al-Qaeda operative Atiyah Abd al-Rahman claims that "prolonging the war is in our interest." Few ever challenge President Bush with this new finding, which was translated and analyzed by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Consortium News posts the relevant excerpt at as well as the entire letter.
Of course, even the CIA has suggested that the war in Iraq is a great training ground and recruitment poster for terrorists bent on fighting the United States.
Posted by davidphinney at 04:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Who is Alexis Debat?
Former ABC News terrorism consultant gets roughed up by his former boss and others for allegedly faking interviews under his byline:
Former President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have added their names to the list of people who say they were the subjects of fake interviews published in a French foreign affairs journal under the name of Alexis Debat, a former ABC News consultant. ABC News
Debat was a consultant on terrorism for ABC News for five years until this June, when ABC News officials demanded his resignation after he failed to satisfy questions raised about his academic credentials.
I recall pitching a story to Debat once. He said he had it great at ABC and was once handed $20,000 in cash to travel in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
ABC hired Mr. Debat as a consultant in November 2001. Mr. Debat said: “I was on the ABC payroll. They sent me to Pakistan.” He called himself a consultant who also reported information for the network. He said he even occasionally shot video that the network used.
He also told me he was a former high-level official with the French Ministry of Defense, something that that French officials are not discrediting via The New York Times:
And the French Ministry of Defense tried to debunk his claims to have been an official or adviser in the ministry, saying he was little more than an intern.... Mr. Debat said the French government was out to discredit him because he had appeared on television identified as a former Defense Ministry official.Rue89 runs through the allegations of dirty laundry in How Alexis Debat managed to cheat everyone in Washington.
Posted by davidphinney at 02:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Iraq Government Bans Blackwater Security Company
The Iraqi government said it had revoked the license of Blackwater USA, a private security company that provides protection for American diplomats across Iraq, after shots fired from an American convoy killed eight Iraqis:
Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Interior, said the authorities had canceled the company's license and barred its activity across Iraq. He said the government would prosecute the deaths, though according to the rules that govern private contractors, it was not clear whether the Iraqis had the legal authority to do so."This is a big crime that we can't stay silent before," said Jawad al-Bolani, Iraq's interior minister, speaking on satellite television. "Anyone who wants to have good relations with Iraq has to respect Iraqis."
Associated Press has the story.
The Washington Post provided the details of the incident.
Christian Science Monitor does the blog on news coverage.
Posted by davidphinney at 01:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Greenspan, Terrorism and Oil
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greespan connects the dots on oil and the White House "War or Terrorism" in Iraq with his new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, released today. The Los Angeles Times relates Greenspan recalling:
"Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy."That comment elicited "clarification from Greespan in an interview with Bob Woodward at The Washington Post: "I was not saying that tha''s the administration's motive.... "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."
The Washington Post adds that Greenspan said: ....that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." Asked if he had made his point to (Vice President) Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, "I talked to everybody about that."
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