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November 30, 2007
Waxman Postpones Krongard Hearing
The hearing regarding the State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard previously announced for the week of December 3, 2007, has been postponed, according to a press release from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
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November 28, 2007
Christmas Greeting for US Soldiers
My friend Jodie passed this along:
A Great Idea!!!When you are making out your Christmas cards this year, please
include one to:A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001If you approve of the idea, please pass it on to your friends.
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November 20, 2007
Reconstruction Company Convoy Arrested
ALMCO, a Dubai-based, Iraqi-run company with lucrative US contracts in Iraq has found itself in a bad situation.
One of its convoys transporting low-wage migrant Asian workers to the airport in a dump truck apparently began shooting at civilians, according to The Washington Post:
In total, U.S. military and Iraqi officials said, 43 people were arrested: 21 Sri Lankans, 1 Indian and 9 Nepalese contractors, 10 Iraqi security guards and 2 Fijian guards. The two Fijian guards had U.S. Defense Department identity cards, according to Maj. Brad Leighton.
Soon after the shooting from the security accompanying the convoy, a street crowd surrounded the truck as Iraqi soldiers and police arrived. Then some of the soldiers got on the truck and started beating the workers. It seems the workers in the open truck were mistaken for Afghan fighters, although they were unarmed.
A policeman at the scene told AFP that the incident occurred around noon on Monday and was unprovoked.
"A truck was transporting Asian workers through Karrada, escorted by three vehicles. They were driving on the wrong side of the road and guards in the vehicle opened fire to disperse people," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to talk to the media."Because of the shooting, a 20-year-old woman was wounded in the leg," he added.
ALMCO is a US military logistics contractor for food supply, construction and training, not a security firm, Reuters reports. It also holds a contract to build a courthouse as part of US reconstruction efforts.
Statements from the firm's employees, taken in front of a civil judge, "revealed attempted murder of Iraqi civilians and other violations."
It's a sad event, given the heartfelt interview that the Iraqi head of the company, ALMCO, once gave to CNN's Jane Arraf. He says that rebuilding Iraq is his definition of jihad despite resistance from the insurgents. See Almco's Website and look under "news & events."
Obviously, Almco has also made a bundle of money. The company began in 2003 with a $500 contract to transport fuel and now holds US-funded contracts worth hundreds of millions.
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New Study: Explosive Growth for War Contracts
U.S. government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan have mushroomed more than 50 percent annually, from $11 billion in 2004 to almost $17 billion in 2005 and more than $25 billion in 2006, according to a new report by the Center for Public Integrity called "Windfalls of War II" (a supplement to a previous report).
Much of the study confirms the obvious, such as KBR's top billing for $16 billion from 2004 through 2006. But it also compiles a handy list of the top 100 contractors doing business in the war zones.
Unknown Identities: One of the most interesting findings is that "Over the three years studied, more than $20 billion in contracts went to foreign companies whose identities -- at least so far -- are impossible to determine." Here's the chart.
Missing Key Company: The report seems to have missed is Kuwait-based Public Warehouse Company -- now better known as Agility. The company has billed billions of dollars on the war effort in Iraq and is a primary logistical supplier for the military and civilian forces.
Posted by davidphinney at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 16, 2007
'Family Feud' in the Making for CSPAN!
Brothers Howard "Cookie" Krongard and "Buzzy" Krongard may find their family feud wheeled out into the public when Congress holds a hearing to decide whether or not Cookie told the truth under sworn testimony on Wednesday.
Cookie first said that his brother had no ties to Blackwater before the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform.... He then said yes, indeed, his brother was affiliated with the private security firm that Cookie was charged with investigating.
Committee Chairman Henry "Inquisitor-in-Chief" Waxman now notes that there were a number of other discrepancies between Howard Krongard's testimony and what the Justice Department and senior officials in the Inspector General’s office told the Committee.
"This is a serious matter given Howard Krongard's position as the Inspector General of the State Department. I expect the Committee to hold a hearing during the week of December 3, 2007, to provide members the opportunity to assess whether the Inspector General provided truthful testimony to the Committee. "
Waxman also sent a letter to Buzzy Krongard requesting an interview and documents relating to his communications with Cookie about Blackwater. After receiving the letter, Buzzy Krongard called Committee staff and provided information that differed significantly from Cookie's testimony.
Buzzy Krongard stated that Howard Krongard called him specifically to ask about any relationship he had with Blackwater "in preparation for his testimony" to the Committee. Buzzy Krongard stated: "He asked me whether I had any financial interest or any ties to Blackwater, and so I told him ‘I'm going on their Board.'" According to Buzzy Krongard, "He responded by saying, 'Why would you do that?' and 'Are you sure that's a good idea?'" Buzzy Krongard then said, "I told him that was my decision, not his, and that we just differed on that."Buzzy Krongard stated that during the Committee hearing, he was at home watching it live. He listened to Howard Krongard's prepared opening statement. Then, he heard Howard Krongard offer spontaneously the comment that his brother had no connection to Blackwater. Buzzy Krongard said: "You could have blown me over." During the hearing, he attempted to reach Howard Krongard by telephone. Before he could reach him, Buzzy Krongard received a call from Howard Krongard and explained again that he was a member of the Board.
Waxman's letter to his committee members is here.
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Republicans Attempted to Replace Stuart Bowen with Howard Krongard
Rolling Stone retreads an old story and reminds readers that congressional Republicans once tried to replace Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen with Howard "Cookie" Krongard, the State Department inspector general now accused by Democrats of covering up and thwarting numerous investigations in Iraq:
....you may remember that one of the last acts of the GOP controlled congress in 2006 was an attempt -- ultimately reversed -- to cut off funding for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, a longtime friend of Bush’s from Texas who earned the contempt of his political patrons by actually doing his job. The Republican efforts would have shut down his office -- which has exposed billions in waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq -- and have turned over his duties to … you guessed it … Cookie Krongard.
I think the jury is still out on Bowen's work, but otherwise, here's the Rolling Stone blog by Tim Dickinson.
Posted by davidphinney at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Baghdad Embassy Investigations Detailed
Two key players in charge of the $736-million new U.S. Embassy project in Baghdad for more than two years have been named as targets of a US Justice Department investigation.
Both James L. Golden and Marry French work for the US State Department and both have become well-known and controversial figures among those who have worked on the sprawling project that is now said to be rife with construction problems and months behind schedule.
Golden is a hard-driving, independent contract employee hired by the State Department to oversee the project. He often led planning meetings and guided the selection of subcontractors with an influential hand.
French is the embassy project coordinator based in Baghdad. As an employee of the US State Department, she was responsible for assuring that the project was directed according to law.
Golden also is known for his hard-driving approach, his close relationship with the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting, and a penchant for identifying sole-sourced subcontractors to work on the project. Although Golden is a contractor himself, many believe he was authorized -- both tacitly and implicitly -- with sweeping authority and decision-making.
Mary French is often singled out by those familiar with the project for frequently ignoring warnings about shortcomings on the project, complaints about worker abuse, poor working conditions and allegations of labor trafficking at the project. She is also noted for a strong ambitious streak and many say that the embassy is her first large-scale project.
Both are said to have been working under enormous pressure from above to do "whatever it takes to get the project done" as part of the State Department's goal to establish a permanent, large-scale presence in Baghdad.
The two have regularly ignored emails and phone calls from me over the past two years regarding these assertions.
More to come, meanwhile,
Glenn Kessler with The Washington Post has the story.
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November 15, 2007
State Dept Investigator Backs out of Embassy Probe
Yesterday, State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard recused himself from the Blackwater investigation.
Today, the department's lead investigator has also removed himself from all queries related to corruption allegations involving the construction of the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, according to the Associated Press.
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November 14, 2007
'Cease and Desist': Trafficking Investigation Thwarted at Baghdad Embassy
The US State Department's chief investigator, Howard Krongard, told his staff not to investigate allegations of labor trafficking at the US embassy project in Baghdad, a House Committee hearing revealed today.
During his opening comments, Rep. Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee noted:
There are also allegations that the building’s contractor, First Kuwaiti, was involved in labor trafficking. When Mr. Krongard heard that his staff might investigate this issue, he sent them an e-mail that said, as one official described it, "cease and desist all work, I’m taking care of this."
It's worse than that: I first reported allegations of labor trafficking and worker abuse in October 2006 in a now award-winning story: Flying Baghdad Embassy Express.
One source working for Krongard tells me that when the story appeared, a staff member commented: "The cat is out of the bag now."
If true it means Krongard knew about the allegations well before October 2006. (That may be, in part, because I began asking questions about similar allegations with State Department officials in April 2006.)
Nevertheless, the US Justice Department was interested soon after my story appeared, according to Waxman's investigators:
When the Justice Department expressed an interest in a possible criminal investigation and prosecution in November 2006, however, Mr. Krongard barred his staff from communicating with a Justice Department prosecutor. In an e-mail, Mr. Krongard wrote: "This is something I am working on. Please do not do anything without talking to me."
Investigators who recently resigned from Krongard's office tell me that they received "numerous" complaints from "multiple" sources in 2006 as well early 2007. Krongard deemed them unworthy of looking into until June 2007, however postponed his personal investigation until September 2007 when he visited the embassy site. At that time, Krongard interviewed six workers selected by the embassy contractor out of several thousand laborers and then took a walking tour with an armed escort.
By that time, Krongard had given a heads up to the contractor and US State Department officials overseeing the project. Many sources who were at the construction site in Baghdad say the contractor covered up its alleged mess.
Given that the embassy contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting, has been accused of trafficking by numerous parties in the past, (see here and here and here) some might expect Krongard to have acted far more responsibly.
Apparently, Chairman Waxman is among those.
Here is an excerpt from his committee investigation:
On a trip to Iraq with Deputy Inspector General Bill Todd...Mr. Krongard personally examined allegations that First Kuwaiti was engaged in labor trafficking. Mr. Todd told the Committee that Mr. Krongard's cursory investigation, which involved interviewing six employees pre-selected by First Kuwaiti and touring the construction site with armed guards, was "very unorthodox." Patti Boyd, the Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Audits, called Mr. Krongard’s investigation "an embarrassment to the community" and said it would "never pass muster … in any IG organization." Mr. DeDona, the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, described Mr. Krongard's investigative approach as "ludicrous," and Brian Rubendall, a Special Agent-in-Charge, said it was "an affront … to our profession."
Interestingly enough: The Philippines also investigated First Kuwaiti after Waxman held a hearing about the trafficking allegations in late July. Phillipine officials also relied on First Kuwaiti as its primary source for the probe. The investigation resulted in the Philippine government repatriating 100 workers employed by First Kuwaiti who were found to be in Iraq illegally. I am also told by a second-hand source that India also repatriated 250 workers.
Was the Philippine investigation thorough? Perhaps.
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An Inconvenient Truth: Cookie's Brother
Mother Jones lays out a scathing case against US State Department Inspector General Howard "Cookie" Krongard and his alleged attempts to thwart an investigation of Blackwater:
Ronald Militana, a special agent for investigations in Krongard's office, launched an inquiry last March into allegations that Blackwater had smuggled weapons into Iraq. (The weapons ultimately wound up in the hands of the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group in southeastern Turkey and a U.S.-designated "foreign terrorist organization.") Militana interviewed State Department officials and a Blackwater attorney, and briefed an assistant U.S. attorney on the details of the case in preparation for a criminal prosecution. In June, with the initial legwork complete, Militana's boss, John DeDona, sent an email to Krongard, updating him on the status of the case. Krongard's cryptic response: "Please do not treat anything in the email below as having been seen by me, advised by me, or understood or approved by me. If there's something significant in the message below, please come and tell me about it."
As it turns out, Cookie's brother had accepted an offer to join Blackwater's Worldwide Advisory Board. The brother, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard -- may also have played a part in facilitating Blackwater's $5.4 million deal for covert services in Afghanistan while he served as executive director of the CIA until his resignation in 2004.
Here's the Mother Jones story: How Cookie Crumbled.
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Tampering with Witnesses?
Interesting thought: Someone just told me that Krongard may come periously close to criminal conduct if the allegations that he thwarted investigations of Blackwater and First Kuwaiti are proven true.
After all, there were instances where Krongard was aware of US Justice Department investigations in his capacity of State Department Inspector General.
Of course, I am not a lawyer.....
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November 10, 2007
Global Shift in Wealth
Ouch: "Iinflated confidence in the Kremlin; new weapons in Chad and new petrochemical plants in Saudi Arabia; no-driving campaigns in South Korea and bigger sales for Toyota hybrid cars; a fiscal burden in Senegal and a bonanza in Brazil.
All thanks to the rising price in oil, The Washington Post claims: "High oil prices are fueling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone."
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November 09, 2007
Document Update
Baghdad Embassy Contractor Aims for More Business
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Army Mulls over New Logistics Contract
With KBR's multi-billion military logistics contract in Iraq and elsewhere coming to an end in December, the Army tackles a recent protest on how to award the new contract -- and possibly extend KBR's work.
Last June, the Army's Sustainment Command awarded the fourth version of its LogCAP contract to three firms: KBR of Houston; former contract holder DynCorp International LLC of Fort Worth, Texas; and Fluor Intercontinental Inc. of Greenville, S.C. Successful protests were filed the following month with the General Accounting Office, which determined that the Army badly mishandled the evaluations of five bid proposals for the lucrative contract.
Gov Exec surveys the landscape: Army weighs options as GAO sustains protests of logistics contract.
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November 08, 2007
Weapons that Went Missing in Iraq
Where did the weapons go? During a tour of the Iraqi Interior Ministry compound in eastern Baghdad, Iraqi government officials accepted estimates by American oversight officials that some 190,000 pistols and automatic rifles supplied by the United States to Iraqi forces in 2004 and 2005 were unaccounted for, reports James Glanz of The New York Times.
An October 2006 audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction said there was "questionable accuracy" and "incomplete accountability" in the way Multi-National Security Transition Command managed weapons.
Missing weapons and other materiel is not a new development: US officials were frequently aware of little or no accounting of weapons entering the country and being transferred to Iraq's Ministry of Interior, according to an email chain provided to me (contact info deleted for privacy concerns).
One former US official in Baghdad wrote in a chain of email exchanges in 2005 to other officials in 2005:
Diversions and re-allocation of great quantities of materials, including weapons, is the norm here. It is my belief that we cannot account for, and the Iraqi MOI will not account for, over 30% of everything we have issued them.... The Glocks are a prime example and now we have thousands of weapons which neither we or the MOI can account for.
Apparently, supplying police stations were a big problem in record keeping:
I have also recently provided a list of about 60 police station “requirements” which actually was already issued by the coalition but never made it to the units. This requirements list was assembled by Maj. Gen Jassim in his effort to find the “bottleneck” or “Black hole” where all the material was going to.... the Iraqi Logistics system, which does indeed exist, has been thwarted at every level, by our unwillingness to allow it to actually work. The MOI Unit commanders have been conditioned by "US" that they simply have to ask us in lieu of going through their own process.The official was especially concerned about missing armored vehicles:
The MOI is receiving hundreds of vehicles from other sources and not sharing that information us. In this JAPAN shipment there are also 150 busses and 350 sedans. We have no visibility of this stuff and MOI is not sharing the information. (The MOI does not know that this information is being shared with me).
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November 07, 2007
TIME: Baghdad Embassy and Inspectors General
Looks like the new sprawling Baghdad embassy won't be complete until next year according to Time despite State Department assurances it would be finished last September:
The new embassy compound will make life for diplomats in Iraq much more comfortable when it opens next year at a date still to be determined.TIME also takes on the inspectors general question: Is Bush Corrupting the Watchdogs?
The latest, and perhaps the most egregious, IG abuse to come to light has been at the State Department, where IG Howard Krongard is alleged to have repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in the $3.6 billion spending that State has overseen in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the new U.S. embassy, which is racked with problems.
For more on Inspector General Krongard's investigative prowess, see Baghdad Embassy Investigated for Labor Trafficking and Abuse.
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Looking for a New Blog Platform
Any suggestions?
Meanwhile, check out www.theroughcut.net.
ALSO: New documents soon to be posted. (You know what I am talking about.)
Posted by davidphinney at 03:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 01, 2007
Forced Labor in Iraq and State Department Mutiny
Interesting that State Department employees are up in arms about the prospect of being forced to work in Iraq at the new $740-million embassy, aka, "Fort Apache on Steroids":
At the same time, the the State Department's own inspector general and trafficking in persons division (along with US news editors) have cast an intensely skeptical eye on allegations about human trafficking, worker entrapment and abusive labor practices of lowly-paid Asian laborers by the embassy contractor and US-military contractors in Iraq. Most of those companies are largely based in the Middle East.
So that Means: State Department workers making well into six figures a year (with hardship salary uplifts) don't want to go but contractors have no problem finding tens of thousands of migrant laborers out of Asia to work throughout Iraq in a war zone at wages ranging between $200 to $800 a month in a war zone?
Here's the Associated Press account of a meeting with State Department employees complaining about the mandate of required service in Iraq, portrayed as an "unusually hostile session":
... Several diplomats, backed by the vocal support of their colleagues there, vehemently complained about the prospect of so-called "directed assignments" to Iraq to make up for a lack of volunteers."Incoming is coming in every day, rockets are hitting the Green Zone," said Jack Croddy, a senior foreign service officer, referring to the highly fortified area of Baghdad where the embassy is located.
"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment," Croddy said. "I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it.... Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"
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The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad
William Langewiesche takes a look in Vanity Fair.
Of course, the project is not on budget or on time. It was originally scheduled to be finished by June 2007 and cost $592-million. Th project is now being estimated to cost $740 million and remains under construction.
Posted by davidphinney at 09:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
New Military Support Contract 'Improperly Awarded'
A new 10-year, $150 billion arrangement for providing logistical support U.S. troops around the world should be reconsidered, according to a lead government agency charged with reviewing federal contract awards. The contracts assigned the work to KBR, Fluor and DynCorp, but the General Accountability Office is challenging the deals with KBR and Fluor, according to USA Today.
The GAO claims that the Army didn't give weighty enough consideration to Pentagon auditors' concerns about the past performance of KBR and found that Fluor received "unequal treatment" in the contract competition:
The Army approved Fluor's proposal even though the proposal relied on different assumptions than those listed in the contract solicitation -- a shortcoming that hurt other bidders' proposals, the GAO said.
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Investigators Become Lapdogs?
Surveying the federal government's Inspector General system, an independent practice of checks and balances within the federal government, Rolling Stone suggests that President bush has turned watchdogs into lapdogs:
The administration is more interested in turning the watchdogs into lap dogs. Just as he politicized every other facet of government from FEMA to the Farm Bureau, President Bush has ignored the law and stocked the inspector general posts with inexperienced cronies.
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