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November 14, 2007
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.
Posted by davidphinney at November 14, 2007 08:00 PM
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