The Blogiston Post

Bandwidth

2011-11-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

This blog may be old but I still keep tabs on it and remove spam comments. I keep this blog as it still has quite a bit of useful research tucked away in its pages.

So spammers, move along and go waste someone else's bandwidth..

An Iraq Contractor in the Fog of War

2006-05-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

The following is the summary for my first article published at ePluribus Media where I am also a volunteer researcher and editor.

One Missing, One Dead: an Iraq Contractor in the Fog of War
by Susie Dow with Steven Reich
ePluribus Media

On October 9, 2003, Kirk von Ackermann disappeared from his car on a road in Iraq leaving behind a laptop computer, satellite phone and $40,000 in cash. Two months later, on December 14, 2003, his colleague Ryan Manelick was gunned down shortly after leaving a meeting at a base. Before he died, Manelick said the disppearance of von Ackermann was connected to fraud. Both worked for Ultra Services.

From a chance meeting in 2001 for a wedding in Kyrgyzstan, to an attempt by employees to steal the business, to a new company in Afghanistan, Dow's article traces Ultra Services into the the fog surrounding the company in Iraq with One Missing, One Dead.

The article will formally roll out this Sunday, May 21st. The link to the discussion area at the community site of ePluribus Media will become active at that time.

Additional reading:

The Missing Man
Missing in Iraq by Kirk von Ackermann's wife.

Baghdad

2006-03-25T01:31:00.000-08:00

There's an excellent article by Orville Schell in the New York Revew of Books that should not be missed. While it's basically a survey of the state of the Western journalist in Iraq, it's also a commentary on division. Those with security, and without. With T-Walls, without. Inside the wall, or out. Byline, no byline. Everywhere and nowhere.

Fascinating to read. And as hard as it might be to believe, makes me wish I could travel there to see what it is he saw--not all of which I suspect he has put into words.

Baghdad: The Besieged Press

The Baghdad International Airport terminal is full of armed guards and ringed by armored vehicles. I saw no buses or taxis awaiting arriving passengers. Almost everyone is "met." I am picked up by The New York Times's full-time British security chief, who has come in a miniature motorcade of "hardened," or bomb-proof, cars, escorted by several armed Iraqi guards in constant radio contact with each other.

As America approached the third anniversary of its involvement in Iraq, I had gone to Baghdad to observe not the war itself, but how it is being covered by the press. But of course, the war is inescapable. It has no battle lines, no fronts, not even the rural– urban divide that has usually characterized guerrilla wars. Instead, the conflict is everywhere and nowhere.

it's a bad soap opera

2005-11-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

You know, you just can't make this sh*t up anymore. I'm thinking the folks in the White House just watched way way way to many epsiodes of Dallas and thought that was way the real life should be. How else to explain Tom Delay and his super killer buds Safavian and Abramoff? Or Mike Brown worrying about what to wear to dinner while the citizens of New Orleans drowned? Or Condoleezza Rice thinking a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" was a historical memo?

Telling ya', it's become a really bad soap opera.

Issuing Contracts, Ex-Convict Took Bribes in Iraq, U.S. Says
by James Glanz, NY Times, November 18, 2005

A North Carolina man who was charged yesterday with accepting kickbacks and bribes as a comptroller and financial officer for the American occupation authority in Iraq was hired despite having served prison time for felony fraud in the 1990's.

The job gave the man, Robert J. Stein, control over $82 million in cash earmarked for Iraqi rebuilding projects.

Along with a web of other conspirators who have not yet been named, Mr. Stein and his wife received "bribes, kickbacks and gratuities amounting to at least $200,000 per month" to steer lucrative construction contracts to companies run by another American, Philip H. Bloom, an affidavit outlining the criminal complaint says. Mr. Stein's wife, who was not named, has not been charged with wrongdoing in the case; Mr. Bloom was charged with a range of crimes on Wednesday.

In the staccato language of the affidavit, filed in Federal District Court in the District of Columbia, Mr. Stein, 50, was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy, interstate transportation of stolen property and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

But the list of charges does little justice to the astonishing brazenness of the accusations described in the complaint, including a wire transfer of a $140,000 bribe, arranged by Mr. Bloom, to buy real estate for Mr. Stein in North Carolina. The affidavit also says that $65,762.63 was spent to buy cars for Mr. Stein and his wife (he bought a Chevrolet; she a Toyota), $44,471 for home improvements and $48,073 for jewelry, out of $258,000 sent directly to the Bragg Mutual Federal Credit Union into accounts controlled by the Steins.

Mr. Stein's wife even used $7,151.58 of the money for a "towing service," the complaint says. Much of this money was intended for Iraqi construction projects like building a new police academy in the ancient city of Babylon and rehabilitating the library in Karbala, the southern city that is among the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims.

More...

Tell me that doesn't sound like a soap opera...Towing service? Wink, wink. Ah, jeebus, go read the rest of the article. There's so much crap in there worth quoting that it'd be best if you went off and read it yourself.

Can't wait for the Bush twin's twist on Luke & Laura's wedding. But it's going to be tough to top Noelle for drama.

What goes up, must come down

2005-11-17T09:11:00.000-08:00

U.S. Files First Criminal Charges Against Contractors in Iraq
Bloomberg
November 17, 2005

The U.S. Justice Department filed the first criminal charges against a contractor receiving Iraq reconstruction contracts, according to court documents.

Philip H. Bloom, 65, funneled at least $693,000 in bribes and kickbacks through bank accounts in Iraq, Switzerland, Romania and the Netherlands in the year through January 2005, according to the documents filed yesterday. The money then went to at least two unnamed U.S. government officials and their spouses in exchange for reconstruction work valued at over $3.5 million, the documents show. [...]

Bloom's firms did business as Global Business Group, GBG Holdings and GBG-Logistics Division, the affidavit said.

More...

It'll be interesting to see the fall out from this story. Too bad congress didn't demand accountability from the DoD until the 3rd supplemental. Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for having played party politics first rather than protecting American's tax dollars.

Look it up if you don't believe me. The Republicans voted twice, as a block, against accountability. They have no business calling themselves the party of "fiscal responsibility" until they clean this mess up.

Contractors

2005-11-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

Civilian contractors in Iraq dying at faster rate as insurgency grows
By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers

As of Monday, 428 civilian contractors had been killed in Iraq and another 3,963 were injured, according to Department of Labor insurance-claims statistics obtained by Knight Ridder.

[...]

The Labor Department lists 156 dead for an L-3 Communications subsidiary in Virginia. The company, which provides translators who work with the military, puts the death toll at 167, of whom 15 were Americans. The Labor Department's accounting reports that Halliburton, the largest contractor in Iraq, has had 30 employees killed in Iraq and 2,471 injured. A Halliburton spokeswoman, Melissa Norcross, said Tuesday that the company had lost a total of 77 workers in Iraq, Afghanistan and its base in Kuwait. One worker is unaccounted for. Halliburton couldn't give a breakdown by country.

The government's listing shows the contractors' casualty rate is increasing. In the first 21 months of the war, 11 contractors were killed and 74 injured each month on average. This year, the monthly average death toll is nearly 20 and the average monthly number of injured is 243.

[...]

Kiernan noted that L-3's employees aren't killed in combat, they're being assassinated. Of the company's 152 dead Iraqi employees, 105 were murdered because they collaborated with Americans, he said.

Morre...

2005-10-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

Billions of dollars short, U.S. must scale back Iraq reconstruction
By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers

The Bush administration cannot fulfill all its grand promises to rebuild Iraq because soaring security costs, mismanagement and poor planning have cost billons of dollars, federal auditors said Tuesday.

Some projects - including those to provide clean water for Iraqis - have been cancelled as a result.

In one case, security costs for a U.S. Agency for International Development program on economic reform increased from $894,000 to $37 million, an auditor told Congress. And hundreds of millions of dollars is being diverted to pay for training for Iraqis and for the maintenance of new facilities - expenses overlooked in the initial U.S. planning for the reconstruction, auditors said.

Add to that the rising prices for materials, cost overruns and delays, and there's far less money to rebuild Iraq as the Bush administration envisioned, said Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. He called the shortfall "the reconstruction gap."

[...]

Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., said that when he visited Iraq, he found too many auditors, saying "there seems to be inspectors general just about everywhere." He said there was one auditor for every 1.5 contracting official.

Bowen said the actual ratio was 16 to 1, with 44 auditors and 715 contracting officials. Dent, he said, was repeating "a myth surfaced by the companies that would rather not have oversight."

More...

Now that last little snippet is interesting. Republicans voted as a block against any oversight on Pentagon spending for Iraq and Afghanistan thru the first two supplementals. It wasn't until the third supplemental, and constituents throwing hissy fits over run away spending, that oversight amendments were finally added but not until long after the damage had been done.

Apparently, the Republican block still doesn't like accountability as evidenced by Dent's remarks on too many "auditors". Just to be clear, it's not really individual Republicans who don't like accountability for spending. It's the K Street lobbyists and the clients they represent, who want the brakes put on any attempts at following the money.

For a look into K Street, there was a good article a couple of years ago that's worth a read: Welcome to the Machine
By Nicholas Confessore
Washington Monthly
July/August 2003

How odd

2005-10-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

Agency charged with spending oversight in Iraq left country in '04
By Seth Borenstein
Knight Ridder Newspapers

The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating and reporting fraud and waste in Defense Department spending in Iraq quietly pulled out of the war zone a year ago - leaving what experts say are gaps in the oversight of how more than $140 billion is being spent.

The Defense Department's inspector general sent auditors into Iraq when the war started more than two years ago to ensure that taxpayers were getting their money's worth for everything from bullets to meals-ready-to-eat.

The auditors were withdrawn in the fall of 2004 because other agencies were watching spending, too. But experts say those other agencies don't have the expertise, access and broad mandate that the inspector general has - and don't make their reports public.

More...

Where does the Army's Major Procurement Fraud Unit at the CID fall into this?

Another GAO Report

2005-09-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

Defense Spending Is Overstated, GAO Report Says

The Pentagon has no accurate knowledge of the cost of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan or the fight against terrorism, limiting Congress's ability to oversee spending, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a report released yesterday.

The Defense Department has reported spending $191 billion to fight terrorism from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks through May 2005, with the annual sum ballooning from $11 billion in fiscal 2002 to a projected $71 billion in fiscal 2005. But the GAO investigation found many inaccuracies totaling billions of dollars.

"Neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing and details of how appropriated funds are being spent," the report to Congress stated. The GAO said the problem is rooted in long-standing weaknesses in the Pentagon's outmoded financial management system, which is designed to handle small-scale contingencies.

I believe this is the report cited in the article.

Global War on Terrorism: DOD Needs to Improve the Reliability of Cost Data and Provide Additional Guidance to Control Costs, GAO-05-882

GAO found numerous problems in DOD's processes for recording and reporting costs for GWOT, raising significant concerns about the overall reliability of DOD's reported cost data. As a result, neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing and details on how appropriated funds are being spent, or have historical data useful in considering future funding needs.

I haven't read the report...but I'll be looking at the foot notes in particular. That's where the good stuff usually is.

Insurance

2005-09-17T00:52:00.000-07:00

Iraq is costing about $3 billion a week in US taxpayer dollars. Is it too much to ask that a little more than the cost of one week in Iraq, be used to cover Tricare insurance for guardsman/women and reservists for the next 5 years?

That's money I would consider well spent.

And, shame on you, Rep Duncan Hunter, R-CA. SHAME. ON. YOU.

Would extending Tricare coverage take guns out of troops' hands?

Extending federal health care to all drilling reservists would be so expensive that it could take guns out of troops' hands, a former Defense Department financial expert said Wednesday.

But reservist lobbying groups, which have been pushing for the coverage, called the comments scare tactics that miss the importance of the health care expansion.

In the spring, members of the House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment providing access to Tricare to all reserve and guard troops preparing for active duty, but chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., struck the proposal before it reached a vote before the full House, citing excessive costs.

[...]

On Wednesday, during a hearing before the committee, former Defense Department comptroller Dov Zakheim said paying for the health care expansion, estimated at about $3.8 billion over the next five years, would eat into the acquisition budget, "we're taking weapons out of everybody's hands."

The Department of Defense was slow to provide armor to troops, and now they are squawking about insurance.

Maybe Mr. Rumsfeld believes troops are "fungible" but this American happens to disagree with his assessment. Give your senators a piece of your mind and demand Tricare insurance for all reservists and guardsmen/women.

I can't help but wonder WHO exactly is lobbying AGAINST the guardsmen/women and reservists. Lockheed Martin? L3? Raytheon? Someone who is afraid a little portion of their missile defense boondoggle budget will be eaten into.

Blog Search

2005-09-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Google has a new blog search feature. Easy to use. I'm liking it so far.http://blogsearch.google.com/

Remains to be seen how easy the new service is to manipulate with google bombs.

Same old same old

2005-09-13T00:43:00.000-07:00

There is a commentary posted at the ePluribus Media scoop site that's worth a looksee. The connections to contracts in Iraq, in this case, telecommunications, and the reward of a cushy job with a defense contractor.

Another Cush Job
by Gottlieb

Joseph E. Schmitz, son of John G. Schmitz, the fiercely conservative former congressman from Orange County, is the Inspector General at the Pentagon. He is leaving the Dept. of Defense under a dark cloud of investigation over whether or not he has blocked other investigations of senior Bush officials.

Schmitz has been hired as COO and General Counsel for the Prince Group based in Alexandria, Virginia.

The Prince Group is the parent company of Blackwater USA.

There's more and it's not pretty.

No money to follow

2005-09-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

Iraqis To Bush - Where Did All Our Money Go?
by Evelyn Pringle

...a United Nations sanctioned audit concluded that about half of the $5 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds could not be accounted for because of poor financial controls, according to the PDF - Development Fund of Iraq-Report of Factual Findings in connection with Disbursements from January 1, 2004 to 28 June 2004, by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, in September 2004

Until the summer of 2004, the CPA refused to release the names of companies that were awarded contracts paid for with Iraqi funds. Although information was available about US funded contracts, there was no public information available about companies paid with Iraqi money. In August 2004, information was finally made available for contracts valued at more than $5 million. But to this day, no details have been released about contracts worth less than $5 million.

An analysis of the data released in August 2004, showed that the CPA had awarded 85% of the contracts to US and UK firms. By contrast, Iraqi companies received a mere 2% of the contracts paid for with Iraqi funds.

A March 18, 2004 audit report by the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General, titled, PDF - Acquisition: Contracts Awarded by the Coalition Provisional Authority by the Defense Contracting Command-Washington determined that the CPA and its predecessor, the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), had circumvented federal contracting procedures since the early days of the occupation.

More...

A bad nightmare...

2005-09-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

...or is it Groundhog Day?

Shaw Awarded Contract from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Hurricane Katrina Recovery and Rebuilding

The Shaw Group Inc. (SGR) today that is has been awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to aid in the recovery and rebuilding efforts. [...]

The $100 million contract has a base period of one-year, with an additional one-year option. Shaw announced earlier today a $100 million ID/IQ contract award by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide support services in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including housing assistance for displaced residents.

Former head of FEMA, Joe Allbaugh and his wife have a family business. One of their clients is the Shaw Group. First Iraq, now New Orleans. Lucky Shaw. Lucky Halliburton. Lucky SCI...SCI, who?

FEMA mortuary move irritates volunteer

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a hired contractor to provide services that a local mortician says have been available from volunteers through the National Funeral Directors Association. [...]

"The company that FEMA has chosen to outsource the recovery work in Louisiana is Kenyon, a worldwide disaster management company, wholly owned subsidiary of Service Corporation International," according to the NFDA.

SCI, of Houston, Texas, provides funeral, cremation and cemetery services in North America and Reuters reported Kenyon International Emergency Services spokesman Jay Kirsch said it was sending 50 workers to the area struck by Katrina to help recover the bodies of those killed by the hurricane.

More...

So what, you say?

Funeralgate Hits Texas

On April 15, 1998, funeral magnate Robert Waltrip talked with Gov. George W. Bush in the Texas Capitol. That much is not in dispute. However, the content of their discussion is the subject of considerable dispute. And the actions taken by the governor's staff members, a half-dozen legislators, and Texas Attorney General John Cornyn after that April 15 meeting are part of what may be the biggest influence-buying scandal in recent memory.

The politicos and the funeral company are at the heart of a whistleblower lawsuit filed March 23 against the state, funeral home giant Service Corporation International (SCI), and Waltrip, the company's chairman and CEO. The suit alleges that Bush and other politicos worked to thwart an investigation by the Texas Funeral Service Commission (TFSC) into improperly licensed embalmers working out of SCI funeral homes in Dallas. [...]

And why did Allbaugh get involved? Did he, as Bush's chief of staff, simply make his own decision to intervene on behalf of SCI? Could Allbaugh have been persuaded by a $35,000 political contribution?

Iraqi Defense Ministry

2005-08-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

Millions embezzled at Iraqi ministry
by Ed Vulliamy and Richard Norton-Taylor

A report compiled by the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit has concluded that at least half, and probably more, of $1.27bn (£700m) of Iraqi money spent on military procurement has disappeared into a miasma of kickbacks and vanished middlemen - or else has been spent on useless equipment.

The report, leaked to the US news organisation Knight Ridder, comes as a blow to the credibility of the Iraqi army and its ability to contain the increasingly cogent insurgency.

According to the report, led by former human rights minister Abdel Baset al-Turki, the vanished money came solely from Iraqi funds, not from foreign donations to Iraq's military or the US-funded training budget.

The report focuses on an eight-month period after the transfer of sovereignty from the US-led occupation to caretaker Iraqi authorities on June 28 2004.

[...]

Nine ministry officials, all of them appointed by the US, have been fired by the ministry, and face possible criminal charges. Among them is the ministry's procurement chief, Ziad Cattan.

More...

It doesn't look good that so many of the offiicals were appointed by the US. Next question: who from the US recommended the Iraqi officials to begin with? They didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

An Iraqi Company

2005-08-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

Former employee of Halliburton subsidiary pleads guilty to accepting kickbacks

A former employee of a Halliburton Co. subsidiary pleaded guilty Friday to accepting more than $100,000 in kickbacks from an Iraqi company in exchange for securing it a U.S. military construction contract, prosecutors said.

Glenn Allen Powell, 40, of Cedar Park, Texas, will be sentenced Nov. 18 in federal court for major fraud against the United States and violating the anti-kickback act. He faces 10 years in prison on each count and up to $1.25 million in fines.

[...]

In exchange for $110,300 in kickbacks, Powell recommended the Iraqi company for a $609,000 subcontract to renovate four buildings into office and warehouse space, prosecutors say. Prosecutors declined to name the company.

Remember those seized funds?

2005-08-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

Worries Raised on Handling of Funds in Iraq

It weighed 28 tons and took up as much room as 74 washing machines. It was $2.4 billion in $100 bills, and Baghdad needed it ASAP.

The initial request from U.S. officials in charge of Iraq required the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to decide whether it could open its vault on a Sunday, a day banks aren't usually open.

"Just when you think you've seen it all," read one e-mail from an exasperated Fed official.

"Pocket change," said another e-mail.

Then, when the shipment date changed, officials had to scramble to line up U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo planes to hold the money. They did, and the $2,401,600,000 was delivered to Baghdad on June 22, 2004.

It was the largest one-time cash transfer in the history of the New York Fed.

More...

Same $2.4 Billion dollars?

Report: Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit

2005-08-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

Audit: Iraq fraud drained $1 billion
By Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder Newspapers, August 11, 2005

Iraqi investigators have uncovered widespread fraud and waste in more than $1 billion worth of weapons deals arranged by middlemen who reneged or took huge kickbacks on contracts to arm Iraq's fledgling military, according to a confidential report and interviews with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

The Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit, in a report reviewed by Knight Ridder, describes transactions suggesting that senior U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials in the Defense Ministry used three intermediary companies to hide the kickbacks they received from contracts involving unnecessary, overpriced or outdated equipment.

Knight Ridder reported last month that $300 million in defense funds had been lost. But the report indicates that the audit board uncovered a much larger scandal, with losses likely to exceed $500 million, that's roiling the ministry as it struggles to build up its armed forces.

The episode deprives Iraq's military of essential gear that could help prepare the way for U.S. forces to withdraw. It also raises questions about the new government's ability to provide an effective defense against an entrenched insurgency and win broad acceptance among Iraqis.

The audit board's investigators looked at 89 contracts of the past year and discovered a pattern of deception and sloppiness that squandered more than half the Defense Ministry's annual budget aimed at standing up a self-sufficient force, according to a copy of the 33-page report.

[...]

The Board of Supreme Audit, led by former Human Rights Minister Abdel Baset al-Turki, examined defense contracts that had been signed starting with the transfer of sovereignty June 28, 2004, through Feb. 28, 2005. The investigation's results, supported by bank statements, receipts and internal Defense Ministry memos, were delivered to al-Jaafari's office May 16.

[...]

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees the U.S. military's training of Iraqi troops, conducts weekly briefings with the defense minister. Other Iraqi defense officials seldom are spotted without American civilian advisers nearby. The close relationship has raised questions as to how $500 million or more could vanish without U.S. intervention to stop the suspicious contracts that flowed for at least eight months.

More...

Why was Petraeus office so lax about confronting fraud issues--not his money so he didn't really care how it was spent?

One excerpt from the above article that is a bit disturbing was this one: "The sole beneficiary on 43 of the 89 contracts was a former currency-exchange operator, Nair Mohamed al-Jumaili, whose name doesn't even appear on the contracts."

PS I'm going to start highlighting some of the names and organizations to try and make it easier to keep track, my head spins a little with all of the various groups and people.

Ol' Halliburton

2005-08-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

Army Whistleblower Draws Fire
by Deborah Hastings, AP National Writer

Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse is the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting ("PARC" in the alphabet soup of military acronyms) in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lest the title fool, she is responsible for awarding billions upon billions in taxpayers' money to private companies hired to resurrect war-torn
Iraq and to feed, clothe, shelter and do the laundry of American troops stationed there.

She has rained a mighty storm upon herself for standing up, before members of Congress and live on C-SPAN to proclaim things are just not right in this staggeringly profitable business.

She has asked many questions: Why is Halliburton — a giant Texas firm that holds more than 50 percent of all rebuilding efforts in Iraq — getting billions in contracts without competitive bidding? Do the durations of those contracts make sense? Have there been violations of federal laws regulating how the government can spend its money?

[...]

Greenhouse has known for a long time that her days may be numbered. Her needling of contracts awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) predated the war in Iraq, beginning with costs she said were spiraling "out of control" from a 2000 Bosnia contract to service U.S. troops. From 1995 to 2000, Halliburton's CEO was
Dick Cheney, who left to run for vice president. He maintains his former company has not received preferential treatment from the government.

Since then, she had questioned both the amounts and the reasons for giving KBR tremendous contracts in the buildup to invading Iraq. At first she was ignored, she said. Then she was cut out of the decision-making process.

More...

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Guess the Pentagon forgot that particular motto.

Extortion

2005-08-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

Guard members from East Bay said to charge Iraqis 'rent'

California Army National Guard troops from a unit based in the East Bay charged unauthorized, off-the-books "rent" to Iraqi-owned businesses inside Baghdad's Green Zone to raise money for a "soldiers fund," military officials and sources within the troops' battalion said Friday.

The disclosure is the latest to emerge from a wide-ranging investigation into the conduct of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment of the Guard.

Military officials had confirmed earlier that the battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, was suspended and that one of the battalion's companies, based in Fullerton (Orange County), had been removed from patrol duties and restricted to an Army base south of Baghdad.

Earlier this year, according to military officials and members of the battalion, soldiers from the battalion's Bravo Company approached several businesses owned and operated by Iraqis. Bravo Company is based in Dublin, and the 1st Battalion has its headquarters in Modesto.

The businesses -- a dry cleaner, a convenience store and others -- catered to U.S. soldiers and were located on the fringe of the U.S. military's operating base inside the Green Zone, the fortified hub of the Iraqi government, U.S. occupation officials, foreign embassies and contractor headquarters. The businesses were asked to pay the soldiers "rent."

More...

They used to have a name for that: extortion.

A Grim Anniversary

2005-08-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

Today is the 4th anniversary of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that was titled Bin Laden Determined to strike in US

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks...

Where is Osama bin Laden and why hasn't the US aggressively pursued him?

New York City was my home for 16 years. I am extremely angry that Osama bin Laden remains at large.

Steven Vincent

2005-08-04T22:06:00.000-07:00

Slaying of US writer in Basra is investigated
by Thanassis Cambanis, Boston Globe, August 4, 2005

American author and freelance journalist Steven Vincent, who was kidnapped and murdered late Tuesday in Basra, was an outspoken critic of the police force in the southern city and of the rise in what he called ''Islamo-fascism." [...]

His death appeared to mark the first targeted killing of a Western journalist in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003. Since then, three other American journalists have died in Iraq, including veteran Boston Globe reporter Elizabeth Neuffer, who was killed in a car accident. Police spokesman Abdulkerim Zaidi and witnesses said that a group of men in an unmarked pickup truck abducted Vincent and Khal after 6 p.m. Tuesday when they were leaving a money changer's office near the Merbid Hotel, where Vincent had been staying.

The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said four men carried out the kidnapping. Vincent resisted, and one of his shoes remained in the street after the pair were thrown in the truck and taken away. [...]

Vincent was openly scornful of Basra's police and government; he had written about the high rate of unsolved murders, public corruption, and death squads that targeted secular Iraqis in articles for the Christian Science Monitor, National Review, Harper's, and for his Internet blog, also called ''In the Red Zone." The blog entries took the form of letters to his wife, Lisa, in New York City.

More...

What. A. Surprize.

2005-08-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

Iraq Investigates Widespread Corruption
by Bassem Mroue, AP, August 2, 2005

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on unnecessary and overpriced equipment for Iraq's new army at a time when the United States and its allies are struggling to get the force in shape to battle insurgents, Iraqi officials say.

Iraqi authorities have opened inquiries into several cases of possible corruption at the Defense Ministry. The ministry official believed behind most of the questionable deals was removed from his job in June and banned from leaving the country.

"Corruption is widespread at the ministry. One of the cases alone is worth $226 million. The investigation is still going on," said legislator Kamal al-Saaidi, a member of the independent Supreme Anti-corruption Commission.

Most of the alleged unnecessary purchases were made during the term of interim Prime Minster Ayad Allawi, who took office after occupation authorities turned over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 28, 2004.

More...

Don't you just wonder, where has everybody been for the last year and a half?

GAO Reports

2005-08-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Report raises concerns about Iraqi reconstruction
by Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY, July 31, 2005

The United States risks having "little to show for billions" of dollars spent on Iraqi reconstruction because of rising security costs and mismanagement, a new report said Sunday. [...]

Bowen was appointed to monitor $18.4 billion allocated for Iraqi reconstruction in 2004. Overall, $24 billion has been approved and $9 billion spent since 2003, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress' watchdog agency.

According to a report issued Thursday by the GAO, security costs are consuming more than a third of reconstruction funds. The report said that 330 private contractors, many of them working for security companies, had been killed.

Reports:

PDF - Rebuilding Iraq: Status of Funding and Reconstruction Efforts GAO-05-876, July 28, 2005

PDF- Rebuilding Iraq: Actions Needed To Improve Use of Private Security Providers GAO-05-737, July 28, 2005

Related:

PDF - Afghanistan Reconstruction: Despite Some Progress, Deteriorating Security and Other Obstacles Continue to Threaten Achievement of U.S. Goals GAO-05-742, July 28, 2005

Mission Accomplished

2005-07-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

How many more reports need to be published before Congress gets serious about investigating where the money is going in Iraq?

Investigator says millions of dollars of US money missing in Iraq

A special investigator tracking billions of dollars spent by the United States on reconstruction in Iraq said he has found millions of dollars worth of fraud by US officials and companies.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said the US Justice Department was looking into fraud that he had uncovered.

But giving details of his latest report, which is to be released on Saturday, Bowen told National Public Radio (NPR) that US-backed reconstruction projects in Iraq are speeding ahead.

"The reconstruction for Iraq is peaking, 1,000 projects are completed and 1,000 more are ongoing," he said.

The United States has allocated 23 billion dollars for new infratructure and Bowen's previous reports have already highlighted huge sums of missing money.

He said his latest report looks at four water projects and "the results are all over the map".

Bowen also told how seven million dollars intended for the troubled Hilla region south of Baghdad had disappeared. The money came from the Development Fund for Iraq, money from oil sales that the US-run former Coalition Provisional Authority used for development projects.

"There was no accountability, no records," Bowen said. "Unfortunately there were possible fraudulent activities occurring."

More...

Who?

2005-07-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

"Who's the enemy?" distraught Iraqis wonder
by Luke Baker, Reuters, July 25, 2005

As Iraq spirals deeper by the day into violence and lawlessness, Baghdad residents say brutality and corruption are spreading among the very security forces that are supposed to be protecting them.

Some maintain that the situation has grown so bad that at times they can't distinguish the behaviour of U.S.-trained Iraqi police and soldiers from that of militants or criminals.

And since insurgents have in the past infiltrated the police and army, at times it is impossible to tell the sides apart.

"Sometimes we don't know who the enemy is," said Ismael Mahmoud, a 32-year-old businessman whose cousin was recently seized by a special police unit and later found dead.

We have a serious problem with corruption.

2005-07-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

Donor countries tackle misuse of Iraq aid
AFP, July 18, 2005

Iraq and donor countries began two days of closed-door meetings on Monday to review the pace of reconstruction in the violence-ravaged country, at a key phase in its political transition.

Iraqi Planning Minister Barham Saleh warned that corruption was a threat undermining the reconstruction of Iraq but hoped nevertheless that donors would be forthcoming with specific projects and commitments.

"We have a serious problem with corruption. It represents a great threat," Saleh told reporters before the meetings of the International Reconstruction Fund Facility (IRFFI) and Donors Committee on the shores of the Dead Sea in Jordan.

"We will try to make reconstruction based on decentralisation, that means projects will be implemented by local councils of the governorates," said Saleh, who is co-chairing the meeting with donors committee head Canada.

More...

Follow the Money

2005-07-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Where has all the money gone? following the auditors into Iraq
by Ed Harriman, London Review of Books, Vol. 27 No. 13, July 7, 2005

The ‘reconstruction’ of Iraq is the largest American-led occupation programme since the Marshall Plan. But there is a difference: the US government funded the Marshall Plan whereas Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer have made sure that the reconstruction of Iraq is paid for by the ‘liberated’ country, by the Iraqis themselves. There was $6 billion left over from the UN Oil for Food Programme, as well as sequestered and frozen assets, and revenue from resumed oil exports (at least $10 billion in the year following the invasion). Under Security Council Resolution 1483, passed on 22 May 2003, all of these funds were transferred into a new account held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, called the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), so that they might be spent by the CPA ‘in a transparent manner . . . for the benefit of the Iraqi people’. Congress, it’s true, voted to spend $18.4 billion of US taxpayers’ money on the redevelopment of Iraq. But by 28 June last year, when Bremer left Baghdad two days early to avoid possible attack on the way to the airport, his CPA had spent up to $20 billion of Iraqi money, compared to $300 million of US funds.

The ‘financial irregularities’ described in audit reports carried out by agencies of the American government and auditors working for the international community collectively give a detailed insight into the mentality of the American occupation authorities and the way they operated, handing out truckloads of dollars for which neither they nor the recipients felt any need to be accountable. The auditors have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. They have also discovered that $8.8 billion that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect of finding out where it went. A further $3.4 billion earmarked by Congress for Iraqi development has since been siphoned off to finance ‘security’.

More...

Includes the following links to various agencies and committees.

US House of Representatives
Government Reform Committee Minority Office
http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/

US General Accountability Office
http://www.gao.gov/

Defense Contract Audit Agency
http://www.dcaa.mil/

International Advisory and Monitoring Board
http://www.iamb.info/

Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General
http://www.cpa-ig.com/

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction
http://www.sigir.mil/

Vice Admiral John Scott Redd

2005-07-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

Hearings are coming up on a new appointment to the National Counterterrorism Center. Redd was the deputy administrator and chief operating officer of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. A stint with Paul Bremer's CPA doesn't inspire confidence. The CPA hasn't exactly earned a stellar reputation for management style what with missing funds, nepotism, and lack of interest in congressional oversight.

Redd Herring: one man's connection to three Iraq War scandals at Unbossed.com

On June 10, President Bush announced that he was tapping VADM Redd to serve as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)—which is responsible for analyzing intelligence on terrorism and for the strategic planning of counterterrorism operations. The NCTC will report partly to the President and partly to John Negroponte, the new director of National Intelligence. The announcement was made just one week before a Congressional requirement for the NCTC to be fully operational.

It will be interesting to see how the hearings go and what comes out of them in terms of testimony.

House cleaning

2005-07-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

I'll be updating the side bar links and moving some things around. The old posts will still be here. But goodness, there's quite a bit to do.

Fighting Fraud & Corruption

2005-07-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

To combat fraud, the Coalition Provisional Authority lists a Fraud Hotline as well as provides an on-line complaint form at their website.

The Hotline is your means to report significant instances of fraud, waste, abuse of authority, and gross mismanagement. It is government policy to combat fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in programs and operations funded by the Iraq relief and Reconstruction Fund. The Hotline strives to ensure that allegations are properly evaluated and examined, and that appropriate remedial, corrective, and judicial actions are taken.

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction
SIGIR Fraud, Waste and Abuse
400 Army Navy Drive
Arlington, VA 22202-4704
(866) 301-2003
(703) 602-4063
(703) 602-5993 fax
http://www.cpa-ig.com/fraud_faq.html

Fighting corruption within the Iraq government:
Iraq Commission on Public Integrity
The Commission was originally created under Paul Bremer on January 31, 2004.
Commission on Public Integrity to Combat Government Corruption

In addition to the efforts to combat fraud by the CPA, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has established a Tip Line and on-line complaint form to help alert Congress to contract fraud in Iraq.

This tip line has been established to assist the Special Investigations Division in investigating potential fraud, waste, and abuse in the awarding and execution of contracts to rebuild and rehabilitate Iraq, including actions by U.S. government agencies, prime contractors, and subcontractors. The confidentiality of any person providing information will be strictly preserved.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman
Special Investigations Division - Iraq Contracting
Committee on Government Reform Minority Staff
B350A
Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC 20015
(202) 225-5051
http://www.house.gov/waxman/
Note: click 'Iraq Contracting' on the right hand side bar for the on-line form.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a general tip line thru their website.

While the FBI continues to encourage the public to submit information regarding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, this form may also be used to report any suspected criminal activity to the FBI.

Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20535-0001
(202) 324-3000
http://www.fbi.gov
Tip line:
https://tips.fbi.gov/

Related article on cooperation from the FBI with Iraqi counterparts to solve crimes in Iraq.

Gonzales: FBI to Aid Iraqi Investigations

The United States will help Iraq investigate the killing and kidnapping of government officials, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says. The informal agreement was disclosed as Gonzales made an unannounced and tightly guarded, six-hour visit Sunday to Baghdad. He met with Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, as well as police and judicial officials.

Word of the arrangement followed the abduction on Saturday night of Egypt's top envoy to Iraq. [...]

While details are still to be worked out, investigators from the FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies would join their Iraqi counterparts at crime scenes and in other aspects of the probes, aides to Gonzales said.

More...

Past Articles

2005-07-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

Fraud and Corruption in Iraq. Rare or widespread?

In recent months, news stories on contract fraud in Iraq have been appearing in the press much more frequently. Most of the articles on fraud and corruption seem to cover mismanagement, over billing, kick backs, and missing funds.

Army Ignored Broker on Arms Deal
by Ken Silverstein and T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times, March 15, 2005

Soon after interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi took office last summer, he announced plans to create a tank division for the new Iraqi army.

The $283-million project was supposed to display the power of Iraq's new government. But under the guidance of a task force overseen by one of America's top generals, it has become another chapter in a rebuilding process marked by accusations of corruption.

The U.S. contractor working on the project repeatedly warned the task force headed by Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus that a Lebanese middleman involved in the deal might be routing kickbacks to Iraqi Defense Ministry officials. But senior U.S. military officials did not act on the contractor's pleas for tighter financial controls, according to documents and interviews.

"If we proceed down the road we are currently on, there will be serious legal issues that will land us all in jail," the contractor, Dale Stoffel, wrote in a Nov. 30 e-mail to a senior assistant to Petraeus.

Eight days later, Stoffel was shot dead in an ambush near Baghdad. The killing is being investigated by the FBI, according to people who have been interviewed by the bureau.

More…

A long article on contractor Dale Stoffel can be read in this month's Washington Monthly, The Unquiet American, by Aram Roston, June 2005.

Whistle-Blower Suit May Set Course on Iraq Fraud Cases
by Eric Eckholm, New York Times, May 22, 2005

In September 2004 the Pentagon, citing evidence of fraud and a continuing criminal investigation of Custer Battles, barred the company from receiving more federal contracts, halting what had been the company's explosive growth. The company was founded in 2001 by two veterans with more ambition than assets, and by mid-2004 it had $100 million in Iraq contracts.

The company's critics say its owners, Scott Custer and Mike Battles, benefited from the frantic awarding of contracts in 2003 and the constant turnover of monitors.

The whistle-blower suit accuses the company of defrauding the government through actions as large as the creation of shell companies to pose as suppliers and increase billable costs and as small as the repainting of Iraqi Airways forklifts, then claiming to have leased the machines for thousands of dollars per month.

More…

Audit of Iraq Spending Spurs Criminal Probe
by Griff Witte, Washington Post, May 5, 2005

Investigators have opened a criminal inquiry into millions of dollars missing in Iraq after auditors uncovered indications of fraud in nearly $100 million in reconstruction spending that could not be properly accounted for.

The money had been intended for rebuilding projects in south-central Iraq. But auditors with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that of $119.9 million allocated, $7.2 million could not be accounted for at all, and $89.4 million in reported spending could not be backed up with sufficient documentation, according to a report released yesterday.

[…]

Criminal investigators with the office of Special Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen Jr. will be looking into whether anyone involved committed fraud, the audit says, although it does not disclose who is being investigated.

More…

Iraq is becoming 'free fraud' zone
by Tom Regan, Christian Science Monitor, April 7, 2005

A former senior advisor to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran Iraq until the election of an interim Iraq government last January, says that the US government's refusal to prosecute US firms accused of corruption in Iraq is turning the country into a "free fraud zone."

Newsweek reported earlier this week that Frank Willis compared Iraq to the "wild west," and that with only $4.1 billion of the $18.7 billion that the US government set aside for the reconstruction of Iraq having been spent, the lack of action on the part of the government means "the corruption will only get worse."

[…]

The Christian Science Monitor reported on other allegations of corrpution in Iraq leveled against companies, including a "report by special inspector Stuart Bowen [which] found that $8.8 billion dollars had been disbursed from Iraqi oil revenue by US administrators to Iraqi ministries without proper accounting."

More…

Fraud and corruption
by George Monbiot, The Guardian, February 8, 2005

Last week a British adviser to the Iraqi Governing Council told the BBC's File on Four programme [sic] that officials in the CPA were demanding bribes of up to $300,000 in return for awarding contracts. Iraqi money seized by US forces simply disappeared. Some $800m was handed out to US commanders without being counted or even weighed. A further $1.4bn was flown from Baghdad to the Kurdish regional government in the town of Irbil, and has not been seen since.

More…

Corruption in Iraq

2005-07-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

There have been far too many stories in the news on fraud and corruption in Iraq. So, here we go again.

Corruption threatens to leave Iraq with a 'ghost army'
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
July 15, 2005

A tidal wave of corruption may ensure the Iraqi army and police will be too few and too poorly armed to replace American and British forces fighting anti-government insurgents. That could frustrate plans in Washington and London to reduce their forces in Iraq.

The Iraqi armed forces are full of "ghost battalions" in which officers pocket the pay of soldiers who never existed or have gone home. "I know of at least one unit which was meant to be 2,200 but the real figure was only 300 men," said a veteran Iraqi politician and member of parliament, Mahmoud Othman. "The US talks about 150,000 Iraqis in the security forces but I doubt if there are more than 40,000."

The army and police are poorly armed despite heavy expenditure. "The interim government spent $5.2bn (£2.6bn) on the ministry of defence and ministry of the interior during six months but there is little to show for it," said a senior Iraqi official who did not want his name published.

I've got a bunch of older articles that I'll post soon.

Drat. And there we were getting all comfy cozy in our retirement.

signing off

2005-01-26T22:21:00.000-08:00

signing off

This is our last post. Thank you for your support.

We wish peace and goodwill to all.

into thin air

2005-01-25T13:02:00.000-08:00

into thin air

On October 9, 2003, Kirk von Ackermann disappeared in Iraq.

Colin Freeman, a freelance reporter writing from Iraq, covered the story. It was published in the UK Telegraph on November 9 and in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 11, one month after the incident.

Ackermann's disappearance could easily be explained away as the collateral damage of working in a war zone, but $40,000 in cash, a satellite phone, and his lap top computer were left behind in his car. Odd circumstances in a country where looting and highway piracy have become common place.

No insurgent group claimed responsiblity. There was no high profile demand for ransom. No release of a taped appeal to the President of the United States for his freedom. No gruesome video of a beheading posted on a website. No discovery of a body.

Kirk Von Ackermann simply vanished into thin air.

Mystery surrounds US businessman missing in Iraq's 'Sunni triangle' by Colin Freeman, Telegraph, November 9, 2003

Bay Area civilian vanishes in Iraq by Colin Freeman, San Francisco Chronicle, November 11, 2003

The Missing Man Links to articles on Kirk von Ackermann and Ryan Manelick. (Note: Added to original post February 20, 2005)

$1 trillion is coming

2004-12-15T01:59:00.000-08:00

$1 trillion is coming

For those of you out there who so willingly support the War in Iraq, will you still support it when it reaches the cost of $1 trillion dollars? It's well on its way.

The Weekly Standard had a recent editorial by 2 AEI wonks on defense spending that seems to have flown under the radar. They cite a report by Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments with some budget figures in it that people really should be paying attention to.

Recent editorial in the Weekly Standard by Tom Donnelly and Vance Serchuk, respectively, resident fellow and research associate in defense policy at AEI.

Creating the force we need for the many missions we've given our military in the Middle East and around the globe will require between 5 percent and 6 percent of GDP. That's $500 billion to $600 billion a year, and it needs to be sustained for the foreseeable future. It's a lot of money--and it will take a lot of political courage to ask for it. But that is the price of preserving Pax Americana.

The editorial continues:

Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has calculated that strictly military spending on Iraq will total about $166 billion by the end of the 2005 fiscal year. The bulk is eaten by personnel bills.

Spending on Defense, Homeland Security and Related Activities Since 9/11 PDF October 20, 2004 By Steven Kosiak

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, federal funding for defense, military operations (primarily in Afghanistan and Iraq), homeland security, and related activities has increased by a total of some $513 billion. This figure represents the level of funding appropriated for these programs and activities over the fiscal year (FY) 2001-05 period that is above what would have been projected to have been provided in these areas, over these years, had funding simply been increased at the rate of inflation.ii In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, funding for these programs and activities is about 35 percent higher in FY 2005 than it was just prior to the attacks of 9/11.

Note: about 1/3 of the $513 billion ($171 billion) is directly related to 9-11, according to the report.

The annual DoD budget is already $100 BILLION more than it was when Clinton was in office.

Department of Defense Appropriations Act

FY 2005 $$417.5 billion
FY 2004 $401.3 billion
FY 2003 $393 billion
FY 2002 $318 billion (enacted in 2001 under Bush)
FY 2001 $310 billion (enacted in 2000 under Clinton)

Above does not even include the Iraq and/or Afghanistan supplemental spending bills.

100,000 dead Iraqis wasn't enough. 1500 dead troops, not enough. Is the cost of $1 trillion dollars enough to finally say STOP?

When is enough going to be enough?

2004-12-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

a new report and it's not pretty

Daily Kos has a post up on the Defense Science Board report.

Pentagon: Bush's 'hypocrisy' lost us hearts and minds

The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe, weakened support for the war on terrorism, and undermined U.S. credibility worldwide. Media commentary is consistent with polling data. In a State Department (INR) survey of editorials and op-eds in 72 countries, 82.5% of commentaries were negative, 17.5% positive.

That was from the report. Written by the Defense Science Board at the Pentagon.

There is consensus in these reports that U.S. public diplomacy is in crisis. Missing are strong leadership, strategic direction, adequate coordination, sufficient resources, and a culture of measurement and evaluation. America's image problem, many suggest, is linked to perceptions of the United States as arrogant, hypocritical, and self-indulgent. There is agreement too that public diplomacy could be a powerful asset with stronger Presidential leadership, Congressional support, inter-agency coordination, partnership with the private sector, and resources (people, tools, structures, programs, funding). Solutions lie not in short term, manipulative public relations. Results will depend on fundamental transformation of strategic communication instruments and a sustained long term, approach at the level of ideas, cultures, and values.

The number and depth of these reports indicate widespread concern among influential observers that something must be done about public diplomacy. But so far these concerns have produced no real change. The White House has paid little attention.

We haven't read the report yet. Should be interesting. Looking forward to the footnotes most especially.

Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication (PDF) 111 pages dated September 23, 2004

2004-12-01T23:46:00.000-08:00

hiatus

We're on hiatus. Hard to say when we'll be back. But if you stumble on this blog and need some sources for information on contracts, here are a few to check out.

Occupation Watch

International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq

Future of Iraq Portal

Iraq Revenue Watch

Also, please check out the Iraqi bloggers, as well as links in the side bar.

2004-11-13T01:53:00.000-08:00

blackwill

From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo

Former Iraq policy director at the NSC, Robert D. Blackwill has taken a job with the lobbying firm of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BG&R).

Last year when President Bush's right-hand-man Joe Allbaugh resigned as FEMA chief and wanted to get into the Iraq business, he went to BG&R, where his wife then worked. They set Allbaugh up as New Bridge Strategies ("your bridge to success in Iraq").

More...with links

If you have a little time on your hands, you might also want to read up on Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush, and Funeralgate.

Did someone say 'influence peddling'?

2004-10-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

bringing back iran contra

US Special Operations Command is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida. Last year, there were funny goings-on regarding money at MacDill.

Is there a connection between today's story on funding for US Special Operations and reports of the "parked" funds at Mac Dill in October of 2003? Reports at that time never clarified the intended use of the funds. Now things are looking a little more clear...and nefarious.

Pentagon gets funds for covert payoffs

Moving into an area of clandestine activity that is traditionally the domain of the CIA, the Pentagon has secured new authority that allows U.S. Special Operations forces to dole out millions of dollars in cash, equipment and weapons to international warlords and foreign fighters.

The U.S. Special Operations Command will have, the new policy states, as much as $25 million a year to spend providing "support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups or individuals" aiding U.S. efforts against terrorists and other targets. Previously, military units were barred from providing money or arms to foreign groups.

The new authority is contained in a little-noticed provision in the Defense Department authorization bill that was signed by President Bush on Friday.

Meanwhile, back in October of 2003...

More military funds scrutinized

Pentagon officials are investigating allegations of a second case of the Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base hiding millions of dollars from Congress in its budget.

The latest allegation, Pentagon officials confirmed Wednesday, involves $25-million that Special Operations listed in its fiscal year 2004 budget, which took effect Wednesday.

[...]

Pentagon investigators already had been conducting an audit, or a preliminary investigation, into how Special Operations - at the Pentagon's request - inflated budget proposals in fiscal year 2003 to "park," or hide, $20-million from Congress.

In that case, Special Operations officials divided $20-million among six projects so the money would not attract attention, according to defense officials and documents obtained by the St. Petersburg Times.

Our previous post on Mac Dill with more info

John Kerry as a junior Senator exposed Iran Contra and the BCCI scandal. Looks like the less than noble elements in America intend to keep him busy as President.

2004-10-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

fun

Carl Levin has released a new report today from the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Minority Staff.

Levin Releases Report on Pre-War Intelligence

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released a report today of an inquiry he initiated on June 27, 2003 and conducted by the SASC Minority Staff.

The report focuses on 1) the establishment of a non-Intelligence Community source of intelligence analysis in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and 2) the extent to which policy makers utilized that alternative source rather than the analyses produced by the Intelligence Community with regard to the issue of any relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda before the Iraq war.

Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative Analysis of the
Issue of an Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship (PDF) is 46 pages long.

We love footnotes.

The Intelligence Community is currently comprised of:

the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence
the Central Intelligence Agency
the Defense Intelligence Agency
the National Security Agency
the National Reconnaissance Office
the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
the intelligence components of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps
the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research
the Energy Department’s Office of Intelligence
the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Office of Intelligence
[the FBI] Divisions of Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence
the Department of Homeland Security’s Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection
[the DHS] Directorate of Coast Guard Intelligence
the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Finance Intelligence.

Interesting section, Part II, compares public statements made by senior Administration officials about the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship to the then-classified relevant Intelligence Community assessments.

However, the [Intelligence Community] never had the opportunity to defend its analysis, nor point out problems with DOD’s “alternative” view of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship when it was presented to the policymakers at the White House. Under Secretary Feith never informed the IC that he was taking the briefing they saw (with the addition of the slide critical of the IC and two other slides) to the White House. In fact, [Director of Central Intelligence] Tenet had been unaware of the Feith staff September 2002 briefing to the White House until February 2004, when Senator Levin raised the issue at an [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] hearing.

Let the Games Begin.

Department of Defense Statement Regarding The Levin Minority Report

The long-standing practice and policy of the Department of Defense is not to involve itself in political matters, but the following points are relevant:
The subjects covered in the Levin report have been investigated by, among other bodies, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The Department provided volumes of documents and other requested materials to these committees.

The unanimous, bipartisan report of the 9/11 Commission noted relationships that existed between al Qaeda and Iraq prior to al Qaeda’s attack on the United States in September 2001.

The unanimous, bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report of July 2004 found no evidence that Administration officials tried to coerce, influence or pressure intelligence analysts to change their judgments about Iraq’s WMD capabilities or links to terrorism.

The Senate Intelligence Committee also found that staff members from the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Mr. Douglas Feith “played by IC [intelligence community] rules” during their participation in an August 20, 2002 coordination meeting on the IC’s Iraqi Support for Terrorism report. The Senate Intelligence Committee report stated that Mr. Feith’s office was “not given special treatment,” and that their participation in the meeting “contributed to a frank exchange of opinions” which “did not result in changes to their analytical judgments.”

We laughed so hard we had to take a pee break before posting the DoD announcement. Obviously, Levin hit a nerve. Pass the popcorn.

Hint: Kiss, kiss, kiss. We might have missed the report if it hadn't been for the DoD announcement.

2004-10-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

go henry

Auditors Can't Account for Iraq Spent Funds

The audit was performed by the accounting firm KMPG for the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, created by the United Nations to monitor the stewardship of Iraqi funds.

The report monitored spending by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run governing agency which went out of existence in June; Iraqi ministries; the Kurdish Regional Government and Iraqi provisional governments. It covered the period from January to June this year.

In the CPA programs, "We found 37 cases where contracting files could not be located," the auditors said. The cost of the contracts: $185 million. In another 52 cases, there was no record of the goods received for $87.9 million in expenditures.

The Report and Fact Sheet are posted at the website of the Committee on Government Reform , Minority Office where Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is the Ranking Minority Member. Information is posted under the section titled Problems Found in Bush Administration Management of Iraqi Funds

A new audit by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board finds that the Bush Administration has not properly accounted for the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi oil proceeds.

The Fact Sheet (PDF) is 4 pages long, and is broken down into sections:

CPA-Administered Projects
Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP)
Iraqi Ministries
Kurdish Regional Government (KRG)
Iraqi Provincial Governments

The Development Fund for Iraq: Report of Factual Findings in Connection with Disbursements (PDF) is 28 pages long.

A sample of the report from page 17 under the section Projects administered by the CPA:

We found 34 cases where disbursements and advance payments had been made to the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for import of petroleum products ($983,704,969), restoration of oil infrastructure ($67,573,813), restoration of Iraqi electricity ($606,739,525) and other projects ($41,482,614).

We noted that disbursements to the USACE were authorized by the PRB and approved by the CPA Administrator, under a series of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU). Under these MoU the USACE utilized DFI funds for new work approved by the CPA Administrator. We were informed by the USACE that the contract vehicle was several task orders added to existing contracts that had been openly competed well before the start of the CPA and also issued new contracts.

We had limited access to contracting procedures and documentation for contracts awarded by the USACE. However, we were informed by the USACE that their contracts were awarded with limited competition from the largest US construction companies. In one case, we were provided with written justification for the limited competition on the electricity contracts.

We noted that two contracts related to the restoration of oil infrastructure were transferred from the USACE to the Project Management Office, a US Government agency.

A second sample from page 22 under the section Commanders Emergency Response Program :

For our sample of CERP disbursements tested, we found adequate supporting documentation for goods received or evidencing services rendered, except for the following deviations:
We found 142 cases where we were unable to obtain receiving reports or other supporting documentation evidencing services received for payments made ($39,957,782).

Quick summary: No one really knows where a nice chunk of the money went.

2004-10-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

"let them eat cake," said the baker

James Baker. Money. Carlyle. Iraq. Debt. Conflict of interest. What else is new?

James Baker's Double Life

Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker's loyalties are split, or that his power as Special Presidential Envoy--an unpaid position--has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents obtained by The Nation, that is precisely what has happened. Carlyle has sought to secure an extraordinary $1 billion investment from the Kuwaiti government, with Baker's influence as debt envoy being used as a crucial lever.

2004-09-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

numbers

Just because it's a good idea to look at numbers once in awhile. Let's take a peak at the recent history of the Department of Defense.

National Defense Authorization Act for:

FY 2005 $417.5 billion

FY 2004 DoD $401.3 billion

FY 2003 $393 billion

FY 2002 $318 billion (enacted in 2001 under Bush)

FY 2001 $310 billion (enacted in 2000 under Clinton)

The above do not include the supplemental spending bills. For instance, the supplemental spending bills for Iraq now total $185 billion dollars.

That's alot of cha-ching.

2004-09-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

well no sh*t dick tracy

Two new reports on reconstruction in Iraq.

Shorter report from CSIS: it's not looking good but we'll sound optimistic.

Shorter report from ICG: reconstruction - stunning failure.

Reports pan Iraq reconstruction

Detailed new reports by two independent groups offer a devastating portrait of the 16-month-old U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq, blaming ongoing violence there in large part on misplaced U.S. priorities, bureaucratic bungling and poor planning.

[...]

[Center for Strategic & International Studies] interviewed U.S. civilian and military reconstruction officials, international relief experts and more than 400 Iraqis in 15 cities. Its findings were echoed in a report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based organization that tracks conflicts around the world.

ICG says the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority committed "stunning mistakes" and left a "fragile, dysfunctional legacy" when it handed authority to an interim Iraqi government in June.

Center for Strategic & International Studies:

Progress or Peril? Measuring Iraq’s Reconstruction Progress (PDF) by Frederick Barton (l) and Bathsheba Crocker, co-directors of the Center for Strategic & International Studies Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, wrote the report, 108 pages (alot of it pretty charts).

In the fall of 2001, in recognition of the U.S. government's inability to respond to the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction, CSIS President John Hamre and U.S. Army General Gordon Sullivan (retired) established the Post-Conflict Reconstruction (PCR) Project.

Well that's reassuring. No one in the DoD was apparently listening before the war started.

The U.S. efforts thus far have been largely divorced from the Iraqi voice and undermined by security problems and the lack of jobs, and they are not leading toward entrenched sustainability of Iraqi capacity. They are also not leading to positive trend lines across the sectors. Metrics that focus too heavily on quantifiable inputs do not tell a complete story. Moreover, U.S.-driven metrics and U.S. government propaganda are not trusted sources of information for Iraqis. As rosy as they are, they do not make a dent in changing Iraqis’ perceptions. Until we start to see a positive trend line and arrive at a point (i.e., the tipping point) where Iraqis can sustain that trend, it is too early to claim success, and too risky to try to define circumstances that would justify an exit.

A good chunk of the report is on the methodology used.

You know how much we love footnotes:

By mid-July 2004, only $458 million of the $18.4 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds for Iraq had been spent, and U.S. officials admitted that their spending practices had not yet addressed the immediate need for job creation." From Richard Lugar, “Opening Statement for Hearing on Iraq—Post Transition Update,” Chairman’s statement, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 22, 2004, Luger Statement.

Of course, we're not exactly sure which $18.4 billion he's speaking of since over $160 billion has actually been appropriated but we'll guess State.

Even when the United States has focused on labor-intensive projects to suck up some of the unemployment, the vast bulk of the money for U.S.-funded projects goes to U.S. contractors, and up to 50 percent may be lost to profits for U.S. or other international contractors, security and insurance costs for contractors, and administrative and overhead costs; only a small portion ever makes it into the hands of Iraqi laborers or companies.

Surprise surprise.

U.S. assistance funds should be targeted to providing more direct assistance to Iraqis. The focus should be balanced between larger scale projects and community level initiatives. In addition to employing Iraqis, smaller scale projects run by Iraqis are more viable given the security environment. Security risks have severely hindered the ability of foreign contractors and their staffs to work in Iraq. They and their projects provide ready targets for insurgents and criminals. Reliance on large U.S. contractors and other foreign companies also means far less money is available for Iraq’s reconstruction, with money lost to profits and security-related costs, among other things.

Ok. You get the general gist of the report. Let's look at the next one.

International Crisis Group:

Reconstructing Iraq (PDF). No author is credited with the report though it is very heavily footnoted. 39 pages.

The CPA made a hard job harder.

That pretty much sums up the report but let's keep reading. Footnote alert.

Between June 2003 and August 2004, there have been nearly 100 attacks on pipelines, oil installations and personnel despite intense security measures. -- See Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, Iraq Pipeline Watch. These figures are far from reliable as many incidents go unreported. Oil production is well below anticipated levels. The Brookings Institution, Iraq's Oil Sector One Year after Liberalisation, 17 June 2004,

For what it's worth, this report addresses fiscal reality and the ramifications of the decision making of the CPA. It's not pretty.

Although it was not implemented, the CPA's privatisation policy harmed Iraq's economy. Unable to privatise but unwilling to relinquish that goal, the CPA failed to come up with an alternative approach that might have restructured and revived ailing state companies and exploited their remaining assets and labour. Indeed, even afterprivatisation was off the table, it was busily drafting and to some extent implementing proposals that preserved its spirit: lease contracts to end state monopoly control and initiate build-operate-and-transfer (BOT) schemes.

Only some of these quasi-privatisation measures actually were carried out, but they helped define the CPA's agenda until June 2004. Moreover, the CPA froze the accounts of some state-owned companies and sold the inventory of others (principally those under the aegis of the ministry of trade) in order to replenish Iraq's budget. These decisions led to severe liquidity shortages in several state-owned enterprises, including some that could have been put back in business, if only temporarily. When coupled with the sweeping de-Baathification that deprived state companies of many of their most able managers and technicians, the result was that even state industries with a relative comparative advantage (such as cement companies, which benefited from high international transport costs and heavy Iraqi demand) were unable to participate fully in the rebuilding process...

Don't know if this is the intention of the report, but it really does read like the Bush administration set out in post-war Iraq to create a neo-conservative neo-liberalization wet dream society. Shudder. The CPA even went so far as to ban labor unions in public enterprises thru a law originally issued by Saddam Hussein.

We were very pleased to see the ICG report mention the lack of oil metering equipment in Iraq. Gold Star for not sweeping it under the rug.

2004-08-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

about time

We probably won't be posting very often (as you may have already noticed). But if we come across a good article, we promise we'll share.

So, here ya' go. We've been bitching about this for months. Finally, someone actually puts it into print in an American paper.

Consultants profit from their Pentagon ties, Ex- CIA couple reflect a pattern

And just who might that ex-CIA couple be?

Suzanne H. Woolsey is a trustee of a little-known arms consulting group that had access to senior Pentagon leaders directing the Iraq war. In January, she joined the board ofFluor Corp.

Soon afterward, Fluor and a joint-venture partner won about $1.6 billion in reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

How soon until Porter Goss's family is on the payroll of defense contractors? Might as well start early since he's up for the CIA post.

2004-07-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

another report

This one is from the GAO.

An abstract is available online here: Rebuilding Iraq: Resource, Security, Governance, Essential Services, and Oversight Issues The full report is 105 pages long in PDF format.

Report in PDF: GAO-04-902R, June 28, 2004

As of the end of April 2004, about $58 billion in grants, loans, assets, and revenues from various sources had been made available or pledged to the relief and reconstruction of Iraq. Resource needs are expected to continue after the transfer of power to a sovereign Iraqi interim government.

Of the funds available, the United States obligated about $8 billion of the available $24 billion in U.S. funds. The CPA obligated about $15.5 billion of the nearly $21 billion in available Iraqi funds. These funds were used to support ministry operations and expenses; the restoration of essential services, such as power, oil, and water; and humanitarian and other human services, including the importation of liquid petroleum gas and food. The international community pledged nearly $14 billion.

In December 2003, the CPA put into effect an Iraqi-led process to coordinate reconstruction efforts. However, the capability to track the total amount of bilateral assistance flowing into Iraq and to identify sectors that do not receive assistance is still under development. An October 2003 U.N./World Bank assessment noted that Iraq’s ability to absorb resources as the country gains sovereignty and decision-making authority will be one of the most significant challenges to reconstruction.

The CPA faced a number of challenges in identifying, obtaining, and organizing the human resources required to help stabilize and reconstruct Iraq. The CPA’s staffing requirements also changed over time as the mission evolved from a reconstruction and humanitarian effort to the temporary administration of the Iraq government. The CPA was dependent on personnel from multiple sources and generally operated with about one-third fewer staff than it required.

Some interesting reading including a reference to the Patriot Act. See page 12 for a funding summary.

“Vested assets” refers to former Iraqi regime assets held in U.S. financial institutions that the President confiscated in March 2003 and vested in the U.S. Treasury. The United States froze these assets shortly before the first Gulf War. The U.S.A. PATRIOT Act of 2001 amended the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to empower the President to confiscate, or take ownership of, certain property of designated entities, including these assets, and vest ownership in an agency or individual. The President has the authority to use the assets in the interests of the United States. In this case, the President vested the assets in March 2003 and made these funds available for the reconstruction of Iraq in May 2003. Seized assets refer to former regime assets seized within Iraq.

2004-07-05T00:28:00.000-07:00

neo-con artists

Iraq gets fraction of US aid billions by Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian

The US government spent just 2% of the $18.4bn (£10bn) it had obtained from Congress for the urgent reconstruction of Iraq before formally ending its occupation last week.

The White House budget office report, the first detailed audit of the reconstruction, showed that the US occupation authorities had spent nothing on healthcare or water and sanitation, two of the most urgent needs for Iraqis. In contrast, a total of $9m was spent on administrative expenses.

[...]

With the US reluctant to disburse cash, reconstruction money has largely been drawn from Iraq's oil receipts, with some $19bn of a $20bn fund spent during the Coalition Provisional Authority's tenure in Iraq.

According to yesterday's Washington Post more than $6bn of the oil fund has been spent in the past two months alone.

Keep in mind that Iraq's oil is not metered. So who really knows how much is being spent or on what.

Here's a copy of the report mentioned above from the Office of Management and Budget of The Executive Office of the President.

Draft 2207 Report Funding Table 7.1.04.xls (PDF)

Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF)

Spending Plan, [in] Millions of Dollars, CPA Funding Allocations, Actuals Thru 3rd Quarter, Estimated Allocations

Taking a quick peak, under 'Democracy Building Activities', $8 million has actually been spent of $451 million allocated and apportioned. That's not even 2%. Another $265 million is obligated--whatever that might mean. Does Halliburton have dibs on it or something? The CPA have promised alot. it's the delivery that's important. Don't forget the yet to be awarded but always always will get right on to it, promise cross their hearts, meter contracts.

2004-06-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

un-metered oil in iraq

Just reading the report from Christian Aid and would like to share a few details. Probably the most important is that Iraq's oil production IS NOT METERED. There is no way to account for how much oil has been produced and/or subsequently sold.

Some excerpts from the Christian Aid report:

What the statements don’t say

1. Oil revenues

What is clearly missing from the CPA’s figures is any indication of how the figure for oil revenues has been reached. The financial statement for the [Development Fund of Iraq] DFI of 29 May, for instance,says that $10 billion in oil income was deposited between the DFI’s inception at the end of May 2003 and the end of May 2004. Yet the CPA ‘Administrator’s Weekly Report’ of 28 May says oil revenue was $11.5 billion for the same period.

Christian Aid made its own detailed calculations, with the best oil production and price figures available from oil industry analysts, and came up with oil income figures ofbetween $11.8 billion and $13 billion to the end of May 2004 – a divergence of between $1.8 billion and $3 billion from the CPA’s figure of $10 billion –potentially a 30 per cent difference. How is anybody supposed to know which of these figures is the accurate one?

We at bpost did not know this:

At the end of April 2004, a CPA funding-allocation meeting (the Program Review Board– PRB) acknowledged that: ‘Metering for crude oil extraction and sales is presently nonexistent in Iraq.’

The minutes of the PRB go on to state that: ‘A critical step in restoring the Iraqi oil infrastructure is to provide a system to control accountability of crude oil and its products.

So, nearly a year after the CPA took over Iraq’s oil production and a year after the Security Council resolution that requires proper oversight of Iraq’s oil was passed, a body run by the CPA acknowledged the lack of accountability over Iraq’s oil.

Details in the footnotes:

12 The minutes of the IAMB meeting held in Kuwait on 17-18 March 2004, record: ‘The IAMB was informed that crude oil extraction is currently not metered. This precludes a reconciliation of all crude oil extracted with its eventual utilization and represents an internal control weakness which needs to beaddressed urgently. The IAMB was informed of the steps taken by the CPA to mitigate the consequences of such weakness and to curtail smuggling. The IAMB welcomed these interim steps and recommended the expeditious installation of metering equipment in accordance with standard oil industry practices.’

The minutes of the IAMB meeting, held in New York on 22-23 April 2004, say: ‘the IAMB has had an exchange of views with KPMG on various aspects of the audits, and in particular, on the issues related to the extraction of crude oil, in light of the lack of metering.’

13 Minutes of IAMB meeting on 24 and 25 May 2004. The IAMB remains concerned that these two metering contracts have been awarded as ‘Task Orders’ – ie add-ons to existing contracts [it doesn’t say which companies are involved] and that these existing contracts might have been awarded without competitive bidding. The CPA said it would provide further information to the IAMB.

Without competetive bidding. What a surprise. Keep reading...

Footnote 13 is in reference to:

On 24 and 25 May, the CPA told the IAMB that two contracts to install meters across Iraq have been issued, and that this will take 12 to 18 months. But the IAMB is so concerned about the potential losses due to smuggling and lack of metering that it is considering asking oil experts from the IMF or World Bank to assess how much revenue has been lost.

According to this article, the contracts for meters was never awarded by the CPA.

US sloppily managed Iraqi oil money by Irwin Arieff, Reuters, June 22, 2004

The U.S.-led civil administration in Iraq is sloppily managing billions of dollars of Iraqi oil money and moving at a glacial pace to guard against corruption, an international watchdog agency charged on Tuesday. The Coalition Provisional Authority has left a door open to smuggling by failing to award contracts for equipment to meter Iraq's oil production despite having announced the contracts had been granted, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board said.

So here it is, 15 months after the war started and Iraq's oil production has no meters. But by golly, the US is going to build a $1 billion brand spanking new embassy in Baghdad. (They're shifting the money over from water projects. So chi chi diplomatic, n'est-ce pas?

It was the oil. It is the oil. It has always been about the oil.

2004-06-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

missing money

Christian Aid has issued a critical report on funds that may be missing from Iraq's oil sales. Their last heads up was in October. Now that the CPA has been disbanded and sovereignty handed to an Iraqi interim government, no one may ever know if money was embezzled or misappropriated or how money was really spent. Chalabi is a known embezzler. There was that little business of satellite photos showing activity along the corridor into Kuwait, creating speculation the US was stealing oil and smuggling it via Kuwait.

An audit, reportedly critical, of the coalition’s handling of Iraqi revenues is not going to be delivered until mid-July – after the [CPA] has ceased to exist.

Christian Aid believes this situation is in flagrant breach of the UN Security Council resolution that gave control of Iraq’s oil revenues and other Iraqi funds to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

The Christian Aid report, is available for reading. Interestingly enough, it was released on June 28th.

Fuelling suspicion: the coalition and Iraq's oil billions (PDF)

What the statements don’t say:

1. Oil revenues

What is clearly missing from the CPA’s figures is any indication of how the figure for oil revenues has been reached. The financial statement for the [Development Fund for Iraq] DFI of 29 May, for instance, says that $10 billion in oil income was deposited between the DFI’s inception at the end of May 2003 and the end of May 2004. Yet the CPA ‘Administrator’s Weekly Report’ of 28 May says oil revenue was $11.5 billion for the same period.

Christian Aid made its own detailed calculations, with the best oil production and price figures available from oil industry analysts, and came up with oil income figures ofbetween $11.8 billion and $13 billion to the end of May 2004 – a divergence of between $1.8 billion and $3 billion from the CPA’s figure of $10 billion –potentially a 30 percent difference.

How is anybody supposed to know which of these figures is the accurate one?

Was Paul Bremer carrying any important financial documents when he quickly exited Iraq?

2004-06-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

berry

We got a response from Denise Mika on the ANHAM contract and the Berry Amenedment. Oh well. We tried.

The numbers that were published in the article were estimates of the total amount. There were 43 items in this acquisition ranging from heavy wheeled vehicles down to canteen cups. When providing the estimate as to where the work was going to be performed on the contract, we did not account for the items that individually were approximately less than one percent of the total contract award amount. While I can not disclose the identities of the subcontractors that the ANHAM Joint Venture is using, the items which fall under the restrictions of the Berry Amendment will be manufactured using U.S. produced materials as required.

Thank you.

Denise Mika

Denise does make you wonder though, who exactly are the subcontractors? Hmmm....

2004-06-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

leave no rock unturned

There's a very long article today in the Chicago Tribune that should be read.

Insiders shape postwar Iraq

A little over a year ago, Stuart Bowen Jr. was lobbying for a company looking for work in the impending reconstruction of Iraq.

A former longtime aide to President Bush, Bowen tapped administration contacts on behalf of URS Group, a consulting firm, and the company eventually landed contracts worth up to $30 million for overseeing Iraqi construction projects.

Today, Bowen works for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led bureaucracy running Iraq. In his new job as inspector general, Bowen is the corruption watchdog over more than $20 billion of rebuilding, including the activities of URS, the company he represented.

The article goes on to follow the links of several advisors to the CPA to the administration and the Republican party. Rather than hire the best people for the job, they took those from their inner circle whose views matched their own regardless of their expertise. What a fiasco.

GOP loyalists prominent in rebuilding Iraq
Several key officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority had strong ties to top Republicans.

John Agresto, 58
Senior adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education
Protege of Ronald Reagan's education czar William Bennett; Joyce Rumsfeld, wife of Defense Secretary, was on board of college he headed.

Stuart Bowen Jr., 46
Inspector General, Coalition Provisional Authority
Former longtime aide to President Bush; now monitors more than $20 billion in reconstruction aid.

Michael Fleischer, 48
Top economic adviser in Iraq
Brother of former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer; president of a New Jersey electronics equipment company.

Thomas Foley, 52
Former top economic adviser in Iraq
Harvard Business School colleague of President Bush and a fundraiser for his campaign.

James Haveman, 60
Oversaw the Iraqi Ministry of Health
One-time director of the Michigan health department; lacked reconstruction experience but got job with lobbying assist from former Michigan GOP governor.

Michael Karem, 57
Former coalition housing adviser
Former Reagan campaign aide; investigated but never charged in late 1980s Department of Housing and Urban Development scandal.

2004-06-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

halliburton

Want to follow the news on Halliburton? Visit Halliburton Watch.

2004-06-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

may 13, 2004

Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) Berry Amendment Changes

SYNOPSIS: DOD is issuing an interim rule amending DFARS 225.7002, Restrictions on Food, Clothing, Fabrics, Specialty Metals, and Hand or Measuring Tools, to implement Sections 826 and 827 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (Public Law 108-136), which provide exceptions to the domestic source requirements of the Berry Amendment.

If you'd like to read more, there are links provided at the article above for additional information on DFARS 225.7002.

Wish we could figure out a way to determine where the materials being used to make the rucksacks in the Ukraine are coming from.

Ah well. We'll just keep plugging away at learning about the Berry Amendment and Iraq contracts.

2004-06-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

statements regarding berry amendment

The following are statements made in regards to the Berry Amendment during the bidding process of the ANHAM/Nour USA contract. We've included links to the documents.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR FINAL REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (PDF)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR FINAL REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
dated 5 April 2004
Iraqi Armed Forces and Associated Security Forces Battalion Sets
Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity Contract

This Executive Summary is provided as a synopsis of important and relevant features of this final solicitation. If conflict exists between this summary and the provisions of the solicitation, the provisions of the solicitation govern. Please retrieve all documents from the TACOM website. All other websites do not contain a complete set of documents for your review. Significant changes from the draft solicitation are as follows:

b. In accordance with Public Law 108-136, The Berry Amendment was amended such that the following items are required to be of US origin: clothing; tents, tarpaulins, or covers; cotton and other natural fiber products, woven silk or woven silk blends, spun silk yarn for cartridge cloth, synthetic fabric or coded synthetic fabric (including all textile fibers and yarns that are for use in such fabrics), canvas products, or wool (whether in the form or fiber or yarn or contained in fabrics, materials, or manufactured articles) or any item of individual equipment manufactured from or containing such fibers, yarns, fabrics, or materials. DFARS 225.7002-2 has additional exceptions. Please review this statute and its regulatory implementations carefully to assure compliance.

PRE-PROPOSAL CONFERENCE – QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CONTINUED (PDF)

dated 20 APRIL 2004

134. Question. The Berry Amendment, we are trying to determine if the tents, ponchos, etc. can be manufactured outside of the USA using USA made material. Can you help us with this interpretation?

Answer: The tents, ponchos, and other articles such as poncho liner, load bearing vests, body armor, etc., may contain fibers or fabrics that are restricted to U.S. sources by 10 USC 2533a (in the preamble to this series of questions on the Berry Amendment published previously, see those articles still restricted by statute). If the components of the end items in questions were grown, reprocessed, reused or produced in the United States, then the requirements of 10 USC 2533a with regard to those components will have been satisfied.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS AFTER PRE-PROPOSAL CONFERENCE (PDF)

dated 22 APRIL 2004 - PUBLIC

18. Question. Could you kindly respond if it acceptable for bidders to express an exception to the Berry Amendment for a deliverable in the proposal (to keep the delivery dates) or will this disqualify the bidder.

Answer: Offerors are responsible for compliance with all applicable statutory and regulatory restrictions and offerors are encouraged to take advantage of all available exemptions, exceptions and exclusions, but offerors must make an informed decision themselves and they do so at their own risk. The government can not be responsible for offerors' interpretations of the applicable regulations. However, we will continue to do our best to offer explanations and clarifications to insure that offerors fully and completely understand solicitation requirements.

Based on these statements, it would appear the Ukrainians are using American made "components" in the construction of the rucksacks.

But how can bpost confirm this is indeed the case?

2004-06-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

peeksie

So. Here we are. Feel free to skip today’s post. We’re going to break down a small portion of an Iraq contract. It’s long and tedious.

We’ve been talking about the Berry Amendment and ANHAM/Nour USA this week. But what does it all mean and what exactly are we talking about?

We decided to look at the information available from TACOM and to present a simplified break down of what we found (yes, we read ALL of the pdfs--hundreds of pages). We have more research to do as we’ll need to track down each of the vendors to see who is providing what. But that will have to come later.

Numbers are provided in the ANHAM’s final solicitation/contract (PDF) which we will have to assume is accurate. In some instances, there is no way to determine the cost of an item. We’ve noted this by: (portion, amount unknown)

For the purposes of space, we’ve omitted items/description not likely to be covered (such as tent poles, etc) We also figured you probably didn’t care what color an item was or how many snaps there were.

Keep in mind that we are just looking at a small portion of ONE contract worth $120,000 million out of a total Iraq supplemental of $160 billion. We’re also only looking at those items affected by ONE regulation, the Berry Amendment.

Gosh, we hope we didn't overlook anything. Ok. Here we go.

Items that might be affected by the Berry Amendment based on the descriptions provided in SECTION C DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATIONS/WORK STATEMENT of the Executive Summary of April 5 (PDF):

C.2.4 Ambulance Vehicle:

g. […] an EMT first aid kit containing:

(1) 20 - approximately 1 inch x 3 inch adhesive bandages
(2) 4 - triangular sling/bandage
(3) 2 - approximately 4 inch x 4.1 yard gauze roll bandages
(4) 1 - approximately 6 inch x 4.1 yard gauze roll bandage
(5) 2 - approximately 3 inch x 5 yard latex free elastic bandages
(6) 10 - approximately 2 inch x 2 inch gauze dressing pads
(7) 10 - approximately 3 inch x 3 inch gauze dressing pads
(8) 10 - approximately 4 inch x 4 inch gauze dressing pads
(9) 1 - approximately 12 inch x 30 inch multi-trauma dressing
(10) 2 - approximately 8 inch x 10 inch trauma pad
(11) 3 - approximately 5 inch x 9 inch trauma pad
(12) 12 - Antiseptic cleansing wipes
(14) 1 - approximately 1 inch x 10 yard waterproof medical tape
(15) 1 - approximately 3 inch 10 yard porous cloth athletic tape

Quantity: 129
Cost per unit: $24,760.00 (portion, amount unknown)
Total: $3,194,040.00 (portion, amount unknown)

C.7.1 Sleeping Bag: Rectangular shaped bag with minimum size 34 inches x 82 inches. Dual bag construction with sewn in weather tube to keep cold from coming thru zipper. Insulation overlapping shingle two layer must be synthetic material with very low water absorption qualities A stuff sack must be provided that sleeping bag will fit in.

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $50.56
Total: $686,200.32

C.7.2 Entrenching Tool With Cover: [material unspecified]

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $9.24 (portion, amount unknown)
Total: $125,405.28 (portion, amount unknown)

C.7.3 Load Bearing Vest: Load bearing vest shall have the ability to attach and remove various equipment to include but not be limited to ammunition, grenade, canteens, and or other mission essential load carrying pockets. The vests shall be compatible with pistol belt C.7.13. The vest shall be adjustable to allow proper fitting. (2) Magazine pouches (six 30 round AK47 magazines)
(1) Compass pouch
(4) Multi- purpose pouches
Fabric: durable nylon
Pouches will be snap-on as well as Velcro

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $34.81
Total: $472,441.32

C.7.4 Poncho: The poncho is a rectangular shaped garment with an attached hood having a draw string cord around the face opening. The poncho and hood will be capable of use over the users helmet, body armor and all equipment. The poncho will be made from waterproof nylon fabric coated on one side only.

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $16.76
Total: $227,466.72

C.7.5 Poncho Liner: A quilted liner made from synthetic material with very low water absorption qualities that matches the dimensions of the poncho. The poncho liner will be capable of use as a field blanket to keep the user warm.

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $22.78
Total: $309,170.16

C.7.7 Body Armor: Individual armor that will protect the wearers torso (front, back and sides) and neck. The vest shall have the ability to add and remove various pouches, pockets and individual equipment to reduce load and configure as necessary depending on the mission. The vest shall be capable of carrying ballistic plates front and back.

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $553.50 (portion, amount unknown)
Total: $7,512,102.00 (portion, amount unknown)

C.7.8 Helmet with Cover: Helmet cover shall be cloth and fits snuggly over helmet.

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $114.36 (portion, amount unknown)
Total: $1,552,093.92 (portion, amount unknown)

C.7.11 Medium Tent: This tent will allow 8-12 individuals to sleep or perform unit operations. It will be rectangular in shape and constructed of heavy duty nylon. It will be waterproof. It will have rollable sides to allow ventilation and netted sides to prevent entry of flying insects.

Quantity: 270
Cost per unit: $3,074.28
Total: $830,055.60

C.7.12 Rucksack: The rucksack shall be constructed of durable lightweight weather resistant material with the following features:
Rucksack shall consist of a main pouch with closure and outside pockets. Shall have hangers for carrying individual equipment and attaching pockets. Removable pockets for carrying various military equipment.

Note: According to Irib News, the rucksacks have been subcontracted to Ukrainian state-owned factories.

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $65.55
Total: $889,644.60

C.7.13 Pistol Belt: Adjustable to accommodate waist sizes of 24 inches minimum to 56 inches maximum, with quick release mechanism. User will be able to attach various items to include Canteens, weapon or ammunition pouches as necessary. Color will be tan or green (olive drab). Nylon web Attachable to the load bearing vest

Quantity: 13,572
Cost per unit: $6.11
Total: $82,924.92

C.7.16 Canteen Cover:
The cover will be attachable to Load Bearing equipment, pistol belt, and body armor.

Quantity: 27,144
Cost per unit: $2.62 (portion, amount unknown)
Total: $71,117.28 (portion, amount unknown)

Next, we'll be looking at statements provided by TACOM regarding the Berry Amendment and the ANHAM contract. btw, we haven’t heard back from Denise Mika in response to our follow up email. Oh well.

Special thanks to JB & SR for contributing to today’s post.

2004-06-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

vehicles

DOD Contract

NAVISTAR International Transportation, Knoxville, Kan., was awarded on June 15, 2004, a delivery order amount of $634,496 as part of a $5,924,977 firm-fixed-price contract for five dropside cargo trucks for the Iraqi Ministry Civilian Vehicle Support Program. Work will be performed in Garland, Texas, and is expected to be completed by June 16, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were an unknown number of bids solicited via the World Wide Web on April 27, 2004, and two bids were received. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-04-D-B023).

Washington Group International Employs More Than 1,000 Iraqi Citizens As Tasks in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait Surpass $550 Million

Washington Group International, Inc. announced today that it and its subcontractors are now employing more than 1,000 Iraqi citizens to help rebuild Iraq's electrical, water, and other critical infrastructure. The milestone was accomplished as the value of tasks Washington Group has been assigned by the Coalition Provisional Authority and the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait has surpassed $550 million.

Wow. 1,000 Iraqis are now employed and it only took $550 million dollars.

2004-06-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

air america

Randi Rhodes interviews American hero Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) on Air America today. Listen via streaming/real player. Link provided on the homepage of Air America.

Be sure to visit the website of Rep. Henry Waxman for information on his investigations into contracts.

FYI: Waxman has a tip line to report abuse related to Iraq Reconstruction Contracts. Tipsters can remain anonymous if needed.

This tip line has been established to assist the Special Investigations Division in investigating potential fraud, waste, and abuse in the awarding and execution of contracts to rebuild and rehabilitate Iraq, including actions by U.S. government agencies, prime contractors, and subcontractors. The confidentiality of any person providing information will be strictly preserved.

2004-06-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

power

Short announcement today on a contract. CONTRACTS from the United States Department of Defense

Readiness Management Support L.C.*, Panama City, Fla., was awarded on June 9, 2004, a $10,510,712 construction contract for design and construction for 12 mega watts at Victory Base Power Plant, transformer substation and associated distribution system. Work will be performed in Baghdad, Iraq, and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2004. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were 14 bids solicited on March 23, 2004, and 14 bids were received. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baghdad, Iraq, is the contracting activity (W916QW-04-C-0013).

Readiness Management Support L.C has teamed with Shaw Environmental on another contract "to perform conventional and recovered chemical warfare materiel (RCWM) munitions response and other munitions related services."

Still playing with the same limited pool of contractors. Same old, same old.

2004-06-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

very berry email

We wrote to Denise Mika, who is listed as the contracting officer on the solicitation/contract for the recent award to ANHAM, regarding the Berry Amendment.

Subject: RE: Berry Amendment and Contract W56HZV-04-D-0181

Ms. Dow,

The Berry Amendment applied to this contract and was in full compliance. I am not familiar with the announcement at Defense Link.

Regards,
Denise Mika

Odd that she is unfamilliar with the contract announcement from Defense Link. It's not like it's hard to find. Here is the link to the contracts page at the DoD. Let's assume we haven't seen the announcement. We know from news articles that the contract was awarded on May 25th. Start with May 25th and move forward. On May 27th, the DoD posted the announcement. Now that wasn't very difficult.

Once again, here is the announcement:

ANHAM (Joint Venture), Vienna, Va., was awarded on May 25, 2004, a delivery order amount of $120,125,150 as part of a $120,125,150 firm-fixed-price contract for Iraqi Armed Forces and Associated Security Forces, 15 Battalion Sets, and six Brigade Headquarters Sets. Work will be performed in the Ukraine (65 percent), Romania (8 percent), United Kingdom (8 percent), Vienna, Va. (7 percent), Canada (5 percent), China (4 percent), and Schaumburg, Ill. (3 percent), and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were ten bids solicited on March 29, 2004, and ten bids were received. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-04-D-0181).

Okey dokey. We'll make it easy and send her the announcement as well as the article from Irib News.

PS In case you missed it, comment from our earlier post on the Berry Amendment.

We found a cached version of the May 25, 2004 solicitation/contract with ANHAM. What we'd prefer to see is the original solicitation that should have gone thru either TACOM Procnet or FedBizOpps.

SOLICITATION/CONTRACT/ORDER FOR COMMERCIAL ITEMS

Issued To:
ANHAM JOINT VENTURE
8075 LEESBURG PIKE
SUITE 760
VIENNA, VA. 22182-2739

Contract #:
W56HZV-04-D-0181

There's an email address and contact info for the contracting officer:
DENISE MIKA /SIGNED/
(586)574-576
MIKAD@TACOM.ARMY.MIL

No mention of the Berry Amendment so we'll drop them an email and see what we can find out.

2004-06-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

pending amendments

Upcoming amendments that pertain to the Berry Amendment. The Department of Defense Authorization bill is currently scheduled for June 15.

Key amendments filed for DOD Authorization bill next week

Buy American

Sen. Dayton (D-MN) introduced amendment No. 3197, a Buy American amendment that would strike Sections 842 and 843 from the bill to prevent a new waiver authority from longstanding domestic source requirements under the Berry Amendment.

Sen. McCain (D-AZ) introduced amendment No. 3319, 3320 and 3321 to limit the use of Buy American provisions.

For information on the bill, see S.2400 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005

Title: An original bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2005 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Services, and for other purposes.

2004-06-13T11:41:00.001-07:00

security

Controversial Commando Wins Iraq Contract

Occupation authorities in Iraq have awarded a $293 million contract effectively creating the world's largest private army to a company headed by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former officer with the SAS, an elite regiment of British commandos, who has been investigated for illegally smuggling arms and planning military offensives to support mining, oil, and gas operations around the world. On May 25, the Army Transportation command awarded Spicer's company, Aegis Defense Services, the contract to coordinate all the security for Iraqi reconstruction projects.

So much for Iraqis taking control of their own security. Lots more in the article written by Pratap Chatterjee as a Special to CorpWatch.

There's a conference of suppliers, Iraq Procurement coming up on November 24, 2004 in Jordan. Aegis Defense Services will be participating.

2004-06-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

payback

A reader alerted us to the Berry Amendment and activity by ANHAM/Nour USA to subcontract to companies that are outside of the United States. So let's take a look and see what the deal is.

Berry Amendment

The Berry Amendment was originally enacted in 1941, and it was effectively reiterated as a part of each subsequent defense appropriations act until it was codified as 10 U.S.C. 2533a in 2002 by section 832 of Public Law 107-107.

Regarding purchases of textile and apparel items, the Berry Amendment requires that funds made available to DoD may not be used to purchase clothing; tents, tarpaulins, or covers; cotton and other natural fiber products, woven silk or woven silk blends, spun silk yarn for cartridge cloth, synthetic fabric or coated synthetic fabric (including all textile fibers and yarns that are for use in such fabrics), canvas products, or wool (whether in the form of fiber or yarn or contained in fabrics, materials, or manufactured articles); or items of individual equipment manufactured from or containing such fibers, yarns, fabrics, or materials unless it is grown, reprocessed, reused, or produced in the United States. That is, covered end items, components, and materials purchased with funds made available to DoD must be produced wholly in the United States. The Berry Amendment is implemented through the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) at Subpart 225.7002.

The Berry Amendment contains several exceptions, including acquisitions that are at or below the simplified acquisition threshold and those items purchased outside the United States in support of combat operations.

Here is the actual announcement of the contract award from the DoD.

United States Department of Defense Contracts for May 27, 2004

ANHAM (Joint Venture), Vienna, Va., was awarded on May 25, 2004, a delivery order amount of $120,125,150 as part of a $120,125,150 firm-fixed-price contract for Iraqi Armed Forces and Associated Security Forces*, 15 Battalion Sets, and six Brigade Headquarters Sets. Work will be performed in the Ukraine (65 percent), Romania (8 percent), United Kingdom (8 percent), Vienna, Va. (7 percent), Canada (5 percent), China (4 percent), and Schaumburg, Ill. (3 percent), and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. There were ten bids solicited on March 29, 2004, and ten bids were received. The U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-04-D-0181).

According to the percentages provided above, only 10% of the contract work will be completed within the United States. Now let's look at the short announcement of the subcontract to Ukrainian state-owned companies.

Ukraine to supply Iraqi military

Ukrainian state-owned factories will act as subcontractors for Anham, a consortium managed by Nour USA, which has subordinate firms linked to Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi and his allies.

The Ukrainians will provide individual kits such as backpacks and personal webbing among other items, with the contract ending in September 2006, the report said.

Sounds alot like goods covered under the Berry Amendment. So what gives? if the subcontracting went predominately to Iraqi companies, great idea. The Iraqi economy needs the help.

But this appears to be more about peddling contracts to Coalition of the Willing partners and influencing those who the US/CPA would like to bring on board.

Bpost Note: We have a non-working link to the original solicitation which apparently specified this was a contract subject to the Berry Amendment. If anyone finds the text of the original solicitation, please forward it to us at blogistonpost@yahoo.com or feel free to post it in the comments section below.
http://contracting.tacom.army.mil/iraqrequire/04r0692/R0692.htm

* What the heck are Associated Security Forces?

2004-06-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

various views

Two posts on Iraq by bloggers that we'd like to call attention to. First is a post from Juan Cole who cites a paper by Professor Roger Myerson of the University of Chicago, "How to Build Democracy in Iraq." Be sure to read the articles in the footnotes (links provided).

Did Prohibiting Local Elections Derail Iraq?

Even those who hoped to buy Iraqi public assets for bargain-basement prices should have recognized that, for long-term enforcement of their property rights, these transactions would need more legitimacy than occupation officials alone could provide. It seems clear that the only people who really stood to profit from a policy of denying elections were emigre political leaders who did not want competition from the home-grown political factions that these local elections would have cultivated.

The next must visit is a recent post by Christopher Allbriton in his blog, Back to Iraq.

Heart of Darkness

...in no particular order I witnessed a car bombing next to my hotel, started work for TIME Magazine, watched an interim government unveiled, interviewed a vice president, been mortared more times than I can count, missed two other car bombs by a few minutes, pined for New York and tentatively fell in love with Baghdad.

She’s a city that has seen better days, frankly. As mentioned, the electricity is bad. The gas lines are long — up to 5 km in some places — and U.S. soldiers still break up black market petrol rings even though that’s often the only way for Iraqis to get petrol.

Baghdad is also an incredibly stressful place to live and work, especially as a westerner, as I’ve mentioned. We’re targets, and when you look very western, like I do, you’re constantly aware of eyes on you and the hostility. At restaurants, the waiters sullenly clear your table, sometimes being none too careful about keepingchai or food from spilling on you. The kindness I encountered last year is absent; a western face brings a sullen welcome, calibrated to the bare minimum.

2004-06-11T01:27:00.001-07:00

firefighters

US DOD: Contracts

PAE Government Services Inc., Los Angeles, Calif., was awarded on May 25, 2004, a delivery order amount of $1,676,520 as part of a $27,354,000 firm-fixed-price contract for 4,000 basic firefighters to be trained within two years in Iraq. Work will be performed in Iraq, and is expected to be completed by May 24, 2006. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Coalition Provisional Authority Contracting Activity, Baghdad, Iraq, is the contracting activity

2004-06-11T01:04:00.000-07:00

twists & turns

Shaw Group is under investigation by the SEC. They have a subsidiary Shaw Environmental currently doing work in Iraq. James Schlesinger, a member of the Defense Policy Board and recently appointed by Rumsfeld to review the abuse charges, is an advisor to Shaw Group.

Shaw Announces Hiring of Dr. James Schlesinger as a Consultant

July 26, 2002 - The Shaw Group Inc. is pleased to announce that Dr. James R. Schlesinger has been retained as a senior advisor to Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure, Inc. (Shaw E & I). In this role, Dr. Schlesinger will provide expert advice and counsel to Shaw E & I on matters relating to government business development and strategic acquisitions and partnerships.

So when you consider there is now an SEC investigation...

SEC investigation of Shaw Group acquisitions begins, release says

The federal Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an informal inquiry into how one of Baton Rouge's most-prestigious companies accounted for certain acquisitions during its last fiscal year.
[...]
While meaningful information was scarce Thursday evening ahead of the national holiday, routine filings with the SEC showed that Shaw made two acquisitions in the period, the purchase of Badger Technologies in April 2003 and of a drilling division of LFG&E International in November 2002.
[...]
In 2000, Shaw purchased the Boston engineering firm, Stone & Webster for $143 million. The venerable firm built power plants around the world. It positioned Shaw to profit during the power plant building boom prompted by the California energy crisis.

Badger Technologies was purchased by Shaw from another company also doing work Iraq, Washington Group.

Shaw Announces Acquisition of Badger Technologies Unit From Washington Group International, Inc.

April 21, 2003 - The Shaw Group Inc. today announced that its subsidiary, Stone & Webster, Inc., has acquired substantially all of the assets of the Badger Technologies unit from Washington Group International, Inc. for $17.7 million and the assumption of certain liabilities. Badger Technologies, previously part of Raytheon Engineers & Constructors, develops, licenses, and commercializes petrochemical and petroleum refining-related technologies. Most notably, the company licenses ethylbenzene and cumene technologies in cooperation with ExxonMobil Chemical Company, and styrene technology in cooperation with ATOFINA.

Did you count the number of companies who have contracts in Iraq?
Is anyone in Congress paying attention?
Is your head spinning yet?

2004-06-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

torture is ok

The Center for Constitutional Rights has posted a PDF file of the position by the Department of Defense to circumnavigate laws on torture. You can download the report at CCR. Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy and Operational Considerations

Synopsis

CCR has posted the controversial Pentagon “Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy and Operational Considerations” on its website. The report is further proof of the Bush administration’s disregard for the Constitution and civil liberties and shows there was planning at high levels of government to abuse and torture detainees.

2004-06-07T02:48:00.000-07:00

power & ports

Portal Iraq has an update on power contracts. $100 million contracts awarded to Italian and American companies for power generation in Iraq

Two power generation contracts with ceilings of $100 million for power generation operation in Iraq have been awarded to an Italian company and an American company. Bertoli SRL of Italy and IAP Worldwide Services of the United States both won contracts to provide the procurement, delivery and installation of numerous electrical generator sets and associated components throughout Iraq.

The power contracts were awarded by the Program Management Office (PMO) who manages the $18.4 billion of the Congressional Appropriated Supplemental. We're going to assume the supplemental of October. The $87 billion one.

Dredging contracts to improve access to ports

Work has already started on a $7 million project for salvage and dredging at the port of Khor Az Zubayr. The contract was awarded by CPA South to an Iraqi company based in Baghdad. [no company name given]

According to the most recent List of PMO Awarded Contracts, NANA Pacific, Alaska was awarded $70 million on March 31, 2004 to do work on the ports in Iraq. These are not the first contracts that have been issued for ports. One of the very first went to Stevedoring Services of America of union busting fame (btw, they had a little trouble with their security clearance). Gotta get those oil tankers in and out. Not to mention the battleships.

In case anyone is interested, here's their latest summary from April 2. List of PMO Awarded Contracts (PDF) There's a helluva lot of money listed in there.

2004-06-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

shoot

Well, this isn't pretty. The article has lots of details so try to read it if you have some time. Iraq Contract Goes to Firm with links to Chalabi, Pentagon

Virginia-based Nour USA was originally granted a $327 million contract to supply the new Iraqi military and Civil Defense Forces in January, according to New York Newsday.

[...]

According to Reuters, however, the decision to grant the contract to Nour was upheld last week following a government review. A press release by the US Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) elaborated that the current contract is now worth $260 million, somewhat less than the original January deal. TACOM says the materials supplied by Nour would be used by Iraqi and "associated" armed forces, "in support of" the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which is scheduled to dissolved after transferring limited sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

[...]

Nour has been directly involved in some of the most controversial of these deals. Newsday reported in February that Chalabi received a $2 million "fee" for helping to arrange an $80 million contract to provide security for Iraqi oil pipelines, awarded last August to the mercenary firm Erinys International. Chalabi subsequently denied the allegation, but admits he considers Farouki a "friend." The Newsday report says that "within days" of being granted the contract, Erinys became a joint venture operation with Nour.

What a sick joke.

2004-06-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

cha ching

With Some Strings Attached, Senate Approves War Money

The Senate on Wednesday gave the White House $25 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq but joined the House in putting new controls on the money despite administration requests for substantial freedom in how to use it.

The administration has had enough blank checks.

On a 95-to-0 vote, senators agreed to add the money to a broad Pentagon spending plan, bringing the total cost of the legislation to more than $447 billion.

Wow. It looks like the Senate is finally working on a little accountability....

Under the Senate approach, $22.5 billion of the money is devoted to specific Pentagon accounts while the administration is allowed to allocate $2.5 billion as it sees fit.

However, it cannot spend any of the money unless the secretary of defense consults with senior members of both parties and provides a written report at least five days before any shift. The Pentagon must also provide monthly reports on how it uses the money. The House is imposing similar requirements.

What's particularly frustrating to us is the new requirement that the Pentagon provide monthly reports (a good thing). Providing monthly reports was an amendment to the $87 billion dollar supplemental presented by Barbar Boxer (D-CA) which at that time was voted down along party lines.

Better late than never.

2004-06-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

2 reports

More on the report mentioned in the Washington Post.

"The Defense Department inspector general's report on contracting procedures in Iraq, issued in March, said "supplies and services were acquired quickly and contracting rules were either circumvented or liberally interpreted."

You can read the report, Contracts Awarded for the Coalition Provisional Authority by the Defense Contracting Command-Washington here: Report No. D-2004-057(PDF)

Pentagon oversight needed according to report

Meanwhile, GovExec has an article Democrats call on Pentagon to oversee Iraq reconstruction contracts which calls attention to a second report that highlights conflicts of interest and the waste of tax dollars.

A group of Democrats wants the Pentagon to assume responsibility for oversight of all reconstruction contracts in Iraq in order to prevent conflicts of interest and the waste of tax dollars.

The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq has awarded at least two oversight contracts that raise concern about possible conflicts of interest, four Democrats said Tuesday in a new report. Under the contracts, private companies have been given responsibility for managing projects being carried out by other companies with which they have business dealings in other countries.

The report, CONTRACTORS OVERSEEING CONTRACTORS: Conflicts of Interest Undermine Accountability in Iraq (PDF), by Democrats "examined two oversight agreements." From the Executive Summary of the report:

This report examines conflicts of interest in two oversight contracts issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in March 2004. It finds that the oversight contractors have close business relationships with the construction contractors that they have been hired to oversee.

On November 3, 2003, Congress appropriated $18.4 billion for the reconstruction effort in Iraq. In March 2004, CPA awarded ten large monopoly contracts for this reconstruction work. CPA also entered into seven other contracts with private companies to oversee the implementation of the ten reconstruction contracts.

This report examines two of the oversight contracts: (1) a $28.5 million contract awarded to a joint venture of Parsons and CH2M Hill to oversee $1.7 billion in public works and water projects by four other contractors (Fluor, Washington Group International, AMEC, and Black & Veatch); and (2) a $43 million contract awarded to a joint venture of Parsons and a separate company, ParsonsBrinckerhoff, to oversee $1.6 billion in power generation, transmission, and distribution projects by four other contractors (Fluor, Washington Group International, AMEC, and Perini).

The report finds that neither Parsons nor CH2M Hill is an independent watchdog. Each oversight contractor has significant conflicts of interest.

Parsons has close business ties to Fluor, one of the companies it is charged with overseeing under both of the oversight contracts. Parsons and Fluor are partners in a $2.6 billion joint venture to develop oil fields in Kazakhstan. In addition, actions that Parsons takes under the oversight contracts could directly affect its own reconstruction contracts. Parsons is teamed with Bechtel on USAID’s $1.8 billion Iraq Infrastructure II contract, which covers a range of sectors, including electricity and water projects. Parsons also has an $800 million contract for oilrelated work in northern Iraq. The prioritization and oversight of work under the CPA construction contracts could affect the work available for Parsons under the USAID contract, as well as Parson’s work in the northern oilfields.

CH2M Hill has similar conflicts of interest. It has ongoing domestic contractual relationships with three of the firms it is responsible for overseeing: Washington Group International, Fluor, and AMEC. CH2M Hill and Washington Group international are “integrated partners” on a $314 million Department of Energy cleanup project in Miamisburg, Ohio. In addition, AMEC, Fluor, and Washington Group International are all CH2M Hill subcontractors on a large Department of Energy cleanup project in Hanford, Washington.

Rumsfeld proposed shaving down the Department of Defense to eliminate waste of tax dollars in a speech he gave on September 10, 2001, DOD Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week Kickoff—Bureaucracy to Battlefield.

Looks like the Rumsfeld program didn't work out.

2004-06-02T01:21:00.000-07:00

oil

Iraq aims for 1.65 mbpd H2 term deals for Basra Lt

Iraq has signed term supply contracts for Basra Light crude for the second half of 2004 for 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of sales and aims to reach a total 1.65 million bpd, an industry source said on Tuesday.

[...]

In the process, SOMO has expanded slightly its market in oil-thirsty Asia and added a new customer in the United States, the SOMO source told Reuters by telephone from Baghdad.

[...]

Listed below are term buyers signed up so far by SOMO for the second half of 2004. New buyers are denoted with an *

NORTH AMERICA

ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Ashland Petroleum, ExxonMobil, Valero Energy, Vitol unit North Atlantic and Tesoro Pertroleum Corp*

EUROPE

Total, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP, ENI, Repsol YPF and Cepsa

ASIA

Indian Oil Corp, Reliance Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp, Unipec, Sinochem, Mitsubishi Corp, PetroChina*, Chinese Petroleum Corp* and Thai Petrochemical Industry*

This is what it's all about. Oil. So while this may not be the most interesting news to read, this is the whole reason the US is occupying Iraq.

An article in the Washington Post mentions some new names contractor wise. Contractors Sometimes Stretch Their Deals

In April 2003, the Defense Department hired Military Professional Resources Inc., an Alexandria government contractor, to supply Arabic translators in Iraq. The two parties agreed on a $1.9 million price and the deal was done.

The translators were hired under a federal contract category designed for the employment of education and training analysts, not linguists, according to a report by the Defense Department's inspector general. The military contracting officer who approved the deal told investigators he did not check the General Services Administration schedule to make sure that translation services were within the scope of MPRI's contract with the government.

Hello. Kidding, right? Apparently not.

"Noncompliance of a GSA schedule is an issue between the GSA and the contractor," the report says.

MPRI, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications Corp., was never disciplined by the GSA, according to company and government officials.

The article goes on to discuss other contractors. But here is the key phrase:

The Defense Department inspector general's report on contracting procedures in Iraq, issued in March, said "supplies and services were acquired quickly and contracting rules were either circumvented or liberally interpreted."

Companies named in the report are:
MZM Inc. of the District
Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego
Unisys Corp. of Blue Bell, Pa.,
MPRI, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications Corp. (L3 was Jay Garner's stomping grounds)

Basically, hand out the money and worry about the details later. Who cares, its just the US treasury. There's more where that came from. We don't know if it's laziness or hubris but it's really inexcusable.

Chalk this up as another article on a report that will just fade into the woodwork. No one is accountable anymore.

2004-06-01T01:55:00.000-07:00

question

Why do we get so many hits from google and other sources* on Ryan Manelick? Manelick was a contractor working for Ultra Services/Irex Corp killed in Iraq. We're just curious.

*One of the sites is Lunaville who is maintaing a list of contractors who have been killed in Iraq.

PS The astrology links? Most of those are to astrologers who follow politics. We like to keep an open mind.

2004-06-01T01:25:00.000-07:00

bang for the buck

Military suppliers hard-pressed to meet demands

Dan Murphy, chief executive at bullet supplier Alliant Techsystems Inc., said the company's Army ammunition plant in Missouri has gone through its fastest increase in production since the Vietnam War. It has hired 1,000 workers in the past three years, and some production lines are running around the clock.

In the last 3 years. Interesting. When exactly did orders start to increase? Say, around the time of Cheney's energy task force meetings?

Contractors mentioned in the article are:
Alliant Techsystems Inc.
Saft America Inc.
Israel Military Industries Ltd.
Winchester unit of Olin Corp.

The aricle also quotes Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, "'The Army has been under-investing in equipment for a generation.'' Well, that's a mighty intriguing observation from a man who has supported and promoted the $10 billion missile defense shield aka Star Wars.

Maybe if the Lexington Institute had been promoting maintaining basic supplies, the Army wouldn't be in this position. But then, that would hardly have profitted the big defense contractors, now would it?

And speaking of Cheney, Time magazine has a short article on an internal email.

The Paper Trail

TIME has obtained an internal Pentagon e-mail sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official—whose name was blacked out by the Pentagon—that raises questions about Cheney's arm's-length policy toward his old employer. Dated March 5, 2003, the e-mail says "action" on a multibillion-dollar Halliburton contract was "coordinated" with Cheney's office. The e-mail says Douglas Feith, a high-ranking Pentagon hawk, got the "authority to execute RIO," or Restore Iraqi Oil, from his boss, who is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. RIO is one of several large contracts the U.S. awarded to Halliburton last year.

The e-mail says Feith approved arrangements for the contract "contingent on informing WH [White House] tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w VP's [Vice President's] office." Three days later, the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton the contract, without seeking other bids. TIME located the e-mail among documents provided by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group.

Fingers crossed that Cheney is forced to release notes on his energy task force meetings. If we were betting men, Halliburton was at the table.

2004-05-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

amazing un-grace

Did you know that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) has a Gift Catalog?

SPONSOR CRUSADES OVERSEAS
Help BGEA host large overseas rallies and
take the hope of Jesus Christ to the ends of
the earth.
Suggested Gift $65

Franklin Graham got into a bit of trouble for his views of Islam. His father should know better than to use the word crusade, particularly after President Bush's use of the word ignited international criticism.

Franklin Graham is the son of Billy Graham and a far more influential figure in the evangelical Christian community than Jerry Falwell or even Pat Robertson. Graham is viewed as the torch-carrier for his father, who is still among the most beloved figures in American Christianity. Moreover, the Graham family is close to Bush. Billy Graham led Bush to Christianity in the 1980s; Franklin Graham delivered the invocation at his presidential inauguration.

In addition to being publicly allied with the Bush administration, Graham also happens to be stridently anti-Islam. His list of anti-Islam comments is long; his most succinct was that Islam is a "very evil and wicked religion."

President Bush has an interview in Christianity Today that is well...revealling.

Bush Calls for 'Culture Change'

BUSH: So the faith-based initiative recognizes that there is an army of compassion that needs to be nurtured, rallied, called forth, and funded, without causing the army to have to lose the reason it's an army in the first place.

That sounds an awful lot like a chorus led rallying cry of Onward Christian Soldiers. Which only begs the question of how much 'Culture Change' is he really talking about.

BUSH: At home, the job of a president is to help cultures change. The culture needs to be changed.

Change should begin at home. So what the heck is the US doing in Iraq?

BUSH: But I'm the kind of person who doesn't change. The best thing I can do is to be myself so that when I finish my job here I will say I was comfortable with who the world saw.

Nice he'll be comfortable with who the world saw but the Presidency isn't just one big four year-long photo op. But then, maybe he thinks it is, which would explain alot about his particular Presidency and his fetish for costumes. The Knights Templar is sure to be one of his favorites. Very Shrek and Lord of the Rings and all. Franklin Graham would dig it, crusader that he is.

This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile.

Pretty clear there what Bush meant then, looks like he still means it now. Since change begins at home, one can only hope regime change in November will be coming to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

(I hope the Queen checked her knights-in-armor collection before he left the palace.)

2004-05-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

obit for the grey lady

The Grey Lady, a noted pioneer of American journalism, died after a long struggle with fascism on December 12, 2000 at her home in New York, New York.

The Grey Lady was born September 18, 1851 in New York City, the daughter of Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones. She was an early supporter of the Republican party carrying a large black border on the day of Lincoln's death. Disgusted with the scandals in the Grant Administration, George Jones, moved his daughter the Grey Lady away from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.

In 1896, Adolph S. Ochs, publisher of The Chattanooga Times, married the Grey Lady. "All the News That's Fit to Print," coined by Ochs himself became her personal motto. On December 1, 1897 the Grey Lady was formally crowned The New York Times. In 1918, she won her first Pulitzer Prize for public service in publishing the texts of dozens of official reports, documents and speeches about World War I.

On January 20, 1981 the Grey Lady moved back to the Republican party of her youth. She ignored the innauguration of Democratic President Clinton in her most recent autobiography preferring to highlight the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in. In 2000, after 8 years of peace and prosperity, she rediscovered war. September 11, 2001 changed everything. After a brief second marriage to the former Republican party, she was diagnosed with terminal fascism. She died with a broken masthead at home in her sleep.

The Grey Lady is survived by several cousins, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, the Village Voice, the New York Press, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Observer as well as numerous second and third cousins all of whom still reside in the greater New York metropolitan area.

2004-05-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

harsh words

Abbas Kadhim *Calling It Like It Is*

The final phase of re-Ba'athification: Iyad Allawi is the strongest candidate for the post of Iraqi Prime Minister (or Prime Monster).

For those who don't know, according to the memoir of Talib Shibib, Iyad Allawi began his political life around 1963, as an assassin. We all know that he worked closely with British intelligence until the collapse of Saddam. The search of politicians in today's Iraq seems to be nastier than going through trash cans.

Abbas Kadhim is an Iraqi doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley.

2004-05-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

like no one would notice

Iraq arms contract misses deadline

None of the bidders competing for an already-delayed contract awarded this week to equip the new Iraqi army were able to meet the schedule set by U.S. military officials, according to a U.S. Army contracting document.

ANHAM Joint Venture of Vienna, which the Army on Tuesday announced won the contract with a bid of $259 million, is a reconstituted version of the group of companies that won the first round of bidding in January only to see the award cancelled and the contract rebid because of complaints about the bidding process.

[...]

ANHAM is only slightly different from Nour USA Ltd., which led the group that first won the contract. It is made up of American International Services/Uni Trans of Reston; Nour; HAIFinance Corp. of Tyson's Corner; Arab Supply and Trading Co. (ASTRA), of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Munis Sukhtian Group of Amman, Jordan. Astra was not originally part of the Nour-led group.

A key ANHAM official, A. Huda Farouki, is a longtime friend of Ahmed Chalabi, the former Pentagon informant and Iraqi National Congress official whose offices were searched for evidence of espionage last week.

2004-05-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

a new direction needed

On May 5, 2004, The Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, released a report, Iraq: A Strategy for Progress (PDF). The New York Times today endorsed the report on its Editorial page.

The President's Speech

A good start, first put forward by the Center for American Progress in Washington, is to go much further in internationalizing the next phase of the Iraq operation.

After seeing the speech by President Bush last night (blah blah blah new prison blah blah blah), it's obvious no one in the White House has read it. Maybe if an intern at the Heritage Foundation had been the author, the administration would have given it a glance.

2004-05-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

budget woes

Back in April, the Open Society Institute’s Iraq Revenue Watch project published a report. In conjunction with a recent article in the Washington Post, the source of the problems becomes clearer. Why such incompetence? Is it really so much more preferable to have politically connected players than it is to have people who are qualified? What an embarrassment.

Financial Planning for Iraq Unsound, New Report Finds

Ahead of a deadline for the transfer of power, the Coalition Provisional Authority’s reporting of Iraqi finances falls short of international standards of accounting and transparency, said a report by the Open Society Institute’s Iraq Revenue Watch project. The report, Opening the Books: Transparent Budgeting for Iraq --- PDF, urges the CPA and the Iraqi Governing Council to make further improvements in accordance with these standards before a new Iraqi government is elected in 2005.

[...]

Iraq’s 2004 budget, produced by the CPA and Iraq’s Ministries of Finance and Planning, is the country’s first full-year financial plan since Saddam Hussein’s removal. However, it lacks key information about state-owned enterprises, financing for sub-national governments, and contingencies that pose significant risks to Iraq’s public purse. There is no contingency planning for what Iraq will do if oil prices fall or exports are disrupted, if hostilities resume, or foreign aid fails to materialize.

In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime
Managing a $13 Billion Budget With No Experience

In short order, six of the new young hires found themselves managing the country's $13 billion budget, making decisions affecting millions of Iraqis. [...] But they were also involved in higher-level policy decisions -- revising the 2004 budget, shifting around money as priorities changed and formulating plans for replacing the food baskets Iraqi families got each month with cash payments.

What was the White House thinking?

2004-05-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

gao report

We finally found the GAO report:

State Department: Issues Affecting Funding of Iraqi National Congress Support Foundation. GAO-04-559, April 30. Highlights (both are PDF files)

Web page for report:
http://www.gao.gov/daybook/040520.htm
Note: See pages 8 & 9 of report (PDF) for a break down of the funding.

The numbers do not match what was being publicly reported in statements by the State Department or the DoD.

Now can we see a GAO report on ALL spending for Iraq?

2004-05-21T20:46:00.000-07:00

money and chalabi

This won't mean much to readers but we at bpost have been looking for more info on $33 million in Iraqi National Congess funding* for over a year. This specific funding was first mentioned by Chalabi in an article in the UK Telegraph but never corroborated in any public statements on INC funding. What is still a mystery is State supposedly cut off funding in August of 2002 and the Department of Defense picked it up from there. Yet, the following article in the Washington Post implies the funding from the State Department continued.

Chalabi Aides Suspected of Spying for Iran

On Thursday, Iraqi police, backed by U.S. soldiers, raided [Ahmed] Chalabi's home and the offices of the Iraqi National Congress [INC], a coalition of parties that opposed the government of Saddam Hussein. Until recently, the group received $335,000 a month from the Pentagon for help in gathering prewar intelligence about Hussein's government and in finding his top lieutenants after the invasion.

[...]

In interviews Friday, INC members, senior officers of the Iraqi police force and U.S. officials outlined three distinct investigations into the INC, which in addition to Defense Department funding received $33 million from the State Department over the past four years.

[...]

Brooke, the INC adviser, said the raids were likely related in part to the investigation of Sabah Nouri, a German national whom Chalabi picked to be the Iraqi Finance Ministry's anti-corruption officer. Nouri was arrested in April after auditors discovered a $22 million shortfall in the program overseeing Iraq's transition to a new currency this year. Brooke called him "a low-level" INC official.

As you may have already heard, the monthly funds of $335,000 a month to the INC have been cut off. We may never really know just how much money was funnelled to the INC or what it was used for. There is a little clarification on funding after October 2002.

In October 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency took over a State Department program that paid the INC $335,000 a month to gather intelligence.

* see this link for a rough break down on the history of INC funding.

Can we just ask why no one in the mainstream media pursued an in-depth story on recent funding of the Iraqi National Congress?

2004-05-21T01:53:00.000-07:00

more iraqi blogs

Time to update the Iraqi blogger list. Lots to explore. "Raed in the Middle" is the same Raed who is Salam Pax's writing partner (otherwise known as the Baghdad Blogger).

Baghdad Burning

Is Something Burning? Cooking

Dear Raed aka Salam Pax

Ihath - Losing myself

A Family in Iraq (Arabic/English)

Faiz Teaches You Arabic

Pictures in Baghdad

Iraq Dispatches

Healing Iraq

2004-05-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

new blog

New blog in Iraq:Iraq Dispatches. The blogger's name is Dahr Jamail.

His blog was linked at Iraq Occupation Watch which is also worth a visit.

2004-05-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

conflict of interests or just tacky?

Some of what we'll be posting will be dated but thems the breaks.

Rumsfeld Names Panel to Probe Iraq Prison Abuse

Rumsfeld told reporters after daylong congressional hearings on the abuse controversy that former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, former Rep. Tillie Fowler of Florida and retired Air Force Gen. Charles Horner had agreed to take part in the 45-day review.

All are members of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (DPB), a group of experts who provide advice to the secretary and other senior department officials on policy.

Conflict of interest? Under the investigation of former DPB member and chair Richard Perle last year, it was determined that he had less than 8 days of service to the DPB therefore, no conflict of interest with his outside business interests and his work with the DPB. But now a 45-day review falls well outside that acceptable limit.

Tillie Fowler's law firm is currently advising Presdient Bush's brother, Governor Jeb Bush, on how to avoid military base closures in Florida. Tillie Fowler is the current Chair of the DPB. Gee. What a coinky dink. Think she'll be objective?

Meanwhile, Charles Horner is another Scoop Jackson protege as was Richard Perle who spent 11 years in Jackson's office. Perle met Rumsfeld's current Deputy Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, when they both interivewed together with Jackson. Douglas Feith at the Department of Defense in Policy was in turn a protege of Perle. Ahhhh. How sweet. Think Horner can remain objective?

Is James Schlesinger still an advisor to defense contractor Shaw Group?

The Shaw Group Inc. is the world's only vertically-integrated provider of comprehensive engineering, procurement, pipe fabrication, construction and maintenance services to the power, process and environmental & infrastructure sectors.

Shaw Group opened an office in Iraq and recently won a contract:

The Shaw Group Inc. announced today that its subsidiary, Shaw Environmental, Inc., was awarded a contract by the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville to perform conventional and recovered chemical warfare materiel (RCWM) munitions response and other munitions related services. Shaw is one of seven companies selected under this contract which has a first year shared capacity of $525 million. An estimated 75% of the work may be in support of the Army's Iraq operations.

Shaw Environmental, Inc. is the prime contractor in a teaming arrangement that includes American Technologies, Inc. (ATI), a small disadvantaged business, Readiness Management Support LC (RMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson Controls, The Al-Khudhairy Group of Iraq, and the Armor Group.

The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract has a five-year ordering period.

No mention of full cost of contract. 1/7 of $2.5 billion? ($525 million x 5 years) Think Schlesinger will be objective?

The intertwined relationships of the people in and around this White House border on incestous. Get out and meet some new people for God's sake.

2004-05-19T22:54:00.000-07:00

job description

By now you've read about the prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. So when we stumbled on this recent job listing for an Interrogator/Intel Analyst Team Lead Asst for CACI in Iraq we were a bit stunned to see "under minimal supervision" in the job description. The listing was posted at Security Clearance Jobs on March 22, 2004.

Interrogator/Intel Analyst Team Lead Asst.

Assists the interrogation support program team lead to increase the effectiveness of dealing with Detainees, Persons of Interest, and Prisoners of War (POWs) that are in the custody of US/Coalition Forces in the CJTF 7 AOR, in terms of screening, interrogation, and debriefing of persons of intelligence value. Under minimal supervision, will assist the team lead in managing a multifaceted interrogation support cell consisting of database entry/intelligence research clerks, screeners, tactical/strategic interrogators, and intelligence analyst.

See more listings at Security Clearance Jobs

There is an interesting statement posted at CACI.

Dr. J.P. (Jack) London, CACI Chairman, President and CEO said, "The testimony provided by the Secretary of the Defense, the Secretary of the Army, and the Central Command Deputy Commander has cleared up an important point: As stated, CACI employees are monitored and are under the supervision of U.S. Army personnel. This was exactly as set forth in CACI’s services contract with the U.S. Military, and CACI has carried out this role as stated."

Who is in charge? Y'all get the feeling no one is minding the store, or in this case, prison?

Now we're not saying that CACI is in anyway directly responsible or even particpated in the abuse of prisoners. But it is clear from what has been reported on the prisoner abuse to date that there was a massive breakdown in order and accountability.

We shouldn't be surprised. We should have seen it coming. Looking back at the past year in Iraq, chaos and deceit have been the prevailing pattern. Nothing has been honest about this war. Not one single thing. The turkey at Thanksgiving was a fake for crying out loud. Wmd's? A ten year old child knows the war is for Iraq's oil.

Experts said 250,000 troops were needed to invade and occupy Iraq but the Rumsfeld way was 130,000 just keep them all there longer. So what if the troops are made up of significant numbers of Reservists and National Guard? Just lie and tell them it's only for a little while and then extend their tour for a year. Jay Garner was placed in charge of reconstruction, then whoosh, in flies Paul Bremer. Fire the Ba'athists but slide on the "good" ones. Fire the Iraqi military, let the looting burn itself and the country out, then hire them back. Give out a contract paid for by tax dollars, but don't tell Congress what it's for. Pledge support to hire Iraqis, bring in foreign workers. Promise the Coaltion of the Willing members primary contracts but a wink and a nod will let a non-coalition partner in on the money grab. Ask for $73 billion dollars, then oops, ask for $87 billion more, then oops, another $59 billion, but hey just a $25 billion reserve fund* will do for now. (*more on this later)

The current White House administration needs to start being honest with everyone including themselves. A good place to begin is by accepting responsibliity for the dishonest climate that ultimately lead to prisoner abuse, starting with their lie (by the sin of ommision) that 9-11 was connected with Iraq.

We're not optimistic. But then, President Bush wasn't even honestly elected so why would anything change now?

PS If a CACI member happens to stumble along on our blog, one question: when was Mr. London first made aware of preparations for a war in Iraq? His optimism for financial gain in February of 2002 was prescient.

2004-05-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

hello

We're back.

Blogger has gotten all fancy on us while we've been away. So, let's get started and back on track to following the money in Iraq.

The US State Department has a list of security companies operating in Iraq posted on their website.

http://travel.state.gov/iraq_securitycompanies.html

We at bpost notice that several companies reported to be operating are not on the list--CACI, Wackenhut, Dyncorp, Steele, to name a few off the top of our heads. There is also the following disclaimer posted on the webpage: The U.S. government assumes no responsibility for the professional ability or integrity of the persons or firms whose names appear on the list.

For the purposes of space, we have not included the descriptions of the services each company provides but you might want to check it out. "Information support"? Whatever.

AD Consultancy
Headquarters:
ADC House
P.O. Box 153
Sutton, Surrey SM3 9WF
United Kingdom
Tel: 0870 707 0074
Fax: 0870 707 0075
Website: www.adconsultancy.com
Email: security.services@adporta.com
Contact in Iraq:
Ian Grealey
Tel: 0870 707 0074
Email: ian.grealey@adporta.com

AKE Limited
Headquarters:
Mortimer House
Holmer Road
Hereford HR4 9TA
UK
Tel: [44] (0) 1432 267111
Fax: [44] (0) 1432 350227
Email: services@akegroup.com
Website: www.akegroup.com
Contact in Iraq:
Peter Hornett
Tel: [44] (0) 7739 094598
Email: operations@akegroup.com

ArmorGroup
Headquarters:
25 Buckingham Gate
London
SW1E 6LD
Tel: [44] (20) 7808-5800
Fax: [44] (20) 7233-7434
Email: info@armorgroup.com or jmillar@armorgroup.com
Contact in Iraq:
John Farr, MBE
Country Manager
Tel: 0088 216 511 20010
Email: jfarr@armorgroup.com
ArmorGroup's Baghdad office is not able to deal with job applications. All applications must be accompanied by a current CV/resume and sent to: jswaggertt@armorgroup.com (US residents), or cruart@armorgroup.com (UK residents and other nationalities).

Control Risks Group
Headquarters:
83 Victoria Street
London SW1H OHW
United Kingdom
Tel: [44] (20) 722 1552
Fax: [44] (20) 7222 2296
Website: www.crg.com
Email: james.blount@control-risks.com or criraq1@control-risks.com
Contact in Iraq:
James Blount, Country Manager
Tel: 1-914-822-9502 (NY number but person is located in Iraq)
Thuraya: +8821621158121
Email: james.blount@control-risks.com or criraq1@control-risks.com

Custer Battles
Headquarters:
3959 Pender Drive
Suite 109
Fairfax, VA 22050
Tel: [1] 703-385-1121
Fax: [1] 703-385-2177
Email: cbaumann@custerbattles.com
Website: www.custerbattles.com
Contact in Iraq:
Brig. General Charles Baumann, Director
Tel: [1] 914-360-9223
Email: cbaumann@custerbattles.com

Diligence Middle East
Headquarters:
1275 Eye Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Tel: [1] 202-659-6210
Fax: [1] 202-659-6210
Email: kjosey@diligenceiraq.com
Website: www.diligencellc.com
Contact in Iraq:
Ken Josey, Country Manager
Tel: [1] 914-822-9746 (NY number rings in Baghdad)
Email: kjosey@diligenceiraq.com

Erinys Iraq Limited
Headquarters:
16 Zukak 18
601 Emerat Mahla
Al-Mansour
Baghdad, Iraq
Tel: +873763692882
Email: opsbaghdad@erinysinternational.com
Website: www.erinysinternational.com
Contact in Iraq:
Michael Hutchings
Tel: +873763692882 or +96447901921231
Email: mhutchings@erinysinternational.com

Genric
Headquarters:
Hereford House
East Street
Hereford, UK HR1 2LU
Tel: [44] 1432 379083
Fax: [44] 1432 370786
Website: www.genric.co.uk
Email: nick.duggan@genric.co.uk
Contact in Iraq:
Nick Duggan
Tel: [44] 7919 478484 or [965] 904-8217/8257
Email: nick.duggan@genric.co.uk

Global Risk Strategies
Headquarters:
6 Stratton Street
London W1J 8LD
United Kingdom
Tel: [44] (20) 7491 7492
Fax: [44] (20) 7491
Website: www.globalrsl.com
Email: ops@globalrsl.com
Contact in Iraq:
Damian Perl, Charlie Andrews, Nick Arnold
Tel: 1-914-360-6148 (NY number but person is located in Iraq)
Email: babylonops@yahoo.com

Group 4 Falck A/S
Headquarters:
Panchwati
82-A, Sector 18
Gurgaon 122016 (Haryana)
India
Tel: [91] 124-2398888
Fax: [91] 124-2397131
Website: www.group4falck.com
Email: reg.office@group4falckmesea.com
Contact in Iraq:
Abrahem Ghazarian
Tel: 919811768800
Fax: 971508131680
Email: brahem@group4falckmesea.com
Editor's note: According to their website, they have announced a merger. Group 4 Falck and Securicor merge to create a global leader in security services. The new company - Group 4 Securicor - will operate in more than 108 countries and have approximately 340,000 employees.

Hill and Associates, Ltd.
Headquarters:
2604-9 Harbour Center
No. 25 Harbour Road
Wanchai, Hong King
Tel: [852] 2802-2123
Fax: [852] 2802-2133
Email: info.ae@hill-assoc.com
Website: www.hill-assoc.com
Contact in Iraq:
Richard Hancock, Director
Operations - Middle East
Tel: [971] (4) 211-5447 (Dubai) or (65) 6322-2558
Thuraya: 882-162-1100-133
Email: Richard.hancock@hill-assoc.com or richancock@hotmail.com

ICP Group Ltd
Headquarters:
2 Old Brompton Road
London SW7 3DQ
United Kingdom
Tel: [44] (0) 207-591-4411
Fax: [44] (0) 207-584-1460
Email: iraq@icpgroup.ltd.uk
Website: www.icpgroup.ltd.uk
Contact in Iraq:
Will Geddes or Andy King
Tel: [44] (870) 464-1000 (UK number that rings in Baghdad)
Email: iraq@icpgroup.ltd.uk

ISI
Headquarters:
Baghdad Conference Palace
Mansour, Baghdad
Tel: [1] 914-360-2492
Email: omarhadi@hotmail.com
Contact in Iraq:
Omar Hadi
Tel: [1] 914-360-2492 or [1] 914-822-7707
Email: omarhadi@hotmail.com

Meteoric Tactical Solutions
Headquarters:
6 Meteor Road
Valhalla
Pretoria, South Africa
Tel: [27] 12 651 3402
Fax: [27] 12 651 3402
Email: Juanitavr@bestmed.co.za
Contact in Iraq:
Lourens Horn (Louwtjie)
Tel: 914-360-3113
Email: louwtjieh@hotmail.com

Meyer & Associates
Headquarters:
P.O. Box 1800
Joshua (DFW), TX 76058
Tel: [11] 817-426-1199
Fax: [11] 817-558-4868
Website: www.meyerglobalforce.com
Email: gdesmith@meyerglobalforce.com
Contact in Iraq:
Tim Meyer or Gary DeSmith
Tel: 1-817-401-8142 or 1-817-821-8820
Email: tjmeyer@meyerglobalforce.com or gdesmith@meyerglobalforce.com

Olive Security (UK) Limited
Headquarters:
2 Charles Street
Mayfair, London
W1J 5DB
England, UK
Tel: [44] (0) 207307 0540
Fax: [44] (0) 207307 0542
Email: barrylb@olivesecurity.com
Website: www.olivesecurity.com
Contact in Iraq:
John Yourston and Douglas Dick
Tel: 008821652100377 or [965] 914-0169 (Kuwait office)

Optimal Solution Services
Headquarters:
4/35 Spencer Street
Fairfield NSW
Australia
Tel: [61] (2) 97555840
Fax: [61] (2) 97559835
Email: optimal1@optusnet.com.au
Contact in Iraq:
Zahir F. Hameed
Tel: +8821621233556
Email: optimal_solution@hotmail.com

Overseas Security & Strategic Information, Inc/Safenet - Iraq
Headquarters:
Post Office Box 52067
Atlanta, GA 30355
USA
Tel: [1] 404-307-4072
Fax: [1] 413-208-6069
Email: OSSIInc@hotmail.com
Contact in Iraq:
John H. Walbridge, Jr. or Mauritz Le Roux
Tel: [964] 7901915494 or [88] 216 5201 4591/4592

RamOPS Risk Management Group
Headquarters:
7312 Suite 8 Hihenge Court
Raleigh, NC 27615
Tel: [1] 919-740-4597
Website: www.ramops.com
Email: globalservices@ramops.com
Contact in Iraq:
Andy Potts or John Autenreith
Email: globalservices@ramops.com
Tel: [1] 919-740-4597 (US)

Sumer International Security
Headquarters:
Almasbah - Dis Babilon
Sec. 929, St. 10, Building 10(54/356)
Baghdad, Iraq
Tel: [1] 312-869-7336 (VOIP)
Fax: [1] 202-438-9710
Email: lipmanj@thesandigroup.com
Website: www.thesandigroup.com
Contact in Iraq:
Janna Lipman
Tel: [1] 312-869-8336 (VOIP) or [964] 7901-916-338 or [1] 202-483-5900
Email: lipmanj@thesandigroup.com or karslim@corporatebankintl.com

Triple Canopy Inc.
Headquarters:
600 Knightsbridge Parkway
Lincolnshire, IL 60069
USA
Tel: [1] 312-261-8000
Fax: [1] 312-261-8010
Email: sales@triplecanopy.com
Website: www.triplecanopy.com

Wade-Boyd and Associates LLC
Headquarters:
Suite 116
Main Street
Lawler, IA 52154
Tel: [1] 641-330-4581 or 931-302-7822
Fax: [1] 270-518-5780
Email: wbaprotection@yahoo.com
Contact in Iraq:
Malek (Ali) Mehanna or V. Brooke Phillips
Tel: [1] 641-330-4581 (US)
Email: malekmehanna@hotmail.com or invops@yahoo.com

How many of these companies have received direct contract awards from US governmental agencies? Does priority on primary contract awards still go to companies from nations of the Coalition of the Willing?

2004-04-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

a train wreck

We need a break but we can't stop looking.

US firm banned in conflict row

Accountancy firm Ernst & Young, No. 2 in Australia, was scrambling yesterday to assess the impact of another conflict-of-interest scandal involving its US parent.

Ernst & Young in the US was barred from accepting new corporate clients for six months for failing to maintain its independence from a company whose books it audited.

It was the first time the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had sought the suspension of a major accounting firm since 1975. Judge Brenda Murray also fined the firm $US1.7 million ($2.3 million), saying it "has an utter disdain" for SEC regulations.

Meanwhile, just a few weeks ago....

Ernst & Young wins Iraq contract

Big Four firm Ernst & Young has won a contract with Iraq's ruling Coalition Provisional Authority to help trace the country's loan contracts and reconcile who is owed money from its estimated $120bn (£66bn) debts.

We forgot conflict of interests from our list yesterday.

2004-04-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

peace is a good thing

One Year

The Blogiston Post will be taking a break for a few weeks. We just can't take it anymore. The self dealing, greed and corruption of the current US White House administration is too much. We will continue to collect articles and references to contracts but we need a break.

Please vote for anyone but George W. Bush and Richard Cheney in November 2004.

Thank you.

2004-04-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

how sweet

A few days old, but definitely worth the read.

Ages and ages ago we told you how Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith ran the office charged with doling out Iraqi reconstruction contracts. And we told you how Feith's law partner, Marc Zell -- amazingly contravening the law of averages -- had happened to set up a special lobbying shop to lobby for companies looking for sweet Iraq contracts.

2004-04-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

blog to read

Blogger Chris Lehman has posted "a note my friend Scott sent to his wife the day after the four contractors were killed in Fallujah". Go read and then consider writing a letter to your Senator.

2004-03-29T22:11:00.000-08:00

you won't read this in the new york times

Reporter Apologizes for Iraq Coverage

"The media are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there is one thing they forgot to say: We're sorry," Rick Mercier wrote, in a column published Sunday in The Free Lance-Star.

"Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage. Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq. Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations. Sorry we couldn't bring ourselves to hold the administration's feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered.

"Maybe we'll do a better job next war."

Good for Rick Mercier. Don't hold your breath: you won't see Judith Miller of the New York Times issue an apology.

2004-03-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

wheat

AWB wins major wheat supply contract for Iraq

Australia's exporter AWB has won a major supply contract for wheat to Iraq, securing the sale of 460,000 tonnes, worth $100 million.

It's part of the last contract co-ordinated by the United Nations, before Iraq reverts to an open market system.

2004-03-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

wowser

About time. Why is it that the blogosphere had an early handle on Cheney's energy meetings?

Cheney, energy and Iraq invasion Supreme Court to rule on secrecy

Significant evidence points to the possibility that much more could be revealed than mere corporate cronyism: The national energy policy proceedings could open a window onto the Bush administration's decision-making process and motives for going to war on Iraq.

In July 2003, after two years of legal action through the Freedom of Information Act (and after the end of the war), Judicial Watch was finally able to obtain some documents from the Cheney-led National Energy Policy Development Group.

They included maps of Middle East and Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," detailing the status of their efforts. The documents are available at http://www.judicialwatch.org

You'll have to scroll thru the list on the Judicial Watch home page to find the relevant links. Unfortunately, they are not all listed in one section.

We posted our thoughts on the subject in March 2003, see Dear Tom

2004-03-27T22:27:00.000-08:00

new contracts

Iraqi Reconstruction Contract Awarded

The Department of Defense announced today the award of one contract to provide construction services under the Coalition Provisional Authority Program Management Office (PMO) within a specific sector.

Parsons Delaware Inc., Pasadena. Calif., was awarded a contract with a ceiling of $500 million, to provide design-build construction services for projects associated with the construction of new, and renovation of existing, public buildings, hospitals, healthcare clinics, and housing throughout Iraq.

Iraqi Reconstruction Contract Awarded

The Department of Defense announced today the award of one contract to provide construction services under the Coalition Provisional Authority Program Management Office (PMO) within a specific sector.

Parsons Delaware Inc., Pasadena. Calif., was awarded a
contract with a ceiling of $900 million to provide design-build construction services for projects associated with the rehabilitation and construction of Iraqi
security and justice facilities and facilities for the Iraqi National Defense Force.

2004-03-27T16:38:00.000-08:00

new blog

New blogger in Baghdad, visit Wires

My name is Fiona. I install lighting and sound systems in TV Studios and Theatres, in the UK and abroad. Currently I am contracted to install a TV studio in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. It is the first of over a dozen being installed for a London - based Iraqi client who has recently returned to the country for the first time in over 20 years. I got this job on the strength of photographs I took of riots in Belfast.

Hope Fiona isn't working for Chalabi.

2004-03-26T01:11:00.000-08:00

bases again

Rumsfeld is propoaing closing 25% of all bases curently within the US. Guess they're being outsourced to foreign countries. 14 `enduring bases' set in Iraq

Last year, as troops poured over the Kuwait border to invade Iraq, the U.S. military set up at least 120 forward operating bases. Then came hundreds of expeditionary and temporary bases that were to last between six months and a year for tactical operations while providing soldiers with such comforts as e-mail and Internet access.

Now U.S. engineers are focusing on constructing 14 "enduring bases," long-term encampments for the thousands of American troops expected to serve in Iraq for at least two years. The bases also would be key outposts for Bush administration policy advisers. [...]

To that end, the U.S. plans to operate from former Iraqi bases in Baghdad, Mosul, Taji, Balad, Kirkuk and in areas near Nasiriyah, near Tikrit, near Fallujah and between Irbil and Kirkuk.

There also are plans to renovate and enhance airfields in Baghdad and Mosul, and rebuild 70 miles of road on the main route for U.S. troops headed north.

Dollar figures have not been released. The Defense Department plans to build the bases under its own contracts separate from the State Department and its Embassy in Baghdad.

Last we knew, the Baghdad embassy had approximately $150 million in appropriated funds. Look for that number to go up significantly.

2004-03-26T00:27:00.000-08:00

chalabi

Well, we'd heard he was still on the dole...In an article from the New York Times by Dexter Filkins Chalabi, Nimble Exile, Searches for Role in Iraq

At the same time, Mr. Chalabi's star began to wane in Washington, as the Bush administration's claims about Mr. Hussein's weapons capabilities and his presumed ties to Al Qaeda — in no small part based on information provided by Mr. Chalabi — failed to be confirmed.

Nevertheless, the Department of Defense continues to pay his organization $340,000 a month to gather intelligence in Iraq.

Mr. Chalabi has no regrets about any information, however misleading, that he passed to the Americans before the war. "We are heroes in error," Mr. Chalabi told The Daily Telegraph of Britain in an interview last month. "As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important."

Hey. It was all just a joke anyway.

2004-03-17T23:20:00.000-08:00

by any other name

Pi·no·ky·o Rose noun

1. A journalist who deliberately distorts facts in order to create and/or promote propaganda.

Example: Ron Fournier of the Associated Press is a Pinokyo Rose.
Synonomous with 1. press·ti·tute 2. me·di·a whore 3. Li·sa My·ers

2004-03-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

iraq constitution

We've been getting google hits looking for the new Iraqi constitution. Here's the thing, the new document is called something else: Iraqi Transitional Administrative Law.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has the text up at their website at Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period Hope this helps those of you looking for the document.

Note: bpost review of After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy by Noah Feldman might be of interest to those of you looking for additional information.