Blacklisted Russian's planes tied to U.S. contracts in Iraq

[seemslikeadream]

Stephen Braun, Judy Pasternak, T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Washington -- Air cargo companies allegedly tied to a reputed Russian arms trafficker have received millions of dollars in federal funds from U.S. contractors in Iraq, even though the Bush administration has worked for three years to rein in his enterprises.

Planes linked to Victor Bout's shadowy network continued to fly into Iraq, according to government records and interviews with officials, even though the Treasury Department froze his assets in July and placed him on a blacklist for allegedly violating international arms sanctions.

Largely under the auspices of the Pentagon, U.S. agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers and the Air Force, and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq until last summer, have allowed their private contractors to do business with the Bout network.

Four firms linked to the network by the CIA and international investigators have flown into Iraq more than 195 times on U.S. business, government flight and fuel documents show. One such flight landed in Baghdad last week.

The list of the Bout network's suspected clients over the years includes the Taliban, which bought airplanes for a secret airlift of arms to Afghanistan. The Taliban is known to have shared weapons with al Qaeda.

more
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/14/MNG71ABKAV1.DTL

[maddezmom]

1. probably contracted by Halliburton

:eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

2. Victor Bout

Victor Bout is the poster boy for a new generation of post Cold War international arms dealers who play a critical role in areas where the weapons trade has been embargoed by the United Nations.

Afghanistan

Before September 11, Bout's involvement in Afghanistan was mentioned in the press only occasionally in passing. Western intelligence officials or anonymous investigators were quoted as saying Bout started off there, arming the government forces fighting the Taliban and other rebels groups. On January 1, 2002, the Washington Monthly took Bout's Afghan connection one step further, saying that he switched sides and started selling to the Taliban while negotiating for the release of his plane and crew in 1995. This assertion was based on a quote from a source familiar with his activities who said, "He's a very enterprising person. When his plane was detained, he used the opportunity as a business introduction to the Taliban."

A few weeks later, on January 20, the Los Angeles Times reported on the key role played by the United Arab Emirates in hosting money laundering and arms trafficking operations for Al Qaeda and the Taliban, a result of loose government oversight. The article reported that Bout teamed up with Afghan-based militants in the emirate of Sharjah, where, as recently as early 2001, a company called Flying Dolphin, flew shuttles twice a week to the Taliban headquarters in Kandahar. Its owner, Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed al Saqr al Nahyan, was the UAE ambassador to the U.S. from 1989 to 1992, and was described by the U.N. as a business associate of Bout.

Afghan and U.A.E. air industry sources reported a meeting between "two Russians" and the United Arab Emirates representative of Ariana, the Afghan national airline, in which it was agreed that Bout's Air Cess would provide wheels, tires and other military goods for the Taliban air force. Flying Dolphin would provide charter flights when Ariana was unavailable.

The Afghan permanent representative to the United Nations, citing Afghan and American intelligence reports, said Ariana flights from Sharjah had transported chemical poisons to Kandahar: "cyanide and other toxic substances purchased in Germany, the Czech Republic and Ukraine." He said the Taliban "had nothing to do with this. These chemicals were for Bin Laden and his people. It was some of the chemicals they were using in experiments." Earlier, the US had reportedly pressured the U.A.E. to clamp down on Bout's operations, which simply resulted in his moving to a neighboring Emirate.


http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/sierraleone/bout.html

[seemslikeadream]

3. Iraq: Government Deal With a 'Merchant of Death'?

Bout: Dealing with the U.S.?
By Michael Isikoff
NewsweekDec. 20 issue - In an effort to crack down on one of the world's most notorious international criminals, President George W. Bush last summer signed an order barring U.S. citizens from doing business with Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout. But not long afterward, U.S. officials discovered Bout's tentacles were wider than anticipated: for much of this year, NEWSWEEK has learned, a Texas charter firm allegedly controlled by Bout was making repeated flights to Iraq—courtesy of a Pentagon contract allowing it to refuel at U.S. military bases. One reason for the flights, sources say, was that the firm was flying on behalf of Kellogg Brown & Root, the division of Halliburton hired to rebuild Iraq's oilfields.

U.S. officials say Bout—once dubbed a "merchant of death" by a British foreign minister—built an empire in the 1990s flying weapons to the Taliban and African dictators and rebel groups, in violation of international sanctions. Bush's order banning business with Bout, a former Soviet military officer, was for supplying guns to the rogue regime of ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor. "Our ultimate goal is to shut down his network," says Juan Zarate, assistant Treasury secretary.

But U.S. officials feared they were being undermined recently when they got evidence that Bout's aircraft were spotted in Iraq. A Pentagon official confirmed that, until last summer, a Texas carrier named Air Bas had a "fuel purchase agreement" authorizing its planes to refuel at U.S. bases there. Air Bas planes landed 142 times at U.S. bases this year, says Jack Hooper of the Defense Logistics Agency. The flights began months after a U.N. report identified Air Bas as a suspected Bout "front company." Sources say Treasury officials recently recommended naming Air Bas to a list of Bout-connected firms to be covered by Bush's order. (Air Bas president Richard Chichakli acknowledges he was in contact with Bout, but says Bout is not an owner of the firm.)

Hooper says his agency had been unaware of the Bout connection and cut off the agreement in August after the firm "repeatedly" rebuffed requests to identify what business it was conducting for the U.S. government. Chichakli says Air Bas had subcontracted with another firm, Falcon Express in Dubai, that was hired to haul cargo for two big Iraq contractors—FedEx and Kellogg Brown & Root. "I'm like Hertz or Avis," he says. "You rent my planes, you go from point A and point B." A FedEx spokeswoman says the firm recently told Falcon to drop Air Bas when it learned of the alleged Bout link. Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall says the firm had "no knowledge" of Air Bas's role, but that the firm stopped using Falcon Express "six months ago." Still, Lee Wolosky, a former National Security Council official who tracked Bout, says it's "seemingly inexplicable" that the U.S. government could have been "doing business with an international criminal organization."

more
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6700301/site/newsweek/

[maddezmom]

4. thanks for the article...hadn't read it

but knew it in my gut. :eyes:

[htuttle]

5. "The Enterprise" is truly out of control again

[maddezmom]

6. kick