Forgery Alleged in Weldon Firm's Iraqi Arms Deal

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Wired

Pennsylvania-based arms-dealer Defense Solutions has already worked on a number of questionable ventures in the new international weapons bazaar. It negotiated a partnership with Russia's state weapons agency, which is on a U.S. government blacklist; it's looking to arms deals in Libya, which is still under specific sanctions on weapons sales. Now the company -- which employs Curt Weldon, a former Congressman under FBI investigation -- wants to corner the market on Ukrainian-supplied armored personnel carriers to Iraq. But a Ukrainian official says his signature has been forged on a document claiming there's an agreement with Defense Solutions.

One of the contracts aggressively pursued by Defense Solutions was a foreign military sale potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide the BTR-3E, a Ukrainian-produced armored vehicle, to Iraq. Defense Solutions marketed itself, according to documents provided to DANGER ROOM, as having an arrangement with Ukraine to be the only supplier of the BTR-3E to Iraq. Defense Solutions' claim to exclusivity was supported by a letter bearing the signature of Andri Veselovsky, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister, and addressed to Ambassador Stephan Minikes, a senior advisor to Defense Solutions. The letter claimed Ukrspetseksport, the Ukrainian state weapons export agency, and its subsidiary, Ukroboronservice, were on board with the exclusive deal.

Such an arrangement would have virtually guaranteed Defense Solutions the lucrative contract, knocking out any competing arms brokers.

But the February 2008 letter from Andri Veselovsky to Defense Solutions is of dubious origin. In an e-mail to DANGER ROOM, Veselovsky, whose name and signature appears on the letter and is now Ukraine’s Ambassador to the European Union, denies signing the letter.

“I would like to officially state that the signature on the letter attached in your e-mail is NOT mine,” he wrote DANGER ROOM, after reviewing the document.



Read more: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/defense-solutio.html

[brentspeak]

1. Weldon was known as "Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Serbia)" in his Philly district

He spent most of his time in Congress doing favors for alleged Serbian war criminals, and funneling their business to his daughter's PR firm.