Firm says it erred on Libya consulting

[SecularMotion]

Source: Boston Globe

WASHINGTON — A Cambridge consulting firm’s controversial bid to bolster the image of Moammar Khadafy and Libya should have been registered with the US government as a lobbying effort, an internal company investigation found.

Company officials with Monitor Group, which enlisted prominent professors from Harvard University in the effort from 2006 to 2008, said the inquiry also concluded that public relations work for foreign governments is not part of its core mission and should be avoided.

“We are putting in place new systems to make sure we do not repeat a mistake we fully acknowledge we made here,’’ said Eamonn Kelly, a senior partner at Monitor. The company will retroactively register the Libya work today, as well as a separate contract with Jordan, he said.

The company’s decision to register is likely to lead to the release of details about how much the company paid Harvard professors and other intel lectuals to visit Libya, information that has been closely held.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2011/05/06/cambridge_firm_says_it_erred_on_libya_consulting/

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. money grubbing traitors.

Then again, that describes 50% of all lobbyists inside the bloatway.

[KurtNYC]

2. Monitor wasn't alone in trying to rehab Gaddafi's image

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/07/09/obama_shakes_hands_with_gaddaf.html

Bush, Blair and Obama did it too.

[al bupp]

3. Yes, because at that point Gaddafi had done what Saddam Hussein had not...

namely, submit to an internationally monitored dismantling of his nuclear weapons program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi#Weapons_of_mass_destruction_program">Wikipedia: Gaddafi's Weapons of mass destruction program

A cagey move on his part, granted, but not necessarily whole-hearted. He's crazy enough to to risk nuclear disaster, as is reported in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-cables-libya-enriched-uranium">this Guardian piece about a leaked Wikileaks cable.