-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: August 22, 2007 3:00:03 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: "Merchant of Death" As Big a Threat to the U.S. As Bin
Laden Worked for Pentagon
Internationally Wanted Criminal Flew U.S. Supply Missions in Iraq
August 21, 2007 12:53 PM
Justin Rood Reports:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/08/book-wanted-cri.html
The U.S. government paid a wanted international criminal roughly
$60 million to fly supplies into Iraq in support of the war effort,
a new book alleges.
Intelligence officials have considered arms merchant and
international trafficker Viktor Bout one of the greatest threats to
U.S. interests, in the same league as Al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin
Laden. Interpol has issued a warrant for his arrest; the United
Nations Security Council has restricted his travel.
Yet from 2003 through at least 2005, Pentagon contractors used air
cargo companies known to be connected to Bout to fly an estimated
1,000 supply trips into and out of Iraq, according to: "Merchant of
Death: Money, Guns, Plans, and the Man Who Makes War Possible."
http://www.merchantofdeathbook.com/
It could have been worse, the authors report. Shortly after the
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Bout -- whose arms shipments to the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan were believed to have aided al Qaeda --
pitched the CIA a multi-million dollar proposal to help rout the
Taliban from the country and capture Osama bin Laden, according to
Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun.
Farah is a former reporter for the Washington Post; Braun is a
national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
The deal never came together. But Bout found business with the
United States in 2003, flying supplies into newly-invaded Iraq as a
subcontractor to U.S. military contractors, including Fluor and
Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), the authors say, citing military
flight records as evidence. The flights continued even after
President Bush signed an order banning Americans from doing
business with Bout or his associates, the authors report.
A spokeswoman for KBR acknowledged to the authors the company had
hired a Bout-connected cargo firm through an intermediary, but that
it had no knowledge of the ties at the time. A request for comment
to the Fluor Corporation from ABC News was not immediately answered.
In a January 2005 letter to Congress, then-Assistant Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted the Defense Department "did
conduct business with companies that, in turn, subcontracted work
to second-tier providers who leased aircraft owned by companies
associated with Mr. Bout."
Defense officials were busy making sure Bout's planes no longer
flew for the United States, he wrote. Nine days after Wolfowitz's
letter, a Bout-controlled plane touched down in Mosul, Iraq,
according to the book's authors.
Bout's work in Iraq first became public in a May 2004 article in
the Financial Times newspaper. CIA officials in Washington secretly
warned colleagues in Baghdad of the ties in fall 2003, the authors
report. "It would appear...that it did not make its way to the
correct folks," the two quote an unnamed CIA official as saying.
In an interview with the Blotter on ABCNews.com, Farah said he and
Braun calculated the number of flights by Bout-owned planes by
reviewing U.S. Air Force fueling logs, military flight records and
interviewing U.S. military officials and private air cargo
contractors.
Bout didn't just walk away with millions of taxpayer dollars, the
authors found. The military issued Bout's pilots supply cards
allowing them to gas up their planes for free when landing in Iraq.
A Defense Department spokesman confirmed to the authors that Bout's
fleet made off with nearly 500,000 gallons of fuel from the Baghdad
airport courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.
Bout made his fortune in the 1990s selling Soviet-era weaponry to
Third World despots and insurgent groups. Using a "veiled, complex
corporate structure," Bout dispatched fleets of Cold War-era Soviet
cargo planes to some of the most inhospitable corners of the earth,
running guns for dictators, including Liberia's Charles Taylor and
Zaire's Mubuto Sese Seko, as well as rebel leaders in Angola,
Sierra Leone and beyond. By 2000, U.S. government officials
considered him one of the leading threats to the United States, on
par with Osama bin Laden and global warming.
Bout was the inspiration for the 2005 film, "Lord of War," starring
Nicolas Cage as an international arms dealer who will sell to all
sides of any conflict. Bout reportedly rented his planes to the
movie's producers for use in the film.
Bout's net worth is not known, Farah told ABCNews.com, but a
conservative estimate is "in the tens of millions of dollars." Bout
now lives in Moscow, Russia, he said, and travels on false
passports because of an international travel ban. An e-mail to
Bout's lawyer for comment was not returned.
"Bout pulled off the ultimate metamorphosis," the authors write,
"from hunted international criminal to the U.S. military's secret
deliveryman."
COMMENTS
Oh good. "We are paying them over there so we don't have to pay
them over here."
At this point, I wouldn't trust a Republican to walk my dog.
Posted by: bobby stickers | Aug 21, 2007 1:14:53 PM
I am not surprised by this. Our government has a history of
supporting dictators and murderers when it is in our interest to do
so. Doesn’t anyone remember that at one time we were supportive of
Saddam Hussein when it was in our interest to do so? Doesn't anyone
remember when we supported Manuel Noriega when it was in our
interest to do so? Some more integrity would be nice, but it all
appears to depend on whether or not the bottom line is profitable
for us and expediency.
Posted by: Brian, Decatur, GA | Aug 21, 2007 2:00:12 PM
Wow, makes me feel real good, knowing our country wants to protect
us this much!
Posted by: Michelle | Aug 21, 2007 2:29:06 PM
What's the big deal? We got a VP who when he was CEO for
Haliburton had a subsidiary open an office in the British Cayman
Islands to circumvent the US embargo against Saddam. If we can have
a VP do that, what the big deal about this guy.
Look at the Carlyle Group. They sell to both sides and have
investors all over the world. And GW on the board. Bush Sr was a
paid consultant. This is how the Bin Ladens and the Bush family
became friends.
Posted by: Roy | Aug 21, 2007 2:38:22 PM
Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
www.ctrl.org
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