A friend of mine sent me this link to the DOD IG report on corruption in Iraqi Cell Phone contracts. I was vaguely intrigued, since one of the big early success stories in Iraq has been the flowering of the cellular phone industry (as well as the satellite television industry, and a few others). I had an IRAQNA phone myself while I was over there. Crystal clear reception to the USA; kind of horrid reception if you're calling a buddy a few blocks away.
So I know it's big money, and it's not shocking to hear there is some corruption. I was rather surprised by the tagline:
This 146 page US Defense Inspector General's report, written at the For Official Use Only level, pertains to a fraud investigation centering on Iraqi-British billionare Nadhmi Auchi, who is connected to Presidential Candidate Barak Obama via former Obama fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.
Well, yes, he is: Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club did a good part of the work on that. I hadn't realized, however, that Auchi was so important to Saddam's weapon smuggling program as well.
It's a long report, but you may wish to read it for yourself in spite of that.
Ah yes, Wretchard. Where's my link to his first post on our victory in the Iraq War?
Here's what passes for evidence linking in Obama.This isn't even an anonymous witness claiming the two met. This is a witness saying they were in the same large building at the same time. They might also have met anywhere else in Chicago, using the same argument. Why am I reminded of Atta in Prague?I've posted any number of comments on Halliburton and affiliates like KBR raking big money on no-bid contracts many, many times the size of this alleged scheme. We don't need unsourced wild hypotheses to tie Halliburton to the Vice President of the United States. What sort of double standard do we have here?
C'mon, Andrew. The "standard" you are asking for is that Grim has long ago decided that he doesn't favor Obama over McCain because, well, you know, his "character" is deficient and he is untrustworthy. So whatever it takes to "Wratcet" up his negatives is fair game, politically speaking.
Bald partisanship never needs to explain it's standards.
The only thing your link says that might even be objectionable, Andrew, is that 'the war in Iraq is over' -- which, in terms of major combat operations, was not an unreasonable view at the time. If the postwar had been handled better, it might really have been over -- hardly Wretchard's failure!
The rest of the post past that first sentence is a memorial for those who died to give us the chance for a free Iraq. If you object to that sentiment, I have no words for you fit for a public forum.
But hey: support a guy for President who is linked to Rezko, who is linked to Auchi and therefore Saddam. Support him though he's linked to Ayers, who set off bombs in this country. Fine.
You'll notice I don't mention the Rev. Mr. Wright. He was a Marine and a Navy Corpsman: whatever he wants to say about America, I'll hear, however much we may disagree. Wright is a better man than your Senator, a far better man. But you keep shilling for the guy who stabbed him in the back, weeks after he said he never could.
As for a double standard, I promise not to vote for Cheney either. Fair enough?
Vista:
I love that you put the word character in scare quotes. Good for you.
Interesting claim, AJL. I'm not sure you have all the bolts tight on that.
From Wretchard's [alleged] quote of the Times Online:
I doubt that Auchi lent Rezko that kind of money without knowing him at all, unless there was some other kind of assurance.
I don't see it as necessary to the overall matter to determine really whether Obama dealt directly with Auchi. Yes, Wretchard is tossing up a lot of data, some of which might be extraneous. Or not. Not dispositive, for sure.
But at least one fair question, it seems to me, is whether Obama consciously did a favor for Rezko -- regarding Obama changing his stated position on Iraq in early April -- while Rezko was working some sort of deal... ...or whether the timing is mere coincidence, like being in the same "large building" (someone's home, mind you, not a convention center) with someone.
Hard to tell from here. Also hard to prove a negative.
Grim, they only look like "scare quotes" to you...for my part, I'm questioning the idea that Obama's "character" is valid concern.
Vista: Perhaps you don't know what the expression "scare quotes" means.
Meta, for Vista, re the expression "scare quotes":
I think Wikipedia (though always suspect) has it about right at the moment, although like every other Wikipedia entry, it's only an edit away from being totally fscked: (link)
The expression "scare quotes" doesn't mean anyone is scared, nor trying to scare anyone, necessarily. My folk etymology for the expression is that it parallels "scarecrow"; in the same way that a scarecrow's not a real person, a scare quote isn't a literal quotation. But that is just an old wild-@$$ed guess of mine for the origin of the expression.
Once again, I could have sent this offlist if I had a working email address for you. (shrug)
[Edited]
No problem, I'm not necessarily addressing an exact definition of the term, if one exists. Nor do I know exactly what Grim meant by using the phrase. Rather, I was taking the opportunity to pun.
Sorry about the lack of email access, but it's not my policy to communicate in private with anonymous people on the web.
Vista: OK -- I just always feel bad lecturing folks in public; I'll stop harping on the matter; we both stand where we stand.
I invite you to pop over to my site and see if you have anything to say on this thread if you can spare the time. Either way, thanks for your continued civil engagement here.
Last OT Meta post from me on the expression.
The OED online has:
But they're only the OED. It's not like the phrase has a real meaning or anything.
Nortius, Rezko is a criminal, Auchi is a criminal; they may well know each other from who knows how many shady deals or how many scuzzy mutual associates. I'm still having major trouble seeing where Obama fits in. We can play Six Degrees of Separation with McCain, too, but even I don't think we could prove much that way, without some more specific evidence.
I'm still having major trouble seeing where Obama fits in.
Maybe you missed the part where I (and others) ask about the timing of an Obama policy change. Or maybe you're being unserious here.
I don't think we could prove much that way, without some more specific evidence.
Agreed. So here's hoping for more evidence. Or not.
The trouble with trying to associate Obama's policy changes (assuming, arguendo, that these really are changes) with some nefarious request of Tony Rezko's is that there are an awful lot of other variables left out. Most important, of course, is what was the situation on the ground in Iraq (and Afghanistan) at the time. I must say, too, that Obama sold his Iraq policy awfully cheap, unless he has a lot of bribes hidden somewhere.
I imagine if I wanted to indulge in the same sort of paranoiac thinking, I could tie Bush's changes in Iraq policy to HAL share price, oil company profits, or Republican electoral prospects. Indeed, I could probably make a better case for that.
Rezko is a criminal, Auchi is a criminal; they may well know each other from who knows how many shady deals or how many scuzzy mutual associates. I'm still having major trouble seeing where Obama fits in.
Umm, because Obama was brought up in Rezko's trial, which is part of an ongoing investigation.
Everybody, in unison:
Correlation is not causation.
So we should all be careful to not turn conjecture into fact. I think the timeline is interesting. AJL does not. There we have it.
How 'bout them Raiders?
Actually, Grim, when discussing Obama's "character," scare quotes are wholly apposite.
Great debate on scare quotes, guys. Keep it up. Very informative!!!
#18:
We can talk about the Ayers-Obama Chicago Annenberg Challenge if you'd prefer. I'll start the ball rolling: unlike with Rezko and Auchi, there is no evidence of criminality in it. The radicalism of Ayers, and the direction of funding toward other radicals, was wholly aboveboard. Ayers' earlier career as a terrorist aside, during the CAC period what he and Obama did was entirely legal.
So: is it better to be corrupt while providing (something approximating) housing and cell phones to the poor, or honest while teaching schoolchildren to hate their country?
#17:
I grant the point.
We can at least establish this. Rezko and Auchi are business partners many times over, not casual acquaintances. More than a dozen times, Auchi has bailed out failed Rezko investments by buying them. All of which might be perfectly squeaky-legal, but it makes you wonder what Auchi gets in return.
Auchi loaned Rezko 3.5 million shortly before Obama and Rezko bought adjoining properties in Chicago.
If Obama were McCain, every reporter in the country would be lining up to cover this story alone.
So saying Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald were ex Marines doesn't settle this.(that's not a line I came up with, it comes from
'Full Metal Jacket". Rezko's a crook, at the retail level, Auchi
has proven one at the international
level; with regards to bribes from Saddam to Italian politicians, paving way for the oil for food scam. (Of course he practices his own form of libel tourism to prevent such facts from coming forth)The fictional version of this
was seen in the President Bennett/
Escobar manque relationship, in Clear & Present Danger. Isn't it odd how the candidate who wants to get us out of Iraq; is most directly
tied to its pre-liberation Baathist
days. It's ironic at all, in fact Samantha Power's and Malley & Co.'s policy recommendations are to return to that status quo ante.
Correlation is not causation.
That's my take on it. I think Obama's shifting positions were political. On March 16, 2004, Obama won the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate. So for Obama to shift positions in the following weeks is no more surprising than Obama shifting positions on FISA after he won the Democratic nomination for President.
Grim
If you are really worried about criminals and not mere associations, why was Alsammarae whom escaped from jail in Iraq and fled to the chicago suburbs still walking around in the US?
Glen Wishard
Reporters aren't touching tons of stories about McCain going back to the keating 5, his positions on dereuglastion of the financial markets.
I do not mind that you are against Obama but you guys insist on overreach comparable to SNL accusation that Mr Palin is guilty of having sex w/ his children
TOC: We live to serve.
Once again, garden-variety political behavior.
I concur with PD Shaw; whatever connection might exist between Obama and this Scumbag of the Week, it has nothing to do with Obama's positions on Iraq.
I think Obama is just a get along, go along kind of guy. A wandering bard on the path of least resistance.
#23:
He seems to feel comfortable in Chicago, doesn't he? (Auchi has likewise known great comfort in the UK.)
As far as I know, the only country that has an extradition treaty with Iraq is Saudi Arabia. There may be others but I'm not familiar with them -- I know Turkey and Russia have both requested extraditions (and I think Russia got theirs), but I don't believe they have formal treaties on the subject.
In any event, what's relevant here is that the US does not. We're working with the Iraqi government to help ensure that its judicial system is fair and free. One of the real contributions of the United Nations lies here: the UN preserved Iraq's pre-Saddam law codes, which Saddam had suppressed, and provided them to the State Department. The State Department cut them into CDs, and then the DOD used CERP money to buy computers for the judges in Iraq, train them in the use of the things, and make sure that the old law was available to serve as a basis for the justice system in Iraq. We've also opened courthouses and governmental centers, and helped provide security for them until such time as the Iraqis could do so themselves (which they now largely do, as I understand it).
However, I know that we've also had some concerns about the fairness of the system in certain high-profile cases: for example, one of those sentenced to die with Chemical Ali had helped the US in the invasion. There were divisions between the Prime Minister and the President of Iraq about whether or not he should die. State used some pressure to try to get his sentence commuted, although I don't recall if they were successful.
I hope that we'll be able to find that Iraq's justice system justifies an extradition treaty very soon. I know we've done a lot to put the pieces in place, and just need to see that it works as designed.
Kurtz, on the Annenberg Challenge:
"The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago."
WSJ
The educational policies of the CAC weren't especially radical, nor in most cases very successful. Most of the partnering going on was with local business. The claim that Obama lent moral and financial support for Bill Ayers is unsupportable; Ayers has a very nice salary from his academic position and Obama isn't writing him any checks. Nor do I see how working in the same institution as Ayers qualifies as giving him moral support.
Kurtz did discover that Ayers was on a five-person committee that hired Obama. Evidence that they are social friends, much less fellow radicals? Zero.
I don't like the idea of Bill Ayers getting away with his sixties stuff, the more so as unlike most of the fugitives who have turned themselves in, he is not repentant. But he's in Hyde Park, and has a certain local importance.
This whole IG report stinks, given the role of DOD Undersecretary and GOP hack John Shaw in trying to influence the CPA to award contracts to friends of his who used CDMA cell technology. The DOD IG himself, Schmidt, is a questionable GOP hack. The IG report looks to me like an effort to upend the cell license bidding process in favor of Shaw's Qualcomm friends.
Trying to tar Obama with Iraq corruption is laughable, given the close and intimate relationship the Republicans have had with Iraq war corruption and war price gouging.
The Inspector General is a partisan "hack"? That's a claim I haven't seen before. Last time I heard the IG was involved in anything like a partisan issue, Carl Levin was citing the IG report on Douglas Feith as evidence that he was a manipulator of intelligence.
But doubtless that was a stalking horse to cover up the real conspiracy.
...did we just witness a lefty throwing away the idea of "moral high ground"?
I look forward to future conversations about foreign policy, without endless references to our dire need for reclaiming said vantage point.
#24 from Nortius Maximus at 5:36 pm on Sep 23, 2008
TOC: We live to serve.
For which I am forever beholden.
TOC: Yes. I only regret that I couldn't take the time to really dig into the etymology -- off list. I know how disappointed you must be.
Here is the story about this bogus IG report from T. Christian Miller in the LA Times.
The truth is that the story about Auchi was a smear calculated for commercial advantage to Shaw's Qualcomm friends.
Um, that's not what your story suggests at all. It says that Auchi acknowledged having a stake in one of the firms implicated in the investigation.
Sure, Auchi was a businessman, but there was no evidence for bribery allegations.
Daniel Sudnick, the CPA official who was also smeared, sued John Shaw, the Defense Undersecretary who "investigated" the report, and the DOD over the IG report.
Shaw was later fired.
Washington Times - Pentagon ousts official
_Mr. Shaw singled out Mr. Rumsfeld's chief of staff, Larry DiRita, and other officials for attempting to "suborn the office of the inspector general" after Mr. Shaw uncovered "a major [Coalition Provisional Authority] fraud and corruption case involving various [Department of Defense] figures."
Mr. DiRita called Mr. Shaw's charges "absurd and without any foundation."
"He has been directed on several occasions to produce evidence of his wide-ranging and fantastic charges and provide it to the DoD inspector general," Mr. DiRita said in an interview. "To my knowledge, he has not done so."_
Well, it may or may not be the case that 'there was no evidence' for the bribery allegations, but your LAT piece doesn't treat the matter either way. The only reference to Auchi notes that he admitted to a role in the business.
Now, your Washington Times link indicates that Shaw 'was later fired' because he told the press something true about Russian smugglers working with Saddam -- and Rumsfeld didn't like it. I was previously under the impression that liberals considered Pentagon employees who told the truth to the press in spite of Rumsfeld/Bush to be heroic whistleblowers. Certainly, it would tend to undermine the claim that he is a Republican partisan.
Indeed, when taken with the anti-Feith citation by Levin, mentioned in #31, I think your links have managed to convince me that these two men have a history of opposing the Rumsfeld/Bush faction. They seem to have come up against them on multiple occasions, in one case severely enough that Rumsfeld felt it necessary to purge Shaw from the Pentagon.
It may be worth rethinking your position. If these guys aren't 'partisan hacks,' but have a history of standing up to the White House and the Bush faction generally, what does that mean? Doesn't it increase the credibility of this report quite a bit?
Another IG, Thomas F. Gimble, issued the Feith report.
The IG who issued this cellphone report, Joseph Schmitz, departed to work for Blackwater long before the Feith report was issued.
Opposing the Rumsfeld/Bush faction? Now, does this, from the Washington Times article in #37, sound like that?
"The Kerry media-driven October surprise attack on us and the president stopped within hours," Mr. Shaw wrote. "If I had not had the openly hostile environment in [Pentagon public affairs], I would have moved the story differently. Getting the truth out instantly was more important than process."
No, Shaw and Schmitz were peas in a pod - just the kind of crazy partisan hacks who filled the Bush administration, looking for gold while in office. It's just that Shaw was too crazy, too partisan and too corrupt to keep around. Dangerously unsubtle.
The bottom line is that Shaw was investigated by the FBI and ultimately fired for his Iraq cellphone dealings (among other things). Auchi and Sudnick, who according to the IG report paid and accepted all these bribes? No prosecution and no report of a criminal investigation.
You've been had.
Auchi is not in the United States, and is not a US citizen, so I'm not clear on why you'd expect him to be investigated by the FBI or prosecuted in US courts. Shaw is both an American citizen and a resident of the US, and therefore is under the jurisdiction of both.
The Washington Times link also has this statement:
In his December letter to Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Shaw complained that he had been targeted by "senior members" in the secretary's office.
"I cannot in good conscience resign at this time," Mr. Shaw stated. "I cannot submit my resignation to you until it is clear that this well-orchestrated campaign to obstruct justice and suppress the findings of my office has been properly addressed and stopped."
So, it sounds like he believed Sen. Kerry was a bad actor who was unjustly trying to smear President Bush; but also that he believed Rumsfeld's faction were bad actors who were trying to obstruct justice and block legitimate investigations.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that there's a reasonable possibility that both charges are true. :)
And Sudnick? He is resident of the US and was named as being bribed in the IG report.
Instead of being prosecuted, he sued Shaw.
What Shaw did was to attack various parties in order to deflect attention from his own corruptions and errors. Oldest trick in the book. It does not mean that the other parties were without error or corruption, especially in the cesspool of Iraq corruption in the Bush administration. "No honor among thieves," etc.
I suppose there is a possibility that the IG report is true, but there is no evidence other than John Shaw's say-so and he has "unclean hands," as the legal term goes. Not credible.
A good account of the mobile phone drama can be found in T Christian Miller's "Blood Money. Wasted billions, lost lives and corporate greed in Iraq."
Sudnick comes acrosss well as does Bonnie Carroll.
Shaw?
Possibly corrupt or maybe just a little unhinged and like the whole mission in a hurry trip, open to the overtures of hustlers.