pakistan bribery. 911 commission

update here - it appears that the 'editing' was done in the final draft, which tightens up the timeframe for us
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The other day i pointed to this article:

"" The Pakistan foreign office had paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobbyists in the US to get anti-Pakistan references dropped from the 9/11 inquiry commission report, The Friday Times has claimed.
[snip]
It claimed that some of the commission members were also bribed to prevent them from including damaging information about Pakistan.
[snip]
“The disclosure sheds doubt on the integrity and honesty of the members of the 9/11 inquiry commission and, above all, the authenticity of the information in their final report,” it said.

The report quoted an officer as saying that dramatic changes were made in the final draft of the inquiry commission after the lobbyists got to work. The panel was formed to probe the September 11 terror attack and make suggestions to fight terrorism.

After the commission tipped the lobbyists about the damaging revelations on Pakistan’s role in 9/11, they contacted the panel members and asked them to go soft on the country. The Friday Times claimed that a lot of money was used to silence these members.
[snip]
The Pakistan foreign office defended the decision to hire the lobbyists, saying it was an established practice in the US.""

The Friday Times is an 'independent', subscription-only Pakistani newspaper - so i can't see the original article.

The gazillion dollar question - who was the lobbyist?

Miguel quickly identified that David Safavian lobbied for pakistan when he was at Norquist's Janus - but Safavian left there in Jan01, and Norquist sold Janus in 02.

With help from Miguel, I was able to ferret out some of the likely suspects

remember, the 911comm was convened near the end of 2002, and the report was published in the middle of 2004

Let's go to the semi-annual FARA reports -they are reported june30 and dec30 - and not that i've gone way back to that we can try to discern changes in behaviour (and thanks to Miguel for his help, again)

Patton Boggs
to june 99 - $70k
to dec 99 -
to june 00 - $ 150k
to dec 00 -$70k

Hooper, Owen & Winburn
to june 99 - $270k
to dec 99 - $ 150k
to june 00 - $180k
to dec 00 - $30k
to june 01 - $270k
to dec 01 - $zero

Wilson Associates
to dec 01 - (this is the first time Wilson appears, although the amount is 'Zero'
to june 02 - $120k
to dec 02 - $150k
to june 03 - $330k
to dec 03 - $120k
to june 04 - $240k
to dec 04 - $150k

Team Eagle
to dec 01 - $45k
to june 02 - $180k
to dec 02 - $120k
to june 03 - $60k
to dec 03 - $60k
to june 04 - $60k
to dec 04 - 'zero'

Stirling International Consulting Group
to june 03 - $200k
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So that's the raw data, according to FARA - however, there are some complexities, not surprisingly - this is Washington lobbying!

This report from 1998 says: "Former congressman Charles Wilson, who is now the leading lobbyist on Capitol Hill for Pakistan..." Wilson was at Hooper Owen (see above) at the time - and it appears that the pakistan account was switched over to Wilson Assoc in that Dec 01 period (note that although it looks like there was no lobbying in that dec01 period, that is merely an accounting/FY issue - Wilson Assoc actually took $120k in the 6months to feb02)

For an extra dose of complexity, according to FEC data, Wilson was still listing his employer as Hooper Owen (as well as Wilson Assoc, in different filings) in 2004 - although he didnt splash much around, compared to other lobbyists.

Ok - now we get into some of the dodgier territory. In Nov 02, a journo from the South Asia Tribune tried to work out which lobbyists were working for Musharraf and/or Pakistan. Read this for the full detail. The journo tried to track down “Team Barakat” ("a Turkish sounding name") - the name was later changed to "Team Eagle" (see lobbying fees above) but the office in Houston is basically a 'serviced office', with nobody there apart from a shared secretary who had never heard of Musharraf.

"it is learnt the man behind the firm is an influential Republican Gary Polland, representing his company Polland & Cook. His job description is “to help smooth ties with the US, to end US economic sanctions against Pakistan and bolster trade and debt restructure.”

Polland owns 37.5 percent of TB, a joint venture which was renamed Team Eagle. The contract price is $180,000 which started a year ago and was renewable for another two years."

the journo set up a meeting there, but when he arrived:

"Linda, the only lady present in the office told me the person who could discuss business was away in Turkey and she knew nothing about President of Pakistan as a client of her company."

the same journo also notes that another lobbying firm for Pakistan is

"Registration No 5519. Client: Govt of Pakistan, Sterling International Consulting Corp, 118 W. Ottawa, Larsing, Michigan. It represents the Executive Branch of the Government of Pakistan.

Detailed contract indicates that Sterling will "audit" the media (i.e. provide clippings) and "organize" and "mobilize" Pakistani community in the US. Sterling has announced that it is being paid $600,000 per year, $50,000 per month for this contract."

according to my FARA research - this only amounted to "$199,980.00 for the six month period ending April 30,2003" - although Sourcewatch refers to O'Dwyers which also says "Pakistan pays $600k for media work" (o'dwyers is the restricted-access pr bible) - and this pakistan contract is the only news to make the Sourcewatch site...

In sum, so far, both the Sterling contract and the Team Eagle contract may be dodgy.

And then there's the story about Charlie Wilson - truly larger than life.

here's one of his bios:

The Hon. Charles (Charlie) Wilson retired from the US House of Representatives in 1996 after representing the Second District of Texas for twenty-four years. He was a member of the House Appropriatiions Committee and the senior Democrat on its Foreign Operations and Defense subcomittees. Mr. Wilson had a significant impact on US national security, military preparedness, and foreign policy. He is acknowledged as the single most important force in the arming of the Mujahideen in their effort to drive the former Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. Wilson worked closely with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Secretary of Defense to obtain financial resources for Afghan weaponry. He is the only civilian to receive the CIA's "Honored Colleague Award." Mr. Wilson's participation in the effort in Afghanistan has been chroniclerd in "Charlie Wilson's War," by George Crile, which will be made into a motion picture by Tom Hanks. Mr. Wilson is president of Wilson Associates, LLC, which represents the Government of Pakistan and several security and defense firms. He is a graduate of the US Naval Academy.

and more (more here):

"he inspired investigations by the House Ethics Committee at least three known times—for cocaine use in 1983, writing hot checks to the House bank in 1992, and making illegal personal loans from his campaign account in 1995"

and that's only the beginning

according to reports, he is basically single-handedly responsible for the afghan mujihadeen through CIA black-ops, as well as facilitating the israeli fighter jet program (more bio here)

He may even be responsible for al-qaeda:

"Wilson returned to public attention in 2002 with the publication of Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History, by George Crile. In this book, Crile argued that the actions of Wilson, as well as CIA agent Gust Avrakotos, were chiefly responsible with funding the mujahideen and thus they were vital players in the downfall of the Soviet Union. All the weapons and training were subsequently used towards a civil war among the competing Afghan warlords. This civil war led to the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda camps which link to the events of September 11, 2001 attacks and the current war in Iraq."

I hadn't heard of him till yesterday.

and in case you thought it was all TopGun and cocaine and beautiful women - here's the darker side:

The country that Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson armed to the teeth was Afghanistan; the people he armed were the mujahedin, and the weapons he gave them represented the highest-class of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft Stinger missiles in the American arsenal.

The consequences of the CIA's indiscriminate recruitment and arming of mujahedin from around the world, no matter what their beliefs, are all-too-obvious these days, and even though the events transpired only two decades ago, are already greeted by most Americans with a shrug.

Charlie Wilson's War ends with a whimper - a vague reminder that most of the men armed by the CIA in the Afghan War later went on to become our greatest adversaries, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Mullah Omar, Ibn-ul-Khattab and Osama bin Laden himself.

Charlie Wilson's career as a foreign policy enfant terrible didn't end there, however. Like most Washington powerbrokers, Wilson's retirement from public service was the start of his real career as a lobbyist for some of the biggest international scumbags in the world today - first and foremost, the Aliyev family of Azerbaijan.

Over the last five years, the Aliyev family has spent at least a half-million dollars on lobbyists in Washington. Their largesse has gone chiefly to two entities: Baker, Donelson, Bearman and Caldwell - a lobbying firm guided by former Republican Senator Howard Baker - and Hooper, Owen, Winburn - Charlie Wilson's group. Over that span, Wilson (who took advantage of the name recognition of a bestseller by forming "Wilson Associates") has taken in nearly $200,000 for lobbying on behalf of "Aliyevistan," largely to work on the congressional prohibition on weapons transfers to Azerbaijan.

At the height of the Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Congress passed an amendment referred to as "Section 907," which froze all weapons exports to Azerbaijan. It was a sensible proposal at the time, though Aliyev's paid retainers would claim it was part of some mysterious Armeniophile plot to wipe out their country.

With the conclusion of the war, wooing Aliyev became the Clinton and Bush Administrations' top priority in the Caucasus to obtain access to the massive oil reserves in the country's share of the Caspian Sea. Charlie Wilson's lobbying efforts however were almost wholly concerned with lifting Section 907, and linking the abolition of the amendment with America's oil ambitions. The Clinton Administration was in favour of linking the two, but couldn't risk offending the Armenian vote in several electoral states - most of all, California.

Then came the 9/11 attacks on America. It was golden opportunity for the Bush Administration, for Aliyevistan, and, of course, for Charlie Wilson. Under the non-existent threat of al-Qaeda operatives lurking in Azerbaijan, Congress was pressured into rescinding Section 907 if the Secretary of State deemed it necessary for America's security interests. Not surprisingly, Colin Powell took advantage of the bonanza less than three months later. Along with construction on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline, a new pipeline - of military hardware - began to flow.

Charlie Wilson's primary job these days is lobbying on behalf of his old pals in Pakistan (Esperanza Gomez, his former partner at Hooper, Owen, Winburn, was recently named the head of the US-Pakistan Chamber of Commerce). He's also enjoying a renaissance as a public speaker, capitalizing on the romantic book and the "war" to which he lent his name. He still lends out his little black book of spooks, military contractors and his fellow corrupt congressmen to the Aliyev régime, however. Should the inevitable implications of revoking Section 907 come to pass - and the Russian-backed Armenians and American-backed Azeris decide to hold a rematch over the doomed land of Karabakh - they'll be sure to call on him again

a complex web. no?

is Wilson a Duke Cunningham type? Or Curt Weldon? does it matter? it's all the same slippery slope.

Who 'cleaned up' the 911 report? was it Wilson? the dodgy Team Eagle? the dodgy Sterling? does it matter? who got paid? Is this why Sibel's stuff was ignored by 911comm? 'certain foreign relations'?

"tens of thousands of dollars"? american scamocracy is so cheap. that's the saddest part.

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update here - it appears that the 'editing' was done in the final draft, which tightens up the timeframe for us