Pentagon Deputy's Probes in Iraq Weren't Authorized, Officials Say (LAT)

[huckleberry]

(More war profiteering with impunity by the *bush administration.)

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — A senior Defense Department official conducted unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts and used their results to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients, according to current and former Pentagon officials and documents.

John A. "Jack" Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security, represented himself as an agent of the Pentagon's inspector general in conducting the investigations, sources said.

In one case, Shaw disguised himself as an employee of Halliburton Co. and gained access to a port in southern Iraq after he was denied entry by the U.S. military, the sources said.

snip

Shaw's actions are the latest to raise concerns that senior Republican officials working in Washington and Iraq have used the rebuilding effort in Iraq to reward associates and political allies. One of Shaw's close friends, the former top U.S. transportation official in Iraq, is under investigation for his role in promoting an Iraqi national airline with a company linked to the Saddam Hussein regime.

more at

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-probe7jul07,1,7772685.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[burrowowl]

1. I'm shocked

I tell you, SHOCKED!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Oh, jeez! Tell us it isn't so. It's not possible. There must be a mistake!

How did this story ever get published, anyway? It actually makes a _Bushie look almost as bad as we know they are! From the article:

Shaw used the agreement to win permission to visit Iraq last fall. In an Oct. 28 letter to Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, Shaw said he wanted to "investigate those who threatened the national security of the United States through the transfer of advanced technologies to Iraq."

Specifically, Shaw said he planned to identify countries that had smuggled contraband weapons into Iraq and catalog existing conventional weapons stockpiles.

Although he did not mention it in the letter, Shaw also was interested in investigating operations at the port of Umm al Qasr.

Last summer, Shaw was visited by Richard E. Powers, a longtime friend and lobbyist. Powers was representing SSA Marine, a Seattle-based port operations company that had won a controversial limited-bid contract in the early days of the war to manage the troubled port.

He also was representing a small business owned by Alaskan natives called Nana Pacific. Under federal regulations, small companies owned by Alaskan Native Americans can bypass the normal process and receive unlimited, no-bid contracts.

Powers suggested there were serious problems with dredging at the port that could be quickly remedied by having a no-bid contract awarded to Nana, which then could subcontract to SSA Marine, sources said.
(snip)

Yeah, and he'd tell you you were unpatriotic if you questioned his actions, wouldn't he? Cheney him.

[burrowowl]

3. My, my!

You are shocked too!

$#*!^!$^(@*!&@ Mal-administration! Hopefully, the People will wake up.
The Mal-administration make Teapot Dome look like tiddley-winks and Watergate like a game of Clue.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Uh, oh. I think I found his biography.

Mr. The Honorable John A. Shaw was appointed as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for International Technology Security on October 15, 2001. In this newly created position, which is part of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L), he is responsible for reforming and improving the export control process so as to measurably improve the security of critical American technologies and manufacturing abilities. As important, he is responsible for facilitating strategically important transfers to our closest allies while protecting American technological superiority, and will provide an essential coordinating and balancing function between AT&L, the Office of the Under Secretary for Policy, and the three Services. Mr. Shaw will have a lead role both in the interagency process and in coordinating with industry and Congress on export control issues.

Prior to his appointment by Secretary Rumsfeld, Mr. Shaw was President and CEO of the American Overseas Clinics Corporation. He has served in a variety of senior positions in the government for over 30 years, including the White House staffs of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. He served as White House Liaison to the Defense Department under President Ford and to the State Department under President Reagan. In 1975 he was confirmed as Inspector General of Foreign Assistance and Assistant Secretary of State, responsible for the oversight of all U.S. Foreign Military Sales, U.S. AID, the Peace Corps, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Export-Import Bank. From 1986-88 he served as Senior Advisor to the Administrator of AID. From 1989-91 he served as Associate Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the Department of Commerce, and oversaw a major effort to reform the Bureau of Export Administration. In 1992 he was nominated as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement, receiving a recess appointment when the revised Export Administration Act was vetoed.

From 1978-80, Mr. Shaw returned to the private sector as a Vice President of Booz-Allen and Hamilton International, overseeing the development, organization and management of two new industrial cities, Jubail and Yanbu, in Saudi Arabia. These cities constituted the largest development project in the world. He has since played a major role in several management consulting companies, the St. Phalle International Group and the Cambridge Consulting Group, overseeing international business development projects. From 1980-84 he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, specializing in Middle Eastern and International Business Affairs, and was Vice President for Washington Operations for the Hudson Institute, then overseeing the Center for Naval Analyses, from 1985-86.

Mr. Shaw received a B.A. from Williams College, as well as a bachelors, Masters, and Ph.D. from Cambridge University, where he was a Fellow of Magdalene College. He has taught international security studies at Cambridge, Williams, Georgetown, and the Institut Politique in Paris.
(snip/)

http://www.photonicsbriefings.com/bio/bio_john.shaw.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow! They found a way to let this crim join in the chase to look for WMD! What fun!

May 21, 2004
Notes from the Pentagon
Early warning
John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, warned months ago that Iraq's hidden weapons of mass destruction may be intermingled with its huge stocks of conventional arms.

Mr. Shaw wrote an Oct. 28 letter to Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, asking for the command's help in tracking down companies and individuals who violated U.S. law and the international arms embargo by shipping arms to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Mr. Shaw stated in the letter that he had information showing "there is a high probability of munitions being intermingled everywhere in Iraq with conventional weapons."

That scenario played this month when two chemical munitions — one containing the blister agent mustard and one containing the nerve agent sarin — were found by U.S. forces in Iraq.

The improvised bomb found Saturday was a 155 mm artillery shell that insurgents apparently did not know was filled with two chemicals that make sarin when the round is fired. The shell partially exploded and a small quantity of sarin was released, slightly injuring two U.S. soldiers
(snip/...)

http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/ring052104.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brazen enough? I guess so. Nothing sobering ever happens to these degenerates. The world is their right-wing oyster.

[struggle4progress]

5. He's been in the news before:

New allegations in Iraq mobile network saga (30th April 2004 )
<snip>
In a report in the LA Times (free reg needed) it is alleged that a "senior Defense Department official is under investigation by the Pentagon inspector general for allegations that he attempted to alter a contract proposal in Iraq to benefit a mobile phone consortium that includes friends and colleagues."

The original Issa story simply reported that the Congressman, who represents a constituency full of Qualcomm employees, was anxious to get Qualcomm-owned CDMA technology used in Iraq instead of "French" GSM phone systems.

Now, Issa is being mentioned as a bit-part player in the new saga of this official, who is being investigated.

The official is named: the LA Times says he is John A. Shaw, 64, the deputy undersecretary for international technology security. The allegation is simple: "He sought to transform a relatively minor police and fire communications proposal into a contract allowing the creation of an Iraq-wide commercial cellular network that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue per year," according to the paper's sources.
<snip>
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/30/iraq_cellphone_allegations/

[nodictators]

9. Issa = Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA)

Issa is the same guy who coughed up more than $1 million to fund the California gubernatorial recall petition in 2002-2003.

Issa also tried to run for gov after his petition got approved. Subsequently, he was encouraged to drop out of the race in favor of Schwarzenegger. He did, and exited crying.

Issa had made his millions from some car alarm company he founded.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Darrel Issa's name jumped right out there, didn't it?

Most of us only heard of him for the first time when he started the recall on Gray Davis. At that time we heard he had been involved in some really shady stuff earlier.

Seeing him involved in this nasty business too is pathetic.

[tlcandie]

6. You know JudiLyn.. before reading the last article .. I wondered

to myself if he might not be the one instigating the import of WMD into the ports that we keep getting little bits of info dropped here and there about.

Interesting! I think he just might be the missing/connecting link for all these odd stories of WMD trying to be imported into Iraq by the US!

[Ravy]

7. I don't think that is him.. biography says "Honorable John A. Shaw"...

doesn't sound very honorable to me.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Jeez, he's all OVER the place, according to struggle4progress's

article:

"Shaw said he was trying to help the group because it could quickly install the police and fire communications system, and because the group was using a US-based cellphone technology called CDMA that had lost out in what he called a 'rigged' competition last year for commercial licenses in Iraq. Three companies using European-based technology won contracts."

The link to Issa at the moment looks like it's no more than association. He wanted the contract to go to Qualcomm; Shaw wanted the contract to go to Qualcomm, and they spoke to each other.

But the matter won't end there. The thing is, more American companies make money out of GSM than out of CDMA; and they make more money, too. And of course, in an election year, any hint of political involvement, even if totally above board, is going to raise accusations of corruption.

Eschaton is in no doubt: "Corruption is so endemic in this administration that the people don't even understand that they are corrupt. It's disgusting, and people are dying."
(snip/)

Amazing!

Tlcandie, it looks as if you're on the right track about him. He has surely been in too many places doing "entreprenuerial" stuff, just the kinda fella _Dubya and his brothers so admire.

That's the "Honorable" John A. Shaw, no doubt! (I can't believe he has been in Republican administrations doing this crap all the way back to Nixon, who looks cherubic by comparison!)