Who was Jill Kelley's required govt "sponsor" at McDill Air Force Base? How did she get access?

[anobserver2]

Since Jill Kelley's husband was a surgeon and not in the military, and since Paula Broadwell is
allegedly emailing Jill Kelley about how she struts around the base and therefore needs to "take it down a notch" , and,
in light of questions raised at Daily Kos about her Middle Eastern background --

I would like to know:

Who was Jill Kelley's required govt sponsor for her access to McDill Air Force Base?

I live near Hanscom Airforce Base here in MA, and this is what it says on their website if you want to visit there:

http://www.hanscom.af.mil/questions/topic.asp?id=820

I want to visit Hanscom. What do I need to do?

The Hanscom Visitor Control Center is located in building 1617 adjacent to the Vandenberg Gate. Hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Visitor Control Center is closed on all weekends and federal holidays.

The Hanscom Visitor Control Center provides passes for short and long term visits. All sponsors must direct their non-Department of Defense affiliated guests to the Hanscom Visitor Center, where the visitor can be verified and a pass issued. The Hanscom Visitor Center is also the focal point for functions and special events for guests who do not have DoD affiliation. Only valid DoD ID cardholders (active duty military, retirees, Reservists, National Guard and their family members or a civilian DoD employee) are authorized to sponsor visitors onto Hanscom AFB. Sponsors accept full responsibility for their visitor's conduct while on Hanscom AFB. ...


The sponsor must meet their visitor at the determined location given by the sponsor. The sponsor should provide the following information:

1. Sponsor's name, organization, address and contact number
2. Visitor's name, both first and last
3. Expected length of the visit
4. Location of the visit

Sponsors should ensure their visitors have all the necessary information prior to their arrival. All visitors should know the sponsor's name, contact number and location to be visited. Failure to provide this information may cause delays and result in denial of entry to the installation...

Repeat from above: "Sponsors accept full responsibility for their visitor's conduct while on Hanscom AFB. ..."

According to this info, Paula Broadwell should have been emailing the SPONSOR of Jill Kelley if Broadwell had a concern about Jill Kelley's conduct while Jill Kelley was visiting at McDill Airforce Base.

Why didn't Broadwell know that or do that? Why didn't Patreaus do that? OR Allen? Is anyone in charge who follows any rules? Just asking.

[anobserver2]

1. I think this is an important question

I would like to know who sponsored her. And how she seems to have obtained unlimited access without any sponsor.

[anobserver2]

2. It is also strange that this question was overlooked by media

It is also strange this question about Jill Kelley's sponsor ws overlooked by media, in addition to apparently being
overlooked by Paula Broadwell prior to Broadwell allegedly sending anonymous email to Jill Kelley.

[anobserver2]

3. This story gets more bizarre every minute

People re-tweeting this post had interesting comments:

Alyce ?@Chocolatemama38

@soxfaneast Pre-9/11 Pizza guys got on base just w their truck & pizza. Not sure what rules are now, but there are ways around sponsorship.
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33m Rebecca J Fitzgearld Rebecca J Fitzgearld ?@rfitzgearld

@soxfaneast it's very difficult to get onto military bases now. I was wondering the same thing! I'm a navy spouse.
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[anobserver2]

4. Jill Kelley works for South Korean Govt according to America's VOA

http://www.voanews.com/content/woman-at-center-of-petraeus-scandal-is-south-korea-honorary-consul/1545223.html

News / Asia

Woman at Center of Petraeus Scandal is S. Korea Honorary Consul

Steve Herman

November 14, 2012

SEOUL — South Korea's foreign ministry has confirmed to VOA that Jill Kelley, who is at the center of a scandal that has led to the resignation of the CIA director, is still serving as one of the country's honorary consuls in Florida.

A ministry official, speaking on condition he not be further identified, says the process to appoint Kelley began in August and she was given a certificate of appointment the following month.

Kelley is alleged to have tipped off the FBI about threatening e-mails from a woman who has been sexually involved with David Petraeus, the four star Army general who resigned last week as director of the Central Intelligence Agency after acknowledging an adulterous relationship with Paula Broadwell, who authored his biography.

Kelley, 37, is known for her high-level social ties to MacDill Air Force Base, the home of the U.S. Central Command, near Tampa, Florida.

The Foreign Policy.com web site, quotes an unnamed diplomatic official as saying Kelley helped obtain support for the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and arranged meetings between the South Korean ambassador and local business leaders in the Tampa area.

A Fox News Channel program - “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren - quotes a businessman as saying he met Kelley at the Republican National Convention in Tampa and was told she was a close friend of Petraeus and had extensive business contacts in South Korea.

But TransGas Development President Adam Victor told the broadcaster that Kelley appeared unexperienced in business, asking for a finder's fee of two percent for a coal gasification project (which would have totaled $80 million), far in excess of the standard rate.

An honorary consul is someone who is usually paid a modest amount by a foreign government to do part-time work in a region where an embassy does not have a consulate.

“They take care of notarizing documents for natives of the country that they represent, “ explains retired U.S. ambassador Ray Burghardt in Honolulu.

“Let's say, if somebody was the honorary consul of Sweden, which does not have a consulate here, if a Swedish person died here or a Swedish person ended up in legal problems like in jail here, the honorary consul could be helpful to that person,” he said.

Burghardt -- who also served a deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and is director of East-West Seminars at the East-West Center in Hawaii - says honorary consuls usually have close ties to the country they are representing.

“A lot of the honorary consuls are people who originally came from the countries or perhaps their parents came from the country. So they have some connection. In other cases maybe they used to do business representing companies from that country. Usually there's some link like that,” said Burghardt.

But the former ambassador adds that, in some cases, honorary consuls might be selected because the person merely has social standing and important connections in their local community.

That appears to be the case with Kelley, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, with no known past ties to South Korea.

On Sunday Kelley is reported to have called police to complain about trespassers and told the dispatcher she was an honorary consul general and thus has inviolable rights.

The U.S. State Department says honorary consuls do not enjoy personal inviolability and they have diplomatic immunity only for “official acts.”

South Korea's nearest official consulate to Florida is in Atlanta, in the neighboring state of Georgia. There is a physical honorary consulate located in Miami where prominent corporate attorney Burton Landy has held been South Korea's honorary consul general in Florida since 1988.

The scandal that cost the CIA director his job has also ensnared Marine Corps General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. His nomination to head the U.S. European Command is on hold while investigators look at numerous e-mails he exchanged with Kelley, which are described as by the Pentagon as “inappropriate communications.”

In Seoul, foreign ministry officials met Wednesday to discuss Kelley's position.

When asked by VOA whether her appointment might be revoked, a relevant official flustered by the deluge of sudden media inquiries regarding Kelley, openly questioned what would be diplomatic considering she has not been accused of any criminal activity or unseemly behavior.

“What do you think about this?” he asked.


Youmi Kim, in the VOA Seoul bureau, contributed to this report.

[MineralMan]

5. How strange.

I'm thinking they should be more careful in the future about appointing these "Honorary Consuls."

[bklyncowgirl]

6. Aww now come on..she's just a good will ambassador trying to keep our boys in uniform happy!

What could possibly go wrong with that.

[anobserver2]

7. I hope someone in the media asks this question

I think this will lead to a new person involved in this matter. Maybe a Bush said to give her unlimited access. That would be interesting. And, somehow, not surprising.

[MADem]

11. Asked and answered--see post 10. She was regarded as someone who would spend MONEY at the MWR

facilities on the base. Wonder if she and her husband were golfers, too?

The base CO invited 200 Tampa-socialite/mover and shaker-type people to come and partake of the golf courses/O club, MWR restaurants, etc. in order to rake in some money for those enterprises (if they don't pay for themselves, Congress will not subsidize them---it is a big change from the "old days" where military people actually were deployed to run things like bowling alleys and restaurants--now all that is civilianized, and if they don't make money, they are cut).

She saw an opportunity, plainly, but her invite came from a lowly colonel, not a General.

[anobserver2]

8. other people were thinking about this, too

I thought it interesting what this naby spouse said in the re-tweet above:

@soxfaneast it's very difficult to get onto military bases now. I was wondering the same thing! I'm a navy spouse.
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[marions ghost]

9. What is the "part-time work" she is paid to do by the

foreign govt (ie. South Korea)?

[MADem]

10. She was put on a list of as many as 200 people -- the "Friends of MacDill" program, apparently...

Sounds to me like a clever trick to pull a little MWR money into the O Club...!

The program, called "Friends of MacDill," started in 2011 and initially allowed only 200 people, consisting mostly civic and business leaders, to carry the passes. The idea behind it was simple: Allow more access, not less, to qualified people.
The media loved the outreach and so did the locals. There were security concerns initially, but the program required applications, background checks, and even fingerprints.
Also, civilians with access are allowed to bring as many as five guests with them (who didn't need their own special IDs), but aren't allowed on base after dark.
They're allowed to use the base's two golf courses, several restaurants, and its bowling alley, among other things. For $17 a month, they could become honorary members of the Officer's Club.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jill-kelley-pass-macdill-2012-11#ixzz2CEx4Q5GZ


It was the base CO that fired up the program: http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/macdill-takes-step-toward-more-access-not-less/1145880

MacDill's commander, Air Force Col. Lenny Richoux, has launched a program inviting about 200 Tampa Bay civilians to get an ID card permitting entry to the base without a military escort.

The program, Friends of MacDill, may be one of the largest of its type in the southeast and is aimed at demystifying the work of MacDill. It's also hoped it will help the financial bottom line for the base's two golf courses and five restaurants.

"Some people have told me they've lived their whole lives in Tampa and never set foot on the base," Richoux said last week. "They always wondered about what happens here. So I said, 'Well, come on down and see. This is federal property. This belongs to you.' "

Participants also can bring up to five guests, none of whom require their own special ID card.

And I was right...it was an MWR money-maker. Congress requires MWR activities, particularly those in CONUS and not in "hardship" regions, to be self-sustaining. If they aren't self-sustaining, they get cut. The brass didn't want to lose their stupid golf courses or O club.