"Corporate Media Discover Private Spies" by Jeremy Scahill

[another saigon]

Published on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 by The Nation
Corporate Media Discover Private Spies. In Other News, No WMD in Iraq

by Jeremy Scahill

http://www.commondreams.org/print/58544

Stop the presses and call the government spokespeople back from Martha's Vineyard. The corporate media have discovered that the United States is radically outsourcing national security and sensitive intelligence operations. Cable news channels breathlessly report on the "groundbreaking," "exclusive" Washington Post series, Top Secret America <1>, a two-year investigation by Dana Priest and William Arkin. No doubt there is some important stuff in this series. Both Arkin and Priest have done outstanding work for many years on sensitive, life-or-death subjects. And that is one of the main reasons why this series has, thus far, been incredibly disappointing. Its greatest accomplishment is forcing a discussion onto corporate TV years after it would have had an actual impact.

snip...

The Post does a fine job of exploring the scope of the privatization and providing some new or updated statistics. It also produces a few zingers from senior officials like Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "This is a terrible confession," Gates said in Tuesday's installment <2>. "I can't get a number on how many contractors work for the Office of the Secretary of Defense." It was also hilarious to read CIA director Leon Panetta-who just gave Blackwater a brand new $100 million global CIA contract <3>-act like he is anything other than a contractor addict. "For too long, we've depended on contractors to do the operational work that ought to be done" by CIA employees, Panetta told the Post. But replacing them "doesn't happen overnight. When you've been dependent on contractors for so long, you have to build that expertise over time." Panetta told the Post he was concerned about contracting with corporations, whose responsibility "is to their shareholders, and that does present an inherent conflict." I wonder if the Blackwater guys working for Panetta can contain their laughter reading those statements. I imagine them taping a post-it note that says "Kick me" on Panetta's back and then chuckling about it with the Lockheed contractors.

snip....


What is perhaps most telling about the Post series is how little detail is provided on the most sensitive operations performed by contractors: assassinations, torture, rendition and operational planning.

In reality, there is little in the Post series that, in one way or another, has not already been documented by independent journalist Tim Shorrock <4>, author of the (actually) groundbreaking book, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing <5>. With the exception of some details and a lot of color, much of what I have read in the Post's series thus far I had already read in Shorrock's book and his previous reporting for Salon <6>, Mother Jones <7> and The Nation <8>. Shorrock was the reporter who first revealed the extent of the radical privatization of intel operations. In 2007, Shorrock obtained and published <6> a document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence showing that 70 percent of the US intelligence budget was spent on private contractors. Shorrock was way out in front of this story and, frankly, corporate media ignored it. When I was working on my book on Blackwater, which first came out in 2007, Shorrock provided me with some crucial insights into the world of privatized intelligence. Shorrock remains a valued colleague and source and the Post is just wrong to not credit him for the work he has done on this story. Everyone should read Shorrock's latest story <9> which includes an exclusive photo tour through the private intelligence community.

[glitch]

1. Scahill gets unrecced on DU. Amazing.

Scahill's point that WAPO's report is limited to only part of what is already out there is quite telling indeed.

[tom_paine]

3. Unsurprising. This place seems like it's 1/3rd Freeper trolls and 1/3rd DLC trolls these days

Nothing I see around here surprises me.

[G_j]

5. ---

:thumbsup:

[kgnu_fan]

7. It is overwheleming to see so many pro-war crowd in here these days

I just can not believe it sometime. When this site was started, it was a refreshing place for us anti-war people to come and get encouragement and nourishment after beaten up by war-mongering bushies and neo-cons cheering for war. Now coming here is a weary experience, dreading to bump into those war-mongering crowd, bashing everything and anything progressive...sigh

[Farragut]

10. Alternative viewpoints suck

Last thing we'd want is alternative viewpoints in a discussion group . . .

[EFerrari]

4. I haven't read the WaHo report yet but am more interested

in how and why it was put out than anything else . . .

[glitch]

12. Limited hangout was my first thought.

So why do they feel the need for a limited hangout right now (same reason Eric Prince is moving to Dubai, hmmmm)? Wonder what's coming down the pike?

[SpiralHawk]

2. Thank you, Mr. Scahill

The k and the r

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, another saigon.

[dmr]

8. All the billions & billions & billions of dollars paid out to the 'unknown', yet

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment benefits, health care, the nations infrastructure, education, and on and on and on get targeted as out of control spending, and leaving us to pay for it all with blood, sweat, tears and taxes.

Wars & their profiteers, along with other monied entities certainly are blessed, propped up, and cheered by each other to assure they continue to rape the treasury, and control & influence our nation.

It's an out of control and powerful spider web of deceit that has little to do with our nation's best interests and safety.

Color me jaded and disgusted because there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

[Octafish]

9. Lots of people on this case waaaaaaaaaay before WaPo...

bobthedrummer, for one, and a bunch more DUers, for more.

[another saigon]

11. whoa...

from your link another....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x377023

Larger CIA and DoD Privatization Scandal Emerging from Walter Reed Story and US Attorney Firing
Posted by leveymg on Fri Mar-09-07 12:56 PM



Cerberus a Major Stockholder in Bankrupt MCI, which had mismanaged an $8.8 DoD Project to Create Secure telecom systems for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps


By Matt Kelley
USA TODAY The fundraiser, which took place July 7, 2003, and the subsequent vote illustrate the kind of relationship between congressman and contributor that's under increased scrutiny in the nation's capital.

~snip~

Both Lewis and the investment company, Cerberus Capital Management, benefited from the relationship. Eighteen months after the fundraiser and the House vote, Lewis won the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee. He acknowledges that the fundraising efforts of Cerberus “played a very significant role” in winning the post. The ties between Cerberus and Lewis, a 14-term congressman from Redlands, Calif., have not been publicly examined before.

~snip~

Created in 1992, Cerberus is a hedge fund, a type of private investment group that's not regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. ...

~snip~

In 2003, Cerberus owned more than $140 million in stock and bonds of the bankrupt telecommunications giant WorldCom, financial records show. Its stake in the company, which had filed for bankruptcy protection the previous year, was large enough that a Cerberus executive joined the board of directors of MCI, the company's post-bankruptcy name. ... MCI has been a major subcontractor since 2000 on an $8.8 billion project to build a secure computer network for the Navy and Marines. ...The committee report noted the program's cost overruns, schedule delays and management foul-ups in its report accompanying the 2003 defense spending bill, also sponsored by Lewis. That report called for more and better testing of the program before more computers were added to the network.

Lewis himself had criticized the Navy-Marine computer project in October 2002, telling The Washington Post he was not satisfied with its progress. He also said he was concerned about MCI's involvement. “When you have a big piece of the pie in trouble, it just gums up a process that already has great difficulty,” he said. ... Other members of Congress were pushing the federal government to ban MCI from any future contracts because of the $11 billion accounting scandal, which eventually landed former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers a 25-year prison term. MCI now has about $2 billion in annual revenue from government contracts, and the Navy project remains one of its biggest.

On May 16, 2003, the House Armed Services Committee voted to cut 10% of the Navy project's $1.6 billion budget for the upcoming year. Federal lobbying records show that two months earlier, Cerberus hired its first lobbyist, the powerhouse firm Patton Boggs. ... The firm's lobbyists for Cerberus included Laurence Harris, a former FCC staffer who would join MCI's board of directors that August; retired Marine colonel John Garrett; and Marcus Dunn, a former aide to two members of the House Armed Services Committee. ...Cerberus paid Patton Boggs $1.1 million for lobbying from 2003 to the middle of 2005, the last date that records are available. Separately, Cerberus hired former senator Jake Garn, a Utah Republican, as a lobbyist for $410,000 over the same period, lobbying records show.

~snip~


http://cache.zoominfo.com/cachedpage/?archive_id=0&page ...

***

Cerberis donated $100,000 at a single fundraiser to Rep. Jerry Lewis, fmr. Chair of the House Appropriations Comm., who served as intermediary to distribute money to fellow GOP lawmakers favored by Cerberus

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-19-cerberus-cover_x.htm

Lewis' Future Leaders PAC gave $407,000 to 69 House candidates in the 2004 election. The Cerberus-related money was equal to nearly a third of that amount. In 2003, the PAC collected $522,725 — a quarter of it connected to Cerberus.
Boustany's 2004 campaign got $15,000 in contributions from Lewis' Future Leaders PAC in three separate $5,000 contributions, according to Federal Election Commission records. Lewis also kicked in another $2,000 from his own campaign in two separate contributions to Boustany's 2004 campaign. Boustany picked up another $5,000 from Future Leaders PAC in the current election cycle.

But, Boustany also benefited from the Lewis/Cerberus relationship in another way:
Lewis also got Cerberus to help with his fundraising for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the arm of the GOP that gives money to House candidates. Lewis said he invited Cerberus executives to an April 2004 NRCC fundraiser he chaired that included a speech by President Bush.

The NRCC got $70,000 in Cerberus-related donations during the first two weeks of April 2004, including $25,000 from Cerberus founder Stephen Feinberg, records show. "I had been doing this for over a dozen years, helping to raise money for our members," Lewis said. "Others (candidates for Appropriations chairman) began to be helpful with fundraising, but that had been a recent and newfound interest of theirs."

Federal Election Commission records show that the National Republican Congressional Committee spent $72,620 in coordinated spending on Boustany's 2004 campaign and another $96,593 on independent expenditures on behalf of Boustany's campaign. Now, of course, the national parties raised millions of dollars for congressional races, so Boustany's share of that Cerberus/Lewis effort might well have been small through this particular channel. In any event, it was no where near as large as Cerberus's impact on Future Leaders PAC dollars.
Wilkes employed a lobbyist named Bill Lowery who is unusually close with House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Lewis. Copley News Service conducted a three month investigation of their relationship:
From powerful positions on the House Appropriations Committee, California Rep. Jerry Lewis has greenlighted hundreds of millions of dollars in federal projects for clients of one of his closest friends, lobbyist and former state Congressman Bill Lowery.
Meanwhile, Lowery, the partners at his firm and their clients have donated 37 percent of the $1.3 million that Lewis’ political action committee received in the past six years…The Lewis-Lowery relationship, however, is remarkable for the closeness and mutual dependence…They’ve even exchanged two key staff members, making their offices so intermingled that they seem to be extensions of each other.


Serberus founder Stephen Feinberg is reported to have made particularly substantial donor to Republican organizations, with a 2004 contribution of $25,000 to the RCCC. Feinberg also contributed $2000 to the Senate campaign that year of Connecticut Senator Joseph Liberman. http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:mH1tG596Ln8J:www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php%3Fsearch%3D1%26type%3Dname%26lname%3DFeinberg+Stephen+Feinberg+Republican&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12&gl=us&ie=UTF-8

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/113005/fallout.html

In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Cunningham named four people who had conspired with him to commit the crimes. Although the plea agreement does not refer to the co-conspirators by name, they are widely believed to be Mitchell Wade, the former president of defense intelligence firm MZM Inc., Brent Wilkes, president of defense contractor ADCS Inc., Tom Kontogiannis, a New York real-estate developer, and an unnamed family member of Kontogiannis.

Wade and Wilkes gave heavily to congressional Republicans in recent years, and now lawmakers must decide whether to keep the campaign largesse.

Wade, Wilkes, Kontogiannis and others remain under investigation, according to a statement made by the lead federal prosecutor in the case, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam.
Congressional ethics experts predict that one or more of the co-conspirators would be charged, especially because Cunningham has agreed to continue to cooperate with the investigation.

“Given that they were both described as co-conspirators in the plea agreement and that the agreement calls for former Rep. Cunningham to cooperate in the investigation, it’s very likely that both Mitchell Wade and Brent Wilkes will be indicted,” said Brett Kappel, an ethics lawyer at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP.

Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) has returned money from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the center of another congressional ethics scandal, while Republican Reps. Jeb Bradley (N.H.), Kenny Hulshof (Mo.), Heather Wilson (N.M.) and Steve LaTourette (Ohio) gave back contributions from DeLay after he was indicted in September.
Republican Reps. Tom DeLay (Texas), John Doolittle (Calif.) and Jerry Lewis (Calif.) all received at least $30,000 in donations — either through their campaign committee or their leadership PACs — from Wade, Wilkes, their family members and their companies’ PACs over the past four years. These totals do not include individual contributions from employees of these firms. Early this year, Lewis became the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Before that, he headed the defense appropriations subcommittee. Because of these high-profile roles, Lewis often receives more donations than most House members. Doolittle also sits on the Appropriations Committee.

But Cunningham, who was simply a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, received the most — at least $66,000 during the same period.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, received just over $28,000, as did Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.). Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) was the recipient of $20,000.

Wilkes is a prominent Bush fundraiser, earning a designation as a “Bush pioneer” in 2004 for raising more than $100,000. If Wilkes is indicted, he will be the third Bush pioneer, after Abramoff and Ohio fundraiser Tom Noe, to be indicted this year.

Wade resigned from MZM earlier this year. The company was sold to a private equity firm in August.


Senate Judiciary Committee Goes Into Closed Hearings to Discuss Firing of U.S. Attorney Who Prosecuted CIA Contractor Case

On Tuesday, Judiciary Committee member Arlen Specter revealed publicly that the committee he used to Chair would be going behind closed doors to discuss still-classified details about the retaliatory firing of U.S. Attorney Caroline Lam, who had aggressively prosecuted the MZM Wade-Cunningham contracting case. (Source C-Span Radio, 03/05/2007, @ 7:20 pm).

According to Specter, the Senate Judiciary Committee went into closed session to talk about an ongoing TOP SECRET investigation that stems from the Cunningham case. Three Hill Committees reached an agreement with the Department of Justice to receive files compiled by the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego, and are just beginning to hold public hearings into the unlawful dismissal of Lam. (See, generally, http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/emanuel-tangles-wit ... ; http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070112-9999 -... ; http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0605/S00125.htm

These closed hearings are most likely related to contracts that MZM had with CIA, including one that led to the falsification of data about aluminum tubes shipped to Iraq that allegedly were going to be used to reconstitute Saddam's nuclear program. That's right, those aluminum tubes, the one's that were falsely used by White House and Vice President to justify the invasion of Iraq.



Jeremy is right. Again.