US Ukraine Mineral Deal- Shades of Iraqi reconstruction scandal- US to provide security
Elbridge Colby and Keith Kellogg both served in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq in 2003 under Paul Bremer and are now part of the Trump administration. The CPA, which acted as the transitional government overseeing post-war reconstruction in Iraq, faced significant criticism for its mishandling of reconstruction funds. Over $8 billion allocated for Iraq’s rebuilding remains unaccounted for, including more than $1.6 billion in cash that was discovered in a basement in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, Chinese companies are actively engaged in constructing a wide range of infrastructure projects, including housing units, universities, commercial centers, schools, health facilities, and power stations. They have also played a key role in developing the Nasiriya airport.
Sources:
Elbridge Colby on the Future of American Foreign Policy – The Dartmouth Review
No single person has arguably been more important in the change of US foreign policy priorities over the last decade. Colby’s seemingly destined venture into the field of U.S. national security is perhaps a case of what Germans would call “familiäre Vorbelastung”. His grandfather, William Colby, served as Director of Central Intelligence under Nixon and Ford, and was succeeded by George H.W. Bush. After graduating from Harvard College in 2002, Colby started his career working for the Department of Defense, later serving in the Department of State and the broader intelligence community in various capacities. This included a stint with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003*. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 2009, he worked on global strategic affairs before being appointed as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in 2017. During his time in the Trump administration, Colby was one of the key figures in crafting the 2018 National Defense Strategy. This document shifted the Department of Defense’s focus to the challenges posed first and foremost by China, followed by Russia, and stressed the importance of clearly focusing on these priorities over lesser interests. Furthermore, he co-founded the Marathon Initiative in 2019, a non-partisan research organization focusing on great power competition.
Coalition Provisional Authority – Wikipedia
Privatization of Iraq’s public sector, foreign direct investment, provisional government, Post-war Reconstruction
One of Trump’s Top Military Advisers Played a Key Role in the Disastrous Iraq Occupation
Kellogg played a critical role in the disastrous US occupation of Iraq as the director of operations of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran the country after the 2003 invasion. Since leaving the military, he has been deeply involved in the high-tech, computer-driven style of warfare that has spawned the enormous business complex of contractors and suppliers that ring Washington, DC, from the CIA to the National Security Agency.
…
Yet, as a top CPA official, Kellogg played a critical role in the disastrous occupation that helped spawn the insurgent army that later morphed into ISIS. At the CPA, he was the chief operating officer for reconstruction for Paul Bremer, the associate of Henry Kissinger appointed by Bush and Rumsfeld to run the occupation. In that post, Kellogg hired dozens of contractors and staffers—many of them young right-wing ideologues from Washington—to award construction contracts.
“I’m the guy who’s supposed to make the trains run on time,” Kellogg told the Los Angeles Times (according to CACI, he “played a key role in the effort to rebuild Iraq and bridge the link between security and critical infrastructure”). This was during the time when Iraq was seen as a bonanza for US corporations, who flocked to Iraq in droves as Rumsfeld and his neoconservative allies promised to privatize the country and transform it into a free-market paradise. I described the frenzy in a cover story for The Nation in 2003:
Behind closed doors in the Pentagon and State Department and on Washington’s K Street corridor, executives, bankers, trade lawyers and consultants are using their influence to create opportunities for future profits in Iraq. Those groups, and the relationships they have developed with Iraqi exiles and Washington insiders, underscore the politicized nature of the US rebuilding effort and the hopes of many officials that Iraq will become an engine of growth, not only for the region but for US corporations searching for new markets and investment sites.
But the big plans of the neocons quickly fell apart as an insurgency began in earnest, sparked in large part by Bremer’s decision to disband the Iraqi Army. Some of the generals purged from the military later formed the core of ISIS, as recounted in the excellent book on its history by Joby Warrick, Black Flags.
One of the incidents that sparked the insurgency was the cruel treatment of Iraqi detainees in the infamous prison at Abu Ghraib. CACI, then as now a major Pentagon contractor, employed several of the interrogators who were involved in the abuse at Abu Ghraib (it is still fighting a lawsuit filed by four detainees, who claimed they were tortured by CACI personnel).
In 2005, about eight months after the Abu Ghraib scandal was exposed by journalist Seymour Hersh and CBS News, CACI hired Kellogg to be executive vice president for CACI’s research and technology group. At the time, a CACI press release said, Kellogg’s group provided “intelligence, information technology, and logistics support for the US Army and other Defense Department clients.” He worked for CACI through the end of the Bush administration.
Billions set aside for post-Saddam Iraq turned up in Lebanese bunker
More than $1bn earmarked for the reconstruction of Iraq was stolen and spirited to a bunker in Lebanon as the American and Iraqi governments ignored appeals to recover the money, it has been claimed.
Stuart Bowen, a former special inspector general who investigated corruption and waste in Iraq, said the stash accounted for a significant chunk of the huge sums which vanished during the chaotic months following the 2003 US-led invasion.
Bowen’s team discovered that $1.2bn to $1.6bn was moved to a bunker in rural Lebanon for safe keeping – and then pleaded in vain for Baghdad and Washington to act, according to James Risen, a journalist who interviewed Bowen for a book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War, to be published this week.
…
The perception of graft and illicit fortunes in the reconstruction effort fuelled cynicism about and hostility to the US-led occupation of Iraq.
Paul Bremer, who was the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority which ruled Iraq in the occupation’s early days, defended his agency’s handling of the funds, including the 11th-hour rush of $4bn to $5bn to Baghdad in June 2004, just before the CPA shut down.
The Iraqi government “was broke at that point” and funds were urgently needed, Bremer told Risen, a Pulitzer-winning reporter for the New York Times who could face jail over his refusal to reveal a source and testify against a former CIA agent accused of leaking secrets.
“The issue is what happened to the money once it was distributed through the minister of finance. We had a very clear record of funds going to the Iraqi system.”
Bowen challenged that defence, saying there were few credible records of how the money was spent. “Our auditors interviewed numerous senior advisers of the CPA, and we learned from them that the controls on the Development Fund of Iraq money were inadequate,” he said. “We didn’t make this up; we learned this from CPA staff.”
Bowen said he suspected some, possibly all, of the money had since been moved from the bunker.
China ‘actively involved’ in Iraq’s reconstruction
Trade between China and Iraq reached around $50 billion last year. China is the largest importer of Iraqi oil.
Ties between Baghdad and Beijing have developed significantly recently, and Chinese firms have increased their presence there.
In 2019, Iraq signed a 20-year contract, agreeing to supply Chinese firms with 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, with the revenue earmarked for funding various development projects in Iraq undertaken by Chinese firms.
Following the deal, Chinese firms built 1,000 schools, developed the Nasiriya city airport, erected power plants, and completed several other infrastructure projects.
China has accelerated its investment in Iraq and other West Asian nations as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced in 2013.
Last month, Iraq began work on 30,000 housing units near Baghdad as part of a $2 billion project in partnership with Chinese firms to build five new cities across Iraq.
Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani seeks to build 250,000 to 300,000 housing units for poor and middle-class families. A new city on the outskirts of Baghdad will include universities, commercial centers, schools, and health centers and should be completed in four to five years.
Iraqi infrastructure suffered significantly during the US invasion of the country in 2003 and the several-year war that ensued.
In the effort to rebuild Iraq, Keith Kellogg’s job is to keep things moving
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 