Victor Bout, the arms dealer with more blood on his hands than anyone else on earth, has not one, but two contracts with the Department of Defense, reports Doug Farah, here.

Seems like Victor Bout has not one, but two contracts with the DoD, one with the U.S. Army and one with the Marines. They run through the end of the year, and haven't been cancelled because of legal issues involved. I find it hard to believe Victor would actually sue, but who knows. An American contractor (whose name I do not yet have) subcontracted out the work to Bout. The business is apparently being handled by Victor's brother, Sergei, while Victor remains in Moscow. There have been several high level meetings at State Department and DoD to try to figure out how to get out of the contracts, which everyone now seems to agree are poison. But is seems a contract is a contract, even with a wanted criminal with an Interpol "Red Notice" and arrest requests, whose assets have been frozen by both the United Nations and the United States. Talk about iron-clad! More as it becomes available.

You just couldn't make this stuff up. Seems the State Department and Defense Department might want to consult some new lawyers. I mean, there's "illegal" regarding stuff on the small contractual level, like, we can't get out of this contract without being vulnerable to a lawsuit, and then there's ILLEGAL, like, he's on an Interpol wanted list as a war criminal!!! With this logic, I guess this is how you get Abu Ghraib.

And I cannot emphasize enough how lucky we are to have Doug Farah blogging his investigative finds at his own site. If this nexis of investigative journalism and human rights interests you, his site is must-check every week.

Posted by Laura at August 6, 2004 09:10 AM