Easy Marks. Must-read teaser piece from Wired's Sharon Weinberger and Nathan Hodge*: "Lawyers, Nukes and Money: The Strange Case of Weldon's Russia Plan," in which they reveal the path to Weldon by the Kremlin linked Petrosyan also led through the office of Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana), lately in the news in alleged connection to the services of the late DC Madam:

While there have been a number of articles and blogs written about the IEG-Weldon connection, one thing that's been missing is any information on how far Weldon and the group got with this scheme. Meaning, did anyone in government jump on board? The quick answer: Yes.

We discuss the details of this in our book ... And tomorrow we'll also post ... the actual signed contract, worth nearly $100 million, that IEG concluded with a government agency.

DTRA?

From my archives: "Here's a Defense Department, Defense Threat Reduction Agency bulletin (.pdf) from March 2005 saying that Weldon was seeking Defense Department/DTRA funding in the low millions for the International Exchange Group. More here." (The actual pdf link was missing at my site).

Note this bit about Weldon expecting to get DTRA money to his International Exchange Group approved through the office of Doug Feith

... Weldon, fluent in Russian and a long-time proponent of improving relations between the United States and Russia, co-chairs IEG's Joint Political Council with Alexander Kotenkov, plenipotentiary representative of the president at the Russian Federation.... The two men provide "guidance, consultation and strategic oversight" a company brochure said. ...

Money for the project, a figure in the low millions of dollars, Weldon said, likely would come from the Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, with no further congressional approval required. ...

The proposal is being reviewed, Weldon said, by the office of Douglas Feith and an interagency panel, Weldon noted. Feith is the Defense Department's undersecretary of defense for policy.

Of course, what other Pentagon Bush appointee would Weldon turn to for approval of a freelance international nonproliferation scheme that ends up the subject of a federal probe and is revealed to be a potential counterintelligence problem? (I also remember Weldon claiming that he had gotten a hearing to present his AbleDanger datamining shpiel to now NSC advisor Steve Hadley, who was also persuaded to authorize the Rome meetings involving the Pentagon, Sismi, Ghorbanifar and Ghorbanifar's Washington pals.)

It's really not much of a coincidence that the Ghorbanifar channels and the suspicious Russia stuff Weldon brought in crosses through middle men like Weldon and Ledeen into the executive branch through figures like Feith and Hadley. Such middlemen and their go-to executive branch friends are easy marks. Targets of opportunity easily identified by counterintelligence threat types such as Petrosyan and Ghorbanifar. Why? Because people like Weldon, Ledeen, etc. and their social-political networks have demonstrated their inclination to shut out the professionals who know something about vetting walk ins and counterintelligence threats, and their willingness, eagerness even to break the rules because they think they know better and it suits their agenda and preconceived ideological worldview. And these pros of the type of Petrosyan and Ghorbanifar know just how to identify, target and cultivate such people, know what tales to spin to tell them what they already believe (mostly in their own heroic status), test out how far they'd be willing to go (feverish faxed memos and cocktail napkin regime change schemes, as the case may be; shady oil contracts and kickbacks; putting their wives or daughters or girlfriends on the payroll of a front company or lobbying deal, in the cases of Weldon and his former chief of staff Russ Caso; some as yet unrevealed form of payback perhaps in the case of Vitter). And they count on the rules being broken by these guys, their very predilection to bypass the professionals, easiest yet their corruptability as is fairly strongly suggested in the case of Weldon. They rely on it.

I know something about how Ghorbanifar first got to Weldon, through a winding path of cut outs. And I know that Ghorbanifar changed his message when Weldon emerged as his latest Washington interlocutor, from one about Tehran wanting to deal, to something more ideologicaly useful for the likes of Weldon. ... It's highly plausible that Ghorbanifar was playing Weldon and others on the Tehran regime's behalf.

Moving on, here's another figure who worked doing intelligence analysis for Weldon and Feith, F. Michael Maloof. I remember reading in Maloof's CV his listing Feith and Weldon among five references. (Maloof had to leave DoD after he got his security clearance yanked, you'll remember).

More on the peculiar Maloof and Weldon working relationship here. As I noted in October 2005:

Michael Maloof, one of the original two analysts hired by Doug Feith to find connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the progenitor to the infamous Office of Special Plans, has a frankly astonishing article in the Washington Times yesterday. Ostensibly a defense of Able Danger, in the oped Maloof says that before his work for Feith, he got hired by Weldon to datamine open source material to find Chinese tech proliferators on Weldon's behalf:

...Following the initial DoD turndown, Ellen Preisser and this writer then data-mined unclassified information to report to Mr. Weldon on possible Chinese front companies in the United States seeking technology for the People's Liberation Army.

It showed how Chinese front companies in the United States listed as U.S. corporations were acquiring U.S. weapons technology from U.S. defense contractors, and improving China's military capability. Such access to U.S. technology then would allow the Chinese over time to duplicate U.S. military systems down to the widget.

Indeed, a June 27, 2005 article in The Washington Times reported U.S. investigators were concerned with China and its middlemen increasingly and illegally obtaining "sensitive or classified U.S. weapons technology" from U.S. companies.

Reaction to the study on Chinese front companies in the United States from the Army and the General Counsel's office in the Office of the Defense Secretary was immediate. In November 1999, they ordered the study destroyed, but not before Mr. Weldon complained to then Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki.

Mr. Weldon also wrote a letter to then-FBI Director Louis Freeh requesting an espionage investigation. Mr. Freeh never responded to the Weldon request...

What Maloof doesn't say here but has been reported elsewhere is that his project got shut down by armed federal agents after it fingered now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Defense secretary Bill Perry among others as Chinese tech proliferators, because of their connections to Stanford. Check out this NY Post story:

...Cyber-sleuths working for a Pentagon intelligence unit that reportedly identified some of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack were fired by military officials, after they mistakenly pinpointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other prominent Americans as potential security risks, The Post has learned.

The private contractors working for the counter-terrorism unit Able Danger lost their jobs in May 2000. The firings following a series of analyses that Pentagon lawyers feared were dangerously close to violating laws banning the military from spying on Americans, sources said.

The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said...

It would be funny if this guy didn't have such huge sway on the Pentagon's deceptions and delusions going into Iraq.

And under what authority does a public official have to hire people like Maloof to conduct their own counterintelligence investigations? Who's paying for this stuff? Several people have told me Jim Woolsey sat in on their presentations to Weldon of their datamining projects, and that his role was described as being a consultant to Weldon. It's worth noting that Maloof was fired from the Pentagon after he lost his security clearance.

Seem to have been asking all the right questions. Maloof had been involved in setting up at their direction the hawks' very own alternative intelligence "bat cave," as I'm told he called it.

So how many people did Weldon have as advisors and consultants, and in what capacity? Who was paying for Weldon to have Maloof doing such datamining? Who was paying for Weldon's Iran book co-author Peter Vincent Pry to be on the payroll? Who approved Weldon getting Petrosyan House of Rep Weldon advisor business cards? Were Russian defense and energy interests behind some of this? Mogilevich? And is the DOJ/FBI international organized crime/counterintel task force investigating Weldon investigating the wider network that was so susceptable to the likes of Petrosyan and Ghorbanifar?

(Also don't forget Ken Alibekov, he of the inflated bio-threat fame. I saw Weldon and Alibek speak together at Heritage a few years ago, again, never a hyped threat that Weldon didn't want to play up and they seemed quite cozy; and Heritage gave Weldon numerous opportunities to present his shpiel du jour; he also presented his Able Danger stuff there. Alibek seems likely to have managed to get enriched by US government approprations influenced by someone of Weldon's inclinations.)

One other point: if someone is working covertly on behalf of Iranian interests and wants influence in or to disinform Washington, who is he going to cultivate? He is going to go to the biggest Washington gasbag on the Iran threat he can get to, and spin tales of the horrible mullahs and long years of working against them and his super inside information and his plan to overturn them. Especially if that person has influence with the current American administration and has street cred with the anti-Iran crowd. Same with Russia, same with China. Amazingly, people who worked on their behalf like Weldon and Ledeen never seem to question the loyalties of those like Petrosyan and Ghorbanifar who come to them with such fantastic schemes and dubious information.

Update: Here's Weinberger's follow up. In it she reveals a Defense Missile Agency inked $97 million deals with IEG. But that ultimately Feith's office killed it, questioning its legality.

Heard a teaser that Wired's Weinberger and Hodge will be on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross Thursday.

Posted by Laura at June 11, 2008 12:49 PM