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Perhaps unconnected, but one wonders if the path to Libya runs through the offices of Libya's new lobbyist, Bob Livingston, former RepublicanFormer congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm, Wired.com has learned.
Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia's weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.
Both trips were part of the company's effort to tap into the growing -- and often legally murky -- market for selling weapons from former Eastern Bloc countries to the Middle East and Afghanistan. [...]
In late March, Weldon traveled to Libya for a weeklong trip at the invitation of the Gaddafi Foundation, a group run by the son of Libya's leader, and the chairman of Libya's foreign affairs committee, according to the report he sent to Defense Solutions (.pdf), a copy of which was obtained by Wired.com. The trip reports states: "Agreement reached for Weldon to quickly return to Libya for meetings with son [of Libyan leader Gaddafi] Morti regarding defense and security cooperation."
A document dated April 16, just two weeks after Weldon's trip, outlines Defense Solutions' proposal to Libya to refurbish the country's fleet of armored vehicles, including its T-72 tanks, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, and BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. A copy of the sales proposal, also provided to Wired.com, is on Defense Solutions' letterhead, appears to bear the signature of company CEO Timothy Ringgold, and is addressed to Libya's defense procurement council. "Defense Solutions is committed to delivering a full end-to-end solution to its clients," the proposal states. "Besides refurbishing these vehicles, we are capable of providing a full logistics support package, including a two year supply of spare parts, maintenance and repair services, and operator, maintenance, and repair training." ....
Update: A reader who blogs here writes to remind that the Iraqi MOD contracts with Defense Solutions were signed by a former Iraqi Polish car dealer now on the lam in France:
Albanian stockpiles of Chinese weapons sold on US Defense Department contracts to Afghanistan. Hungarian tanks and Russian arms to MOD in Iraq and Libya with a cut for ex-US congressman Weldon and his company. Former Pennsylvania governor and first Bush DHS head Tom Ridge unregistered lobbyist for Albania, to drum it up some homeland security and defense business. Disgraced ex congressman Bob Livingston representing Libya. There seems to be a pattern of arms dealers with access to East Europe stockpiles getting themselves hooked up with ex US government officials who can grease the way to Pentagon-overseen deals to sell to Iraq, Afghanistan and the markets made available by Bush admin Mid East policy. Quite a bazaar. One former US official comments, "I think they are all scumbags and the reason there is so much confusion is that everyone 'feels' that somehow, somewhere, Weldon is doing what the administration wants him to do."The Defense Solutions contract to provide refurbished tanks donated to the Iraq Minister of Defense by Hungary was signed by Dr. Ziad Cattan on 3/5/05. Cattan is the former Polish Iraqi used car dealer who became the Iraq MoD's chief procurement officer in 2004. Cattan bought $400 million of worthless helicopters and armored cars from Bumar, the Polish state arms dealer, and he spent a billion dollars on worthless junk from Iraqi businessman, Naer Mohammed Jumaili.
The refurbished Hungarian tank contract was originally $3.2 million with an 8% award fee for Defense Solutions upon contract completion. Based on cost estimates, Currus, the Hungarian subcontract charged $1.5 million to refurbish the tanks and NATO picked up the cost of transporting the tanks from Hungary to Iraq.
However, Defense Industry Daily reported on 11/25/05 that the contract was about $4.5 million. In a 2/3/06 Defense Solutions proposal to sell refurbished Hungarian and Romanian tanks to the Sri Lanka army, Defense Solutions listed the Iraq tank contract at $4.6 million.
Although Defense Solutions is a Washington-based firm registered in Pennsylvania, the terms of the contract were specified as being underthe laws of New York State. DS was represented by James Donahue and the Iraq MoD by US LTC Rod Symons.
Defense Solutions did an excellent job promoting the contract as a great deal for the Iraqis. Even Condoleeza Rice touted it. When the Iraq MoD balked at paying Defense Solutions the balance of the contract in 1//05, Defense Solutions held up delivery. Since the DoD was anxious to use the tank deal for p.r. purposes, payment was promptly made.
As an aside, the photo of the tanks at the Taji ,military base in an 11/14/05 Defend America story about the tanks probably are not the actual tanks since the tanks at the time were still in Kuwait. Despite that fact, US LTC Kevin Meredith and Iraqi LTC Saleem praised the performance of the tanks in the article.