Warning on Russian Didn't Reach Defense Staff
State Department sent out a list of firms tied to Viktor
Bout, but
word didn't get to the military.
By Stephen Braun and Judy Pasternak
Times Staff Writers
December 18, 2004
WASHINGTON — The State Department circulated a list of nine air
companies linked to reputed arms trafficker Victor Bout in June,
warning diplomatic posts against hiring the firms. But the Defense
Department, which oversees most of the massive military contracts in
Iraq, made no similar effort to warn its agencies, officials said
Friday.
Planes flown by four firms suspected of ties to the Russian
businessman's aviation network landed in Baghdad at least 195 times
over the last year, government documents show. The flights operated
under military contracts. Defense officials took action against two of
the firms in August, but freighters owned by those firms still flew
into Iraq as late as November under contracts with other defense
agencies, U.S. officials and an executive of one of the firms said.
The State Department list was the only known action taken by a U.S.
government agency to warn contracting officials against using specific
air cargo firms tied to Bout. Critics asked why the Defense Department
had not circulated its own list and expressed concern about an apparent
lack of coordination between the State and Defense departments.
The Treasury Department, meanwhile, publicly targeted Bout in July by
ordering his assets frozen, but did not name any of his companies.
Bout's aviation network has been accused by United Nations and U.S.
officials of arms embargo violations in Africa and also reportedly
aided the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Defense officials
acknowledged Friday that the department had made no broad attempt to
duplicate State's warning list or to share it with military
contractors. A spokesman said the Pentagon did not supervise the dozens
of air cargo and passenger subcontractors that have been hired by the
U.S. military to transport supplies and reconstruction materiel.
"We don't track the subcontractors," said Glenn Flood, a
Defense spokesman. "That's why we wouldn't have a list."
Defense
moved against suspected Bout firms Air Bas and British Gulf
International in August, rescinding government credentials they had
used to obtain fuel at military installations in Iraq. In September,
the Air Force pressed Federal Express to stop using Air Bas for cargo
flights, and it agreed.
Bout, contacted by phone this week in Moscow, declined to respond in
detail to questions about his relations with the firms.
"You are not dealing with facts. You are dealing with allegations," he
said.
Senior State Department officials and spokesman Jay Greer
declined to
comment on the warning list circulated in June. But other U.S.
officials confirmed its contents.
U.S. officials said the
list was compiled by the State Department's Bureau of Economic and
Business Affairs and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets
Control, then cabled to State's "procurement executives" in diplomatic
posts around the world.
The officials said they did not know
whether State had offered its list to other agencies, but added that
Defense could easily have devised its own by drawing from internal
intelligence and information from other agencies.
"There was a lot floating around on these companies," one official said.
Former officials of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which
governed Iraq until this summer, told The Times they did not see any
list of air firms suspected of ties to Bout until May. The CIA had
raised suspicion about the flights six months earlier.
The
State Department made the decision to circulate its warning list after
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz were questioned about possible dealings with
Bout firms by Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) during a May 18 hearing
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A State official
acknowledged to Feingold in a letter two weeks later that the
department had "inadvertently" contracted with "air charter services
believed to be connected with … Bout."
Wolfowitz did not
answer Feingold's questions until November, when he confirmed the use
of suspected Bout air firms in a classified response, sources said.
Feingold said this week that the "apparent lack of Defense supervision
over its subcontractors is a real concern."
Lee Wolosky, a former White House National Security official who
tracked Bout for the Clinton and current Bush administrations, said the
fact that the Pentagon had not devised "an integrated watch list speaks
to a lack of communication within the government."
In addition
to Air Bas and Irbis, the State Department's warning list named seven
suspected Bout-linked firms and cited Bout and three of his aides. Air
Bas and Irbis have been cited in U.N. reports as "fronts" for Bout's
arms transport network. The list also names Air Cess, a United Arab
Emirates firm that operated out of the office that now houses Air Bas.
The Times reported in 2002 that Air Cess was one of several suspected
Bout-linked firms that supplied cargo planes to the Taliban.
Government records show that Air Bas and Irbis flew for the Air Force,
Army and Army Corps of Engineers, as well as Federal Express and KBR,
the latter as late as October. KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton Co.
The State warning list also named Jetline, an air firm that flew for
KBR and also ferried armored cars into Iraq for the British government.
The State list did not mention British Gulf International, which had
come under scrutiny by the CPA.
There is no evidence that any firms on the State list other than Air
Bas, Irbis and Jetline have operated flights into Iraq.
At least one charter subcontractor who hired Air Bas planes at $60,000
per flight complained Friday that the U.S. had failed to provide proper
guidance. Dinu Kabiwar, manager of Frames International Travel in
Middlesex, Britain, said he had hired Air Bas "three or four times" to
fly personnel from Bombay, India, to Baghdad for KEC International, an
Indian power company working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"They should have stipulated in any contract not to use these
Russians," Kabiwar said.
Times staff writer T. Christian Miller contributed
to this report.
