More on Victor Bout and the DOD

Well, someone finally at least got part of the Victor Bout story. Thanks to Michael Scherer at Mother Jones, who wrote this about Air Bas. A long-time Bout business manager, Richard Chickakli, told Scherer that the contract was with the U.S. military but that Victor had nothing to do with it.

Turns out there is more. Documents from DoD show that the Air Bas contract began on March 10, 2004, and that Air Bas is authorized by the U.S. military to purchase fuel at U.S. air bases, something only military contractors can do. Military records show that Air Bas, registered with the Defense Energy Support Center with the identifying code of TBTC02 (T is a DESC prefix; B identifies it as a commercial entity; TC is the country code for United Arab Emirates, where Air Bas is registered, and 02 is an assigned numerical order for internal identification. Air Bas refueled at least one airplane at Balad Air Force Base in April, May, June and July of this year. It also refueled at Baghdad in May, July and August of this year.

Another company reported by U.S. officials and the European investigators to be linked commercially to Bout, British Gulf International, also registered in Sharjah, UAE, and also has a contract with DoD. The DESC i.d. number is TBTC03, beginning April 5, 2004. Company planes refueled with DoD fuel in Baghdad in May, June and July of 2004. Interestingly enough, it also refueled in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in April 2004. Coincidence?

Congressional staffers on both sides of the aisle say that the State Department has been trying hard to end the contracts, but is getting very little help from the Pentagon. While both Richard Armitage and Paul Wolfowitz were asked by Sen. Russ Feingold to review their files, only the State Department has responded with a classified briefing for interested Congressional entities. Wolfowitz has not responded at all, the staffers said. I know I have said it before, but I just can't get over the fact that we are paying someone U.S. taxpayer money to a companies associated with a man whose assets have been frozen by the United States, is banned from international travel by the United Nations, and illegally sold and moved thousands of tons of weapons across the world. There has to be a U.S. company that can provide the same services. The list of companies with DOD DESC contracts is 137 pages long. Surely there is someone else.