Bout, Finally, Almost Unmasked

Well, after months of trying to get my friends in the press to pursue Victor Bout's ties to the U.S. military, Michael Isikoff at Newsweek dug into the story and advanced it considerably. He found Bout's Air Bas planes landed in Iraq 142 times this year, courtesy of a Pentagon contract allowing it to refuel at military bases in Iraq. By my count, if the contracts were voided after 7 months, or roughly 28 weeks, that means Air Bas was refuelling five times a week at U.S. military bases. Hardly an occassional operator in the field.

The most beautiful thing he found, which I had not heard, is that Bout's firm was flying on behalf of Kellog Brown and Root, the division of Halliburton hired to rebuild Iraqi oilfields. Isiskoff's Periscope item is here. The agreement was cut off in August, the Pentagon, under pressure from State and Treasury, queried Air Bas on its activities or what business it was conducting for the U.S. government. That finally raised enough red flags at the Pentagon, and gave them plausible reason to terminate the contract. The Air Bas incident has led the Pentagon to change, at least on paper, the way it does business with air contractors. It is supposed to be checking much more carefully as to the subcontractors, something that, until the Bout incident, was not done and viewed as necessary. Call it a belated victory for State and Treasury in one of the many mini-wars being fought in Iraq.

Juan Zarate, assistant secretary of Treasury for terror finance, says the "ultimate goal" of the U.S. government is to shut down Bout's network. But the question remains: Have all of the contracts of all the Bout-related companies been nullified? Not likely, as he and his crowd have shown the ability to change registrations, call numbers and other identifying marks the more often than some people change their underwear. We know Bout lost a plane this summer in the DRC, but that other airlines of a few planes (or one plane) continue to pop up with the same MO: Soviet-built, operating out of Sarjah, UAE, and registered in some less-than-transparent sub-Saharan African country. Bout's empire has been broken down into several small pieces, easier to move and register in small chunks. One piece is alleged to be British Gulf, which, interestingly, lost its contract with the U.S. government at the same time Air Bas did. U.S. officials were worried enough about possible Bout ties--and the lack of responsiveness to information requests--that it pulled that plug too.

Still, the current Treasury/OFAC efforts to go after Bout stand in stark contrast to the attitude of the rest of the Bush administration, which has shown no interest at all in closing down the network. As we have seen, the network is used in Iraq and, at least occassionally, in Afghanistan still. It is hard to believe it is a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing. What may be changing a bit is the international context in which Bout operates. He and his network have long been protected by Putin's government, and the U.S. was unwilling to ruffle U.S.-Russian feathers over Bout. But as the entire relationship does downhill, Bout may become more vulnerable. Maybe the next round of OFAC asset seizure orders will put enough of a dent in the network to at least slow him down.