According to the
Chicago Tribune
: “Separate records also show that similar allegations had been raised in September 2004 with Joseph Schmitz, who was then the Department of Defense inspector general. Schmitz did not respond in any detail until nearly a year later, saying in an Aug. 25, 2005, letter to Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., that there was a ‘list of corrective measures’ ordered by coalition military officials in Iraq following ‘a preliminary inquiry’ into the allegations. The letter did not mention passport seizures or violations of U.S. laws against human trafficking, but said living conditions ‘required further attention’ and that officials were ‘monitoring the status of corrections’ purportedly under way.”
138
Hardly the “moral relativist,” “special evil” condemnation, apparently reserved by Schmitz and his allies for more “immoral” crimes.
One of the greatest scandals involving Schmitz began in May 2003, when the Pentagon agreed to lease one hundred military tanker planes in a controversial deal with Boeing worth a whopping $30 billion.
139
Almost immediately, the unusual arrangement—the largest such lease in U.S. history—was blasted by government watchdog groups as “wasteful corporate welfare,” as it boosted the struggling aerospace business.
140
Republican Senator John McCain slammed the deal as “a textbook case of bad procurement policy and favoritism to a single defense contractor.”
141
McCain alleged that analyses by the General Accounting Office showed that it would be exponentially cheaper for the government to modernize existing tankers, rather than leasing additional ones from Boeing at several times the cost.
142
“I have never seen the security and fiduciary responsibilities of the federal government quite so nakedly subordinated to the interests of one defense manufacturer,” McCain said.
143
In winning the controversial deal, Boeing reportedly had a string of powerful backers, among them House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a key ally of the White House and of senior White House aides Karl Rove and Andy Card. “What was unusual about Boeing’s lobbying was that it gained complete access to all divisions of government from the president down, to having the key leadership of the House and Senate and dozens of lawmakers pushing their wares on the deal,” said Keith Ashdown, director of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
144
According to the
Financial Times,
“Boeing also invested $20 million last year in a defence-related venture capital fund run by Richard Perle . . . [who] co-authored an editorial in
The Wall Street Journal
in August supporting the deal. He did not disclose the Boeing investment.”
145
The contract was approved by President Bush’s chief weapons buyer at the Pentagon, Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge Jr.,
146
who just happened to be the former president of McDonnell Douglas Electronic Systems, which later became part of Boeing.
147
Aldridge approved the deal on his last day at the Pentagon before taking a job with weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
148
The deal would soon go down as “the most significant defense procurement mismanagement in contemporary history,” in the words of the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair, Republican John Warner,
149
resulting in a cancellation of the contract, amid widespread allegations of cronyism. Former Air Force procurement officer Darleen Druyun went to prison, as did a Boeing representative, while Air Force Secretary James Roche resigned.
150
Ultimately, the case ended up on Joseph Schmitz’s desk at the Pentagon for investigation. In June 2005, Schmitz released a 257-page report on the scandal, which critics charged concealed the possible role of senior White House officials in the deal—the report contained forty-five deletions of references to White House officials.
151
In fact, Schmitz had actually given the report to the White House for review before its release, where it appeared to have been scrubbed of possibly damning information.
152
In a letter to Schmitz, Republican Senator Grassley wrote, “By excluding pertinent evidence from the final report, certain potential targets were shielded from possible accountability.” Grassley added that Pentagon officials “may have been acting in response to guidance and advice from the senior White House officials, whose names were redacted from the final report on your orders; those officials are not held accountable.”
153
Schmitz did not include the comments of Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz because, Schmitz said, they hadn’t said anything “relevant.” If so, asserted the
Washington Post
editorial board, “investigators must not have asked the right questions. To offer just one example: Mr. Roche recounted that Mr. Rumsfeld called him in July 2003 to discuss his then-pending nomination to be secretary of the Army and ‘specifically stated that he did not want me to budge on the tanker lease proposal.’”
154
In a transcript of Schmitz’s office’s interview with Rumsfeld, obtained by the
Washington Post
, investigators asked the Defense Secretary whether he had approved the Boeing tanker lease despite widespread violations of Pentagon and government-wide procurement rules. “I don’t remember approving it,” Rumsfeld said. “But I certainly don’t remember not approving it, if you will.”
155
Investigators then asked Rumsfeld about the fact that in 2002 President Bush asked his Chief of Staff, Andy Card, to intervene in the Pentagon negotiations with Boeing (a major Bush contributor). “I have been told,” Rumsfeld said, “that discussions with the President are privileged, and with his immediate staff.”
156
The
Post
said much of the rest of the discussion was blacked out on the transcript. None of Rumsfeld’s comments were included in Schmitz’s report.
157
What’s more, Schmitz’s team did not interview anyone outside the Defense Department, despite the well-documented involvement of several high-profile lawmakers, administration officials, and the President himself.
158
Schmitz also failed to interview Edward Aldridge, the Pentagon official who approved the deal. His report noted that Aldridge failed to get proper approvals before moving forward with the deal, but said the approvals were in place anyway. In a Senate hearing on the scandal after the report was released, McCain said to Schmitz, “So, Mr. Aldridge basically lied,” to which Schmitz replied, “We know generally that . . . he and others within the Air Force and [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] were trying to treat the appropriations language as if it had waived a whole bunch of legal requirements.”
159
McCain was incredulous. “Don’t you think it would have been important to have his testimony?” he asked Schmitz. “My staff couldn’t reach him,” Schmitz eventually asserted, saying he had sent him a registered letter and left him some voice mails. “You couldn’t get a hold of him through Lockheed Martin?” asked a stunned McCain. Despite his subpoena power, Schmitz never used it to compel Aldridge to be interviewed. “I don’t think it’s a mystery,” Senator John Warner told Schmitz. “He’s on the board of a major defense contractor, it seems to me he’s locatable.” In fact, it is very difficult to imagine Schmitz could not reach him at Lockheed Martin. Schmitz’s brother, John P. Schmitz, former deputy counsel for George H. W. Bush, served as a registered lobbyist for Lockheed Martin from July 2002 until January 2005,
160
overlapping the Boeing deal and probe. He served on a team of two to three lobbyists from Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, which was paid at least $445,000 during that time.
161
There is nothing, however, to suggest that John P. Schmitz had any direct connection to the tanker deal or to Aldridge.
In the end, Senator Grassley told Joseph Schmitz that his handling of the scandal “raises questions about your independence” as Inspector General.
162
Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense said, “We now know that at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the White House, the wheels were greased to direct billions in corporate welfare to the Boeing Company.”
163
But, he added, because of “the inspector general’s reluctance to grill the secretary of defense” and “overzealous redactions . . . we are now left with more questions than answers.”
With his office embroiled in multiple scandals, Schmitz served his official notice in June 2005 that he was recusing himself from Blackwater-related issues because he was in talks with the company about possible employment. The brief memo did not reveal what led to the disclosure or his dealings with Blackwater, but it came exactly a year after Schmitz returned from a nine-day trip to Baghdad, where he worked with Blackwater’s prized client Paul Bremer on establishing a network of twenty-nine inspectors general (with Schmitz’s “very best Von Steubens”) for Iraqi ministries ahead of the “handover” of sovereignty.
164
To some observers, having these two officials develop a system of oversight for a “new” Iraqi government would be like asking two foxes to decide how the chicken coop should be protected.
In November 2004, Schmitz gave Bremer the Joseph H. Sherick Award, given to an individual “who contributes to the mission of the inspector general.”
165
Schmitz said he gave Bremer the award because he was “a man of vision and a man of principle.”
166
In accepting the award, Bremer said, “I felt from the time I got [to Iraq] how important it was, given the history of corruption under Saddam Hussein . . . to try to get this concept of trust in government established right from the beginning.”
167
In early 2005, Schmitz delivered a lecture to the Order of Malta Federal Association at Bremer’s church in Bethesda, Maryland, during which he told a story from Frances Bremer’s (Paul’s wife) novel
Running to Paradise
.
168
A few months later, in November 2005, Schmitz and Paul Bremer would be united again, as Blackwater hosted Bremer at a “fundraiser” for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
169
On August 26, 2005, Schmitz officially informed his staff that he was leaving the Pentagon to work with Blackwater. In an e-mail he sent out, he signed off, saying, “May the Creator acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence who has endowed each of us with those unalienable rights that we as Americans consider ‘first things,’ continue to bless each of you.”
170
Just as Schmitz began his work at Blackwater, in September 2005, the company reeled in lucrative government contracts, deploying heavily armed Blackwater forces on U.S. soil, in the wake of the worst “natural disaster” in U.S. history.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BLACKWATER DOWN: BAGHDAD ON THE BAYOU
THE MEN
from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005. The company beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene as 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company boasted of its forces “join[ing] the hurricane relief effort.”
1
But its men on the ground told a different story.
2
Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted windows and the Blackwater logo splashed on the back; others sped around the French Quarter in an unmarked car with no license plates. They wore khaki uniforms, wraparound sunglasses, beige or black military boots, and had Blackwater company IDs strapped to their bulging arms. All of them were heavily armed—some with M-4 automatic weapons, capable of firing nine hundred rounds per minute, or shotguns. This despite police commissioner Eddie Compass’s claim that “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.”
3
The Blackwater men congregated on the corner of St. Peter and Bourbon in front of a bar called 711. From the balcony above the bar, several Blackwater troops cleared out what had apparently been someone’s apartment. They threw mattresses, clothes, shoes, and other household items from the balcony to the street below. They draped an American flag from the balcony’s railing. More than a dozen troops from the Eighty-second Airborne Division stood in formation on the street watching the action.
Armed men shuffled in and out of the building as a handful told stories of their past experiences in Iraq. “I worked the security detail of both Bremer and Negroponte,” said one of the Blackwater men, referring to the former head of the U.S. occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. Another complained, while talking on his cell phone, that he was getting only $350 a day plus his per diem. “When they told me New Orleans, I said, ‘What country is that in?’” he said. He wore his company ID around his neck in a case with the phrase “Operation Iraqi Freedom” printed on it. After bragging about how he drives around Iraq in a “State Department-issued” “explosion-proof BMW,” he said he was “just trying to get back to [Iraq], where the real action is.”
In an hour-long conversation in the French Quarter, four Blackwater troops characterized their work in New Orleans as “securing neighborhoods” and “confronting criminals.” They all carried M-4 assault weapons and had guns strapped to their legs. Their flak jackets were covered with pouches for extra ammunition. “This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS [Continental United States],” another Blackwater contractor said. “We’re much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq.” Blackwater president Gary Jackson told the
Virginian-Pilot
that his men were heavily armed “because of the intel that we received,” adding, “We did a risk assessment and decided we’re going to send guys in there for real.”
4
Jackson claimed Blackwater “basically secured” the French Quarter—a claim hotly disputed by local law enforcement agents, one of whom said, “There may be some braggadocio involved” in Jackson’s claim. Maj. Ed Bush of the Louisiana National Guard told the
Pilot,
“Every group wants to kind of thump their chest a little bit, but just think about it. We live here. Seems kind of naive to think Blackwater beat us to the French Quarter.”
5