Blackwater's brothers

Jeremy Scahill looks at Cookie and Buzzy Krongard's Blackwater connections and history:

While Buzzy's new position on Blackwater's advisory board is indeed a salacious development, it is just the tip of the iceberg. In my book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, I explore in depth the relationship between Buzzy Krongard and Blackwater founder Erik Prince. The two men go back at least to 2002, when Buzzy helped jump-start Blackwater's ultra-profitable role as a provider of soldiers-for-hire in the "war on terror."

Though Blackwater was founded in 1997, Blackwater Security Consulting--its mercenary division--was incorporated in Delaware on January 22, 2002. Within months, as the United States occupied Afghanistan and began planning the Iraq invasion, Blackwater Security was already turning a profit, pulling in hundreds of thousands a month from a valuable CIA contract.

One of the players in forging that first Blackwater Security contract was Buzzy Krongard, at the time executive director of the CIA, the agency's number-three position.

[snip]

Since CIA and other intelligence and security contracts are "black" contracts, it's difficult to pin down exactly how much Blackwater began pulling in after that first Afghanistan contract, but Smith described it as a rapid period of growth for Blackwater. The company's work for the CIA and the military and Prince's political and military connections would provide Blackwater with important leverage in wooing what would become its largest confirmed client, the US State Department. "After that first contract went off, there was a lot of romancing with the State Department where they were just up the road, so we traveled up there a lot in Kabul and tried to sweet-talk them into letting us on board with them," Smith said in an interview. "Once the State Department came on and there was a contract there, that opened up some different doors. Once you get your foot in the door with a government outfit that has offices in countries all over the world, it's like--and this is probably a horrible analogy--but it's something maybe like the metastasis of a cancer. You know, once you get into the bloodstream you're going to be all over the body in just a couple of days, you know what I mean? So if you get in that pipeline, then everywhere that they've got a problem and an office, there's an opportunity."

A year later, Prince's mercenary operations would get the boost of a lifetime when Blackwater was handed a $27 million no-bid contract to serve as the elite bodyguards of the US occupation of Iraq. To date that arrangement has brought Blackwater about $1 billion in federal "security" contracts. Is it just a coincidence that one of the key players in securing Blackwater's role as the leading mercenary company of the Bush Administration has a brother whose job it was to oversee Blackwater? Or that the Inspector General stands accused of failing to do his duty and actually impeding federal investigations into the company's potentially criminal activities? Is there a connection between the Krongards and the State Department's systematic cover-up campaign for Blackwater?

So: Buzzy Krongard now resigns from the board.

And now this incestuous relationship is being unraveled:

SIGIR Stuart Bowen has provided an independent check on President Bush’s Iraq efforts, concluding that the administration’s post-war planning “was insufficient in both scope and implementation.” Last year, he reported that over $8.8 billion in funds meant for Iraq reconstruction could not be accounted for.

Not surprisingly, Bowen’s assessments have frustrated the Bush administration, which called them “too negative.” In 2006, the White House persuaded its conservative allies in the House Armed Services Committee, then led by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), to terminate the SIGIR position on Oct. 1, 2007. As Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone points out, oversight responsibility would have been transferred to embattled State Department IG Howard Krongard. The New York Times reported:

The idea, [committee spokesman] Mr. Holly said, was simply to return to a non-wartime footing in which inspectors general in the State Department, the Pentagon and elsewhere would investigate American programs overseas. The definite termination date was also seen as helpful for planning future oversight efforts from Bush administration agencies, he said.

The House Oversight Committee is currently investigating allegations that Krongard blocked investigations into fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in Iraq, working to “support the Bush Administration” rather than “act as an independent and objective check.” Because of this investigation, Krongard has now “recused himself from the State Department’s two main internal investigations in Iraq.”

Luckily, in Dec. 2006, Congress voted to restore Bowen’s tenure.

And the end result? Waxman wants to hear you testify, Buzzy:

We're that much closer to a perjury investigation. Buzzy Krongard has told House oversight committee staff what he told TPMmuckraker on Wednesday: that he told his brother, State Department Inspector General Howard "Cookie" Krongard, about his decision to join the advisory board of State Department contractor Blackwater. Cookie Krongard told the committee on Wednesday his brother had told him no such thing.

Waxman says he'll hold a hearing the week of December 3 to determine if Krongard lied to the committee under oath. Both Krongard brothers will be invited to testify. And you thought your last family reunion was awkward. But will Howard Krongard resign before then?