If you have information or stories about the activities of Defense Security Service (formerly DIS) and former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense and owner of Sullivan/Haave Associates, Carol Haave, and other related areas in DOD and are willing to share it, please contact me.

I am researching in this area now and would like to speak to people who have personal knowlege of what all has gone on for the past decade or two.

State Department Agents Say Jobs Were Threatened
By Glenn Kessler and Karen DeYoung
The Washington Post

Saturday 29 September 2007

Investigators in IG office were told not to cooperate with probe of their boss, house panel alleges.

Two career investigators in the office of State Department Inspector General Howard J. Krongard have charged that they were threatened with firing if they cooperated with a congressional probe of Krongard and his office.

Told by Terry P. Heide, Krongard's congressional liaison, that he should not agree to a request for a "voluntary" interview by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Special Agent Ron Militana said he was then advised that reprisals could be taken against him. "Howard can fire you," he said Heide told him. "It would affect your ability to get another job."

Militana said in a telephone interview yesterday that he took that comment and others as direct threats. He and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Brian Rubendall, another career investigator who was also present at the Sept. 25 meeting with Heide and an IG lawyer, are among at least four IG investigators who have sought protection under the Whistleblower Protection Act. They also include the assistant inspector general for investigations and his deputy, who recently resigned after charging Krongard with impeding their work.

In recent weeks, the agents relayed their concerns about Krongard to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the oversight panel. Waxman has said he is investigating allegations that Krongard has repeatedly thwarted investigations into alleged contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and weapons smuggling allegations against Blackwater USA, a private security firm working under government contract in Iraq. The committee has scheduled a hearing on Oct. 16.

Waxman first revealed the details of the meeting in which Militana and Rubendall said they were threatened in a letter he sent yesterday to Krongard and posted on the committee's Web site. "I am appalled by these reports," Waxman wrote. "As an Inspector General, you hold a position of special trust within the federal government. Your office is supposed to be an example of how to protect whistleblowers, not an example of how to persecute them."

He said that the agents originally were cooperating anonymously but that they had decided to go public after the reprisal threats.

Krongard's office issued a statement yesterday saying that "the Office of the Inspector General has cooperated with and will continue to cooperate with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's investigation. Furthermore, the OIG will continue to make any OIG employee available to speak with the committee, if they choose."

Heide, the IG congressional liaison, confirmed in an interview that she had called the meeting with Militana and Rubendall, along with John M. Smith of the IG's legal counsel's office. But "the conversation was not as reported," she said. Waxman "selected certain statements out of context to make a particular case that does not exist. I categorically deny that I was telling them they would be retaliated against."

She said that the agents apparently "did not mention all the parts where I told them they were to tell the truth, they were to fully cooperate, that the Office of the IG and the IG himself was fully cooperating."

No one from the committee had contacted her before the letter was posted online. Waxman, Heide said tearfully, "has hurt somebody. I mean, this is my career." Her job, she said, "is simply to provide information. That's what I was doing."

J. Keith Ausbrook, minority counsel for the committee, also took exception to Waxman's tactics, saying that committee Republicans were "deeply concerned" with the letter. "It seems to us to be an example of shooting first and asking questions later," he said. Ausbrook emphasized that "we don't want to minimize" the seriousness of the alleged threats. "We are concerned about this as well. But we are also concerned about the way the majority has proceeded to deal with it."

The Senate confirmed President Bush's nomination of Krongard, who had no previous State Department experience, in May 2005. He previously worked for an international law firm and had been general counsel for Deloitte & Touche in the mid-1990s. His brother, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, served as the No. 3 CIA official under then-Director George J. Tenet.

Howard Krongard's office, charged with oversight of State Department contracts and operations, has competed with the congressionally appointed Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). He was closely involved in unsuccessful administration efforts to shut down SIGIR's operations when its funding and mandate ran out last year, according to a source closely involved in internal administration discussions of the matter who declined to speak on the record.

State Department contracts in Iraq became a target for Waxman when he became chairman of the oversight committee in January. Krongard's operations have been the subject of several hearings. In a 13-page letter to Krongard on Sept. 18, Waxman charged that the inspector general had "interfered with ongoing investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment."

The letter, which Waxman said was based on allegations by seven current and former members of Krongard's staff, alleged that Krongard had refused to send investigators to Iraq and Afghanistan to investigate $3 billion worth of State Department contracts and had impeded a Justice Department probe into the construction of the embassy in Baghdad. It also included an internal e-mail that indicated Krongard had intervened to stop his office from cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into alleged arms smuggling by Blackwater. In a North Carolina case, two Blackwater employees have pleaded guilty to weapons charges and are cooperating with Justice officials.

On Monday, September 17, 2007, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL) introduced
the "Federal Merit System Reauthorization Act. The Act reauthorizes
the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and the Merit System's Protection
Board (MSPB) for three years. The shorter reauthorization period
will allow Congress to review OSC's and MSPB's implementation of the
new provisions in the Act before being reauthorized for a longer
period of time. The bill has been passed by his Subcommittee.

Additional information about these significant improvements at Office
of Special Counsel are at
http://federalworkforce.oversight.house.gov/ story.asp? ID=1502

A bad remake of “Clash of the Titans” or a rerun of “Dallas?” You choose.
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By Jonathan Lynn
REUTERS
3:43 a.m. September 26, 2007

GENEVA – The European Union said on Wednesday U.S. subsidies for Boeing Co. had caused Airbus billions of dollars of damage in recent years and described the U.S. response to the charges as weak.
The European Union and the United States are embroiled in a row over the multi-billion-dollar large civil aircraft business, with each accusing the other of unfair state aid for their plane builders.

The dispute goes beyond stakes in a market worth about $80 billion a year for big jets and touches on sensitive defence concerns as Boeing and Airbus parent EADS are major defence aerospace suppliers.
Both Washington and Brussels have filed complaints at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which are being considered by a three-person dispute panel.
In the latest panel hearings on Wednesday, the European Union laid out details of U.S. aid for Boeing and dismissed U.S. defence arguments as ineffective or misleading.
In the EU's case against Boeing, the European Union says unfair U.S. subsidies to Boeing over the past two decades and running to 2024 total $23.7 billion.
The United States accuses Europe of granting $205 billion in illegal launch aid, including theoretical interest on the aid, to Airbus, now a fully-owned subsidiary of EADS.
ILLEGAL SUBSIDIES
Each side must prove that the other paid illegal subsidies and that their own industry suffered damage as a result.
'Boeing is relying on a smoke screen of inflated numbers and broad brush accusations,' said Geoff Shuman, Airbus director of European affairs. 'We will produce the cold facts to demonstrate subsidy by subsidy how U.S. subsidies have benefited Boeing and injured Airbus interests,' he told reporters.
Between 2004 and 2006, Boeing received subsidies of roughly $5 billion used to keep down the price of Boeing aircraft and facilitate the early launch of Boeing's superior fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliner, an EU official said. As a result Airbus lost $27 billion in revenue in that period.
But the United States says the EU complaint greatly exaggerates the amounts involved.
'The EU's claims are to distract attention from its own massive subsidies,' Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative, said in a statement.
Airbus says Boeing is exaggerating the amount of launch aid it received.
The EU's charges revolve around two main forms of aid.
It says Boeing received tax breaks from local authorities including a $4 billion package from Washington state. The United States says these tax breaks were available to any business, but the EU said they had been specifically negotiated with Boeing.
The EU also charges that work Boeing did for the U.S. aerospace agency NASA and Defense Department amounted to disguised subsidies worth $16.6 billion.
Washington says this was properly contracted research, and that in any case under U.S. law military technology cannot be used on civil aircraft that can be exported or flown abroad.
But the European Union says some military technology can be used to construct civil aircraft even if it is not part of the finished plane, and research grants were not repaid.
U.S. officials also ask how Airbus can argue it suffered harm from any subsidies, if there were any, as its market share rose to 57 percent in 2005 from 37 percent in 2001.
Airbus's market share slipped to 54 percent last year but U.S. officials say any setbacks it suffered were due to design problems on its A350 and a misplaced decision to promote the mammoth and subsequently delayed double-decker A380.
Sales of the two are now running neck and neck, but Boeing is edging ahead

From Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
9-26-07

Dear

Congress has recently taken great strides toward holding wartime contractors accountable. Last week Senators James Webb (D-VA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a legislative initiative to establish an independent and bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting. POGO sent Senators Webb and McCaskill a letter to offer support for the bill, which would help to alleviate the burden placed on taxpayers due to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of wartime contracts.

The bill is currently at a crucial juncture; we need your help to ensure its passage. Please call or write your Senators today and ask them to support "The Commission on Wartime Contracting Act" (S. 1825) so that wartime contractors can be held to account for their misconduct.

Sincerely,
Danielle Brian
Executive DirectorProject On Government Oversight

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My letter I sent to my Senators this evening:

September 26, 2007

Dear Senator...

I continue to be concerned about the actions of contractors in this country, as I have written to you about previously. That includes those contractors who bid for and are awarded contracts for services and goods for wartime activities that the United States is conducting.

I ask you to support and pass “The Commission on Wartime Contracting Act” (S.1825), introduced by Senators James Webb (VA) and Claire McCaskill (MO). It is important that these contractors may be held accountable for their choices and behaviors.

This bill appears that it would help to alleviate the burden placed on taxpayers due to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of wartime contracts. Anything less than ethical handling of government contract business is unacceptable, and this law, which would establish an independent and bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting, would be a step in the right direction.

Thank you,