More Poison
Another prominent adversary of Vladimir Putin is mysteriously exposed to toxins.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008; Page A18
ON OCT. 7, 2006 -- Vladimir Putin's birthday -- the crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down outside her Moscow apartment. Last week, pretrial hearings were scheduled for three alleged accomplices in the murder; the suspected gunman remains at large, and the sponsors of the hit have never been identified. Ms. Politkovskaya's family was due to be represented at the trial, which is being held in a closed military court, by Karina Moskalenko, a lawyer who has taken up the cause of some of Russia's best-known dissidents and prisoners. But Ms. Moskalenko could not attend. Instead she underwent testing in the French city of Strasbourg after complaining of headaches, nausea and swelling -- and after pellets of the poisonous heavy metal mercury were discovered in her family's car.
Perhaps this was an unfortunate accident; the police in Strasbourg say they are still investigating. But history suggests otherwise. Numerous opponents of Mr. Putin have been killed or gravely sickened by poisoning. They include Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko; dissident former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko; journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin; and Ms. Politkovskaya, who two years before her murder was poisoned while en route to cover the Beslan school takeover by Chechen terrorists.
Mr. Putin surely knows that many in the West regard him as responsible at least for the murder of Mr. Litvinenko, who was attacked in London with a dose of radioactive polonium a few weeks after Ms. Politkovskaya's slaying. Scotland Yard pinned the killing on a Moscow-based former KGB operative, and Mr. Putin's refusal to extradite him -- he was given a seat in the Russian parliament -- caused a nasty diplomatic spat with Britain. So it's chilling to consider that there would be another poisoning of another Putin enemy in another Western European city. Whoever targeted Ms. Moskalenko, her husband and their three children must have counted on the impunity that has prevailed in the previous cases.
Ms. Moskalenko has dedicated herself to the attempt to hold Mr. Putin's regime accountable. She has won 27 cases against it at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and has more than 100 pending. Her clients include the imprisoned former head of the Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and opposition leader Garry Kasparov. Ms. Moskalenko is a formidable opponent and is not easily frightened: She told the Moscow Times that "nothing will prevent me" from appearing at the next hearing of the Politkovskaya case on Nov. 17. Let's hope she's right.
Showing posts with label GW BUSH. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GW BUSH. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
VICE PRESIDENT DICK......
Cheney travels to Georgia, Ukraine next week
Aug 25 09:01 AM US/Eastern
US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit war-torn Georgia as well as Ukraine and Azerbaijan next week and meet with the three countries' presidents, the White House said Monday.
"President Bush has asked the vice president to travel to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy for discussions with these key partners on issues of mutual interest," the White House said in a statement.
Cheney will be the most senior US official to visit the region since Russian troops invaded Georgia two weeks ago amid a dispute over the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
Aug 25 09:01 AM US/Eastern
US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit war-torn Georgia as well as Ukraine and Azerbaijan next week and meet with the three countries' presidents, the White House said Monday.
"President Bush has asked the vice president to travel to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy for discussions with these key partners on issues of mutual interest," the White House said in a statement.
Cheney will be the most senior US official to visit the region since Russian troops invaded Georgia two weeks ago amid a dispute over the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
CNN likes to brag on their coverage.....really?
John McCain Doesn't Know How to Use a Computer (Video)This video appears to be from at least six weeks ago, but no one has really commented on it. Do we want a commander-in-chief who can't use a computer without assistance?
Washington is full of these guys, and it's so depressing. Larry Craig once said "I've never used the internet" (though we know he was lying). Ted Stevens thinks the internet is a series of tubes. Bush uses "the Google." I can't wait until we have a computer-literate generation of leaders in our Capitol.
McCain Computer Illiterate Opinion and Commentaries
The Atlantic: The Information Age (June 24, 2008)
The Caucus (The New York Times): McCain and the Internets (June 24, 2008)
David Corn: Can a Guy (McCain) Who Doesn't Know How To Use a Computer... (June 24, 2008)
Online Media Daily: McCain Camp Downplays E-Factor In Face Of Obama's... (June 24, 2008)
BuzzFlash.org: If you are running for president, you should have a clue.. (June 17, 2008)
The New York Sun: McCain and the Computer (June 17, 2008)
McCain Computer Illiterate Blogs
Google Blog Search: McCain Computer Illiterate
NewsBusters: CNN: Computer Illiterate McCain Too Stupid to be President (June 26, 2008)
The Gun Toting Liberal: Sheriff John McCain Doesn’t Understand “The Internets” (June 25, 2008)
The Talent Show: A Series of Tubes (June 24, 2008)
It's Not Me, It's You: Sad or Hilarious? You Be the Judge ... (June 24, 2008)
Crooks and Liars: “Aware of the Internet,” Computer Non-User McCain Touts... (June 24, 2008)
Gizmodo: Mac vs. PC: The Republicans (February 4, 2008)
Related Searches
John McCain | Computers
Washington is full of these guys, and it's so depressing. Larry Craig once said "I've never used the internet" (though we know he was lying). Ted Stevens thinks the internet is a series of tubes. Bush uses "the Google." I can't wait until we have a computer-literate generation of leaders in our Capitol.
McCain Computer Illiterate Opinion and Commentaries
The Atlantic: The Information Age (June 24, 2008)
The Caucus (The New York Times): McCain and the Internets (June 24, 2008)
David Corn: Can a Guy (McCain) Who Doesn't Know How To Use a Computer... (June 24, 2008)
Online Media Daily: McCain Camp Downplays E-Factor In Face Of Obama's... (June 24, 2008)
BuzzFlash.org: If you are running for president, you should have a clue.. (June 17, 2008)
The New York Sun: McCain and the Computer (June 17, 2008)
McCain Computer Illiterate Blogs
Google Blog Search: McCain Computer Illiterate
NewsBusters: CNN: Computer Illiterate McCain Too Stupid to be President (June 26, 2008)
The Gun Toting Liberal: Sheriff John McCain Doesn’t Understand “The Internets” (June 25, 2008)
The Talent Show: A Series of Tubes (June 24, 2008)
It's Not Me, It's You: Sad or Hilarious? You Be the Judge ... (June 24, 2008)
Crooks and Liars: “Aware of the Internet,” Computer Non-User McCain Touts... (June 24, 2008)
Gizmodo: Mac vs. PC: The Republicans (February 4, 2008)
Related Searches
John McCain | Computers
Thursday, August 28, 2008
NO COMPUTER? BIN LADEN HAS A COMPUTER!!!
The Republican Party and their electorate overlooked GW Bush’s lack of knowledge on most everything for EIGHT YEARS!
I am appalled at the fact that any party in this country’s government would even allow a contender for President to the most powerful country in the World with ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE to use a computer. This just amazing to me!
The fact that the American people would even consider voting for someone that does not know how to use a computer is embarrassing as an American. Osaama Bin Laden knows how to use a computer! Are we that ignorant to elect what is supposed to be our leader?
According to Webster, Leadership is:
Capacity or ability to lead
I do believe that Senator Obama will do, as most great CEO’s have done; hire the BEST people to surround him to make the best decisions to move our country forward into the 21st Millennium.
I was aware of Barack in Illinois, as one of my Senators but was really moved by his speech at the 2004 Convention. I was speaking to my girlfriend in California and expressed my regret that she missed it. (She is from Chicago also) She mentioned she had Time Warner and could replay it. I asked her to tape it for me and I have it in my possession today.
The decision to ask Joe Biden, to be his Vice President, quite capable of being President should something tragic should happen while in office, displays his judgments and ability to make the tough decisions. The fact that pre September 11, 2001 it was not more than 10% or the American People that held passports. We will be led by the best teacher moving forward to EDUCATE the AMERICAN people transitioning to a
GLOBALWORLD is very reassuring as a world traveler myself.
I am appalled at the fact that any party in this country’s government would even allow a contender for President to the most powerful country in the World with ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE to use a computer. This just amazing to me!
The fact that the American people would even consider voting for someone that does not know how to use a computer is embarrassing as an American. Osaama Bin Laden knows how to use a computer! Are we that ignorant to elect what is supposed to be our leader?
According to Webster, Leadership is:
Capacity or ability to lead
I do believe that Senator Obama will do, as most great CEO’s have done; hire the BEST people to surround him to make the best decisions to move our country forward into the 21st Millennium.
I was aware of Barack in Illinois, as one of my Senators but was really moved by his speech at the 2004 Convention. I was speaking to my girlfriend in California and expressed my regret that she missed it. (She is from Chicago also) She mentioned she had Time Warner and could replay it. I asked her to tape it for me and I have it in my possession today.
The decision to ask Joe Biden, to be his Vice President, quite capable of being President should something tragic should happen while in office, displays his judgments and ability to make the tough decisions. The fact that pre September 11, 2001 it was not more than 10% or the American People that held passports. We will be led by the best teacher moving forward to EDUCATE the AMERICAN people transitioning to a
GLOBALWORLD is very reassuring as a world traveler myself.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Jack Cafferty had a question on his BLOG
Jack Cafferty had a question on his BLOG, 8-18-08, and my comments were not accepted?
I wonder why?
August 18, 2008
What are Russia’s intentions when it comes to Georgia?Posted: 04:55 PM ET
Would anyone like to comment on why you think the commnet below was not allowed on his Blog?
8-18-08
How in the world are the people, (Americans) of this country suppose to comment on this? Maybe the American Press should tone it down until they have the FACTS, listen to what the REAL International Reporters are stating and maybe inform the American people of our real interest…ENERGY!
Or maybe we can ask John McCAin’s Foreign policy Advisor//Lobbyist for more informative on Georgia! Maybe he can INFORM and EDUCATE us!
Maybe Russia will attempt to make a point to the US, but also not to be fooled like the American People have been fooled over and over and over by this Administration!
The Russians are by no means behaving as AMERICAN DEMOCRACY does, but HOW DO WE KNOW ANYTHING about the Russians, Soviets and all of their Communistic Cultures?
Really Jack? it is a known fact that we are illiterate with World Geography?
few more thoughts, Russia will cleanse South Ossetia of all Georgians.
Now the news is all about the NEW Missile Defense Treaty in Poland signed during this “Conflict”.
By the way, the Missile Defense this administration had as a goal PRE-9/11~REMEMBER!
The Missile Defense that Poland was having doubts about accepting. The Czechs rejected it, Remember/
I wonder why?
August 18, 2008
What are Russia’s intentions when it comes to Georgia?Posted: 04:55 PM ET
Would anyone like to comment on why you think the commnet below was not allowed on his Blog?
8-18-08
How in the world are the people, (Americans) of this country suppose to comment on this? Maybe the American Press should tone it down until they have the FACTS, listen to what the REAL International Reporters are stating and maybe inform the American people of our real interest…ENERGY!
Or maybe we can ask John McCAin’s Foreign policy Advisor//Lobbyist for more informative on Georgia! Maybe he can INFORM and EDUCATE us!
Maybe Russia will attempt to make a point to the US, but also not to be fooled like the American People have been fooled over and over and over by this Administration!
The Russians are by no means behaving as AMERICAN DEMOCRACY does, but HOW DO WE KNOW ANYTHING about the Russians, Soviets and all of their Communistic Cultures?
Really Jack? it is a known fact that we are illiterate with World Geography?
few more thoughts, Russia will cleanse South Ossetia of all Georgians.
Now the news is all about the NEW Missile Defense Treaty in Poland signed during this “Conflict”.
By the way, the Missile Defense this administration had as a goal PRE-9/11~REMEMBER!
The Missile Defense that Poland was having doubts about accepting. The Czechs rejected it, Remember/
Saturday, August 9, 2008
DHHS......OMG!! Leavitt comes from largest family owned INSURANCE BROKERAGE in UTAH!
Feds Combating Rampant Health Care Fraud and Abuse
www.huntingtonnews.net
The Department of Justice, in cooperation with the Department of Health and Human Services, has guided the enforcement efforts of the national Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC) since its inception in 1997.
The program was designed to coordinate federal, state and local law enforcement on cases of health care fraud and abuse as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In 2008, the Department's efforts to investigate and prosecute the individuals and companies who commit health care fraud are as strong as ever, thanks in large part to the Department's many components working closely with partners at the Department of Health and Human Services, and state and local law enforcement.
www.huntingtonnews.net
The Department of Justice, in cooperation with the Department of Health and Human Services, has guided the enforcement efforts of the national Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program (HCFAC) since its inception in 1997.
The program was designed to coordinate federal, state and local law enforcement on cases of health care fraud and abuse as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In 2008, the Department's efforts to investigate and prosecute the individuals and companies who commit health care fraud are as strong as ever, thanks in large part to the Department's many components working closely with partners at the Department of Health and Human Services, and state and local law enforcement.
Add forgery to the list of Bush's crimes
Add forgery to the list of Bush's crimes
Yet another smoking gun that points the way to impeachment
Suskind explains the plot:
"In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD — as Habbush had foretold — the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a “small team from the al Qaeda organization.”
"The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conducting disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil."
John W. Dean, who served as Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel, drew the connection on MSNBC between the new allegations and those that brought down Richard Nixon in 1974 just weeks after the House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Articles of Impeachment.
John W. Dean being interviewed by Keith Olberman stated:
"I don‘t think people are looking at it too narrowly or Suskind is when I read his book. What happens when you tie that with a criminal conspiracy statute, 18 USC 371, which nailed countless people in Watergate for misusing the agencies and departments of government—that‘s where they‘ve got a problem.
"That‘s where Nixon had a problem for telling the CIA to block the FBI for part of the Watergate investigation. Yes, it was obstruction but it was also defrauding the government. This is their real problem with that statute. ... "
Yet another smoking gun that points the way to impeachment
Suskind explains the plot:
"In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD — as Habbush had foretold — the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a “small team from the al Qaeda organization.”
"The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conducting disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil."
John W. Dean, who served as Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel, drew the connection on MSNBC between the new allegations and those that brought down Richard Nixon in 1974 just weeks after the House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of Articles of Impeachment.
John W. Dean being interviewed by Keith Olberman stated:
"I don‘t think people are looking at it too narrowly or Suskind is when I read his book. What happens when you tie that with a criminal conspiracy statute, 18 USC 371, which nailed countless people in Watergate for misusing the agencies and departments of government—that‘s where they‘ve got a problem.
"That‘s where Nixon had a problem for telling the CIA to block the FBI for part of the Watergate investigation. Yes, it was obstruction but it was also defrauding the government. This is their real problem with that statute. ... "
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
DRILL, DRILL , DRILL....Is that all we can think of?
With a President with the intelligence capacity , I guess that is all we KNOW!
OIL!!!!
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!
Does T Boone Pickens have any credibility with any real thinkers?
"But Pickens knows he’s unique. Unless, he says, “Congress adopts clear, predictable policies” — with long-term tax incentives and infrastructure — so thousands of investors can jump into clean power, we’ll never get the scale we need to break our addiction. For a year, Senate Republicans have been blocking such incentives for wind and solar energy. They vote again next week.
If only we had a Congress and president who, instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve, just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question: “What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you?” Then just do it, and get out of the way. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
OIL!!!!
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!
Does T Boone Pickens have any credibility with any real thinkers?
"But Pickens knows he’s unique. Unless, he says, “Congress adopts clear, predictable policies” — with long-term tax incentives and infrastructure — so thousands of investors can jump into clean power, we’ll never get the scale we need to break our addiction. For a year, Senate Republicans have been blocking such incentives for wind and solar energy. They vote again next week.
If only we had a Congress and president who, instead of chasing crazy schemes like offshore drilling and releasing oil from our strategic reserve, just sat down with Boone and Shai and asked one question: “What laws do we need to enact to foster 1,000 more like you?” Then just do it, and get out of the way. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27friedman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Friday, January 18, 2008
Sovereign Deed , Richard Rainwater....BUSH!!! Oh yea!
Romney, Clinton take Michigan's presidential primary
Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
by: Eartha Jane Melzer
Thursday (01/17) at 12:07 PM
Contractor made millions claiming Army stripes
In December 2003, the founders of Triple Canopy, a private security firm in Baghdad, caught their first big break, signing a contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq. Within four months, Triple Canopy had signed six contracts worth more than $28 million to guard U.S. facilities throughout Iraq.
For the military veterans who founded the company and Barrett H. Moore, who was then Triple Canopy's chief executive officer, these agreements launched the company on the path to what it is today: one of the leading private military contractors, sharing a $1 billion contract with Blackwater USA and DynCorp to guard U.S. personnel in the Middle East.
Moore, 43, a Chicago businessman, now presents himself as a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and business "visionary" who revolutionized the private security market but an Army spokesman said Moore was never an officer and never had intelligence training. Moore, fired by Triple Canopy in 2004, has launched a new private security firm called Sovereign Deed. He has parlayed his Triple Canopy success into political influence, persuading Republican and Democratic state officials to rewrite state law so that Sovereign Deed can receive $10 million in tax abatements and other incentives to establish a "national response center" for its private disaster relief business in northern Michigan.
Continued -
Eartha Jane Melzer :: Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
In promoting Sovereign Deed, Moore has emphasized the military expertise of himself and the company's top officials. On the company's Web site, Moore states that he "served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction (WMD)."
What Moore's Pentagon patrons and political allies in Michigan have not known is the true story of Moore's military service. According to U.S. Army record keepers, Moore never completed his Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in college and was discharged from an inactive branch of the Reserves in 1994 without ever having gone through basic training. Contrary to the claims on Sovereign Deed's Web site, Moore never served as an Army intelligence officer, or in any other branch of the country's armed forces.
Moore's brushes with law enforcement also escape detection. He was convicted of three counts of criminal fraud in Australia in 1992 and served time in prison, according to court records there. An appeals court later reversed Moore's conviction. But in a related criminal trial, Moore acknowledged participating in an "illegal enterprise" to smuggle cars from Chicago to Melbourne and admitted fabricating documents as part of the operation.
Moore did not return phone calls requesting comment.
Moore's story is another chapter in the remarkable emergence of private military contractors (PMCs) since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Caught shorthanded after the U.S. invasion in 2003, American authorities scrambled to find protection for U.S. facilities and personnel with few procedures for vetting the contractors' background or controlling their activities. As PMCs like Triple Canopy and Blackwater USA grew, their armed employees became embroiled in unprovoked shooting incidents and the killing of Iraqi civilians, and Congress and the State Department launched investigations that are still ongoing.
As the Barrett Moore story illustrates, the rise of the PMCs came at the expense of accountability. When Michigan Messenger reconstructed his career, the returning war zone entrepreneur who boasted to Michigan residents and politicians of an Army Intelligence career turns out to have more experience as a used car salesman.
Selling Military Expertise
According to interviews and public records, Barrett Holloway Moore, 43, is a creative businessman whose audacious style has won admirers and alienated former business partners.
In 1995, he made headlines in Chicago when he successfully proposed marriage to lawyer Mary Szews by hiring a helicopter to wave a banner outside the window of her office on the 73rd story of the Sears Tower. Last year, Moore registered more trademarks with government on behalf of Sovereign Deed than all but five U.S. corporations.
Moore has been sued for fraud three times since 2005, according to court records. One of the lawsuits has been settled, one went to arbitration with unknown results, and a third is still pending in Illinois state court.
Moore and his associates at Sovereign Deed have emphasized military experience as a key feature of the company. The firm's spokesman in northern Michigan is retired Brigadier General Richard Mills, a former deputy commanding general for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
In community meetings about Sovereign Deed's plans in November, Mills received hearty applause when he was introduced as a 30-year military veteran. He said he was proud to associate with veterans whom he called "the most magnificent of people."
In a phone interview Mills said that Moore was among the people who brought military experience to Sovereign Deed, adding he knew people who had served with him. He declined to provide any names.
But a spokesman for the National Personnel Records Service in St. Louis, which maintains records on all armed service personnel, said the NPRS has no record of Moore's service. Another search by the Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., determined that Moore never completed his college ROTC training at DePauw University in Indiana in 1985-86, had never gone into basic training or been on active duty or had intelligence responsibilities.
In response to questions from Michigan Messenger, a Sovereign Deed official stressed the accusation, if true, was quite serious.
"Stating that one has falsified military service goes to the very core of pride, honor, and integrity of those who have served," wrote Glenn Collins, the chief operating officer of Sovereign Deed, in an email.
Collins provided three documents that he said supported Moore's claims to have served in U.S. Army Intelligence.
The first document Sovereign Deed provided was a letter, dated Sept. 11, 1985, from Col. Nicholas Fritsch who served as the lieutenant commander of the 476th Military Intelligence Detachment in Indianapolis. As a member of ROTC, Moore served in the unit under Fritsch's command.
"Cadet Moore is one of the most impressive service members with whom I have served throughout my career," Fritsch wrote in recommending Moore for commission as a military intelligence officer." "…[He] has shown the personal traits and skills of a natural leader."
In a telephone interview with Michigan Messenger, Fritsch, now retired and living in Florida, recalled Moore as "a high school all-star type, … good looking, … smart, possibly athletic, a person of tremendous capability."
Fritsch said that Moore's claim of Army intelligence service was "making a mountain out of a mole hill."
"At the level of Moore's service he would have no first-line connection to high-ranking intelligence," Fritsch said. He added that he thought public boasting about intelligence work was inappropriate because it could compromise security.
The second document provided by Sovereign Deed was a May 1986 letter notifying Moore of his transfer to a U.S. Army Reserve unit until his expected graduation later in the year. The third document was an honorable discharge certificate dated April 21, 1994. Moore's rank at the time of discharge was blacked out on the copy of the document provided by Sovereign Deed.
The records confirm that Moore participated in the ROTC program as an undergraduate but provide no evidence of active duty intelligence work. Collins did not respond to a request to share additional records.
Moore's intelligence work is not part of the public record, Collins stated in his e-mail. "Mr. Moore worked for various agencies during his military service such that his records are kept outside of the NPRS," he wrote.
"I hear that all the time," replied Master Sergeant Keith O'Donnell, a spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command. O'Donnell said he checked the Army's classified holdings and protected data bases that log the educational records of enlisted and commissioned personnel. Moore's record shows none of the training that would be required of an Army Intelligence officer, he said.
O'Donnell pointed out that service personnel are retired at their highest rank, and Moore was discharged from the Reserves as a grade of Sergeant (E5), meaning he was never an officer.
"He never went anywhere with a military career," O'Donnell said.
'A tissue of lies and deception'
Moore did not go into the military after graduating from college, according to fraternity brothers and former business associates. They say Moore moved to Australia after graduation from DePauw in December 1986. By March 1988 he was working as an equity options trader at a bank in Sydney and moonlighting for a company called Eurotek that imported and resold used cars.
Court records show that the Australian customs service raided Eurotek's office in May 1989, seizing five cars and documents that showed Moore had kept two sets of records, one of which systematically undervalued the imported cars.
In February 1992 Moore was indicted and convicted of deceptively obtaining over $300,000 in connection with the used car business, according to court records (PDF). He was sentenced to a 16-month prison term. He was released after serving a portion of his sentence. In 1993 he testified against his former Eurotek associate in a related criminal trial in Sydney.
The judge in the second case described Moore as a key figure in the enterprise, which procured used Rolls Royces and Porsches in the Chicago area and shipped them to Australia with fraudulent documentation of their value. The cars were then resold at a profit. While accepting some of Moore's testimony, Judge J. Byrne said Moore was "a man who had so enshrouded himself in a tissue of lies and deception as to be a witness whose credit is of little value."
Byrne ruled that Moore's associate, an Indonesian man named Hiran Jayakody, was "the moving spirit" behind Eurtotek. Jayakody was ordered to pay a fine of approximately $1 million. At the date of Moore's discharge from the U.S. Army Reserves in April 1994, he was still fighting legal charges in Australia.
In December 1994, Moore's 1992 conviction was reversed. Though Moore had admitted that he acted to defraud Australian customs agency, the Eurotek trial raised doubts about the evidence used to convict him and his conviction was struck from the record.
In 1995, Moore enrolled in the University of Chicago business school. He received his master's of business administration in 1997, according to school records. A year later he filed for bankruptcy in Chicago, declaring that he was $2.7 million in debt and his two companies, Advanced Mittworks, Inc. and Knight International, were insolvent.
In a biography submitted last year to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in support of his bid for state tax incentives, Moore stated that Knight International included two companies and that "each was sold upon reaching revenue in the $50M range."
'Best Business Practices'
Moore was operating a software company in Chicago in the summer of 2002 when he first made contact with the men behind Triple Canopy. According to a court filing submitted by Moore's attorneys in the pending Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore entered e-mail discussions with Matthew Mann, a former Delta Force veteran, about establishing a private security firm. Mann is listed on the Triple Canopy Web site as a co-founder of the company with a Special Forces veteran named Tom Fortis. Mann and Fortis declined to be interviewed for this article.
The company was founded in Chicago in 2003, according to its Web site. Moore was involved with the company by July 2003 when he applied to register trademarks for "Triple Canopy Group" and 90 other related names with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
After Triple Canopy started winning contracts in Iraq in late 2003, Moore presented himself as a leader in the burgeoning industry of private military contractors. In February 2004, he represented the company at a $995-a-seat business forum held at the National Press Club in Washington. He recommended that firms looking to do business in Iraq should find a local partner.
"You are in a position to mentor them and help them with perhaps best business practices from your country or your world, and at the same time, you're in a position to try to offer a series of services or products that don't exist in Iraq," Moore said.
In March 2004, Moore donated $2,000 to George Bush's re-election committee and identified himself as the CEO of Triple Canopy, according to federal election records.
Less than a month later, he was fired by Triple Canopy's board of directors. In a lawsuit filed in May 2004, the company charged him with fraud, with raiding the company treasury for his own profit, and seizing control of the company's Web addresses and communications infrastructure as a bargaining chip in negotiations of a severance package.
Moore denied the charges, saying he used company funds for business expenses with the knowledge of his colleagues. The lawsuit was settled out of court in September 2005. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but according to bank records filed in the Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore received a $6 million payment in March 2006 identified as "Triple Canopy settlement."
Why did Moore's legal problems in Australia, his bankruptcy and his apparent misrepresentation of his military background not surface when it came to gaining millions of dollars in security contracts with the U.S. government?
One reason, according to the Office of Defense Trade Controls (ODTC), is that officers of companies applying for Iraq contracts need only swear that they have not been convicted of violations of the U.S. defense export laws.
"We might want to look at changing that," said Dave Trimble, chief of ODTC's compliance and registration division. "We have broad authority to take any derogatory information into account."
Where the PMC industry is going
Moore's latest venture in northern Michigan has won official support while stirring local opposition.
Moore's colleagues say he is eager to commercialize the market for privatized disaster response. Rick Johnson, the former speaker of the Michigan Legislature who now serves as Sovereign Deed's lobbyist, said Moore is "taking the industry where it needs to go next."
A community group calling itself We Don't Need Sovereign Deed says the company's claims of economic benefits are unsupported and that the idea of privatizing disaster response is undemocratic.
Moore's proposal to establish an operational center in the town of Pellston has been endorsed by a bipartisan cast of state officials. Earlier this year, Democratic state Sen. Gary MacDowell and Republican state Sen. Jason Allen drafted a bill to grant tax abatements to encourage Sovereign Deed to locate on 700 acres of municipal property adjacent to an airport. The state Legislature unanimously approved the bill, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Opponents have asked questions about a proposed long-term lease of 700 acres of municipal property and the construction of a hangar to accommodate army cargo planes in Sovereign Deed operations. Elected officials in Pellston have declined to answer the questions, citing confidentiality agreements with the firm.
"Moore's smart," said resident Tim Boyko. "He set it up so people cannot question, and it's like these local officials' brains short out when they get around retired generals and homeland security-type people."
Credit: Photo of Barrett H. Moore courtesy of DePauw University archives.
Catch the rest of Michigan Messenger's coverage of Sovereign Deed at this link.
Tags: Sovereign Deed, Jason Allen, security, privatization of disaster response, private security company, MI Disaster Capitalism, (All Tags)
Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
by: Eartha Jane Melzer
Thursday (01/17) at 12:07 PM
Contractor made millions claiming Army stripes
In December 2003, the founders of Triple Canopy, a private security firm in Baghdad, caught their first big break, signing a contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq. Within four months, Triple Canopy had signed six contracts worth more than $28 million to guard U.S. facilities throughout Iraq.
For the military veterans who founded the company and Barrett H. Moore, who was then Triple Canopy's chief executive officer, these agreements launched the company on the path to what it is today: one of the leading private military contractors, sharing a $1 billion contract with Blackwater USA and DynCorp to guard U.S. personnel in the Middle East.
Moore, 43, a Chicago businessman, now presents himself as a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and business "visionary" who revolutionized the private security market but an Army spokesman said Moore was never an officer and never had intelligence training. Moore, fired by Triple Canopy in 2004, has launched a new private security firm called Sovereign Deed. He has parlayed his Triple Canopy success into political influence, persuading Republican and Democratic state officials to rewrite state law so that Sovereign Deed can receive $10 million in tax abatements and other incentives to establish a "national response center" for its private disaster relief business in northern Michigan.
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Eartha Jane Melzer :: Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
In promoting Sovereign Deed, Moore has emphasized the military expertise of himself and the company's top officials. On the company's Web site, Moore states that he "served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction (WMD)."
What Moore's Pentagon patrons and political allies in Michigan have not known is the true story of Moore's military service. According to U.S. Army record keepers, Moore never completed his Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in college and was discharged from an inactive branch of the Reserves in 1994 without ever having gone through basic training. Contrary to the claims on Sovereign Deed's Web site, Moore never served as an Army intelligence officer, or in any other branch of the country's armed forces.
Moore's brushes with law enforcement also escape detection. He was convicted of three counts of criminal fraud in Australia in 1992 and served time in prison, according to court records there. An appeals court later reversed Moore's conviction. But in a related criminal trial, Moore acknowledged participating in an "illegal enterprise" to smuggle cars from Chicago to Melbourne and admitted fabricating documents as part of the operation.
Moore did not return phone calls requesting comment.
Moore's story is another chapter in the remarkable emergence of private military contractors (PMCs) since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Caught shorthanded after the U.S. invasion in 2003, American authorities scrambled to find protection for U.S. facilities and personnel with few procedures for vetting the contractors' background or controlling their activities. As PMCs like Triple Canopy and Blackwater USA grew, their armed employees became embroiled in unprovoked shooting incidents and the killing of Iraqi civilians, and Congress and the State Department launched investigations that are still ongoing.
As the Barrett Moore story illustrates, the rise of the PMCs came at the expense of accountability. When Michigan Messenger reconstructed his career, the returning war zone entrepreneur who boasted to Michigan residents and politicians of an Army Intelligence career turns out to have more experience as a used car salesman.
Selling Military Expertise
According to interviews and public records, Barrett Holloway Moore, 43, is a creative businessman whose audacious style has won admirers and alienated former business partners.
In 1995, he made headlines in Chicago when he successfully proposed marriage to lawyer Mary Szews by hiring a helicopter to wave a banner outside the window of her office on the 73rd story of the Sears Tower. Last year, Moore registered more trademarks with government on behalf of Sovereign Deed than all but five U.S. corporations.
Moore has been sued for fraud three times since 2005, according to court records. One of the lawsuits has been settled, one went to arbitration with unknown results, and a third is still pending in Illinois state court.
Moore and his associates at Sovereign Deed have emphasized military experience as a key feature of the company. The firm's spokesman in northern Michigan is retired Brigadier General Richard Mills, a former deputy commanding general for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
In community meetings about Sovereign Deed's plans in November, Mills received hearty applause when he was introduced as a 30-year military veteran. He said he was proud to associate with veterans whom he called "the most magnificent of people."
In a phone interview Mills said that Moore was among the people who brought military experience to Sovereign Deed, adding he knew people who had served with him. He declined to provide any names.
But a spokesman for the National Personnel Records Service in St. Louis, which maintains records on all armed service personnel, said the NPRS has no record of Moore's service. Another search by the Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., determined that Moore never completed his college ROTC training at DePauw University in Indiana in 1985-86, had never gone into basic training or been on active duty or had intelligence responsibilities.
In response to questions from Michigan Messenger, a Sovereign Deed official stressed the accusation, if true, was quite serious.
"Stating that one has falsified military service goes to the very core of pride, honor, and integrity of those who have served," wrote Glenn Collins, the chief operating officer of Sovereign Deed, in an email.
Collins provided three documents that he said supported Moore's claims to have served in U.S. Army Intelligence.
The first document Sovereign Deed provided was a letter, dated Sept. 11, 1985, from Col. Nicholas Fritsch who served as the lieutenant commander of the 476th Military Intelligence Detachment in Indianapolis. As a member of ROTC, Moore served in the unit under Fritsch's command.
"Cadet Moore is one of the most impressive service members with whom I have served throughout my career," Fritsch wrote in recommending Moore for commission as a military intelligence officer." "…[He] has shown the personal traits and skills of a natural leader."
In a telephone interview with Michigan Messenger, Fritsch, now retired and living in Florida, recalled Moore as "a high school all-star type, … good looking, … smart, possibly athletic, a person of tremendous capability."
Fritsch said that Moore's claim of Army intelligence service was "making a mountain out of a mole hill."
"At the level of Moore's service he would have no first-line connection to high-ranking intelligence," Fritsch said. He added that he thought public boasting about intelligence work was inappropriate because it could compromise security.
The second document provided by Sovereign Deed was a May 1986 letter notifying Moore of his transfer to a U.S. Army Reserve unit until his expected graduation later in the year. The third document was an honorable discharge certificate dated April 21, 1994. Moore's rank at the time of discharge was blacked out on the copy of the document provided by Sovereign Deed.
The records confirm that Moore participated in the ROTC program as an undergraduate but provide no evidence of active duty intelligence work. Collins did not respond to a request to share additional records.
Moore's intelligence work is not part of the public record, Collins stated in his e-mail. "Mr. Moore worked for various agencies during his military service such that his records are kept outside of the NPRS," he wrote.
"I hear that all the time," replied Master Sergeant Keith O'Donnell, a spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command. O'Donnell said he checked the Army's classified holdings and protected data bases that log the educational records of enlisted and commissioned personnel. Moore's record shows none of the training that would be required of an Army Intelligence officer, he said.
O'Donnell pointed out that service personnel are retired at their highest rank, and Moore was discharged from the Reserves as a grade of Sergeant (E5), meaning he was never an officer.
"He never went anywhere with a military career," O'Donnell said.
'A tissue of lies and deception'
Moore did not go into the military after graduating from college, according to fraternity brothers and former business associates. They say Moore moved to Australia after graduation from DePauw in December 1986. By March 1988 he was working as an equity options trader at a bank in Sydney and moonlighting for a company called Eurotek that imported and resold used cars.
Court records show that the Australian customs service raided Eurotek's office in May 1989, seizing five cars and documents that showed Moore had kept two sets of records, one of which systematically undervalued the imported cars.
In February 1992 Moore was indicted and convicted of deceptively obtaining over $300,000 in connection with the used car business, according to court records (PDF). He was sentenced to a 16-month prison term. He was released after serving a portion of his sentence. In 1993 he testified against his former Eurotek associate in a related criminal trial in Sydney.
The judge in the second case described Moore as a key figure in the enterprise, which procured used Rolls Royces and Porsches in the Chicago area and shipped them to Australia with fraudulent documentation of their value. The cars were then resold at a profit. While accepting some of Moore's testimony, Judge J. Byrne said Moore was "a man who had so enshrouded himself in a tissue of lies and deception as to be a witness whose credit is of little value."
Byrne ruled that Moore's associate, an Indonesian man named Hiran Jayakody, was "the moving spirit" behind Eurtotek. Jayakody was ordered to pay a fine of approximately $1 million. At the date of Moore's discharge from the U.S. Army Reserves in April 1994, he was still fighting legal charges in Australia.
In December 1994, Moore's 1992 conviction was reversed. Though Moore had admitted that he acted to defraud Australian customs agency, the Eurotek trial raised doubts about the evidence used to convict him and his conviction was struck from the record.
In 1995, Moore enrolled in the University of Chicago business school. He received his master's of business administration in 1997, according to school records. A year later he filed for bankruptcy in Chicago, declaring that he was $2.7 million in debt and his two companies, Advanced Mittworks, Inc. and Knight International, were insolvent.
In a biography submitted last year to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in support of his bid for state tax incentives, Moore stated that Knight International included two companies and that "each was sold upon reaching revenue in the $50M range."
'Best Business Practices'
Moore was operating a software company in Chicago in the summer of 2002 when he first made contact with the men behind Triple Canopy. According to a court filing submitted by Moore's attorneys in the pending Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore entered e-mail discussions with Matthew Mann, a former Delta Force veteran, about establishing a private security firm. Mann is listed on the Triple Canopy Web site as a co-founder of the company with a Special Forces veteran named Tom Fortis. Mann and Fortis declined to be interviewed for this article.
The company was founded in Chicago in 2003, according to its Web site. Moore was involved with the company by July 2003 when he applied to register trademarks for "Triple Canopy Group" and 90 other related names with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
After Triple Canopy started winning contracts in Iraq in late 2003, Moore presented himself as a leader in the burgeoning industry of private military contractors. In February 2004, he represented the company at a $995-a-seat business forum held at the National Press Club in Washington. He recommended that firms looking to do business in Iraq should find a local partner.
"You are in a position to mentor them and help them with perhaps best business practices from your country or your world, and at the same time, you're in a position to try to offer a series of services or products that don't exist in Iraq," Moore said.
In March 2004, Moore donated $2,000 to George Bush's re-election committee and identified himself as the CEO of Triple Canopy, according to federal election records.
Less than a month later, he was fired by Triple Canopy's board of directors. In a lawsuit filed in May 2004, the company charged him with fraud, with raiding the company treasury for his own profit, and seizing control of the company's Web addresses and communications infrastructure as a bargaining chip in negotiations of a severance package.
Moore denied the charges, saying he used company funds for business expenses with the knowledge of his colleagues. The lawsuit was settled out of court in September 2005. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but according to bank records filed in the Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore received a $6 million payment in March 2006 identified as "Triple Canopy settlement."
Why did Moore's legal problems in Australia, his bankruptcy and his apparent misrepresentation of his military background not surface when it came to gaining millions of dollars in security contracts with the U.S. government?
One reason, according to the Office of Defense Trade Controls (ODTC), is that officers of companies applying for Iraq contracts need only swear that they have not been convicted of violations of the U.S. defense export laws.
"We might want to look at changing that," said Dave Trimble, chief of ODTC's compliance and registration division. "We have broad authority to take any derogatory information into account."
Where the PMC industry is going
Moore's latest venture in northern Michigan has won official support while stirring local opposition.
Moore's colleagues say he is eager to commercialize the market for privatized disaster response. Rick Johnson, the former speaker of the Michigan Legislature who now serves as Sovereign Deed's lobbyist, said Moore is "taking the industry where it needs to go next."
A community group calling itself We Don't Need Sovereign Deed says the company's claims of economic benefits are unsupported and that the idea of privatizing disaster response is undemocratic.
Moore's proposal to establish an operational center in the town of Pellston has been endorsed by a bipartisan cast of state officials. Earlier this year, Democratic state Sen. Gary MacDowell and Republican state Sen. Jason Allen drafted a bill to grant tax abatements to encourage Sovereign Deed to locate on 700 acres of municipal property adjacent to an airport. The state Legislature unanimously approved the bill, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Opponents have asked questions about a proposed long-term lease of 700 acres of municipal property and the construction of a hangar to accommodate army cargo planes in Sovereign Deed operations. Elected officials in Pellston have declined to answer the questions, citing confidentiality agreements with the firm.
"Moore's smart," said resident Tim Boyko. "He set it up so people cannot question, and it's like these local officials' brains short out when they get around retired generals and homeland security-type people."
Credit: Photo of Barrett H. Moore courtesy of DePauw University archives.
Catch the rest of Michigan Messenger's coverage of Sovereign Deed at this link.
Tags: Sovereign Deed, Jason Allen, security, privatization of disaster response, private security company, MI Disaster Capitalism, (All Tags)
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