Nikolas Kozloff

To read the article, click here.

When you consider John McCain’s ties to Big Oil, the GOP candidate’s claim to be a political maverick confronting special interests is nothing short of absurd.

Just last week the Arizona Senator took valuable time out of his presidential campaign to travel personally to Colombia. Catching a fast ride on a Colombian drug interdiction boat in the Bay of Cartagena, McCain praised the government for prosecuting the drug war and making “substantial and positive” progress on human rights. Contrasting himself to his presidential opponent Barack Obama, McCain expressed support for a pending free trade deal with the South American country.

But as the Huffington Post has noted, “his [McCain’s] position as an independent arbitrator on Colombia – a country often criticized for its labor and human rights practices – is undermined by a bevy of advisers who have earned large amounts either lobbying for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, or representing corporations that do business with that country.”

To get a sense of the scope of McCain’s conflict of interest on Colombia one need look no farther than Charlie Black, a Senior Adviser to the Arizona Senator. A successful 60-year-old Washington lobbyist, Black is a notorious figure within the GOP. Over the course of his career he has gained a reputation as a ruthless operator possessed of a merciless instinct for exposing an opponent’s flaws.

Black’s Washington, D.C. public relations firm BKSH has developed a reputation for taking on foreign clients who display scant regard for human rights. In 1998, Black agreed to represent Occidental Petroleum (or OXY), an energy company based in Bakersfield, California. At the time, the GOP spin master was surely aware of Occidental’s sordid past. In Colombia, the company had already acquired a reputation for its brutal policies undermining human rights.

While the liberal blogosphere was sent into a tizzy about McCain’s conflict of interest in Colombia and ties to Big Oil, it’s not the first time that Washington policymakers have been caught up in the nefarious Occidental web. Indeed, both Democrats and Republicans have been equally corrupted by their ties to the California energy company and have gone to great lengths to preserve Colombia’s investment climate, even if this means promoting unrelenting militarization in the Andes.

Gore Sr. and Al Jr.: Drinking at the Occidental Trough

Traditionally a Republican firm, Occidental was linked to the Democrats for many years primarily through Gore’s father, Senator Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee. The elder Gore was such a loyal political ally that Occidental’s founder and longtime chief executive, Armand Hammer, liked to brag that he had Gore "in my back pocket."

In public, Hammer long cultivated an image of being a generous patron of the arts and a champion of peace during the Cold War. But Hammer was also a consummate Washington insider and, according to the Wall Street Journal, “an influence peddler of the highest magnitude, [who] trafficked in politicians of all parties and stripes.”

When Gore Sr. finally left the Senate in 1970, Hammer rewarded the former Tennessee Senator for his political loyalty by providing him with a $500,000-a-year job at an Occidental subsidiary and a seat on the company’s board of directors. But Hammer, always the equal opportunity influence peddler, had one of his operatives try to buy off the Republicans as well. In 1972, Occidental gave $54,000 in illegal donations towards Nixon’s reelection campaign.

In exchange for Occidental’s financial largesse, Gore Sr. helped Hammer fend off the FBI for a time. Ultimately however Hammer was hauled before a Senate committee where he lied about the money. Unfortunately for Occidental, Hammer’s underlings crumbled under questioning. In 1975, Hammer pleaded guilty to three counts of making illegal campaign contributions. The oilman spent the rest of his life campaigning for a pardon, which Bush Sr. granted in 1989.

When he died in 1998, Gore Sr.’s estate included hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Occidental stock. Gore Jr. later became the executor of the estate, which included stock valued at between $500,000 and $1 million. Neil Lyndon, who worked on Hammer’s personal staff and ghosted his memoirs, Witness to History, has remarked that his boss was as cozy with Gore Jr. as he was with Gore Sr. When he traveled to Washington, Hammer regularly met Gore for lunch or dinner. "They would often eat together in the company of Occidental’s Washington lobbyists and fixers who, on Hammer’s behest, hosed tens of millions of dollars in bribes and favors into the political world," Lyndon wrote. The former Hammer aide added that Gore and his wife Tipper attended Hammer’s lavish parties. "Separately and together, the Gores sometimes used Hammer’s luxurious private Boeing 727 for journeys and jaunts," he noted.

Up to the very end of his life in December, 1990 Hammer was generous towards the younger Gore. Former Senator Paul Simon of Illinois wrote in a 1989 book that Hammer promised him ”any cabinet spot I wanted” to withdraw from the 1988 Democratic presidential primary race and support Gore’s presidential candidacy. Gore failed to attain the White House, but two years later Occidental was one of the largest contributors to the Tennessean’s successful bid for Senate re-election.

Even after Hammer vanished from the scene, the back-scratching between Occidental and Gore continued. Overseeing Occidental operations after Hammer’s death was Ray Irani, in many ways as cynical and Machiavellian an operator as his predecessor. One of the campaign contributors who slept in Bill Clinton’s infamous Lincoln bedroom, Irani later greased the Vice President’s palm. In response to an illegal call made by Gore from the White House itself, the oil man gave $50,000 in soft money to the Democrats [in total, Occidental donated nearly half a million dollars in soft money to Democratic committees and causes between 1992 and 2000].

Gore Goes to Bat for Occidental

Just like his Dad, Gore Jr. saw fit to serve and promote his corporate benefactors. In late 1997 the Vice President supported the federal government’s three and a half billion dollar sale of the Elk Hills oil field in Bakersfield, California to Occidental Petroleum. The area was known as an ancestral land for the Kitanemuk people (better known by the name the Spanish gave them, the Tejon). The Indians had been forced off Elk Hills by treaties signed with the federal government in 1851 during the midst of the gold rush and since then had lived on nearby Fort Tejon reservation or "Tejon Ranch."

The sale of Elk Hills was the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history. Though the government had long sought to sell the property, such efforts had come to nothing: two prior Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, had attempted to put Elk Hills on the auction block but were forced to back down in the face of fierce opposition.

Records show that federal agencies had concerns about the sale. The Environmental Protection Agency complained to the Energy Department that the E.P.A. had insufficient information to evaluate the impact of the sale. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service questioned the impact of developing the oil field on several endangered species within the 47,000 acre property.

Nevertheless, the Elk Hills sale was quickly approved. "I can’t say that I’ve ever seen an environmental assessment prepared so quickly," said Peter Eisner, Director of the Washington-D.C. public advocacy group Center for Public Integrity. After the sale, Eisner and his associates raised questions about the extent of Gore’s role in the transaction.

“What did Vice President Al Gore — who has deep personal and financial ties to Occidental Petroleum — know and when did he know it about the sale of the Elk Hills oil reserve to that company?” the Center asked just before the 2000 presidential election. “Gore has never been willing to talk to us— or, apparently, anyone else — about it. The Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the White House, so his appointment calendar, phone logs and private memoranda are all unavailable. And for nearly a year, the Department of Energy has stonewalled our requests for information on the Elk Hills bidding process. Since when is the bidding process for the unprecedented, multibillion-dollar sale of public land secret? That is, simply stated, outrageous and unacceptable.”

At long last Energy Department officials provided some records but declined to release the bid documents. Such information, officials claimed, had to remain confidential. Meanwhile, Elk Hills represented a huge boon to Occidental, with the oil company’s U.S. oil reserves tripling as a result of the purchase.

Occidental Heads South

But Occidental had already set its sights on other lucrative deals. Having secured the valuable California property on Native American land, the oil company headed to South America. Under an agreement with the Colombian government, Oxy acquired the right to explore for oil in the Andean country’s northeast.

Unfortunately, in granting Oxy its exploration permit, the government ignored a constitutional requirement that native peoples within the area be consulted first. Oxy quickly became embroiled in conflict with the U’wa Indians, whose territory was nestled in the misty forests of northeast Colombia near the border with Venezuela.

Even worse, as company geologists and engineers moved in to build roads through the Indians’ reservation, so too did the Colombian army, which installed two military bases in the vicinity. It wasn’t long before the military began to harass local residents. Known as a proud, strongly rooted people, the U’wa repeatedly denounced Occidental’s oil operation. The Indians argued that oil exploration would threaten their tribe, damage the land, fill their territory with alien workers and destroy the world they knew. At one point the approximately 5,000 U’wa even threatened to commit collective suicide by leaping from a cliff unless the oil company stopped operations on their territory.

In 1998, the year that future McCain adviser Charlie Black took on Occidental, the oil company was embroiled in controversy when the Colombian Air Force dropped cluster bombs on Santo Domingo, a village located near an Oxy pipeline. The attack killed 18 people. Human rights groups and Colombian government officials said the bombing was a mistake that occurred because three employees of a Florida-based aerial security company employed by Occidental to monitor guerrilla movements had provided incorrect coordinates to Colombian military pilots.

The American employees of the security company dropped out of sight and Colombian government efforts to have them handed over for questioning and perhaps trial proved fruitless. Frustrated by the security company’s stonewalling, human rights groups filed suit in California in 2003 and 2004 against Occidental. To this day, Occidental denies any responsibility for the bombing of Santo Domingo, and has claimed that it “has not and does not provide lethal aid to Colombia’s armed forces.”

Clinton-Gore Team Escalates in Colombia

Occidental, which hoped to protect its investments in Colombia, was aided by the Clinton-Gore White House which backed Plan Colombia, a militaristic, multi-billion dollar effort designed to ostensibly fight drug trafficking. Team Clinton was intent on backing the plan, despite evidence that the Colombian military was working closely with right wing paramilitaries to wage a dirty war against the civilian population. Six months before Plan Colombia was implemented, an investigative piece published by one of Colombia’s leading daily newspapers described how the Colombian army had aided the paramilitaries in the massacre of 49 peasants in the southeastern village of Mapiripán.

Even the U.S. State Department, in its annual human rights report for 1999, the year Plan Colombia was conceived, pointed out that Colombia’s “security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses; in some instances, individual members of the security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups by passing them through roadblocks, sharing intelligence, and providing them with ammunition. Paramilitary forces find a ready support base within the military and police, as well as local civilian elites in many areas.”

At the time, as Gary Leech pointed out in an article published for the online Colombia Journal, “There wasn’t a peep out of Vice-President Gore…regarding Colombia’s human rights situation…Gore owned almost $500,000 worth of stock in Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, which was one of the most ardent lobbyists for Plan Colombia and one of the U.S. companies that stood to benefit from an escalated U.S. military role in the South American nation….At that time, Gore repeatedly refused to respond to questions from reporters about his links to Occidental Petroleum. He also failed to make mention of any human rights concerns regarding the U.S. funding of a military closely linked to paramilitary death squads.”

The Colombian Oil Connection

Dire reports of human rights violations were of apparently little concern to Charlie Black. The PR man lobbied Congress, the State Department and the White House on Occidental’s behalf regarding “general energy issues” and “general trade issues” involving Colombia. McCain’s future campaign strategist also fought to win foreign assistance to Colombia and to block an economic embargo against the South American country.

Even as tensions escalated within the U’wa reserve, Black was unperturbed. According to Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of Amazon Watch, a human rights group that works on behalf of Colombian Indian tribes opposed to oil drilling, Black was “very active” while Congress was debating the $1.3 billion military assistance package to Colombia that became law in 2000. “We’d be making the rounds in Congress,” Soltani said, “and Oxy would be there making the rounds, too.” In all, Oxy spent nearly $4 million lobbying Congress in Washington to expand military funding to Colombia.

Why would Black also be interested in trying to secure military funding for Colombia? As Oxy’s oil operations expanded, acquiring military support proved increasingly vital for the company. Oxy was part owner of the Caño Limon-Coveñas oil pipeline which led from Arauca to the Caribbean coast and which crossed the northeastern boundary of the U’wa reserve. Not surprisingly, Oxy’s activities quickly attracted the attention of left wing guerrillas who repeatedly detonated the pipeline. The attacks caused more than $500 million in losses to the company between December 1999 and December 2000.

Oxy had little to fear from the Clinton White House which bent over backwards to appease Big Oil. In 1998 Oxy CEO Ray Irani was personally invited to a state dinner at the White House to honor Colombian President Andrés Pastrana. The following year, U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson visited the Colombian city of Cartagena to address U.S. economic interests in the South American nation. During his visit, Richardson announced, “The United States and its allies will invest millions of dollars in two areas of the Colombian economy, in the areas of mining and energy, and to secure these investments we are tripling military aid to Colombia.”

According to The Nation magazine, Richardson was already compromised by his ties to Occidental. The future presidential candidate had in fact hired a longtime Occidental lobbyist, Theresa Fariello, to serve as his Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Energy Policy, Trade and Investment. While working for Occidental, Fariello lobbied the Energy Department on the company’s interests in Colombia.

Meanwhile Lawrence Meriage, Oxy’s Vice President for Communication and Public Affairs, urged the United States to expand its military operations in Colombia — largely focused on coca eradication efforts in the south of the country — into Colombia’s northeast, where the U’wa stood in the way of Oxy’s drilling operations. The investment paid off when the U.S. government agreed to provide military aid, equipment and training to the 18th Brigade in Arauca, a unit which had been involved in grave human rights violations including attacks against trade unions and other members of civil society.

Doing Business in Colombia

The Santo Domingo massacre was certainly a black mark on Occidental’s record. However, there were yet more controversies in store for the company. Tensions were ratcheted up when, in February 2000, Oxy began construction on its Gibraltar 1 drill site. Some 2,700 U’wa Indians, local farmers, students and union members immediately attempted to stop Oxy’s construction. When indigenous peoples sought to prevent trucks from reaching the construction site, riot police used tear gas to break up a road blockade. Three U’wa children were drowned in a fast-flowing river as the U’wa fled the attack.

Two months later, when Oxy began to move heavy equipment and materials into the area, the U’wa again blocked local roads. While the Indians permitted other traffic to pass, they lay their bodies in front of Occidental trucks. In June, the government sent in riot police and soldiers; 28 demonstrators were subsequently injured and 33 arrested. Believing that the area might contain up to 1.5 billion barrels of oil, Occidental shortly thereafter began test drilling on U’wa ancestral lands.

As if things could get no worse, Colombia’s wider civil conflict began to spill over into U’wa traditional territory. In March, 1999 three U’wa supporters from the U.S., Terence Freitas of Brooklyn, N.Y., Ingrid Washinawotok, and Laheehae Gay were kidnapped and killed by FARC guerrillas while working with the Indians in the department of Arauca.

While it’s unclear whether Oxy had any direct involvement in the killings, the company is known to have had links to the guerrillas. In testimony given before a Congressional subcommittee, Meriage acknowledged that Occidental personnel regularly paid off guerrillas in exchange for being left alone.

Gore and the U’wa in Election 2000

As the 2000 presidential election neared, environmental activists targeted Gore for his ties to Occidental. Abby Reyes, Freites’ girlfriend, personally wrote a strongly worded letter to Gore about the situation in Colombia:

February 3, 2000

Dear Vice President Gore,

I write to you as the girlfriend of Terence Freitas, one of three human rights workers kidnapped and assassinated last March while assisting the U’wa indigenous community of oil-rich northeastern Colombia…One year ago this week, as I unpacked moving boxes into the apartment Terence and I would have shared in Brooklyn, I found myself shelving two copies of Earth in the Balance [Gore’s famous book dealing with global environmental problems]: my own, and that of Terence. I sat down with the book again, rereading with marvel the poignant message you asserted in 1993. You insisted that policy makers and the general citizenry alike must take into account environmental and social costs of our coveted northern affluence…

While I reread Earth in the Balance last February, Terence was in the U’wa cloudforest with Native American leaders Ingrid Washinawatok and Lahe’ena’e Gay on a cultural exchange. On February 18, Terence called from Cubara, Colombia. I told him about the two copies of Earth in the Balance. We discussed whether you could be tapped as a more vocal U’wa ally in the campaign against the pending ecological, cultural, and economic havoc oil exploitation would spell for the U’wa and Colombia. We were hopeful about your potential leadership on this pressing environmental case. That phone call was the last time I talked to Terence.

One week later, on the day he was to return to New York, he and his companions were kidnapped by guerrillas who are allegedly on friendly terms with Occidental. One week after that, the bound bodies of these three human rights workers were found splayed and disfigured by rounds of bullets just across the Venezuelan border…

Seven months later, I read the Wall Street Journal’s account of your family’s lucrative inheritance from your father of Occidental Petroleum and Occidental subsidiary stock and your long-standing personal relationship with Occidental directors. By then I had experienced several such smacks of political double speak from most actors in the Colombian debate…In Los Angeles, on April 30, 1999, at Occidental Petroleum headquarters, Public Relations Officer Larry Meriage held Terence’s mother’s hand, calling the guerrilla murderers atrocious, despite the fact that his company’s incipient oil operations in U’wa land are directly responsible for the intensification of violent conflict in the previously peaceful region.

Even given this prevalent political milieu, in which action wildly contradicts expressed values, I am appalled and disheartened to see you, America’s lead environmental champion, living the antithesis of your espoused values by continuing to personally profit from Occidental Petroleum’s exploits.

I am the same age as your daughter. Terence was one year our junior. Like your daughter, Terence and I looked forward to joining the legal profession together. We were eager to apply the conflict resolution and community organizing skills we have gained abroad to help address the wealth of environmental justice conflicts brewing domestically….With unbearable anguish, his family and friends buried him on his twenty-fifth birthday last spring. Think how much brighter your family’s prospects, as you enter the candidacy, if you removed the shadow cast by your family’s complicity in the unspeakable horrors faced by our family and those of the U’wa because of Occidental Petroleum.

I implore you to divest your family from Occidental Petroleum and answer the requests from the U’wa Defense Working Group, a coalition of US-based environmental and human rights organizations, to explain your position on that company’s actions in the U’wa territory of Colombia.

Sincerely,

Abby Reyes

Despite such poignant appeals, Gore had no time for the activists. Speaking in Nashville, he said there had been nothing improper about his family’s relationship with Occidental. Meanwhile, Gore adamantly refused to meet with an U’wa representative who had personally traveled to Washington to see him, despite the entreaties of a Democratic member of Congress.

But Stephen Kretzmann of Amazon Watch said Gore did meet with him and several other environmentalists. At that meeting, Gore explained that he could not interfere in a Colombian internal issue or Occidental’s practices.

Environmentalists however gave little credence to such arguments.

"It’s ludicrous to say, ‘We can’t interfere,’" Soltani remarked.

Indeed, Gore’s deferrals and denials contradicted the politician’s previous actions. As a Senator, Gore had presented himself as both a committed environmentalist and an internationalist. He had for example introduced two senate resolutions calling upon the Japanese government to look into the havoc lumber companies were wreaking in Malaysia and Papua, New Guinea. Additionally, one of Gore’s last actions as a Senator, in April 1992, was almost directly comparable: he spoke out in support of the Penan Indians in Malaysia, whose lands were being threatened by loggers.

Perhaps, Gore was concerned about offending Big Oil, which had contributed mightily to his presidential campaign. Indeed, the Tennessean raised $92,000 from the oil and gas industry. Occidental was the number-two donor in that category, with company executives and their wives donating $10,000 to fuel Gore’s campaign. Gore went on to express support for Plan Colombia during the 2000 campaign before going on to defeat at the hands of George W. Bush.

In May 2002, following a massive outcry by environmental groups, Oxy finally announced that it would return its controversial oil block to the Colombian government. Nevertheless, the company continued to operate in Colombia. Currently, the oil firm occupies the Caño Limón oil field located in the Llanos Basin in the northeastern part of the country. The company also holds a 35% working interest in the Caricare field and has signed a production agreement with Ecopetrol to operate the La Cira-Infantas field, located in central Colombia. Though Oxy’s Caño-Limón field has yielded hundreds of million dollars annually in profits, the pipeline has been an ongoing target for guerrilla forces. In 2007, Occidental again found itself in the midst of a human-rights mess. This time, the company was accused in congressional testimony of being "complicit" – with several other major corporations – in the murder of three labor leaders.

In recent years, Gore has tried to refashion himself as a champion of human rights in Colombia. In April, 2007 he cancelled a scheduled appearance as the keynote speaker at a conference on the environment because Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe was also on the program. The problem, according to a statement issued by Gore, was that he found accusations that Uribe was linked to right-wing paramilitary death squads “deeply troubling” and didn’t want to appear with the Colombian president until “this very serious chapter in history is brought to a close.”

Writing in Colombia Journal, journalist Gary Leech remarked “Former Vice-President Al Gore has again exhibited a degree of political hypocrisy that is simply astounding…Where were Gore’s noble proclamations in defense of human rights when he was vice-president in the administration that made Colombia the world’s third-largest recipient of US military aid?”

From Hillary to McCain: Same Old Oxy PR Men

Undeterred by Gore’s defeat in 2000, Occidental has continued to cultivate ties to Team Clinton. In Washington, when it comes to Colombia lobbying it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between the Democrats and Republicans.

In fact, Charlie Black’s firm BKSH merged with another PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, in 1990. During the presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton was caught up in a scandal when it was disclosed that her campaign strategist Mark Penn, a CEO at Burson-Marsteller, was lobbying Congress on behalf of the Colombian government. Penn’s firm had also represented Occidental. Penn was employed by the Uribe government in Bogotá to help win passage of a free trade agreement in Congress. News of Penn’s ties to the Colombian government proved acutely embarrassing to Clinton, who had gone on record as opposing the trade agreement.

BKSH’s work on behalf of Occidental has proved enormously lucrative: between 2001 and 2007 the PR firm netted $1.6 million in fees. Occidental was surely pleased with Black’s work: in 2003, Congress approved a special appropriation of nearly $100 million for the protection of oil pipelines in Colombia.

McCain’s aides have repeatedly argued that the Senator’s presidential campaign does not have direct connections to companies represented by such advisers as Black. The Arizona Senator’s handlers assert that McCain should not be held accountable for any company misdeeds nor should the public presume that McCain is unduly influenced by corporate interests.

Granted, McCain may claim that there is a degree of separation between Charlie Black and himself. There are several problems with this argument however. To begin with McCain appointed Black to his position, which speaks volumes about the Arizona Senator’s political priorities. In the second place, McCain has a personal connection to Oxy through Ray Irani. In 2008, the Oxy CEO doled out $2,800 to McCain’s presidential campaign and a full $25,000 to the Republican National Committee. Irani could easily afford the donation: in 2007 he was the tenth highest paid CEO in the United States, raking in a whopping $34.2 million from Occidental.

In contrast to Team Clinton and McCain, Obama has shown some spine when dealing with Colombia. The Illinois Senator has questioned President Bush’s close alliance with Bogotá and has said that he is concerned about the links between the Colombian government and paramilitaries. The Colombian government, he has argued, should undertake measures such as investigating and sanctioning paramilitaries’ financial backers and accomplices in both the government and the military, regardless of their rank. If the Uribe regime did not take more effective action, Obama warned, then "maintaining current levels of assistance will be difficult to justify."

On the pending Colombia free trade measure, Obama should be lauded for his position. He emphatically opposes the pending free trade deal, remarking "I’m concerned frankly about the reports there of the involvement of the administration with human rights violations and the suppression of workers."

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe recognizes the potential threat posed by an Obama administration and even chastised Obama for not being aware of Colombia’s "efforts" on trade. Obama retorted hotly, "I think the president is absolutely wrong on this. You’ve got a government that is under a cloud of potentially having supported violence against unions, against labor, against opposition…That’s not the kind of behavior that we want to reward. I think until we get that straightened out its inappropriate for us to move forward."

There’s a slight chance that we might get a serious rethinking of Colombia policy under an Obama administration. The Illinois Senator will have to seriously clean house however so as to make sure Big Oil loses its political influence in the White House. Oxy has a way of maintaining its pull over Democratic and Republican politicians alike. From Armand Hammer to Ray Irani, the company never seems to give up.

To read the article,click here.

To view the article, click here.

To read the article, click here.

To view the article, click here.

Here comes Charlie Black, John McCain’s campaign adviser, who recently remarked to Fortune magazine that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be a "big advantage" for the Republican presidential candidate. The comments drew a strong rebuke from the Obama campaign and embarrassed McCain while on the campaign trail. Questioned about Black’s comments during a news conference, the Arizona Senator said, "I cannot imagine why he would say it. It’s not true. I’ve worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America. My record is very clear."

Speaking to reporters, Black read from handwritten notes. "I deeply regret the comments. They were inappropriate,” he said. “I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration.”

Such pro forma expressions of penitence notwithstanding, Black has repeatedly argued that McCain benefits any time national security matters are the news of the day. A veteran political operator, Black knows that the GOP wins elections by painting the Democrats as weak on terrorism and defense. It’s a truth that’s long been evident to Black, who has carved out a political career by taking advantage of war hysteria and the public’s fear of a terrorist strike.

Black, a 60-year-old successful Washington lobbyist, is a notorious figure within the GOP. Over the course of his career he has gained a reputation as a ruthless operator possessed of a merciless instinct for exposing an opponent’s flaws. A native of North Carolina, Black is the son of Southern Democrats who switched party affiliation in 1964 to vote for Barry Goldwater.

In 1972, he helped run the Senate campaign of Jesse Helms. Black was one of the designers of a strategy that labeled Helms’ Democratic opponent as too liberal for North Carolina, driving the point home with a slogan that declared Helms to be "One of Us." Helms went on to victory, becoming the first North Carolina Republican to be elected to the Senate during the twentieth century.

Three years later Black founded the National Conservative Political Action Committee, an organization which set a new standard for negative advertising. The group campaigned against six liberal senators in 1980, portraying them as soft on national defense amongst other charges. Black’s first hire at the 1980 Reagan campaign was the infamous Lee Atwater, an operative who later became well known for his slashing brand of politics. Black himself proudly hangs a personally signed photo of the Great Communicator on his office wall. On the photo, Reagan wrote that Black was "a man of ideas."

Black’s brain child was Black, Manafort and Stone, a lobbying firm which the GOP operator founded in 1980. The company, which soon expanded to include the slash and burn Lee Atwater, soon became one of the most aggressive and well-connected Republican lobbying shops in Washington. In 1996 the firm merged with Gold & Liebengood to form BKSH & Associates Worldwide.

Black, who enjoyed stints as campaign operator for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, got to know John McCain in the late 1970s when McCain worked as the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. In 1996, the pair became close while working on Senator Phil Gramm’s failed presidential bid. One of five senior advisers to McCain, Black is a frequent campaign surrogate on television. On the trail, he sits in a big swivel chair at the front of the Straight Talk Express, joining in McCain’s rolling news conferences.

McCain and BKSH: Boosters for Invasion

In a sense, it is not too surprising that Black and McCain would wind up working together in the 2008 presidential race: both have been huge boosters of the Iraq War.

McCain was a longtime friend of Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who drummed up claims that Saddam Hussein had WMD. An international con artist found guilty in absentia in Jordan for bank scams, Chalabi is most widely known for being one of the key pre-Iraq war intelligence propagandists who provided skewed information to support the Pentagon’s ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans. He was also a source for the now-discredited pre-war reporting of New York Times journalist Judith Miller. After the 2003 attack, Chalabi’s star dimmed when he was accused of leaking sensitive material to Teheran. He is still an influential figure in Baghdad.

According to a 2006 article appearing in the New Republic, McCain welcomed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), to Washington. On Capitol Hill, McCain pressured the Clinton administration to provide the Iraqi exile with money. The Arizona Senator even went so far as to call Chalabi “a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart.” In 1997, McCain successfully pressured the White House into setting up an Iraqi government in exile. Despite opposition from the Pentagon and the State Department, McCain co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act, committing the United States to overthrowing Saddam and funding opposition groups. When General Anthony Zinni expressed some doubt about the effectiveness of the Iraqi opposition, McCain rebuked the military man at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Even as McCain was busy on Capitol Hill drumming up support for Chalabi, Black was doing his part at BKSH to hasten the onset of war in Iraq. The lobbying firm in fact had developed ties to Chalabi as early as 1999 and soon provided its political expertise to the INC. In an interview, Black remarked that his firm received $200,000 to $300,000 per year from the U.S. government to promote the INC. BKSH helped sell the disastrous Iraq war to the American public by promoting the supposed danger posed by Saddam’s regime and WMD.

Blandly unrepentant, Black has remarked that his firm did "standard kinds of public relations and public affairs, setting up seminars, helping them get speeches covered by the press, press conferences." Black proved highly useful to Chalabi, providing the Iraqi exile with access to high-powered officials in Washington. Chalabi even scored a seat at First Lady Laura Bush’s VIP box at the 2004 State of the Union address.

McCain: Working to Ensure the Occupation Lasts a Million Years

If you thought Bush and Rove was a Machiavellian pair, consider the relationship between McCain and Black. Both figures are at the nexus of the military-industrial complex and would like the occupation of Iraq to continue indefinitely. Already the Arizona Senator has declared his intention to stay in Iraq “for a thousand years or a million years” if necessary and there’s little reason to doubt the Senator’s word.

Though McCain seldom talks about it, he has gotten much of his foreign policy experience working with a cloak and dagger operation called the International Republican Institute (IRI). Since 1993, he has served as chair of the outfit, which is funded by the U.S. government and private money. The group, which receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars each year, claims to promote democracy world-wide. The hottest country in which IRI currently operates is Iraq. According to the IRI’s own web site, since the summer of 2003 the organization “has conducted a multi-faceted program aimed at promoting the development of democracy in Iraq. Toward this end, IRI works with political parties, indigenous civil society groups, and elected and other government officials. In support of these efforts, IRI also conducts numerous public opinion research projects and assists its Iraqi partners in the production of radio and television ads and programs.”

A who’s who of corporate America chips in to IRI including Blackwater Training Center, part of Blackwater USA. In 2005-6 the mercenary security company which operates in Iraq donated $30,000 to IRI. Though Blackwater has fallen under scrutiny as a result of the company’s shooting of 17 Iraqis including women and children, the State Department recently decided to renew the firm’s contract. As if these corporate ties were not enough, IRI has also accepted money from Lockheed Martin, the world’s #1 military contractor. The firm has been a big McCain donor, giving more than $13,000 through its PAC to the Arizona Senator in 2006. Early on, Lockheed Martin worked to promote the war in Iraq. The company’s former vice president, Bruce Jackson, even chaired the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. There, Jackson made common cause with McCain, the group’s “honorary co-chair.” During the start of the Iraq invasion, Lockheed Martin’s F-117 stealth attack fighters were used to “shock and awe” the population. Jackson is now working on McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, serving on the Senator’s foreign policy advisory team.

Like McCain, Black has a lot of connections to the Iraq occupation. In 2003 he remarked that his political ties to Chalabi helped BKSH acquire valuable work in Iraq. “Due to our past representation of the INC,” he said, “we know and have worked with a lot of people who will be in the provisional government. We have a number of clients who are interested in doing business in Iraq.” Two years after the invasion Black cashed in on his insider influence when the Lincoln Group, a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence company assigned by the Pentagon with the task of providing pro-U.S. stories to the Iraqi media, subcontracted its work to BKSH. Lincoln’s job was to publish stories written by American troops so as to improve the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. At the time, Black’s lobbying firm was well positioned to get the contract: BKSH was already representing the government of Iraq as its U.S. lobbyist.

Like McCain, BKSH also has ties to Lockheed Martin. Indeed, Black’s firm has lobbied on behalf of the defense contractor. What’s more, like the Arizona Senator BKSH has dealings with Blackwater and represents the mercenary outfit on Capitol Hill. Black’s firm even reportedly coached Blackwater CEO Eric Prince prior to a Congressional hearing. Aside from his historic ties to Lockheed Martin and Blackwater, Black also developed a tight-knit relationship with Civitas Group, a homeland security-focused consulting firm. Black serves as a member of the company’s managing board.

Having supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq through BKSH, Charlie Black may now hope that his candidate, John McCain, will benefit in the event of another terrorist incident. With the Arizona Senator safely in the White House, Black’s old pals at BKSH will be free to reap maximum benefit from McCain’s future wars.

To view the article, click here.

To read the article, click here.

Though Arizona Senator John McCain seldom talks about it, he has gotten much of his foreign policy experience working with a cloak and dagger operation called the International Republican Institute (IRI). Since 1993, McCain has served as Chair of the outfit, which is funded by the U.S. government and private money. The group, which receives tens of millions of taxpayer dollars each year, claims to promote democracy world-wide. On the surface at least, IRI seems to have a rather innocuous agenda including party building, media training, the organization of leadership trainings, dissemination of newsletters, and strengthening of civil society.

The hottest country in which IRI currently operates is Iraq. According to the IRI’s own web site, since the summer of 2003 the organization “has conducted a multi-faceted program aimed at promoting the development of democracy in Iraq. Toward this end, IRI works with political parties, indigenous civil society groups, and elected and other government officials. In support of these efforts, IRI also conducts numerous public opinion research projects and assists its Iraqi partners in the production of radio and television ads and programs.”

By law, IRI must operate independently of the Republican Party. However, a former institute grant recipient, Ghassan Atiyyah, the Director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, said he parted ways with the IRI over his criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of the war. In 2004 Atiyyah, who pressed for a secular, liberal government in Iraq, received $116,448 from IRI. "Instead of promoting impartial, better understanding of certain ideas and concepts, they [the IRI] are actually trying to further the cause of the Republican administration," Atiyyah said. Though Atiyyah said IRI never asked him to censor his views, it became clear to the Iraqi that the two parties disagreed politically. When his funding ran out, neither pursued the relationship. "It is a civilized divorce," he said. (Atiyyah eventually fled Iraq for Britain after his life was threatened).

Who is Running IRI?

Such criticisms aside however, IRI’s overall mission statement on its Web site fundamentally strains credibility. How can the IRI, which is caught up in an incestuous political web with the power elite in Washington and U.S. corporations, claim to be an agent of positive change in Iraq? Although officially non-partisan, IRI is closely aligned with the Republican Party. Dick Cheney received the organization’s Freedom Award in late 2001. Other winners have included Condoleezza Rice, Ronald Reagan, Lynne Cheney, Colin Powell, and Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai.

IRI’s leadership spans the spectrum of center right, far right, and neoconservative factions of the GOP. Most of the organization’s staff and board have links to right-wing think tanks, foundations, and policy institutes. Former Iraq proconsul Paul Bremer, the disastrous colonial administrator who used to wear a blue blazer and hiking boots, sits on IRI’s Board of Directors.

Also sitting on the board is Randy Scheuneman, a former member of the neo-conservative outfit Project for the New American Century. Scheuneman had long-standing ties to the Iraqi National Congress or INC, a loose coalition of Iraqi dissidents and opposition groups headed by the Iraqi flim-flammer , Ahmed Chalabi.

Shady Scheuneman’s ties to McCain go way back even before IRI. In 2000, he served on the Arizona Senator’s foreign policy team during McCain’s unsuccessful presidential bid. Like McCain, Scheuneman was also active in the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which helped push for official government as well as public support for the invasion of Iraq after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Meanwhile, a who’s who of corporate America chips in to IRI including Blackwater Training Center, part of Blackwater USA. In 2005-6 the company donated $30,000 to IRI. Though Blackwater has fallen under scrutiny as a result of the company’s shooting of 17 people including women and children, the State Department recently decided to renew the firm’s contract.

For Blackwater, the benefits of supporting McCain and IRI are clear: already the Arizona Senator has declared his intention to stay in Iraq “for a thousand years or a million years” if necessary. Behind the scenes, Blackwater is surely praying for a McCain victory in November: Charlie Black, McCain’s chief adviser and a successful Washington lobbyist, has represented the mercenary outfit as well as Chalabi. Black’s connection to Chalabi began in 1999 and continued up until the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

McCain, IRI and Chevron

Though George Bush has scoffed at suggestions that the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with oil, recent press reports give some credence to such claims. In April, Chevron announced that it was involved in discussions with the Iraqi Oil Ministry to increase production in an important oil field in southern Iraq. The discussions were aimed at finalizing a two-year deal, or technical support agreement, to boost production at the West Qurna Stage 1 oil field near Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city.

It turns out that Chevron, like Blackwater, has donated to McCain’s IRI. What’s more, since McCain solidified his position as the GOP’s nominee, Chevron Chairman David O’Reilly gave $28,500 to the GOP. Meanwhile lobbyist Wayne Berman, McCain’s National Finance Co-Chairman, counts Chevron as one of his principal clients.

According to Progressive Media USA, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, the Arizona Senator has benefited handily from Big Oil. McCain has taken in at least $700,000 from the oil and gas industry since 1989. In Congress, the Arizona senator has worked tirelessly to advance the interests of the oil industry. For example, McCain’s tax plan gives the top five oil companies $3.8 billion a year in tax breaks. McCain meanwhile has voted against reducing dependence on foreign oil, has twice rejected windfall profits tax for Big Oil, and has voted against taxing oil companies to provide a $100 rebate to consumers.

McCain, IRI and Lockheed Martin

As if these corporate ties were not enough, IRI has also accepted money from Lockheed Martin, the world’s #1 military contractor. The firm has been a McCain donor, giving more than $13,000 through its PAC to the Arizona Senator in 2006. According to the Center for Public Integrity, lobbyist Vin Weber, one of McCain’s top political advisers, counted Lockheed Martin as one of his most important clients.

Early on, Lockheed saw that it could benefit from the war in Iraq. The company’s former vice president, Bruce Jackson, even chaired the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. There, he found common cause with Scheuneman, the group’s President, and McCain, the “honorary co-chair.” Jackson also worked with Scheuneman through The Project for the New American Century, a group that the Lockheed man directed personally.

Jackson goes way back in GOP circles. Between 1986 and 1990, when he was working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, he served under Dick Cheney. He also worked under prominent neo-conservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. In 2000, he chaired the Republican Party Platform’s subcommittee for National Security and Foreign Policy when George W. Bush ran for president.

Jackson was also involved in corralling support for the Iraq war from Eastern European countries, and even went so far as to help to write their letter of endorsement for military intervention. Not surprisingly, Lockheed also had business relations with these countries. In 2003 Poland shelled out $3.5 billion for 48 F-16 fighter planes which it was able to purchase with a $3.8 billion loan from the U.S.

During the start of the Iraq invasion, Lockheed Martin’s F-117 stealth attack fighters were used to “shock and awe” the population. Jackson is now working on McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, serving on the Senator’s foreign policy advisory team.

The mainstream press has completely failed to analyze McCain’s long term involvement in the Iraq imbroglio. If they were to delve too deeply, the corporate pundits would have to confront the uncomfortable truth that the military-industrial complex and the oil industry have played an integral role in the invasion and occupation. Surrounding the whole affair are shady figures such as Black, Scheuneman and Jackson and unscrupulous companies like Chevron, Blackwater and Lockheed Martin. At the center of the vortex are none other than IRI and John McCain.