PENTAGON: CANCEL IRAQ CELL DEALS

Ever since America invaded, there’s been some­thing fishy about cell phone ser­vice in Iraq. First, the Coalition Provisional Authority ordered Bahraini mobile firm Batelco to shut down its cell ser­vice — after allegedly spend­ing mil­lions on infra­struc­ture. Then, a con­tract was mys­te­ri­ously awarded to Orascom Telecom (OT), an Egyptian firm tee­ter­ing on bankruptcy’s brink.
Now, the Washington Times reports, the Pentagon has asked the CPA to can­cel $500 mil­lion worth of con­tracts of OT and two other cell providers, “cit­ing fraud and the com­pa­nies’ links to an Iraqi-​​born Briton with ties to Saddam Hussein.“
OT is partly owned by Nadhmi Auchi, who also has a con­trol­ling inter­est in the bank BNP Paribas. The French finan­cial giant has been accused of help­ing Saddam Hussein drain the U.N.‘s “Oil-​​for-​​Food” pro­gram for his per­sonal gain.

The Orascom con­tract con­tains a pro­vi­sion pro­hibit­ing own­er­ship of the license from being held by “sup­port­ers or ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the Saddam Hussein regime,” [a Pentagon] mem­o­ran­dum said…
Pentagon inves­ti­ga­tors have said bribes of up to $11.5 mil­lion were paid to Iraqis and other for­eign nation­als to win the con­tracts for the three com­pa­nies with links to Auchi, who was con­victed last year by a French court as part of an oil com­pany finan­cial scheme…
U.S. offi­cials said last week that the FBI is con­duct­ing a pre­lim­i­nary inquiry into whether Auchi or his asso­ciates bribed U.S. and Iraqi offi­cials to fix bids for Iraqi cell phone contracts. 

June 22nd, 2004 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.