Many of you will already have noticed the article in Friday’s Post about Robert D. Blackwill, President Bush’s recently resigned Iraq policy director at the NSC. The article discusses new allegations that Blackwill berated and manhandled a female staffer from the US Embassy in Kuwait over a ticketing mix-up at Kuwait International Airport last September.
The description of the incident contained in the article speaks for itself; and the piece seems revealingly ambiguous about whether the dust-up played a role in Blackwill’s decision to resign his post as Iraq point-man three months before the critical elections in the country scheduled next January.
Something else in the piece caught my eye, however — a point the authors mention only in passing.
Blackwill has taken a job with the lobbying firm of Barbour Griffith & Rogers.
As you’ll recall from our reporting on this matter from September of last year, this is an excellent fit, since BG&R has spent the last couple years making a specialty of the Iraq contracting and logrolling racket.
Last year when President Bush’s right-hand-man Joe Allbaugh resigned as FEMA chief and wanted to get into the Iraq business, he went to BG&R, where his wife then worked. They set Allbaugh up as New Bridge Strategies (“your bridge to success in Iraq”).
In reality, New Bridge is just the Iraqi money-chase subdivision of BG&R.
New Bridge has four directors — Allbaugh, John Howland, Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith. The latter two are Chairman and CEO of BG&R, respectively. When Allbaugh put out the New Bridge shingle, it happened to be at the same address at BG&R, etc., etc.
If you go down the list of principals at New Bridge you’ll find most of them work at BG&R.
Admittedly, not all of them: Jamal Daniel is Neil Bush’s business partner.
Whatever misunderstanding there was back in Kuwait, I’m sure Blackwill will be in good hands.
