MZM Worked on Iraq War“I know we’ve made tactical errors, thousands of them,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently of the U.S. execution of the war in Iraq.
Wouldn’t you know, MZM, Inc. — the company run by admitted felon, briber and ripoff artist Mitchell Wade — was involved in making tactical warfighting decisions and handling intelligence in the thick of the U.S. invasion and occupation?
“MZM has a team of intelligence professionals placed with the Joint Intelligence Center (JIC) in U.S. Central Command,” states an internal MZM document dated late 2003 and obtained by TPMmuckraker.com. “This team. . . develops targets for the Commander of U.S. Central Command, which is combating enemy forces in Iraq.”
According to Pentagon expert and Washington Post blogger William Arkin, that put MZM in the center of the war operation. “At one point during Operation Iraqi Freedom, JIC was the hub of selecting targets and doing [bomb damage assessments] for all the branches. If MZM was there, they were in the hot seat.”
Some of Wade’s employees also worked with CENTCOM’s intelligence analysis efforts. “Another team of [MZM] intelligence and systems professionals” helped CENTCOM develop “new procedures for intelligence networking, integration of intelligence specific software and training all-source analysts in the use of that software,” the document states.
MZM’s involvement at CENTCOM has been known for some time, but details of the company’s activities at the Tampa, Fla. center — which oversees U.S. military operations throughout the Middle East — have not been reported.
In addition to working with conventional U.S. forces, Wade’s company also had “a team of intelligence professionals” working within “the senior staff” of CENTCOM’s Special Operations Command, which runs the military’s “black” operations within the Middle East. “This team assists. . . in daily analysis, collection management, as well as intelligence production to keep the Commander. . .. informed on the current situation” in the region.
MZM also provided translators and security to top officials for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq until a new government could be installed. Mitchell Wade, the company’s former president, pleaded guilty to bribing former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) with nearly $1.5 million in money and gifts, in return for sensitive military and intelligence contracts.
In addition to its work at CENTCOM, MZM is known to have had contracts to support CIFA, the Pentagon’s domestic spying operation; the FBI’s Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force; the Department of Energy’s Counterintelligence Office; the White House’s Robb-Silberman Commission to study WMD intelligence; the Homeland Security Department’s watch center; and the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center.
Some of MZM’s Pentagon contracts are reportedly under review.
