(Zack Kopplin) Leaked documents reveal that the defense contractor Sallyport enriched companies connected to Iranian-backed death squads.
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Source – The American Prospect
by Zack Kopplin, March, 25th, 2021
Iraq’s Balad Air Base, home of the country’s F-16 program, was running out of fuel at the worst possible time. It was the spring of 2017 and the Iraqi military was preparing a final push to remove the Islamic State from Mosul, a major metropolis in the north of the country that had fallen to the extremists three years earlier. But fuel trucks, sent from Baghdad to the American military contractor that operated the base, Sallyport Global Services, were being ambushed. Without fuel, Balad’s fighter jets wouldn’t be able to provide air support to Iraqi soldiers battling the terrorist group.
For the coalition fighting ISIS, the fuel squeeze was a self-inflicted crisis.
Today, American influence in Iraq is felt largely through powerful defense contractors, like Sallyport, that act as unacknowledged boots on the ground. These companies have a vested interest in the continuation of the war and the stealth occupation. Sallyport’s leadership contains a roster of former military and intelligence brass, and it has won around $2 billion in Pentagon-awarded contracts at the Iraqi air base since 2014. American military contracts are ostensibly meant to help bring peace and democracy to Iraq—and security for the United States. In reality, Pentagon spending has led to more violence. The fuel crisis at Balad is a perfect example.
American contractors are essentially cooperating with known enemies.
Sallyport’s profit is contingent on maintaining control of the base and ensuring its smooth functioning. This has driven the company to make deals with Iraqi politicians known for corruption. Sallyport’s partners are even allegedly connected to paramilitary groups that include America’s battlefield enemies and human rights violators. These types of illicit deals are a routine part of Pentagon contracts across the country, and they’re valuable enough to fight over.
“All of our business partners in Iraq have been fully vetted, including vetting by the U.S. Department of Defense for work at Balad,” C.D. Moore, chief operating officer of Sallyport Global Holdings, said in a statement. “We are vigilant about, and take very seriously, our obligations to comply with all U.S. and host-nation laws and regulations.”
Internally, Sallyport blamed ISIS for the attacks on its trucks. But the ambushes, which targeted tankers attached to the fuel trucks, rather than the drivers, didn’t match the terrorist group’s profile or its capabilities. Intelligence analysts privately believed they were part of a corporate turf war. “The biggest hurdles you have in getting fuel are primarily political,” a Sallyport consultant, Ginger Cruz, wrote in a May 2017 email to the company.
Cruz, a former U.S. government anti-corruption official, offered Sallyport a solution. “The selection of vendors is directly tied to good business decisions,” Cruz wrote, in the same email.
In Iraq, good business typically means breaking the rules, something Sallyport was ready to do. On Cruz’s recommendation, the contractor turned to an Iraqi company, Layth al-Bawadi, to supply fuel. Layth al-Bawadi shares personnel with a complex network of multinational companies, called Sigma, that was previously blacklisted by Cruz’s former employer, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, for alleged corruption.
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Source:
https://prospect.org/world/how-pentagon-accidentally-funnels-millions-to-iraqi-militias/
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