THE PEACOCK REPORT (TPR)

'Free' Wireless Internet Project Underway

The deployment of wireless Internet infrastructure -- and the subsequent provision of free access to the world wide web to all Americans -- is an idea that's been circulating in technology policy circles for years. Indeed, the Federal Communications Commission only recently revisited the prospect of free wireless Internet access this past month. And now the U.S. government is taking firm action on the matter -- the only problem, however, is that it is not taking action here in the U.S.

On the contrary, the U.S. (unrelated to the above-mentioned FCC proceeding) is handing over nearly a half-million dollars to a Palestinian company to accomplish that task in the West Bank. Specifically, the U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) will pay for a "technical assistance" contract that will be outsourced to an unidentified vendor; the vendor -- which must be a U.S. company -- in turn will map out the necessary steps for Ramallah-based BCI Communications & Advanced Technologies, Ltd. to carry out the infrastructure project, according to a procurement document dated June 9 that The Peacock Report has located.

Ultimately, the U.S. taxpayer-funded endeavor will pad the pockets of Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola, whose equipment BCI would use for the project.

 

Senate Report Condemns Bush Falsification of Iraq 'Evidence'

Summing up its Phase II Final Report on Prewar Iraqi Intelligence,U.S.Senate Intelligence Committee Chmn. Jay Rockefeller [D.-W.Va.) today said:

"Before taking the country to war, this Administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the Administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence.

"In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq as much greater than actually existed."

A bipartisan 10-5 majority voted in favor of the report. The panel said that intelligence was unable to substantiate "statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State" suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training,

The committee also rejected:

1) "Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information;

2) Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products;

3) Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing:

4) The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

5) The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

USAID May Outsource Global Cash-Distribution Function

The multi-billion dollar distribution of U.S.-based international aid grants might be handed over to private contractors, whom the federal government would hire to deliver the funds on its behalf. According to a "sources-sought" document that The Peacock Report (TPR) has located, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is assessing the availability of private companies capable of performing such tasks on a global scale. A former State Dept. staffer, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, expressed skepticism that State -- which has jurisdiction over USAID -- had any true intention of competitively awarding such a contract. 

"Someone in the State Department or at USAID likely already is planning to leave government service and enter the private sector to get that contract," the source said. "That's just how things are at State. You can be sure that there's an official or a group of officials who are currently making plans to start their own company, use their inside connections to secure the contract, and become millionaires at the expense of the average working stiff."

Perspective on Spitzer Prostitute Scandal

I once personally encountered a top police official whom a hooker had robbed at the Helmsley Palace in New York City, where for years I had worked as a hotel detective. People like him -- and those such as ex-N.Y. Governor Eliot Spitzer -- are not simply patrons of prostitutes. They are violators of the public trust; indeed, they are criminals who should be prosecuted for violating that trust. -- Steve Peacock; author, Hotel Dick: Harlots, Starlets, Thieves & Sleaze; editor, The Peacock Report.

Federal Education Program Seeks New Leadership

The federal government is recruiting a new "Education/Investing in People Program Leader," a position that pays in the $81,093-$105,420 range. According to a personnel solicitation dated Jan. 15, candidates for this leadership position will be tasked with overseeing initiatives whose "education strategic objective" is the improvement of "the quality and relevance of basic education and of lower level vocational training to enhance job placement opportunities or subsequent level education. The program aims to increase the participation of young people "in social, economic, and political life through the acquisition of life skills gained by both in-school and out-of-school youth."

The program will take place in Morocco, for Moroccan youth, courtesy the U.S. taxpayer.

Condition of New Baghdad Embassy Worse Than Reported

In addition to the spiraling cost of the New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Baghdad, the U.S. State Dept. now is contending with fire safety problems that threaten the well-being of embassy staff, the Washington Post reported today (see Baghdad Embassy is Called a Fire Risk; free registration required). According to a State Dept. source with whom The Peacock Report (TPR) interviewed, the situation is even worse than is being reported: "Some personnel living at the compound are sleeping with military flak jackets on at night," the source said. "They're hyper-aware that the housing is shoddy enough for a mortar to pierce their thin bedroom walls like butter."

It remains unclear whether the reported cost of the compound -- which has risen from an initial estimate of $592 million but now stands at $736 million -- includes hundreds of millions in additional operation and maintenance costs. According to a review of contracting documents available via the FedBizOpps database, TPR learned that State's Iraq Project Coordination Office last April awarded a $177 million contract to the Los Angeles-based PAE Government Services for such services.

As TPR reported (and the Centre for Global Research further disseminated) prior to the contract award, the project also was slated to contain a $1 million annual budget solely for shrubbery and landscaping services.

U.S. Weighs Financial Backing of Oil Refinery Modernization

The U.S. government may offer financial backing to the private sector to build new oil refineries and to modernize existing petroleum-production facilities -- in China.

According to a planning document that The Peacock Report has obtained, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) -- a White House agency based in Arlington, Va. -- intends to send private consultants to China to assess the status of that nation's refinery capabilties. This USTDA "definitional mission" will produce recommendations on whether U.S. taxpayers should financially assist -- and ultimately modernize -- the Chinese oil industry.

The agency is pursuing this project despite "significant expansion activities" upon which China's largest refinery operators, PetroChina and Sinopec, already have embarked. According to the document, which is dated Jan. 2, these ongoing efforts:

have mainly allowed both companies to keep up with existing demand [in China] with little room for anticpated demand increases. Industry analysts estimate that China will need to construct at least twenty large refineries capable of handling high-sulfur crude over the next seven years in order to meet anticipated demand, an investment expected to approach $30 billion.

A corollary aim of the project purportedly is to "facilitate China's transition to higher vehicle emissions standards," the document says. As a matter of policy the agency claims that it is tasked with the dual mission of increasing U.S. exports while "contributing to the improvement and security of the physical, financial and social infratsucture of the developing world."

It should be noted that The Peacock Report previously uncovered a separate USTDA initiative to pay for a feasibility study that likewise would benefit the Chinese petroleum industry (TPR, May 16, 2006); however, in that case the agency was helping to subsidize a project to facilitate the construction of the world's largest petrochemical in the world -- a facility jointly owned by the Saudi Arabian royal family and Dalian Shide Group, a Chinese conglomerate with more than $2 billion in annual revenues.

If interested in obtaining a copy of the above-mentioned planning document, send an e-mail request to The Peacock Report via stevepeacock@yahoo.com.

Pennsylvania Society 2007: Got Hookers?

Despite occasional criticism of the annual Pennsylvania Society bash -- a century old event in which Pa. politicos and their industry sponsors escape for some fun at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City -- media reportage often fails to stray beyond the "There's so much do in New York City" line of "analyses." As a former house detective -- or "hotel dick" -- of the Helmsley Palace, I can indeed attest to that fact; but as I once observed, some of these Keystone State officials and power brokers likely will target a particular source of fun that is intentionally absent from the itinerary: hookers.

Want to learn more about your tax dollars at work? Check out this excerpt from my memoir Hotel Dick: Harlots, Starlets, Thieves & Sleaze.

U.S. To Spend More Than Half-Billion on New Embassies

The U.S. State Dept. plans to spend upwards of $636 million on its latest round of new embassies worldwide, according to a procurement document that The Peacock Report has obtained. The document, dated Nov. 8, reveals that State yesterday began seeking to "prequalify" construction firms capable of designing and building embassies in Baku, Azerbaijan; Belgrade, Serbia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE); Monrovia, Liberia; Bucharest, Romania; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The cost of the individual embassy projects range from $75-$120 million. State will issue a formal Request for Proposals (RFP) at an unspecified date following the Dec. 18 deadline for the submission of letters of interest by potential contractors.

U.S. Funds Pakistan Coal, Waste-to-Energy, and Renewable Energy Projects

The government of Pakistan and U.S.-based energy consulting companies last month became the dual beneficiaries of more corporate welfare hand-outs that the federal government is providing to Karachi. Habibulah Mines Ltd., a "sister company" of the Pakistani Private Power & Infrastructure Board, is slated to receive an $810,000 grant from the U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) for a power-generation feasibility study. A U.S. firm will be selected to conduct the study "in anticipation of ramping up" Habibulah's coal reserves designated for a new power generation project, according to procurement document that The Peacock Report located.

Separately, USTDA is awarding a $263,000 grant to the government of Pakistan toward a review of the nation's regulatory and legal structure governing renewable energy. According to a document dated Sept. 7, Pakistan's National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NERPA) will use the funds to pay for "technical assistance" that will help it "utilize indigenous renewable energy sources such as water, wind, municipal solid waste, and others, in order to provide savings over more costly power generation that is based on imported gas, coal and fuel oil."

A third grant that USTDA awarded to Pakistan that same day will supply $325,000 toward a feasibility study for the construction of a "waste-to-energy" (WTE) plant in Karachi, home to 14 million Pakistani citizens. Karachi, the document says:

[G]enerates about 7,500 tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) per day. This MSW is presently handled by several private contractors and is dumped at multiple landfill sites in and around the city. The city's population continues to expand rapidly, and has resulted in an urgent need to address the environmental problems associated with air and water pollution through proper MSW management and disposal, as well as increased demand for electric power.

USTDA claims that the proposed waste-burning facility would simultaneously "help address the power needs and the environmental concerns of Karachi, while at the same time generating a source of income for the city."