KING: Thanks for joining us.
The hard-line president of Iran spoke to the world today, addressing the U.N. General Assembly.
I sat down with Iran's very opinionated president before the U.N. speech. And he had some strong things to say about the Bush administration.
He made for a compelling one-on-one conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Mr. President, thank you for coming.
Do you like coming to New York?
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, PRESIDENT, IRAN (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): In the name of God the compassionate, the merciful, well, this is the headquarters of the United Nations and it's essential that we come here to meet with the heads of state and to promote the cooperation that is required for the management of world affairs today.
Of course, I am also extremely interested to speak with the American people.
KING: But there's been such hostility between the two countries -- or at least the leaders of the two countries.
Do you think you can make steps forward in that regard?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, of course, the hostility has not been from our end. Up to this day, we have always been interested in having friendly relations. The hostility has been one- sided on the part of American politicians. And our nation has always defended itself against that hostility.
But it's clear that nations do not have any problems with one another. And we don't have any issues with the American people. But when the American government uses the language of force, we have no choice but to defend against it.
We've done a lot. If you will recall, I sent a letter to Mr. Bush. The letter can be the start of a fresh endeavor and relation. We assisted in Iraq to establish safety and security, as well as a new government.
And I also ask that we talk with one another in the United Nations.
KING: The president has not responded to your letter, has he?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I think that Mr. Bush has lost a lot of good opportunities, including these recent ones and initiatives by me.
KING: But he's leaving office. You will be dealing with a new president.
By the way, do you have a preference among the American candidates?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): No. We do not a preference of any sort because we believe that these are issues relating to the domestic affairs of the United States and decisions pertaining to that must be made by the American people. And it's not important to us either.
What matters, essentially, is that the president that is chosen by the American people should adopt a path and a policy approach and for us to observe that policy approach.
This is the campaign period. Anyone can say anything. So we disregard that. What matters is that once someone is in office, we have to watch and see if that person will make -- bring about some changes in policy or continue the same old path.
I think that's more important than who is actually voted into office.
KING: Would you like to meet with Senator McCain or Senator Obama?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I have said that -- in fact, on this very trip currently in New York -- that I am ready to speak with presidential candidates before the press, with the presence of the members of the press and the media, and discuss world issues and debate them together.
I believe that we have really done whatever we could to -- in this respect.
KING: Why do you think they don't want to talk to you?
Why do you think Bush, McCain, Obama -- why don't they want to talk to you?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): You should ask that from them. Don't ask me.
KING: Well, you're regarded as...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We are for talks and dialogues.
KING: But you've been regarded as a hostile state. And there are many things that Americans worry about with regard to Iran.
You would agree that you are, for want of a better word, a controversial figure, are you not?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Our country of Iran has a historical presence that extends to 7,000 years. And never has the Iranian nation taken a misstep against another nation. Throughout history, it has demonstrated that it is a nation that is for peace and friendly with others.
The war that occurred in the past century -- the only war that confronted us in a major scale was Saddam Hussein's war against us. That was, if you'll recall, supported by the U.S. government and a number of European governments against us, actually. And what we did was defend ourselves, innocently.
Of course, I will always defend the rights of my nation, the independence of my nation, with the rights -- the legal rights of my nation. And this is the responsibility of every president.
But this defense does not mean that we must infringe on the rights of other nations, not at all.
You are aware that in the course of the U.S. attack on Iraq, we were asked, in fact, to enter into the coalition or the war, to some extent -- not the coalition, but the war -- just to make up for the war that Saddam launched against us that went on for eight years.
So basically, getting to retaliate and revenge the war, in order words. So we refrained. We refused.
KING: But aren't you glad that the United States helped the world get rid of Saddam Hussein?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): How do you interpret the sort of different policy approaches that the U.S. government adopts?
And at times they contradict one another. Now for eight years, Saddam was supported against us. He bombarded Iranian cities and towns. He used chemical weapons against us. And in the meantime, the American government was giving support to Saddam. And then the U.S. government went and overthrew Saddam. Well, perhaps in the first instance, we might have been happy. But when we realized that the U.S. government is more interested in staying in Iraq and to dominate, through its presence in Iraq, the region, we -- I ask you, would you have been happy if you were in our shoes watching this?
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KING: The president of Iran and Sarah Palin have something in common. Find out what it is and what he thinks of her when we return.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESUMPTIVE NOMINEE: The danger from Iran is grave, it is real. And my goal will be to eliminate this threat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you have a president who comes to the United Nations and says that his country is going to "wipe Israel off the map," calls Israel a "stinking corpse," if they have the means to do it, we will never allow a second Holocaust.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil.
Iran must end its support of terror and it must not obtain a nuclear weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORDON BROWN, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Iran is in breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran has not told the truth to the...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The international community is prepared to impose serious consequences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM MAY, 2008)
EHUD OLMERT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The radical Iranian regime has declared the United States its enemy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): They will not be allowed to get possession of a nuclear weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING: We're back.
Mr. President, you were once a mayor. And we have a former mayor -- now governor -- Mrs. Palin, running for vice president.
What do you think of her?
Would you like to meet her?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I have said that we've done whatever we need to with respect to this discussion. We sent a letter to Mr. Bush and we also invited the people here for a talk at the United Nations headquarters. And regionally in Afghanistan, we assisted in bringing about security and safety. So we think it's now high time for the American officials to make -- take the next steps.
KING: But you would meet with her?
If she said, I would meet with you, you would meet with her?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I will await and see what evolves, what happens. Of course, we are interested in talking with one another. We believe that through talk and dialogue, things can be resolved much easier. Of course, a dialogue that has been set by an environment based on respect and justice.
Now, are you sure that she's going to become the president?
KING: No, no, no. I'm saying just what -- she's running. She's going to be -- she may be vice president.
How much...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): She wants to become the vice president.
KING: Yes. I was just -- you were both mayors, right?
So you have something in common.
(TRANSLATOR MIKE NOW MORE AUDIBLE)
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I wish that we would have talked together when we were both mayors. (LAUGHTER)
KING: OK. One of the big fears the United States has -- the world has about Iran -- is nuclear weapons.
Can you tell us what you're doing with regard to them?
Are you building them?
What's the status of your country and nuclear weapons?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): You've raised, in fact, three issues.
The first is that you say that the world is afraid of Iran and concerned about it.
I ask you, which part of the world are we speaking of?
Is it the case that the U.S. government is the equivalent of the entire world and makes the case for that world?
Is it the case that the U.S. government and a few of its allies can be considered as the whole world?
No.
KING: All right. The Western...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Not really.
Let me tell you -- well, you see, if you're talking about the Western states, I have to say, their concerns about us are not new. They've always been concerned. They were the ones who inspired Saddam to attack Iran and to get us involved in an eight-year war. The terrorist groups that killed our president, prime minister, our officials, are now freely active in the Western countries.
But let me tell you, 118 member states of the NAM, the Non- Aligned Movement, have actually supported our peaceful nuclear pursuits. Fifty-seven member states of the Organization of Islamic States have also given their support to us in this regard. And there are many other organizations -- multilateral organizations that have supported our endeavor and efforts.
So it's not the world exactly that's concerned about us. So -- and that's really the first point I have to clarify.
The second point is regarding the question of the bomb. We believe, as a matter of religious teaching, that we must be against any form of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. The production and the usage of nuclear weapons is one of the most abhorrent acts to our eyes.
In addition, we also believe that the atomic bomb has lost its use in political affairs, in fact. The time for a nuclear bomb has ended. Whoever who invests in it is going the wrong way.
Was a nuclear bomb able to help keep the Soviet Union intact and prevent its downfall?
Was it able to bring victory for the United States either in Afghanistan or Iraq?
Can it be used to that end?
Can the nuclear bomb save the Zionist regime?
The time for bombs of that nature has ended. It is a time of thought, a time for culture and reason to prevail.
There's also a third debate in the nuclear issue. We are all aware that, in fact, the nuclear issue regarding Iran is a highly politicized one. It is, in fact, purely politicized. It's not a legal battle at all.
The IAEA has visited -- has mentioned, in fact, more than 12 times in its documents and verified that Iran's nuclear activities are of a peaceful nature. The agency has said that they have, in fact, not detected any noncompliance or deviation on the part of Iran.
So I'd like to add that all our activities in that realm are completely legal and peaceful.
KING: So you are open for inspection to anyone who wants to inspect?
Just -- that would take all the fears away, if you'd just let the United States or any -- any international body look in.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The largest number of inspections in the history of the IAEA has been done with the country of Iran. We have offered the IAEA the largest number of documents in its history. No country in the world has cooperated with the agency as much as Iran has done.
And that's verified.
But I'd like to ask you, at the same, that there are countries who have nuclear weapons arsenals and are actually developing a new age nuclear warfare.
Should they not be inspected, as well?
Don't you think that their activities should be brought to an end, as well?
Who exactly is the threat?
Us working with the IAEA, with their supervision mechanisms, whilst the IAEA has also said that they have not found any documentation that would say that Iran has deviated from the peaceful path or really those who are now developing the fourth and fifth generation of nuclear weapons and have historically, in fact, used the nuclear weapons.
KING: Well...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Don't you think the Zionist regime needs some inspections, as well?
I mean isn't that a dual standard?
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KING: Up next, when Iran's president is asked about his comment saying Israel should be wiped off the map, did he really mean it?
Find out, when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(VIDEO CLIP)
KING: We're back.
Mr. President, you mentioned the Zionist regime. You've called -- I want to be correct on this -- you've called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Now, since you say that you are a peaceful nation, you don't mean militarily.
Do you mean politically wiped off the map?
What do you mean?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I think that I have to elaborate on two points here. Today marks, in fact, the fourth year of my -- that I visited in New York City. And the questions that are being asked of me are the same questions that were asked four years ago, whereas the world, in fact, has undergone tremendous changes and many developments have unfolded since in the United States, in Europe and everywhere else around the world. These developments are new.
I have responded to this question many times before. The fact that we oppose the fundamentals of the Zionist regime is because of peace and justice. We seek a viable peace.
Perhaps as a journalist who has years of experience, you must be aware of what goes on in the Middle East, the extent of the calamity, in other words.
For over 60 years, more than five million Palestinian have been displaced -- people who were forced out of their homes.
And those who have stayed are being bombarded every day militarily. They are being killed in their homes at times. Women and children at times are besieged. And medicine, water and food does not always reach them sufficiently. Children lose their lives, as do women, as a result, at times. Sometimes women die giving birth. Palestinian figures are assassinated and it goes to such extent that it's actually announced beforehand.
Three big wars started by the Zionist regime, the last of which was in 2006, when they attacked Lebanon.
So when will this calamity -- this catastrophe end?
Our solution is a humanitarian one.
KING: How?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): What we say is that in the Palestinian territory, there must be a free referendum and the Palestinian people should determine their own fate. This is the spirit and the letter of the Charter of the United Nations.
I'd ask you -- I'd like to ask you, really, how is it possible to force out a people of one land and then gather other people from around the world and let them sit and live in the homes of others and establish a government?
There's really a logic that is unacceptable.
What are the Palestinians to do?
KING: Why...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The world community that the United States claims to speak for, how come does not embody the voices of the Palestinians?
KING: Why ...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Sixty years of displacement.
KING: Would you agree -- and there are obviously disagreements here -- would you agree to sit down with all of the people of the Middle East, Israel included, to work at some solutions?
You don't want harmful solutions. You don't want bombs. You don't want to obliterate a people. You want to do some things politically.
Why not sit down and talk, Israel included?
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): You see, the Zionist regime is an uninvited guest. It is an occupier. It is killing people...
KING: But if you don't talk to them ...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Allow me. Allow me.
I'd like to ask you, if someone comes and occupies the United States, as American people, would you give them any rights or would you force them out? KING: But the world declared it a state. Israel is -- that's a fact. You're not going to change that fact. Israel is a state.
So all I'm asking is, why not get together now, states and states, and discuss your disagreements and hopefully come to some peace and bring about justice for Palestinians?
Why can't you?
Israel -- you're not going to change that.
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The apartheid regime of South Africa was a fact, as well.
Where is it today?
The Soviet Union was a fact, as well.
Where is it today?
Was the Soviet Union -- did the Soviet Union collapse as a result of talks and dialogue or as a result of resilience -- resistance, in other words.
At times, you have to resist. You see, over a hundred peace plans have been offered for the resolution of the Palestinian crisis and all of them have been defeated. None of them have given results.
Today, the head of the Palestinian Authority, the Egyptian leader, many others have negotiated with the Zionists many times.
But has there been result? Hundreds of meetings and negotiations...
KING: So then what...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): What's the result so far?
KING: OK. Therefore...
AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): ...except the expansion of the Zionist regime, the expansion of settlements, except for the escalation of tensions and terror and the killing of people. This regime is fundamentally illegal.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
KING: Coming up, I'll ask the president of Iran why he denies the Holocaust ever happened and whether he wants to harm Jewish people.
Keep watching.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back. Mr. President, since violence is not the answer, and even if -- the Soviet Union did it without violence. South Africa did it without violence. What's the solution? How do we bring about this concept of peace everywhere? You don't want to see Israelis die. I assume you don't want to Israelis die. You don't want to see Palestinians die. What's the answer?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Let me elaborate on two points in response the question. When we speak of a disappearing, what we're speaking of is that crimes must disappear. Murders and killings must disappear. Terror must disappear. Aggression and occupation must disappear.
But our solution is, in fact, a very humanitarian one and a very democratic one. What we're saying is that throughout the Palestinian territories, people should gather to determine the type of government that they'd like to have and have an election for that, free elections for all, under the supervision of international organizations.
Let us give the Palestinians an opportunity to have self- determination. This is the only viable solution.
KING: But does Israel remain Israel?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Well, let the people decide. Why should we decide for the people? We must allow people to decide for themselves. It's their right to decide. I think that there are two reasons for -- that account for the failure of the peace plans offered for Palestine.
The first reason is the disregard for the root cause of the problem. The Palestinian people were living in their lands. And they didn't have any problem. It was others who came and created problems for them. Well, so we really have to identify the roots of that, and then seek a solution based on that reality.
A second reason is that the right of the Palestinian people for self-determination has been overlooked. Both have been overlooked. I've heard a lot that, unfortunately, a group of people are trying to infuse the idea among the American people that Iran even wants to attack the United States, that Iran is a violent country or what not. These are all false propaganda. Where have we ever attacked?
What we're saying is that we must allow free elections to happen in Palestine under the supervision of the United Nations. And the Palestinian people, the displaced Palestinian people, or whoever considers Palestine its land, can participate in free elections. And then whatever happens as a result could happen.
KING: But you do not wish --
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Why -- we can't decide for the people.
KING: You do not wish the Jewish people harm?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): No. You see, we have no problems with Jewish people. There are many Jews who live in Iran today. In Iran, for every 150,000 people, we have one representative at the parliament, or the Majles.
For the Jewish community, even though there are only 20,000 in Iran, they still have one independent member in parliament who has the same prerogatives as the other members of parliament.
But please pay attention to the fact that the Zionists are not Jewish people. They have no religion. They have no religion. They're neither Jews nor Christians nor Muslims. They just have -- wear masks of religiosity. How can you possibly be religious and occupy the land of other people? How can you call yourself a religious person and kill women and children?
KING: Well, they come from a --
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Women and children, women and children were (INAUDIBLE) as a result, cannot have access to medicine.
KING: Mr. President, do they not -- I know you've denied this for some reason, but do they not -- the Zionists, as you call them, do they not come from some history of persecution? Do they not come from the deaths of millions of men, women, and children? Is there not a birth -- there's no birth in that. You don't think that happened?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): First and foremost, they simply don't allow anyone to freely discuss the history that happened. They just say, this is our telling of the history and this is what happened. And everybody just listen to it.
KING: You say it didn't happen?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Let's just assume -- what I'm saying is let more research be done on this -- that history. There is a claim that the extent of the calamity was what it was. There are people who agree with it. There are people who disagree. Some completely deny it. Some absolutely agree with the whole account of it.
What we're saying is that we should have an impartial group go do their own research about the extent of the calamity that occurred and then announce a result of that.
Now but what I'd like is really to put this debate aside for a moment. Let's assume that it happened, the extent of which everyone is speaking of. Where did it happen? Did it happen in Palestine? Or did it happen in Europe?
KING: Well, it created Israel.
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): If it happened -- no, it happened in Europe. If the crimes were committed in Europe, why should the Palestinian people be victimized as a result? Why don't the Europeans just give them a territory? Or in Alaska, perhaps. They could give them a territory anywhere they like. But why pay from the pocket of some other people? It's as if somebody -- you throw a party from the pocket of someone else. The Palestinian people had no role in that crime. They're innocent, completely. KING: When we come back, I'll ask our guest about Iran's worst fears and about his claim that there are no homosexuals in his country. That's next on this special edition of LARRY KING LIVE.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Mr. President, do you fear at all Israel or the United States attacking you?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Do you think they would do that?
KING: I'm asking you.
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): I have no concerns in that regard because they aren't able to do that, because the worst thing the U.S. government can do would be an attack. I think that in the United States there are enough reasonable people, smart people, who would not allow the U.S. government to make a mistake.
KING: How about in Israel?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): The same too. It's much smaller than that for an attack. It's way too small. It doesn't even factor into the equation of Iran's foreign policy. Iran is a vast country. Have you visited Iran?
KING: No, I am planning to next year.
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Oh, oh! I have to tell you, I think the whole members of the press, the media, have to come and visit Iran. The Americans, I've noticed that in the news when they want to show Iran, they sort of show a small underdeveloped sort of desert-like country. Iran is an extremely big country and very developed and powerful, too. With big people.
KING: By the way, you mentioned human rights in Israel. Don't you have some human rights problems of your own in Iran?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): What do you mean by human rights problems?
KING: People protesting that they don't have the same rights as other people? Homosexuals -- you said last year, you denied there were homosexuals. There's homosexuals everywhere.
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): I said it is not the way it is here. In Iran this is considered a very -- obviously most people dislike it. And we have actually a law regarding it and the law is enforced. It is a law that was passed. It was legislated. And it is an act that is against human principles. A lot of things can happen. It can cause psychological problems, social problems that affect the whole society.
Remember that God rules are to improve human life. In our religion, this act is forbidden and the Parliament has legislated about it. Not now, 70 years ago. This is something that happened 70 years ago, before the Islamic Republic became --
KING: So what happens to gay people?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Let me -- well, of course, nobody has held protests. You are -- are you concerned for 70 million Iranian people or a few homosexuals?
Let's assume in Iran -- let's assume in the United States that 200 million people drive cars and a million violators are rounded up and they just basically violate driving laws. Should we be worried for the 199 million people whose safety you must be concerned about or the one million violators? The law is the law. It's law. And it must be enforced, of course.
Of course we do pay attention that in Iran nobody interferes in the private lives of individuals. We have nothing to do with the private realm of people. This is at the not private, public morality. In their own house, nobody ever interferes.
KING: Still to come, our government won't let him travel outside a 25 mile radius of New York City. If he could travel in the US, where would he go? Find out when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: All right. Mr. President, we have a few moments left. Do you want the United States out of Iraq right now?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): If it an, it would be the best scenario. But I think that it needs a timetable. That's what I think. A clear timetable so that it allows for their withdrawal in the shortest a period of time. Because the presence of the United States there has not reduced tension and it has not limited terrorism, either. In fact, it has increased terrorism.
So we think that it will benefit everyone. It will benefit the Americans, the Iraqis and the region if the withdrawal happens. But it needs a specific timeframe.
KING: Do you think relations between the two countries, the United States and Iran, can get better?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Definitely so. I want to remind you that the United States cut its relations with us unilaterally as a means to place pressure on us. Maybe the politicians back then in the United States thought that with the severance of ties, Iran will die or that it will be weaker. But as this didn't happen, the reason was that they didn't understand the Iranian people, the nation.
The Iranian people are great people, a people with a rich civilization and culture, human beings who are big at heart, big intellectually. We have numerous talents around a humanitarian culture that prevails. And that kind of people can always run its own affairs and manage itself with dignity and well. And we've done that. It was the U.S. government that cut ties with us, not us. KING: Senator Obama has said -- Senator McCain has not -- but he is open to diplomacy. Does that encourage you?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): We are interested in having relations that are friendly and successful. We prefer that and propose that. But it is for the American government to decide what choices it wants to make. And whatever choice they make, we will also take measures and organize our efforts accordingly.
But we think that a relationship based on justice and respect will benefit all sides and that's our preference. And we actually prefer this, that this be the case.
KING: Do you expect it?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): I think that every government that comes to power in the United States must address two sort of agenda items. The first is that it must limit the circle of the interventions of the United States abroad because these interventions and interferences bring about heavy cost to the American people, both materially and both in terms of the level of dignity of a people. The dignity of the American people around the world has been hard when you -- other people, other nations do not have a good image of American people anymore.
And materially, you can tell for yourself what it has done to the American economy. I heard this recently, that 700 billion dollars are to be infused to the financial institutions. Where is it being paid from? The pocket of American people.
KING: I've got to take a break. We'll be back with our remaining moments right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Couple of rather personal question in our remaining minutes. I know they limit your travel in the United States. If you could go anywhere, what would you like to see in this country?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): I just want to add a sentence regarding the last question before this, if you allow me. The American government must do two things. One, that it must limit the circle of its interventions abroad to the geography of the United States alone, rather than being involved in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The key is to invest the money of the American people for the American people, for their own health, for their own housing requirements, their own education requirements, employment requirements, their welfare to take care of areas that are afflicted by natural disaster.
And the second thing that the American people -- government must do is to fix the relations with Iran. Because Iran is an important country.
KING: Where would you like to go in the United States?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): I would have liked to visit different parts of the United States. On this trip through our mission here, we asked to go to California and Los Angeles, wherever we can meet with the American people and to learn about them and their lives. We think that having talks is the best way.
The best approach, I think, that you, others in the media, the American people, must come and visit Iran. These visits will link our minds together. It will create an affinity. And we'll start liking each other.
KING: How many children do you have? Boy, girl, what?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): One girl and two sons.
KING: How old?
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Two have been married. That means -- well, first they graduated and then they got married. And one is a student at the university.
KING: You don't look old enough to have married children.
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): In Iran we marry early.
KING: I thank you very much --
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): In America, too, I know the family is given a lot of value.
KING: We thank the president for joining us tonight for a very illuminating, fast paced hour. Hope you enjoyed it as well.
Courtesy of CNN.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Portreti i Ramush Haradinaj ne syte e New York Times!
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: July 12, 2008 by New York Times
PRISTINA, Kosovo
IN 2005, just after arriving in The Hague to face charges for war crimes, Ramush Haradinaj found himself face to face with Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian strongman, who was being held in a nearby cell.
For Mr. Haradinaj, a former commander of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army and a squat hulk of a man who fought a guerrilla war against Mr. Milosevic’s forces, the encounter was a shock.
“Milosevic asked if I was Haradinaj in English and said, ‘How are you? How do you like it here? How is it going there in Kosovo?’ ” recalled Mr. Haradinaj, who was acquitted on 37 counts of crimes against humanity and released from The Hague in April after the court found that the evidence was too weak to tie him directly to the killings for which he stood accused.
“I replied that Europe was going to help build a state in Kosovo with America taking care of our security,” he continued. “He was very polite. But he didn’t like my answer and he left. I didn’t feel like a loser in this story because I was a member of the winning team.”
But when Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders finally declared independence last February, Mr. Haradinaj’s sense of triumph was tempered by his being forced to watch from prison.
Now, Mr. Haradinaj, 40, who was prime minister of United Nations-administered Kosovo for 100 days before surrendering to The Hague in March 2005, vows to once again lead the newborn country.
“We have a huge mess,” he said at his mansion on a hill overlooking Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. “There are people with no water for their toilets; there is no electricity. I am the one who can deliver. I want to be the next prime minister of this country. There is no doubt about that.”
Celebrated as a freedom fighter among ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and despised by Serbs, who nicknamed him “Rambo” for his indestructibility, Mr. Haradinaj received a hero’s welcome when he returned home. In northern Kosovo, Serbs burned judges’ robes to show their contempt.
“Haradinaj’s release is a gross injustice and undermines the whole Hague process,” said Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s young and pro-European foreign minister.
AT the outset of Mr. Haradinaj’s trial, Carla Del Ponte, The Hague’s former chief prosecutor, who indicted Mr. Haradinaj on charges including the murder, torture, rape and expulsion of Serbs, Albanians and Gypsies, called him a “gangster in uniform” with blood on his hands. Lawyers and judges on the court complained that witness intimidation had been widespread. Prosecutors have indicated that they plan to appeal.
Mr. Haradinaj made little effort to conceal his contempt for Ms. Del Ponte, who in a recent book linked the K.L.A. to an alleged organ trafficking scheme in which Serbian and Albanian civilians were said to have been abducted in Kosovo and taken to Albania, where their organs were extracted before they were killed. “Del Ponte spent eight years as the chief prosecutor, and her duty was to bring the truth,” Mr. Haradinaj said. “Instead, she was self-preoccupied with how she looks and how she is perceived by the public.” Asked about the organ allegations, he declined to reply.
Mr. Haradinaj said that going overnight from prime minister of Kosovo to detainee had been difficult. To pass the time, the former warriors convened a cooking club. Mr. Milosevic cooked cevapi, little Balkan meatballs. The one-time guerrilla, more at home with an AK-47, said he did not know how to cook.
“I was scared to have so much time just sitting, sitting,” he recalled. “But the battlefield was worse than The Hague. There, you saw your brothers killed every day.”
Mr. Haradinaj has had a life characterized by struggle, loss, violence and bloodshed. Two of his brothers were killed during fighting with Serbian soldiers. A third was shot dead in his car in 2005.
Mr. Haradinaj said he became convinced that armed struggle was the only way to overcome Serbian domination as early as age 14, when he saw the Serbian police beating up young Albanian demonstrators. “I saw that they were beating them because they had the guns and were the strong ones,” he said. “I realized then that we needed to be even stronger.”
In 1989, the year Mr. Milosevic stripped away Kosovo’s autonomy, Mr. Haradinaj emigrated to Switzerland and spent nine years working as a nightclub bouncer and in construction. He said he began to prepare for the physical exertion of the battlefield by studying kung fu, reading books on guerrilla tactics and doing 60-mile runs in the Alps.
He returned to Kosovo in early 1998, as Albanian guerrillas and Serbian forces began to clash, and established himself as commander of his home Dukagjini region.
During his first days of battle, he saw his younger brother Luan killed while the two were crossing to Kosovo from Albania. He said he carried his brother’s body on his back for four hours until he could bury him.
In March 1998, Mr. Milosevic’s forces tried to kill Mr. Haradinaj and his family at their compound in Gllogjan, in west Kosovo. He was shot seven times, he recalled, but survived thanks to a set of keys in his breast pocket, which deflected a potentially lethal bullet.
K.L.A. soldiers who fought alongside Mr. Haradinaj said he inspired deep loyalty through charisma, supreme-self-confidence and fearlessness. While some soldiers sang patriotic anthems to prepare for battle, Ramush Ahmeti, a fighter in his unit, recalled that Mr. Haradinaj would silence them and encourage them to run laps instead.
Yet, when Mr. Haradinaj’s brother Shkelzen was killed in 1999 and his fighters were demoralized, Mr. Ahmeti said, Mr. Haradinaj suddenly broke into a partisan song. “He was singing to try to prevent us from breaking down,” Mr. Ahmeti said. “We would die for him because he was willing to die for us.”
AFTER NATO intervened in the war in 1999 and Serbian forces withdrew, Mr. Haradinaj — by then legendary in Kosovo — earned a law degree from Pristina University. Fellow students said they were shocked to find the former warrior with them in the classroom. Mr. Haradinaj, who did not go to college, also taught himself English, French and German and became a wine connoisseur.
Yet violence dogged him. On July 7, 2000, he visited the house of a group of brothers from a rival group to the K.L.A., who had accused him of ordering the killing of one of their brothers during the war. A battle broke out, according to the police, and Mr. Haradinaj was wounded by a grenade. He was never prosecuted.
After helping to disarm the K.L.A. and establish it as a civilian force — which Western diplomats say helped bring stability to the province — he set up a political party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo. In elections in October 2004, his party finished third and Mr. Haradinaj became prime minister of a coalition government.
Western diplomats say he was an intelligent and energetic leader. Before he became prime minister, in March 2004, when ethnic Albanians rioted across Kosovo, he was credited with preventing hundreds from attacking Kosovo’s best-known Serbian Orthodox monastery.
While he was in prison last year, Mr. Haradinaj had to watch as his archrival, Hashim Thaci, a former political leader of the K.L.A., emerged as prime minister.
Vlora Qitaku, a spokeswoman for Mr. Thaci’s party, said Mr. Haradinaj was a political has-been, whose party had lost the last five elections. “We are trying to build a new democracy and we will not allow Ramush to turn Kosovo into a jungle,” Ms. Qitaku said.
Mr. Haradinaj lashed out at the government — and the West — for allowing Belgrade to control the Serb-dominated north, and warned that Albanians would grow impatient.
“We have to be able to deliver on Feb. 17,” he said, referring to the date of independence. “I know what patience means, but if you sleep, it’s not good. It can be too late.”
Published: July 12, 2008 by New York Times
PRISTINA, Kosovo
IN 2005, just after arriving in The Hague to face charges for war crimes, Ramush Haradinaj found himself face to face with Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian strongman, who was being held in a nearby cell.
For Mr. Haradinaj, a former commander of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army and a squat hulk of a man who fought a guerrilla war against Mr. Milosevic’s forces, the encounter was a shock.
“Milosevic asked if I was Haradinaj in English and said, ‘How are you? How do you like it here? How is it going there in Kosovo?’ ” recalled Mr. Haradinaj, who was acquitted on 37 counts of crimes against humanity and released from The Hague in April after the court found that the evidence was too weak to tie him directly to the killings for which he stood accused.
“I replied that Europe was going to help build a state in Kosovo with America taking care of our security,” he continued. “He was very polite. But he didn’t like my answer and he left. I didn’t feel like a loser in this story because I was a member of the winning team.”
But when Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders finally declared independence last February, Mr. Haradinaj’s sense of triumph was tempered by his being forced to watch from prison.
Now, Mr. Haradinaj, 40, who was prime minister of United Nations-administered Kosovo for 100 days before surrendering to The Hague in March 2005, vows to once again lead the newborn country.
“We have a huge mess,” he said at his mansion on a hill overlooking Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. “There are people with no water for their toilets; there is no electricity. I am the one who can deliver. I want to be the next prime minister of this country. There is no doubt about that.”
Celebrated as a freedom fighter among ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and despised by Serbs, who nicknamed him “Rambo” for his indestructibility, Mr. Haradinaj received a hero’s welcome when he returned home. In northern Kosovo, Serbs burned judges’ robes to show their contempt.
“Haradinaj’s release is a gross injustice and undermines the whole Hague process,” said Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s young and pro-European foreign minister.
AT the outset of Mr. Haradinaj’s trial, Carla Del Ponte, The Hague’s former chief prosecutor, who indicted Mr. Haradinaj on charges including the murder, torture, rape and expulsion of Serbs, Albanians and Gypsies, called him a “gangster in uniform” with blood on his hands. Lawyers and judges on the court complained that witness intimidation had been widespread. Prosecutors have indicated that they plan to appeal.
Mr. Haradinaj made little effort to conceal his contempt for Ms. Del Ponte, who in a recent book linked the K.L.A. to an alleged organ trafficking scheme in which Serbian and Albanian civilians were said to have been abducted in Kosovo and taken to Albania, where their organs were extracted before they were killed. “Del Ponte spent eight years as the chief prosecutor, and her duty was to bring the truth,” Mr. Haradinaj said. “Instead, she was self-preoccupied with how she looks and how she is perceived by the public.” Asked about the organ allegations, he declined to reply.
Mr. Haradinaj said that going overnight from prime minister of Kosovo to detainee had been difficult. To pass the time, the former warriors convened a cooking club. Mr. Milosevic cooked cevapi, little Balkan meatballs. The one-time guerrilla, more at home with an AK-47, said he did not know how to cook.
“I was scared to have so much time just sitting, sitting,” he recalled. “But the battlefield was worse than The Hague. There, you saw your brothers killed every day.”
Mr. Haradinaj has had a life characterized by struggle, loss, violence and bloodshed. Two of his brothers were killed during fighting with Serbian soldiers. A third was shot dead in his car in 2005.
Mr. Haradinaj said he became convinced that armed struggle was the only way to overcome Serbian domination as early as age 14, when he saw the Serbian police beating up young Albanian demonstrators. “I saw that they were beating them because they had the guns and were the strong ones,” he said. “I realized then that we needed to be even stronger.”
In 1989, the year Mr. Milosevic stripped away Kosovo’s autonomy, Mr. Haradinaj emigrated to Switzerland and spent nine years working as a nightclub bouncer and in construction. He said he began to prepare for the physical exertion of the battlefield by studying kung fu, reading books on guerrilla tactics and doing 60-mile runs in the Alps.
He returned to Kosovo in early 1998, as Albanian guerrillas and Serbian forces began to clash, and established himself as commander of his home Dukagjini region.
During his first days of battle, he saw his younger brother Luan killed while the two were crossing to Kosovo from Albania. He said he carried his brother’s body on his back for four hours until he could bury him.
In March 1998, Mr. Milosevic’s forces tried to kill Mr. Haradinaj and his family at their compound in Gllogjan, in west Kosovo. He was shot seven times, he recalled, but survived thanks to a set of keys in his breast pocket, which deflected a potentially lethal bullet.
K.L.A. soldiers who fought alongside Mr. Haradinaj said he inspired deep loyalty through charisma, supreme-self-confidence and fearlessness. While some soldiers sang patriotic anthems to prepare for battle, Ramush Ahmeti, a fighter in his unit, recalled that Mr. Haradinaj would silence them and encourage them to run laps instead.
Yet, when Mr. Haradinaj’s brother Shkelzen was killed in 1999 and his fighters were demoralized, Mr. Ahmeti said, Mr. Haradinaj suddenly broke into a partisan song. “He was singing to try to prevent us from breaking down,” Mr. Ahmeti said. “We would die for him because he was willing to die for us.”
AFTER NATO intervened in the war in 1999 and Serbian forces withdrew, Mr. Haradinaj — by then legendary in Kosovo — earned a law degree from Pristina University. Fellow students said they were shocked to find the former warrior with them in the classroom. Mr. Haradinaj, who did not go to college, also taught himself English, French and German and became a wine connoisseur.
Yet violence dogged him. On July 7, 2000, he visited the house of a group of brothers from a rival group to the K.L.A., who had accused him of ordering the killing of one of their brothers during the war. A battle broke out, according to the police, and Mr. Haradinaj was wounded by a grenade. He was never prosecuted.
After helping to disarm the K.L.A. and establish it as a civilian force — which Western diplomats say helped bring stability to the province — he set up a political party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo. In elections in October 2004, his party finished third and Mr. Haradinaj became prime minister of a coalition government.
Western diplomats say he was an intelligent and energetic leader. Before he became prime minister, in March 2004, when ethnic Albanians rioted across Kosovo, he was credited with preventing hundreds from attacking Kosovo’s best-known Serbian Orthodox monastery.
While he was in prison last year, Mr. Haradinaj had to watch as his archrival, Hashim Thaci, a former political leader of the K.L.A., emerged as prime minister.
Vlora Qitaku, a spokeswoman for Mr. Thaci’s party, said Mr. Haradinaj was a political has-been, whose party had lost the last five elections. “We are trying to build a new democracy and we will not allow Ramush to turn Kosovo into a jungle,” Ms. Qitaku said.
Mr. Haradinaj lashed out at the government — and the West — for allowing Belgrade to control the Serb-dominated north, and warned that Albanians would grow impatient.
“We have to be able to deliver on Feb. 17,” he said, referring to the date of independence. “I know what patience means, but if you sleep, it’s not good. It can be too late.”
Monday, July 14, 2008
Përplasjet për tenderë
Lufta PDK-LDK për Organin Shqyrtues të Prokurimit Publik
Konflikti verbal midis ministrit te Postës dhe Telekomunikacionit Fatmir Limaj dhe Naser Osmanit ish zëvendës ministër i Ministrisë së Tregtisë dhe Industrisë për anëtarët e organit më të lartë të Prokurimit Publik, sipas listës së anëtarëve të propozuar nga Qeveria dhe CV-ve të tyre, duket qartë se është rezultat i përplasjeve se kush të kontrollojë fushën e tenderëve. Përderisa KRPP-ja ka qenë organ i kontrolluar nga LDK-ja, OSHPP-ja, si organi më i lartë, tani ka gjasë të kontrollohet nga PDK-ja
SERBEZE HAXHIAJPrishtinë, 13 korrik - Lufta për kontrollin e tenderëve, e cila rezultoi ditë më parë me konfliktin verbal midis Fatmir Limajt dhe Naser Osmanit, duket se do të nxjerrë edhe më tej telashe të mëdha në koalicionin qeverisës dhe miliona euro humbje për buxhetin e Kosovës. Lista prej pesë emrave të propozuar nga Qeveria për organin më të lartë të Prokurimit Publik që do të formohet tani, Organin Shqyrtues të Prokurimit Publik (OSHPP), tre prej të cilëve janë refuzuar, tregon se PDK-ja po merr nën kontroll fushën e prokurimit.Kandidatët e propozuar për anëtarë të këtij organi nuk janë vetëm anëtarë të PDK-së, por njëri nga ata është edhe në farefis me kryeministrin Hashim Thaçi.Hysni Hoxha, Tefik Sulejmani dhe Demë Keka janë emrat që kanë kaluar nga Organi i Pavarur për Përzgjedhjen e Kandidaturave për anëtarë të OSHPP-së, kurse dy kandidatët që kanë rënë nga kombinimi për shkak se nuk kanë plotësuar asnjë nga kriteret e parapara me ligj janë Ahmet Krasniqi dhe Lulëzim Blakaj. Në CV-të e të dyve që “Lajm” i ka siguruar në Kuvend, shkruan se ata janë anëtarë të PDK-së. Burime të gazetës nga organi përzgjedhës, i cili është formuar nga Këshilli Gjyqësor Prokurorial, në përbërje të gjykatësve Rifat Zylfiu, Besa Krajku dhe Isak Ademi, asnjë nga kandidaturat nuk kanë njohuri në fushën e prokurimit.Ndërkohë, që prej 30 qershorit, kur edhe ka skaduar mandati për shqyrtim të ankesave të Komisionit Rregullativ të Prokurimit Publik (KRPP), në adresë të këtij institucioni kanë mbërri 16 ankesa, shumica nga ato janë për kontrata milionëshe dhe tani ato janë përgjegjësi e askujt. Që prej 31 dhjetorit të vitit të kaluar, kur është dashur të formohet organi i ankesave, PSSP-ja dy herë u ka zgjatur autorizimin për t’u marrë me ankesa KRPP-së, ndërsa BE-ja kishe bërë vërejtjen serioze se emërimet për organin më të lartë të Prokurimit Publik janë ekstra politike.Naser Osmani, ish-zëvendësministër i Tregtisë dhe Industrisë, koka e të cilit ra e para në luftën për monopolin e tenderëve, tha se PDK-ja dëshiron të kontrollojë fushën e tenderëve dhe se anëtarët që ka propozuar janë nga kjo parti. “Shikoni në KRPP dhe shihni çfarë po ndodh me ankesat. Njerëzit nuk guxojnë as të ankohet, pastaj shikoni çfarë presionesh po ndodhin rreth tenderëve njëburimorë në Agjencinë e Prokurimit Publik (APP)”, tha Osmani.Por, derisa lufta për monopol po vazhdon, niveli i ankesave ka rënë në zero në Ministrinë e Transportit dhe Telekomunikacionit (MTK), e cila për dallim nga viti i kaluar që ka pasur 33 ankesa, sivjet nuk ka asnjë të tillë. Burime të KRPP-së, me kusht anonimiteti, kanë shpjeguar se në këtë ministri niveli i ankesave ka rënë për shkak se ofertuesve po u premtohet se do jenë fitues herën tjetër ose ka ndodhur edhe raste kërcënimi. “Rasti i KEK-ut, ku për ekskavatorët është kërkuar tender njëburimor dhe i është refuzuar nga APP-ja, dhe rasti i tenderit për ndërtesën ‘Rilindja’, janë vetëm dy nga rastet që ankuesit po frikësohen dhe se ka presione në procedurat shqyrtuese”, tha ky burim.
Ismet Hajrullahu, këshilltar për media i kryetarit të Kuvendit të Kosovës, tha se procesi i emërimeve për OSHPP, pritet të përfundojë deri kah fundi i muajit. “Janë dërguar pesë kandidatura dhe dy prej tyre janë refuzuar, tani duhet të ketë propozime të reja dhe kjo është arsyeja e vetme dhe nuk ka kurrfarë ndikimi politik të PDK-së në këtë proces”, tha Hajrullahu.Shefja e Agjencionit të Prokurimit Publik (APP), Vlora Kuçi, nuk ka preferuar të flasë rreth presioneve në tenderët njëburimorë. Ajo vetëm ka thënë se kërkesa e KEK-ut për tender njëburimor është përmbyllur me rekomandimin për tender të hapur.Iliaz Duli, kryetar i Bordit të KRPP-së, tha se OSHPP-ja, pritet t’ia lehtësojë punën e KRRP-së dhe se tani e tutje ata do të jenë kryefjala e vendimeve sa i përket ankesave në fushën e prokurimit. “Besoj se do të instalohet një organ profesional dhe i paanshëm. Tani akoma nuk i dimë njerëzit dhe tërë procesin”, tha Duli.Deri më tani KRPP është cilësuar si organ i kontrolluar nga LDK-ja për shkak se njeriu kyç në shqyrtimin e ankesave ka qenë Nexhat Shabani, baxhanaku i ish-presidentit Ibrahim Rugova, dhe shumë shkelje janë lidhur me emrin e tij. Por, kjo nuk qëndron sipas shefit të KRPP-së, i cili pranon se ka pasur probleme dhe thotë se nuk kanë mundur të jenë krejt të përsosur. Ahmet Krasniqi, njëri nga kandidatët e diskualifikuar në këtë garë, tha se disa persona të LDK-së nga KRPP-ja kanë ndikuar në panelin përzgjedhjes për të mos kaluar ai në këtë garë. “Shihet se ka pasur tendenca politike në këtë garë dhe se përzgjedhja nuk ka qenë fer”, tha Krasniqi. Me gjithë përpjekjet “Lajm” nuk ka mundur të kontaktojë personin më kontestues të kësaj liste, Demë Kekën, i cili aktualisht punon në Zyrën Ligjore të Kryeministrisë.
Konflikti verbal midis ministrit te Postës dhe Telekomunikacionit Fatmir Limaj dhe Naser Osmanit ish zëvendës ministër i Ministrisë së Tregtisë dhe Industrisë për anëtarët e organit më të lartë të Prokurimit Publik, sipas listës së anëtarëve të propozuar nga Qeveria dhe CV-ve të tyre, duket qartë se është rezultat i përplasjeve se kush të kontrollojë fushën e tenderëve. Përderisa KRPP-ja ka qenë organ i kontrolluar nga LDK-ja, OSHPP-ja, si organi më i lartë, tani ka gjasë të kontrollohet nga PDK-ja
SERBEZE HAXHIAJPrishtinë, 13 korrik - Lufta për kontrollin e tenderëve, e cila rezultoi ditë më parë me konfliktin verbal midis Fatmir Limajt dhe Naser Osmanit, duket se do të nxjerrë edhe më tej telashe të mëdha në koalicionin qeverisës dhe miliona euro humbje për buxhetin e Kosovës. Lista prej pesë emrave të propozuar nga Qeveria për organin më të lartë të Prokurimit Publik që do të formohet tani, Organin Shqyrtues të Prokurimit Publik (OSHPP), tre prej të cilëve janë refuzuar, tregon se PDK-ja po merr nën kontroll fushën e prokurimit.Kandidatët e propozuar për anëtarë të këtij organi nuk janë vetëm anëtarë të PDK-së, por njëri nga ata është edhe në farefis me kryeministrin Hashim Thaçi.Hysni Hoxha, Tefik Sulejmani dhe Demë Keka janë emrat që kanë kaluar nga Organi i Pavarur për Përzgjedhjen e Kandidaturave për anëtarë të OSHPP-së, kurse dy kandidatët që kanë rënë nga kombinimi për shkak se nuk kanë plotësuar asnjë nga kriteret e parapara me ligj janë Ahmet Krasniqi dhe Lulëzim Blakaj. Në CV-të e të dyve që “Lajm” i ka siguruar në Kuvend, shkruan se ata janë anëtarë të PDK-së. Burime të gazetës nga organi përzgjedhës, i cili është formuar nga Këshilli Gjyqësor Prokurorial, në përbërje të gjykatësve Rifat Zylfiu, Besa Krajku dhe Isak Ademi, asnjë nga kandidaturat nuk kanë njohuri në fushën e prokurimit.Ndërkohë, që prej 30 qershorit, kur edhe ka skaduar mandati për shqyrtim të ankesave të Komisionit Rregullativ të Prokurimit Publik (KRPP), në adresë të këtij institucioni kanë mbërri 16 ankesa, shumica nga ato janë për kontrata milionëshe dhe tani ato janë përgjegjësi e askujt. Që prej 31 dhjetorit të vitit të kaluar, kur është dashur të formohet organi i ankesave, PSSP-ja dy herë u ka zgjatur autorizimin për t’u marrë me ankesa KRPP-së, ndërsa BE-ja kishe bërë vërejtjen serioze se emërimet për organin më të lartë të Prokurimit Publik janë ekstra politike.Naser Osmani, ish-zëvendësministër i Tregtisë dhe Industrisë, koka e të cilit ra e para në luftën për monopolin e tenderëve, tha se PDK-ja dëshiron të kontrollojë fushën e tenderëve dhe se anëtarët që ka propozuar janë nga kjo parti. “Shikoni në KRPP dhe shihni çfarë po ndodh me ankesat. Njerëzit nuk guxojnë as të ankohet, pastaj shikoni çfarë presionesh po ndodhin rreth tenderëve njëburimorë në Agjencinë e Prokurimit Publik (APP)”, tha Osmani.Por, derisa lufta për monopol po vazhdon, niveli i ankesave ka rënë në zero në Ministrinë e Transportit dhe Telekomunikacionit (MTK), e cila për dallim nga viti i kaluar që ka pasur 33 ankesa, sivjet nuk ka asnjë të tillë. Burime të KRPP-së, me kusht anonimiteti, kanë shpjeguar se në këtë ministri niveli i ankesave ka rënë për shkak se ofertuesve po u premtohet se do jenë fitues herën tjetër ose ka ndodhur edhe raste kërcënimi. “Rasti i KEK-ut, ku për ekskavatorët është kërkuar tender njëburimor dhe i është refuzuar nga APP-ja, dhe rasti i tenderit për ndërtesën ‘Rilindja’, janë vetëm dy nga rastet që ankuesit po frikësohen dhe se ka presione në procedurat shqyrtuese”, tha ky burim.
Ismet Hajrullahu, këshilltar për media i kryetarit të Kuvendit të Kosovës, tha se procesi i emërimeve për OSHPP, pritet të përfundojë deri kah fundi i muajit. “Janë dërguar pesë kandidatura dhe dy prej tyre janë refuzuar, tani duhet të ketë propozime të reja dhe kjo është arsyeja e vetme dhe nuk ka kurrfarë ndikimi politik të PDK-së në këtë proces”, tha Hajrullahu.Shefja e Agjencionit të Prokurimit Publik (APP), Vlora Kuçi, nuk ka preferuar të flasë rreth presioneve në tenderët njëburimorë. Ajo vetëm ka thënë se kërkesa e KEK-ut për tender njëburimor është përmbyllur me rekomandimin për tender të hapur.Iliaz Duli, kryetar i Bordit të KRPP-së, tha se OSHPP-ja, pritet t’ia lehtësojë punën e KRRP-së dhe se tani e tutje ata do të jenë kryefjala e vendimeve sa i përket ankesave në fushën e prokurimit. “Besoj se do të instalohet një organ profesional dhe i paanshëm. Tani akoma nuk i dimë njerëzit dhe tërë procesin”, tha Duli.Deri më tani KRPP është cilësuar si organ i kontrolluar nga LDK-ja për shkak se njeriu kyç në shqyrtimin e ankesave ka qenë Nexhat Shabani, baxhanaku i ish-presidentit Ibrahim Rugova, dhe shumë shkelje janë lidhur me emrin e tij. Por, kjo nuk qëndron sipas shefit të KRPP-së, i cili pranon se ka pasur probleme dhe thotë se nuk kanë mundur të jenë krejt të përsosur. Ahmet Krasniqi, njëri nga kandidatët e diskualifikuar në këtë garë, tha se disa persona të LDK-së nga KRPP-ja kanë ndikuar në panelin përzgjedhjes për të mos kaluar ai në këtë garë. “Shihet se ka pasur tendenca politike në këtë garë dhe se përzgjedhja nuk ka qenë fer”, tha Krasniqi. Me gjithë përpjekjet “Lajm” nuk ka mundur të kontaktojë personin më kontestues të kësaj liste, Demë Kekën, i cili aktualisht punon në Zyrën Ligjore të Kryeministrisë.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
American Envoy Is Linked to Arms Deal Cover-Up - NewYorkTimes.
By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: June 24, 2008
WASHINGTON — An American ambassador helped cover up the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition that a Pentagon contractor bought to supply Afghan security forces, according to testimony gathered by Congressional investigators.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Dealer Accused of Selling Banned Munitions to Army (June 21, 2008)
Allegations Lead Army to Review Arms Policy (April 27, 2008)
Washington Blocks Exports of Munitions Firm Suspected of Fraud (April 4, 2008)
Supplier Under Scrutiny on Arms for Afghans (March 27, 2008)
Documents from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
A military attaché has told the investigators that the United States ambassador to Albania endorsed a plan by the Albanian defense minister to hide several boxes of Chinese ammunition from a visiting reporter. The ammunition was being repackaged to disguise its origins and shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a Miami Beach arms-dealing company.
The ambassador, John L. Withers II, met with the defense minister, Fatmir Mediu, hours before a reporter for The New York Times was to visit the American contractor’s operations in Tirana, the Albanian capital, according to the testimony. The company, under an Army contract, bought the ammunition to supply Afghan security forces although American law prohibits trading in Chinese arms.
The attaché, Maj. Larry D. Harrison II of the Army, was one of the aides attending the late-night meeting, on Nov. 19, 2007. He told House investigators that Mr. Mediu asked Ambassador Withers for help, saying he was concerned that the reporter would reveal that he had been accused of profiting from selling arms. The minister said that because he had gone out of his way to help the United States, a close ally, “the U.S. owed him something,” according to Major Harrison.
Mr. Mediu ordered the commanding general of Albania’s armed forces to remove all boxes of Chinese ammunition from a site the reporter was to visit, and “the ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing,” Major Harrison said, according to his testimony.
Investigators interviewed Major Harrison by telephone on June 9, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee made excerpts of the transcript public on Monday.
At the time of the meeting, the company, AEY Inc., was under investigation for illegal arms trafficking involving Chinese ammunition.
On Friday, the president of the company, Efraim E. Diveroli, 22, and three others were charged with selling prohibited Chinese ammunition to the Pentagon that they said was made in Albania.
On March 27, The New York Times published an article that said Albanian documents showed that the Miami company had bought more than 100 million Chinese cartridges that were stored for decades in former cold war stockpiles.
Mr. Diveroli arranged to have them repacked in cardboard boxes, many of which split or decomposed after shipment to the war zones, according to the article. Different lots or types of ammunition were mixed. In some cases the ammunition was dirty, corroded or covered with a film.
The repackaging operation, carried out by an AEY subcontractor at the Rinas Airport in Tirana, has become the focus of the Congressional investigation.
According to the transcript excerpts released by the committee, Major Harrison told investigators that he did not agree with the decision to hide the boxes from the reporter, and said that he felt “very uncomfortable” during the meeting.
Major Harrison, who as the chief of the embassy’s office of defense cooperation was responsible for helping American efforts to train, equip and modernize Albania’s military, said that his suggestion to bar the reporter from visiting the Albania base was rejected.
In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Monday that there were signs that embassy officials in Tirana tried to cover up the November meeting once Mr. Waxman’s staff began an investigation into the arms company. The letter said the committee would seek to interview Mr. Withers and other embassy personnel.
Attempts to reach Mr. Withers through the United States Embassy in Tirana were met with a request to refer all questions to Washington.
But a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal inquiry into AEY, said he had spoken Monday to Mr. Withers, who adamantly denied Major Harrison’s statement.
The senior official said the committee had never interviewed Mr. Withers or other top embassy personnel, and released the information on Monday to fan interest in a committee hearing on the company’s business dealings scheduled for Tuesday.
A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, told reporters on Monday that the department was reviewing Mr. Waxman’s letter, which included Major Harrison’s statements.
“We have no information that would support the idea that U.S. officials were involved in some kind of illicit activity,” Mr. Casey said. “But obviously, again, any allegations made, certainly any questions raised, by the chairman of a major committee in Congress, is something that we will be happy to look into.”
Mr. Withers, a Foreign Service officer for 24 years, has been ambassador to Albania since July 2007. He has also served in Latvia, Nigeria, Russia and The Hague. His father, John L. Withers Sr., is a former director of the Agency for International Development.
A spokesman for the Albanian Defense Ministry in Tirana could not be reached for comment, and an official at the Albanian Embassy in Washington declined to answer questions.
Capt. Andres Vazquez, a military lawyer for Major Harrison in Germany, did not answer his phone on Monday night and did not reply to an e-mail message.
According to messages obtained by Congressional investigators, Major Harrison urged embassy officials to inform the committee of the Nov. 19 meeting between the ambassador and minister, but the embassy omitted any reference to the meeting in its official response to the committee’s questions.
Embassy staff members seemed sympathetic to the Albanians’ alarm. The day after the November meeting, the embassy’s regional security officer, Patrick Leonard, wrote an assistant an e-mail message obtained by the committee: “NY Times just arrived today and might be doing a story on this and it might get ugly. Ambassador is very concerned about the case.”
When The Times published its article on March 27, it was quickly forwarded to embassy officials. In an e-mail message to several embassy officials, Mr. Leonard said that the article focused on the arms company’s dealings. “No mention of Embassy involvement — thank God!”
In his letter to Secretary Rice, Mr. Waxman said the e-mail correspondence among embassy officials, combined with Major Harrison’s statements, “raises questions about both the State Department’s role in the shipment of illegal Chinese ammunition and the candor of the department’s response to the committee.”
In January 2007, the Army awarded the company a contract, potentially worth $298 million, that made it the main munitions supplier for Afghan security forces in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mr. Mediu, the Albanian defense minister, resigned in March, before The Times published its article, after explosions at an arms depot near Tirana killed at least 16 people, wounded nearly 300 and littered the area with shrapnel and live munitions. He has denied corruption charges.
Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting from Prague.
Published: June 24, 2008
WASHINGTON — An American ambassador helped cover up the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition that a Pentagon contractor bought to supply Afghan security forces, according to testimony gathered by Congressional investigators.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Dealer Accused of Selling Banned Munitions to Army (June 21, 2008)
Allegations Lead Army to Review Arms Policy (April 27, 2008)
Washington Blocks Exports of Munitions Firm Suspected of Fraud (April 4, 2008)
Supplier Under Scrutiny on Arms for Afghans (March 27, 2008)
Documents from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
A military attaché has told the investigators that the United States ambassador to Albania endorsed a plan by the Albanian defense minister to hide several boxes of Chinese ammunition from a visiting reporter. The ammunition was being repackaged to disguise its origins and shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a Miami Beach arms-dealing company.
The ambassador, John L. Withers II, met with the defense minister, Fatmir Mediu, hours before a reporter for The New York Times was to visit the American contractor’s operations in Tirana, the Albanian capital, according to the testimony. The company, under an Army contract, bought the ammunition to supply Afghan security forces although American law prohibits trading in Chinese arms.
The attaché, Maj. Larry D. Harrison II of the Army, was one of the aides attending the late-night meeting, on Nov. 19, 2007. He told House investigators that Mr. Mediu asked Ambassador Withers for help, saying he was concerned that the reporter would reveal that he had been accused of profiting from selling arms. The minister said that because he had gone out of his way to help the United States, a close ally, “the U.S. owed him something,” according to Major Harrison.
Mr. Mediu ordered the commanding general of Albania’s armed forces to remove all boxes of Chinese ammunition from a site the reporter was to visit, and “the ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing,” Major Harrison said, according to his testimony.
Investigators interviewed Major Harrison by telephone on June 9, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee made excerpts of the transcript public on Monday.
At the time of the meeting, the company, AEY Inc., was under investigation for illegal arms trafficking involving Chinese ammunition.
On Friday, the president of the company, Efraim E. Diveroli, 22, and three others were charged with selling prohibited Chinese ammunition to the Pentagon that they said was made in Albania.
On March 27, The New York Times published an article that said Albanian documents showed that the Miami company had bought more than 100 million Chinese cartridges that were stored for decades in former cold war stockpiles.
Mr. Diveroli arranged to have them repacked in cardboard boxes, many of which split or decomposed after shipment to the war zones, according to the article. Different lots or types of ammunition were mixed. In some cases the ammunition was dirty, corroded or covered with a film.
The repackaging operation, carried out by an AEY subcontractor at the Rinas Airport in Tirana, has become the focus of the Congressional investigation.
According to the transcript excerpts released by the committee, Major Harrison told investigators that he did not agree with the decision to hide the boxes from the reporter, and said that he felt “very uncomfortable” during the meeting.
Major Harrison, who as the chief of the embassy’s office of defense cooperation was responsible for helping American efforts to train, equip and modernize Albania’s military, said that his suggestion to bar the reporter from visiting the Albania base was rejected.
In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Monday that there were signs that embassy officials in Tirana tried to cover up the November meeting once Mr. Waxman’s staff began an investigation into the arms company. The letter said the committee would seek to interview Mr. Withers and other embassy personnel.
Attempts to reach Mr. Withers through the United States Embassy in Tirana were met with a request to refer all questions to Washington.
But a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal inquiry into AEY, said he had spoken Monday to Mr. Withers, who adamantly denied Major Harrison’s statement.
The senior official said the committee had never interviewed Mr. Withers or other top embassy personnel, and released the information on Monday to fan interest in a committee hearing on the company’s business dealings scheduled for Tuesday.
A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, told reporters on Monday that the department was reviewing Mr. Waxman’s letter, which included Major Harrison’s statements.
“We have no information that would support the idea that U.S. officials were involved in some kind of illicit activity,” Mr. Casey said. “But obviously, again, any allegations made, certainly any questions raised, by the chairman of a major committee in Congress, is something that we will be happy to look into.”
Mr. Withers, a Foreign Service officer for 24 years, has been ambassador to Albania since July 2007. He has also served in Latvia, Nigeria, Russia and The Hague. His father, John L. Withers Sr., is a former director of the Agency for International Development.
A spokesman for the Albanian Defense Ministry in Tirana could not be reached for comment, and an official at the Albanian Embassy in Washington declined to answer questions.
Capt. Andres Vazquez, a military lawyer for Major Harrison in Germany, did not answer his phone on Monday night and did not reply to an e-mail message.
According to messages obtained by Congressional investigators, Major Harrison urged embassy officials to inform the committee of the Nov. 19 meeting between the ambassador and minister, but the embassy omitted any reference to the meeting in its official response to the committee’s questions.
Embassy staff members seemed sympathetic to the Albanians’ alarm. The day after the November meeting, the embassy’s regional security officer, Patrick Leonard, wrote an assistant an e-mail message obtained by the committee: “NY Times just arrived today and might be doing a story on this and it might get ugly. Ambassador is very concerned about the case.”
When The Times published its article on March 27, it was quickly forwarded to embassy officials. In an e-mail message to several embassy officials, Mr. Leonard said that the article focused on the arms company’s dealings. “No mention of Embassy involvement — thank God!”
In his letter to Secretary Rice, Mr. Waxman said the e-mail correspondence among embassy officials, combined with Major Harrison’s statements, “raises questions about both the State Department’s role in the shipment of illegal Chinese ammunition and the candor of the department’s response to the committee.”
In January 2007, the Army awarded the company a contract, potentially worth $298 million, that made it the main munitions supplier for Afghan security forces in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mr. Mediu, the Albanian defense minister, resigned in March, before The Times published its article, after explosions at an arms depot near Tirana killed at least 16 people, wounded nearly 300 and littered the area with shrapnel and live munitions. He has denied corruption charges.
Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting from Prague.
Letter to Secretary Rice
HENRY A. WAXMAN, CALIFORNIA,
CHAIRMAN
TOM LANTOS, CALIFORNIA
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, NEW YORK
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, PENNSYLVANIA
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, NEW YORK
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, MARYLAND
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, OHIO
DANNY K. DAVIS, ILLINOIS
JOHN F. TIERNEY, MASSACHUSETTS
WM. LACY CLAY, MISSOURI
DIANE E. WATSON, CALIFORNIA
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, MASSACHUSETTS
BRIAN HIGGINS, NEW YORK
JOHN A. YARMUTH, KENTUCKY
BRUCE L BRALEY, IOWA
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON,
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
BETTY McCOLLUM, MINNESOTA
JIM COOPER, TENNESSEE
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, MARYLAND
PAUL W. HODES, NEW HAMPSHIRE
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, CONNECTICUT
JOHN P. SARBANES, MARYLAND
PETER WELCH, VERMONT
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
COMMITIEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
2157 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC 20515-6143
MAJORrTY (202) 225-5051
FACSIMILE (202) 225-4784
M'NORrTY (202) 225-5074
www.oversight.house.gov
June 23, 2008
TOM DAVIS, VIRGINIA,
RANKING MINORITY MEMBER
DAN BURTON, INDIANA
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, CONNECTICUT
JOHN M. McHUGH, NEW YORK
JOHN L. MICA, FLORIDA
MARK E. SOUDER, INDIANA
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, PENNSYLVANIA
CHRIS CANNON, UTAH
JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., TENNESSEE
MICHAEL R. TURNER, OHIO
DARRELL E. ISSA, CALIFORNIA
KENNY MARCHANT, TEXAS
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, GEORGIA
PATRICK T. McHENRY, NORTH CAROLINA
VIRGINIA FOXX, NORTH CAROLINA
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, CALIFORNIA
BILL SALI, IDAHO
JIM JORDAN, OHIO
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary Rice:
The Oversight Committee has received information that the U.S. Ambassador to Albania
held a late-night meeting with the Albanian Defense Minister at which the Ambassador approved
removing evidence of the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition being shipped from Albania to
Afghanistan by a U.S. contractor. The Committee has also received information that State
Department officials. tried to conceal this information from the Committee.
On June 9, 2008, Committee staff interviewed Major Larry Harrison, the Chief of the
Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Albania. According to Major Harrison:
• On November 19,2007, the U.S. Ambassador to Albania and his top aides met with the
Albanian Defense Minister to discuss how to respond to a request by the New York Times
to visit a site in Albania where a U.S. arms contractor, AEY, Inc., was removing Chinese
ammunition from its original packaging before sending it to Afghanistan.
• As a result of discussions that went late into the night, the Albanian Defense Minister
ordered one of his top generals to remove all evidence of Chinese packaging before the
site was inspected the following day. Major Harrison told the Committee: "the
Ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing."
• At the time of this meeting, AEY was under investigation for illegal arms trafficking
involving Chinese ammunition. Major Harrison told the Committee that he did not agree
with the decision to remove the Chinese markings and felt "very uncomfortable" during
the meeting.
Moreover, it appears that Embassy officials sought to keep this information from the
Committee. The Committee asked the State Department to provide any information concerning
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 2
meetings between Embassy officials and the Albanian Defense Ministry, as well as any
information about interventions into AEY's repackaging operation. Although Major Harrison
urged Embassy officials to inform the Committee of the November 19,2007, meeting, Embassy
officials omitted any reference to the meeting in their response.
On Friday, the Justice Department announced the indictment ofAEY and four company
officials for concealing the Chinese origins of the ammunition shipped from Albania to
Afghanistan. Although the circumstances are different, the evidence the Committee has received
suggests that on at least one occasion, Embassy officials also played a role in concealing the
Chinese origins of the ammunition. This evidence raises questions about both the State
Department's role in the shipment of illegal Chinese ammunition and the candor of the
Department's responses to the Committee. To assist the Committee in its ongoing investigation,
I request that several Embassy officials appear before the Committee for transcribed interviews.
I also request that you provide relevant documents to the Committee.
Background
On March 25,2008, the Department of Defense suspended AEY "from future contracting
with any agency in the executive branch of the United States Government.") The basis for this
suspension was evidence that under a $298 million contract with the Army to provide
ammunition to Afghanistan security forces, AEY purchased ammunition in Albania that was
"manufactured in the People's Republic of China between 1962 and 1974.,,2 U.S. law prohibits
the acquisition of ammunition that was made in China?
The Defense Department's suspension was also based on evidence that AEY made false
statements about the true origin of this Chinese ammunition. On November 25,2007, the
President of AEY, Efraim Diveroli, provided the Department with a certification stating that the
manufacturer of ammunition under this contract was MFS 2000, a Hungarian company.4 This
assertion was one Mr. Diveroli "knew to be false or misleading," according to the Department's
suspension and debarment official. 5
) Letter from Robert N. Kittel, Army Suspension and Debarment Official, to Efraim
Diveroli, President, AEY, Inc. (Mar. 25, 2008).
2 Id.
3 Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement § 252.225-7007, "Prohibition on
Acquisition of United States Munitions List Items from CommunistChinese Military
Companies" (Sept. 2006).
4AEY, Inc., Certificate of Conformance (No. AFG-0002-59) (Nov. 25, 2007).
5 Letter from Robert N. Kittel, Army Suspension and Debarment Official, to Efraim
Diveroli, President, AEY, Inc. (Mar. 25,2008).
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 3
The Defense Department's suspension ofAEY came two days before a lengthy New York
Times article disclosed publicly that AEY had shipped to Afghanistan "tens of millions of the
rifle and machine-gun cartridges ... manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible
violation of American law.,,6
Two months after suspending AEY, the Army terminated the Afghan ammunition
contract for default, citing AEY's failure to deliver the ammunition in conformance with the
contract and AEY's subsequent admission that substantial quantities of ammunition were
manufactured in China.? In a letter to Mr. Diveroli terminating the contract on May 23,2008,
the contracting officer stated that AEY delivered ammunition "from a prohibited source and
admits substantial quantities of the ammunition were, in fact, manufactured in factories in the
PRC.,,8 On June 19,2008, AEY, Mr. Diveroli, and three other individuals affiliated with AEY
were indicted on federal procurement fraud, conspiracy, and false statement charges arising from
the procurement of Chinese ammunition under this contract.9
The ammunition purchased by AEY was sold by the Albanian Ministry of Defense
through the Military Export Import Company of Albania (MEICO). The Albanian Defense
Minister at the time of the sales was Fatmir Mediu. According to the New York Times, there is
evidence that Defense Minister Mediu received kickbacks as part of the AEY ammunition
contract. 10 Defense Minister Mediu resigned his position on March 17,2008, one week before
the AEY suspension and the New York Times article, and two days after a major explosion at an
ammunition plant near the Albanian capital, Tirana. 11 The Albanian Prosecutor-General has
accused him of "abuse of power" and making an "unfair profit" by improperly favoring a U.S.Albanian
joint venture to dismantle ammunition.12 The Albanian Parliament has voted to lift his
immunity from prosecution. 13
6 Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Armsfor Afghans, New York Times (Mar. 27, 2008).
? Letter from Kim M. Jones, Procuring Contracting Officer, U.S. Army Sustainment
Command, to Efraim Diveroli, President, AEY, Inc. (May 23,2008).
8 Id.
9 Indictment, United States v. AEY, Inc. et al., S.D. Fla. (No. 08-20574) (June 19,2008).
10 Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Armsfor Afghans, New York Times (Mar. 27,
2008).
11 Albanian Prosecutor-General Accuses Ex-Defense Minister in Ammunition Disposal
Case, Associated Press (Apr. 26, 2008).
12 Id.
13 Albanian Army ChiefFired Over Deadly Ammunition Dump Blast, Associated Press
(June 16,2008).
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 4
The November Meeting with the Albanian Defense Minister
On June 9, 2008, Committee staff conducted a transcribed interview of Major Larry
Harrison. Major Harrison is a Defense Department official working in Albania, where he serves
as the Chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation. In this role, Major Harrison is responsible for
providi.ng :'traini~g and e~uipment to support the modernization of Albania's military as well as
humanItanan assIstance." 4 .
The interview with Major Harrison lasted about one hour, at which point he expressed an
interest in seeking the advice of counsel, and the Defense Department attorney participating in
the interview terminated the session. On June 12,2008, counsel for Major Harrison informed the
Committee staff that it would take at least two weeks for him to prepare for the continuation of
Major Harrison's interview. IS
According to Major Harrison, the Albanian Defense Minister, Fatmir Mediu, called him
on November 19,2007, to request an urgent meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to Albania, John
L. Withers, II. 16 Major Harrison stated during his interview that the Albanian Defense Minister
was concerned that a New York Times reporter planned to inspect the facility at Rinas Airport in
Tirana where AEY was conducting its operation to repackage Chinese ammunition before
shipping it to Afghanistan, a process that included removing some ammunition from its original
Chinese packaging. The reporter's visit, he said, was scheduled for the following day.17
According to Major Harrison, the Albanian Defense Minister was "very concerned and
requested ofme to set up an appointment to see the Ambassador or DCM [Deputy Chief of
Mission] about the New York Times reporter.,,18 Major Harrison stated that the Defense Minister
was worried that the reporter would reveal allegations of corruption against him. According to
Major Harrison:
The Minister's main concern that he brought to my attention was he was concerned that
the New York Times would write an article about Albanian corruption in the Ministry of
14 U.S. Embassy, Tirana, Albania, Embassy Sections (online at http://tirana.usembassy.
gov/sections.html) (accessed June 13,2008).
IS Telephone call between Andres Vazquez, Judge Advocate General, and Majority Staff,
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (June 12,2008).
16 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Transcribed Interview of
Major Larry D. Harrison (June 9, 2008).
17 Id.
18 Id.
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 5
Defense. And the reason for his concern was ... what this would do for his reputation
personally as well as Albania. 19
Major Harrison stated that in response to the Albanian Defense Minister's request, he
contacted the U.S. Embassy's Deputy Chief ofMission, Stephen Cristina, who arranged for a
meeting to take place at his private residence in Tirana that evening. Major Harrison personally
attended the meeting, along with the Albanian Defense Minister, Ambassador Withers, Deputy
Chief of Mission Cristina, and the Embassy's Regional Security Officer, Patrick Leonard.
According to Major Harrison, the meeting lasted for several hours, ending around midnight.2o
Major Harrison told the Committee that during this meeting, the Albanian Defense
Minister asked for help from the U.S. Ambassador?l According to Major Harrison, "He made
several comments to the effect ofhow he had been a friend of the U.S., he'd help the U.S.... He
felt the U.S. owed him something.,,22
Major Harrison stated that the officials then discussed how to handle the New York Times
reporter. He stated that his advice was to not allow the reporter to visitthe facility, but that his
advice was not accepted. Instead, the Albanian Defense Minister called the commanding general
of the Albanian military forces and instructed him to remove all Chinese ammunition boxes from
the site of the repackaging operation so that "there would be nothing for the reporter to see.,,23
According to Major Harrison, "the Ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of
wrongdoing, if Mr. Wood [the New York Times reporter], while he was at Rinas, did not see
Chinese ammo boxes.,,24
Major Harrison stated during his interview that he was "very uncomfortable" with these
actions because there was an ongoing criminal investigation of AEY's activities in Albania?S
During his interview with Committee staff, Major Harrison had the following exchange:
Q: So at the time of this meeting between the Defense Minister, the Ambassador, and
several other State Department officials, it was clear that you were discussing
Chinese ammunition; is that correct?
19Id
20 Id.
21 Id.
22 Id
23Id.
24 Id.
25Id
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 6
A: That is correct. That is correct.
Q: And it was clear that AEY was the company that was buying it under a U.S.
contract?
A: That is correct. ...
Q: And you said, by this time, you had been informed that it was illegal under U.S.
law for a U.S. contractor to buy Chinese ammunition. Is that correct?
A: That is correct, yes, sir....
Q: And you said also at this time it was clear that there was an investigation ongoing
... Is that right?
A: That is correct, yes, sir.26
When asked whether everyone agreed with the actions taken during this meeting, Major
Harrison responded: "once again, I want to say I was very uncomfortable in this meeting. And
when I say everyone agreed, personally I didn't agree with what was going on in that meeting,
but I had no voice in it.',27 According to Major Harrison: "they had asked my advice on what to
do. I want to be clear, I was very uncomfortable in this meeting that we were having. But I just
made the comment, 'Well, it's a military installation. You don't have to let him on. You don't
have to let a reporter on. ",28
The day after the meeting between the U.S. Ambassador and the Albanian Defense
Minister, Patrick Leonard, the Regional Security Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Albania, wrote
to an assistant in an e-mail: "NY Times just arrived today and might be doing a story on this and
it might get ugly.... Ambassador is very concerned about the case.,,29
When the New York Times story was published on March 27,2008, it was quickly
forwarded around the U.S. Embassy. At 6:06 a.m. that morning, Mr. Leonard sent an e-mail to
26Id
27Id.
28 Id
29 E-mail from Patrick Leonard, Regional Security Officer, U.S. Embassy, Tirana,
Albania, to Matthew Becht, Assistant Regional Security Officer et al. (Nov. 20, 2007).
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 7
several Embassy officials, stating that the AEY case "just made front page headlines in the New
York Times -7 pages long. No mention of Embassy involvement - thank God!,,30
The Embassy's Response to the Committee
In addition to obtaining information about the November 2007 meeting between the u.s.
Ambassador and the Albanian Defense Minister, the Oversight Committee has also obtained
documents that describe how officials at the U.s. Embassy in Albania overruled efforts by Major
Harrison to inform the Committee of this meeting and the subsequent removal of Chinese
markings.
On March 28, 2008, the Oversight Committee sent the State Department a document
request seeking "[a]ll communications related to AEY, its subcontractors, partners, middlemen,
brokers; sellers, or transport companies between officials from the State Department, the
government of Albania, and any other foreign governments.,,3! In addition to this letter request,
on April 4, 2008, Committee staff requested the following specific information:
1. Information on the US Embassy in Albania's interactions with AEY or its
representatives;
2. Information on the Embassy's interactions with the Albanian government (Ministry of
Defense, MElCO) regarding AEY's contract and activities; and
3. Information on any intervention in November or December 2007 by US officials (DOD
or State) into AEY's subcontractor's ammunition packaging operation at the airport near
Tirana, perhaps involving shutting down the packaging operation because of violations of
US law regarding the country of origin ofweapons.32
The State Department responded to this request on April 9, 2008. In an e-mail to
Committee staff, the State Department's legislative affairs officer forwarded answers she
received "from AmEmbassy today regarding post personnel interaction with AEY, DOD, and the
Govt of Albania.,,33 In response to the second question, regarding contacts between U.S.
30 E-mail from Patrick Leonard, Regional Security Officer, U.S. Embassy, Tirana,
Albania, to Shawn Sherlock et al. (Mar. 27, 2008).
3! Letter from Henry A. Waxman, Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform, to Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State (Mar. 28, 2008).
32 E-mail from Majority Staff, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
to U.S. Department of State Legislative Affairs (Apr. 4, 2008).
33 E-mail from U.S. Department of State Legislative Affairs, to Staff, House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform (Apr. 9,2008).
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 8
Embassy officials and the Albanian Ministry ofDefense, the Embassy made the following
statement:
In the context of facilitating the DOD-led investigation into this matter, Embassy
representatives met on at least three occasions with GOA [Government of
Albania] officials, including representatives ofMEICO and the MOD. Embassy
reps were there in a support role to the DOD lead investigator.34
In response to the third question, regarding any State Department interventions affecting
the AEY repackaging facility, the Embassy responded: "Neither the Embassy official nor the
DOD investigator shut down or interfered in any operations at the facility.,,35
The Embassy's responses do not describe the November 2007 meeting between Embassy
officials and the Albanian Defense Minister. Instead, the Embassy asserted in its response to the
Committee that it played little or no role with respect to this issue, stating:
We concluded that the Embassy had no proper advocacy role in a standard commercial
dispute between a contractor and the host government and we should only get involved if
directed to do so through a formal front channel cable with DOD clearance.36
Documents obtained by the Committee show that Major Harrison urged Embassy
officials to inform the Committee about the November 2007 meeting, but he was overruled. As
Embassy officials prepared a response to the Committee, they circulated a draft that made no
mention of the November 2007 meeting. In response, Major Harrison circulated a new draft in
which he used the "track changes" function on Microsoft Word to suggest that the November
2007 meeting be included. Major Harrison's draft included the following language:
Do we mention the meeting at Steve's house on 19 November (present was Amb
Withers, DCM Cristina, RSO Patrick, and ODC Chief Harrison) where the Amb
recommended to Minister to prevent the reporters from seeing the munitions at the airport
on the following day and the Minister called MG Spahiu at ... 23:00 to have ... all of the
ammunition removed from the airport by 0800 the next morning?37
34 Id
35 Id
36 Id
37 U.S. Embassy, Tirana, Albania, Informationfor House Oversight and Government
Reform Inquiry (draft by U.S. Army Major Larry D. Harrison, II, Chief, Office of Defense
Cooperation) (undated).
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 9
Embassy officials did not accept Major Harrison's suggestion. In the final response,
Embassy officials removed Major Harrison's proposed language about the November 2007
meeting and omitted any references to recommendations made by the U.S. Ambassador to the
Albanian Defense Minister.
Although the final version of the Embassy's response indicated that it had been "Cleared"
by "LHarrison," Major Harrison apparently never approved it.38 After consulting a military
attorney with the Judge Advocate General, on April 16, 2008, Major Harrison wrote a
memorandum that memorializes his efforts to urge the Embassy to inform the Committee about
the November 2007 meeting. That memorandum states:
The list of questions was sent to me via email to provide input to the answers.
Although I provided input to the third question, the Political-Economic Officer,
the Deputy Chief of Mission and the Ambassador did not accept my input. The
answers were forwarded to the committee with my name on the memo as having
cleared the memo, or in other words, approved the content.
I did not approve of the content of the answers and I am concerned that
information may have been omitted relevant. to the question.39
Request for Interviews and Documents
The information obtained by the Committee raises serious issues. If the information is
accurate, it appears that senior U.S. Embassy officials in Albania approved of the efforts of the
Albanian Defense Minister to conceal evidence of illegal shipments of Chinese ammunition that
are now the subject of a criminal indictment. It also appears that information about the incident
was withheld from the Committee. It is hard to understand what rationale would justify these
actions.
To assist the Committee's investigation into these issues, I request transcribed interviews
with the following individuals no later than July 11,2008:
1. John L. Withers, II, U.S. Ambassador to Albania;
2. Stephen Cristina, Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, Albania;
3. Patrick Leonard, Regional SecurityOfficer, U.S. Embassy, Albania;
38 U.S. Embassy, Tirana, Albania, Informationfor House Oversight and Government
Reform Inquiry (final response) (undated).
39 Major Larry D. Harrison, Chief, Office of Defense Cooperation, Albania,
Memorandum to ECJ5-E ODC, Albania (Apr. 16,2008).
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
June 23, 2008
Page 10
4. Robert Newsome, Economic/Commercial Section, U.S. Embassy, Albania;
5. Paula Thiede, Political/Economic Section Chief, U.S. Embassy, Albania; and
6. Victor Myev, Political Officer, U.S. Embassy, Albania.
In addition, I request that the Department provide by June 30, 2008, all documents
relating to AEY, its contract, or any part of its operations that were created or possessed by the
U.S. Embassy in Albania or its personnel, including all documents relating to any November
2007 meetings between U.S. Embassy officials and the Albanian Minister of Defense.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the principal oversight
committee in the House of Representatives and has broad oversight jurisdiction as set forth in
House Rule X. Attachments to this letter provide additional information on the Committee's
guidelines for transcribed interviews and on how to respond to the Committee's document
request.
If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Stacia Cardille or Russell
Anello with the Committee staff at (202) 225-5420.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
Enclosures
cc: Tom Davis
Ranking Minority Member
Source: http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20080623094906.pdf
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Kryeministër apo kapo i Camorras shqiptare !
Fatos Lubonja
Lexova me vëmendje intervistën e kryeministrit tonë Sali Berisha botuar me datë 29 maj në “Corriere della Sera”. Kur lexon një intervistë që kryeministri yt i jep një mediaje të huaj dhe jo pak, por gazetës më të madhe italiane, nuk ke të njëjtin disponim që ke kur e dëgjon, apo lexon, nëpër mediat e vendit. Sepse me këto të vendit, si të thuash, jemi brenda familjes. Në këto media edhe bërtasim edhe tallemi edhe shahemi, edhe themi “ky është i çmendur”, edhe themi “ky është i madh”, edhe i bëjmë hiçët gjeni dhe gjenitë hiç. Por, kur flet kryeministri yt tek të huajt, ti, si shqiptar, do s’do edhe identifikohesh me përfaqësuesin tënd të lartë, prandaj e merr shumë më seriozisht. Jo vetëm, por takon ndonjë të huaj që e ka lexuar dhe ti e di se ai nuk sheh PD apo PS tek deklaratat e kryeministrit të vendit, por qëndrimet politike të Shqipërisë dhe shqiptarëve në përgjithësi.
E pra s’më ka qëlluar të lexoj një intervistë të Sali Berishës, por edhe të ndonjë lideri tjetër që nga koha e Enver Hoxhës e këtej, ku të konstatoj se nuk identifikohem thuajse me asnjërën nga përgjigjet që i ka dhënë kryeministri im gazetarit italian. Dhe vetvetiu më erdhi të shtroj pyetjen: si ka mundësi që unë nuk identifikohem me kryeministrin tim në asgjë që ai thotë. Këtu ka një problem të madh: ose unë jam jashtë këtij realiteti, ose jam krejtësisht i papërfaqësuar, ose është kryeminstri ynë jashtë realitetit.
Le ta marrim me rradhë intervistën dhe ta komentojmë.
E para që vlen të komentohet është çështja e centralit termobërthamor. Pa pikë mëdyshjeje kryeministri ynë merr përsipër të na ndërtojë një central termobërthamor dhe na del se e vetmja pengesë që paska pasur deri tani ishte qeveria e majtë italiane, kurse tani që në gadishullin apenin është rikthyer në pushtet “luani” Berlusconi, këtë punë do ta ketë më të lehtë. Por shton edhe se, nëse nuk do qeveria italiane, ai do të vazhdojë për këtë marrëveshje me privatë. Madje nga intervista del se kryeministri ynë nuk merakoset edhe aq për energjinë e shqiptarëve, por ai kërkon ta ofrojë Shqipërinë si truallin ku do të ndërtohet centrali termobërthamor që do të prodhojë, sipas Corrieres, energji “për Italinë”. Dhe kjo vërtetohet, edhe nga ministri Tremonti i cili çuditërisht e paska njoftuar prej kohësh, sapo u bë ministër, një projekt të tillë. Vërtetohet, indirekt, edhe nga fakti se Kryeministri ynë tashmë ka arritur marrëveshje për ndërtimin edhe të disa Tec-eve ku, për të mos përmendur atë të Vlorës, spiakat ai i Durrësit (ME QYMYR!!!) që planifikohet të prodhojë 1300 MW çka, përdijeni të lexuesit, është afro baraz me kapacitetet aktuale të të gjithë Shqipërisë. Dhe kjo është më shumë se shqetësuese, është për të vënë alarmin kombëtar, pasi kjo është shenja se politika jonë po vazhdon ta trajtojë vendin si një mjet pushteti e pasurimi për disa politikanë me filozofinë “merr, plaçkit sa të mundesh për veten dhe familjen tënde e ik”, kurse një pjesë italianësh vazhdojnë ta shohin si koshin e tyre të plehërave. Me fjalë të tjera kryeminstri ynë angazhohet ta përdorë tokën shqiptare pak a shumë ashtu siç e ka përdorur Camorra Campagna-n: si truall për të hedhur ndotjet kimike të Veriut të pasur, për t’u pasuruar camorristët. Hajde doktor hajde. Edhe për çështjen e ngritjes së djegësve të plehrave italiane duket sikur i vjen keq që na qënka aprovuar ligji se, përndryshe, po të ishte për doktorin, italianët mund të digjnin edhe plehërat këtu, më ndonjë vend në bregdet pranë e pranë me Tec-in me qymyr dhe me pusin gjigant prej betoni që do të hapet për skoriet bërthamore. Po t’i besojmë gazetarit që ka intervistuar Berishën del se ky vend na qenka lokalizuar andej rrotull Durrësit, dmth. në zonën me popullsinë më të dendur të vendit dhe kjo e ka një shpjegim sepse italianëve kështu u kushton më lirë transporti.
Më poshtë gazetari e pyet kryeministrinë tonë lidhur me antarësimin në Nato. Jam në gjendje të dalloj e pranoj diferencat në qëndrimet ndaj Natos. Personalisht bëj pjesë ndër ata që nuk konsiderojnë gjë për t’u festuar futjen në një organizatë lufte, ndonëse nuk i kundërshtoj ata që thonë se kjo ka edhe aspekte pozitive. Por nuk mund të pranoj kurrsesi një përgjigje si ajo e kryeministrit tim kur gazetari e pyet se ç’mendim ka për ngritjen e bazave të Natos në Shqipëri: “Jemi gati të bëjmë çdo gjë që të na kërkojë Nato”. Kjo më duket e papërgjegjëshme. Berisha s’mund të sillet me Shqipërinë sikur të jetë pronari edhe i tokës shqiptare. Ashtu sikurse për termocentralin bërthamor, atë me qymyr etj. vendime kaq të rëndësishme kërkojnë të paktën formalisht konsultim me komunitetet në shkallë kombëtare apo lokale. Sepse të ngresh baza luftarake këtu, në një vend kaq të vogël, do të thotë jo vetëm të jesh nën shënjestër kot së koti, por edhe t’u mohosh shqiptarëve një copë territor, edhe të shkatërrosh bregdetin apo ndonjë zonë tjetër të vendit. A nuk ka dëgjuar Berisha se çfarë po ndodh në Italinë e Corrieres kundër zgjerimit të bazës së Vicencas? Si mund të marrë përsipër ai të heqë brekët e vendit të vet në këtë mënyrë fare të pakondicionuar!?
Kryeministri ynë vazhdon të flasë sikur të jetë pronari i vetëm i Shqipërisë edhe kur gazetari i Corrieres i thotë se imazhi jashtë shtetit i tij nuk është i mirë dhe i përmend tarfikun e armëve dhe Gërdecin. Ai jo vetem ua vesh korrupsionin amerikanëve, por zbulon edhe gjëra të tjera: thotë se na paska vendosur t’i japë armë gratis Afganistanit dhe se e ka bërë një gjë të tillë edhe gjatë luftës në Ballkan. Kur gazetari i kërkon se kujt, ai nxiton t’i thotë ta lerë këtë muhabet – sikur të jetë duke folur me ndonjë mik në kafene. Së pari, nga sa kemi lexuar shypin, kjo nuk na rezulton e vërtetë. Armët nuk janë dhënë gratis, por janë shitur, pa paragjykime miqësish apo armiqësish, veçse nuk dimë se në ç’farë xhepash kanë hyrë. E dyta, nëse janë dhënë gratis, pse u dashkan dhënë gratis, kur vendi ka kaq nevoja dhe, kush e mori këtë vendim për t’i dhënë gratis duhet të përgjigjet?
Por le të kalojmë më tej në intervistën skandaloze të Kryeministrit tonë. Kur bie fjala për emigrantët shqiptarë në Itali kryeministri flet sikur të ketë ardhur nga Hëna. Atij nuk i intereson fare se tani që ka ardhur në Pushtet “luani i gadishullit” në koalicion me një parti me tipare të qarta nacional - socialiste si ajo e Bosit (Lega Nord) aty ka filluar gjahu i emigrantëve në përgjithësi dhe i shqiptarëve në veçanti. Në vend që të reagojë, si kolegu i tij rumun, që ka protestuar disa herë për keqtrajtimin e bashkëatdhetarëve të tij në Itali, ai kërkon petulla me ujë: statusin e minoritetit për emigrantët atje saqë gazetari i thotë me ironi: “a mos po kërkoni që shqiptarët të trajtohen si tirolezët e jugut”, që janë popullsia më e privilegjuar e Italisë.
Edhe kur e pyetet më poshtë për Del Ponten dhe akuzat e saj kryeministri ynë jep një përgjigje aspak prej politikani: “Kjo grua nuk jep prova. Ndoshta është e afashinuar nga Agata Christi por është një imituese e keqe e saj. OKB-ka ka bërë një zgjedhje të tmerrshme me emërimin e kësaj gruaje…”. Unë e kuptoj se kryeministri nuk ka gjetur kohë të lexojë librin e Del Pontes. Mund ta kuptoj edhe maçoizmin e tij kur në çdo frazë thotë “kjo grua”, por, përderisa bën pjesë ndër ata njerëz që duhet të jenë të përgatitur për të dhënë përgjigje edhe për këtë çështje në petkun e kryeministrit të Shqipërisë, duhet të kishte ndonjë këshilltar që ta lexonte. Të paktën kapitullin për Kosovën. Sepse, në fakt, del Ponte ka dhënë shumë prova atje për faktin se Haradinaj me shokë kanë vrarë dhe frikësuar dëshmitarë shqiptarë dhe ai, nëse është vërtet i merakosur për Kosëvën dhe të drejtën, nuk duhet të qajë hallin e Haradinajt, por të kosovarëve që del se nuk qënkan në duar fort të sigurta dhe demokratike në atë vend. Kurse lidhur me akuzën për trafik organesh Del Ponte thotë vetëm se ka pasur denoncime dhe se ka kryer hetime që nuk kanë ofruar prova të mjaftueshme edhe për shkak të prokurorit shqiptar. Ai fare mirë, nëse është i sigurtë se nuk ka ndodhur asgjë e tillë në Burrel, mund të përgjigjej se shteti ynë është i gatshëm të japë të tërë mundësitë për t’u hetuar deri në fund kjo histori që të na hiqet përfundimisht njolla e një dyshimi të tillë. Mirëpo kryeministri ynë preferon të futet shpejt e shpejt në listën e atyre të pushtetëshmëve që denoncon del Ponte si pengues të drejtësisë.
Le të vijmë tani tek përgjigja mbyllëse e intervistës me të cilën përsëri nuk mund të pajtohem kurrsesi. I pyetur nëse do të vazhdojë të kandidojë Berisha përgjigjet se “në pension mund ta nxjerrë vetëm Zoti dhe populli shqiptar”. Që me “populli shqiptar” kupton votën kjo më duket e kuptueshme dhe e pranueshme, por nuk del qartë se çfarë kupton kryeministri me “Zoti”. Më shumë gjasa ka që ta ketë fjalën për ndonjë sëmundje të rëndë, përderisa flet për pension dhe jo për vdekje. Mirëpo kjo përgjigje tregon se Berisha nuk ka mësuar fare as nga përvoja e vendeve demokratike dhe as nga përvoja e vetë shqiptarëve. Nuk po përmend përvojën e vendeve demokratike, por po përmend vetëm atë tonën. A nuk e di Berisha se pasi u sëmur rëndë Enver Hoxha jo vetëm që nuk hoqi dorë nga pushteti, por nxitoi të varrosë sa më parë kë mundi e si mundi edhe nga rradhët e bashkëpunëtorëve të tij dhe askush nuk guxonte t’i thoshte se ishte i sëmurë jo vetëm fizikisht, por edhe mendërisht. A e ka parasysh ai atë thënien: “Të ruajtë Zoti mendtë”. Pushteti korrupton, pushteti zhvillon paranoja, mani madhështie, por edhe konsumon, prandaj të pushtetshmëve u duhen vendosur kufij në demokraci dhe jo të pritet vendimi i Zotit për tërheqjen e tyre.
E di që dikush do të nxitojë të më thotë: po ti që e ke mbështetur riardhjen e Berishës në pushtet, a nuk e dije se kush ishte Berisha? Nxitoj të them se kur e kam mbështetur, kam mbështetur principet që ka mbrojtur sepse ai erdhi në pushtet duke denoncuar Camorrën socialiste, duke premtuar Vlorën turistike kundër termocentraleve me naftë apo qymyr, duke premtuar ruajtjen e ambjentit dhe jo fabrika çimentoje që po gërryejnë e shkatërrojmë malet shqiptare, (e jo më centrale bërthamore), duke premtuar plane urbanistike dhe kontroll territori dhe jo bashkëpunim me shkatërruesit e territorit. Me një fjalë e kam mbështetur sepse premtoi të luftojë Camorrën dhe jo se do të bëhet kapo i Camorras shqiptare. Nxitoj gjithashtu të them se kjo nuk është një akuzë thjeshtë kundër personit Berisha, por kundër sistemit camorrist të ngritur në Shqipëri ku kryetari i qeverisë është njëherësh edhe kryetar i Camorras. Shtoj se, nga sa e kam ndjekur Berishën ve re se, veçanërisht pas Gërdecit, ndoshta për shkak të akuzave që e implikojnë familjarisht, kryeministri po bëhet totalisht autoreferencial; shikon një Shqipëri që e shikon vetëm ai, me një territor të madh sa Rusia, me kriminalitet më të pakët se Evropa, me siguri për ndërtimin e centraleve bërthamore dhe që, kur ndeshet me opinione të kundërta, nxiton të gjejë armikun kudo që nga New York Times deri tek gazetari i fundit shqiptar.
Nuk do të shkruaja kaq me dëshpërim, megjithatë, sikur të mos mendoja se me këtë historinë e centralit termobërthamor, çmenduria kamorriste duket sikur premton të kalojë të gjitha kufijtë dhe të mos konstatoja, nga ana tjetër, nënshtrimin apo komprometimin gati përfundimtar të tërë atyre që duhet t’u bien këmbanave të alarmit. Vendi duket i zhytur në një depresion dhe apati të thellë dhe, në këto kushte, mund të realizohet çdo çmenduri. Nuk çuditem sikur doktori ta quajë nesër termobërthamorin “çlirimi përfundimtar i Shqipërisë” dhe të gjithë ta duartrokasin si dikur shokun Enver. Në fakt që nga Metalurgjiku e këtej kemi pasur disa çlirime “të treta”, “të katërta”, mjafton të hedhësh sytë rreth e rrotull vendit, por ky do të ishte vërtet përfundimtari sepse, me një shpërthim të tij gërdecar, do të “çlirohemi” më në fund nga të gjitha streset dhe hallet që na kanë nxirë jetën.
Marre nga Gazeta "Korrieri".
Lexova me vëmendje intervistën e kryeministrit tonë Sali Berisha botuar me datë 29 maj në “Corriere della Sera”. Kur lexon një intervistë që kryeministri yt i jep një mediaje të huaj dhe jo pak, por gazetës më të madhe italiane, nuk ke të njëjtin disponim që ke kur e dëgjon, apo lexon, nëpër mediat e vendit. Sepse me këto të vendit, si të thuash, jemi brenda familjes. Në këto media edhe bërtasim edhe tallemi edhe shahemi, edhe themi “ky është i çmendur”, edhe themi “ky është i madh”, edhe i bëjmë hiçët gjeni dhe gjenitë hiç. Por, kur flet kryeministri yt tek të huajt, ti, si shqiptar, do s’do edhe identifikohesh me përfaqësuesin tënd të lartë, prandaj e merr shumë më seriozisht. Jo vetëm, por takon ndonjë të huaj që e ka lexuar dhe ti e di se ai nuk sheh PD apo PS tek deklaratat e kryeministrit të vendit, por qëndrimet politike të Shqipërisë dhe shqiptarëve në përgjithësi.
E pra s’më ka qëlluar të lexoj një intervistë të Sali Berishës, por edhe të ndonjë lideri tjetër që nga koha e Enver Hoxhës e këtej, ku të konstatoj se nuk identifikohem thuajse me asnjërën nga përgjigjet që i ka dhënë kryeministri im gazetarit italian. Dhe vetvetiu më erdhi të shtroj pyetjen: si ka mundësi që unë nuk identifikohem me kryeministrin tim në asgjë që ai thotë. Këtu ka një problem të madh: ose unë jam jashtë këtij realiteti, ose jam krejtësisht i papërfaqësuar, ose është kryeminstri ynë jashtë realitetit.
Le ta marrim me rradhë intervistën dhe ta komentojmë.
E para që vlen të komentohet është çështja e centralit termobërthamor. Pa pikë mëdyshjeje kryeministri ynë merr përsipër të na ndërtojë një central termobërthamor dhe na del se e vetmja pengesë që paska pasur deri tani ishte qeveria e majtë italiane, kurse tani që në gadishullin apenin është rikthyer në pushtet “luani” Berlusconi, këtë punë do ta ketë më të lehtë. Por shton edhe se, nëse nuk do qeveria italiane, ai do të vazhdojë për këtë marrëveshje me privatë. Madje nga intervista del se kryeministri ynë nuk merakoset edhe aq për energjinë e shqiptarëve, por ai kërkon ta ofrojë Shqipërinë si truallin ku do të ndërtohet centrali termobërthamor që do të prodhojë, sipas Corrieres, energji “për Italinë”. Dhe kjo vërtetohet, edhe nga ministri Tremonti i cili çuditërisht e paska njoftuar prej kohësh, sapo u bë ministër, një projekt të tillë. Vërtetohet, indirekt, edhe nga fakti se Kryeministri ynë tashmë ka arritur marrëveshje për ndërtimin edhe të disa Tec-eve ku, për të mos përmendur atë të Vlorës, spiakat ai i Durrësit (ME QYMYR!!!) që planifikohet të prodhojë 1300 MW çka, përdijeni të lexuesit, është afro baraz me kapacitetet aktuale të të gjithë Shqipërisë. Dhe kjo është më shumë se shqetësuese, është për të vënë alarmin kombëtar, pasi kjo është shenja se politika jonë po vazhdon ta trajtojë vendin si një mjet pushteti e pasurimi për disa politikanë me filozofinë “merr, plaçkit sa të mundesh për veten dhe familjen tënde e ik”, kurse një pjesë italianësh vazhdojnë ta shohin si koshin e tyre të plehërave. Me fjalë të tjera kryeminstri ynë angazhohet ta përdorë tokën shqiptare pak a shumë ashtu siç e ka përdorur Camorra Campagna-n: si truall për të hedhur ndotjet kimike të Veriut të pasur, për t’u pasuruar camorristët. Hajde doktor hajde. Edhe për çështjen e ngritjes së djegësve të plehrave italiane duket sikur i vjen keq që na qënka aprovuar ligji se, përndryshe, po të ishte për doktorin, italianët mund të digjnin edhe plehërat këtu, më ndonjë vend në bregdet pranë e pranë me Tec-in me qymyr dhe me pusin gjigant prej betoni që do të hapet për skoriet bërthamore. Po t’i besojmë gazetarit që ka intervistuar Berishën del se ky vend na qenka lokalizuar andej rrotull Durrësit, dmth. në zonën me popullsinë më të dendur të vendit dhe kjo e ka një shpjegim sepse italianëve kështu u kushton më lirë transporti.
Më poshtë gazetari e pyet kryeministrinë tonë lidhur me antarësimin në Nato. Jam në gjendje të dalloj e pranoj diferencat në qëndrimet ndaj Natos. Personalisht bëj pjesë ndër ata që nuk konsiderojnë gjë për t’u festuar futjen në një organizatë lufte, ndonëse nuk i kundërshtoj ata që thonë se kjo ka edhe aspekte pozitive. Por nuk mund të pranoj kurrsesi një përgjigje si ajo e kryeministrit tim kur gazetari e pyet se ç’mendim ka për ngritjen e bazave të Natos në Shqipëri: “Jemi gati të bëjmë çdo gjë që të na kërkojë Nato”. Kjo më duket e papërgjegjëshme. Berisha s’mund të sillet me Shqipërinë sikur të jetë pronari edhe i tokës shqiptare. Ashtu sikurse për termocentralin bërthamor, atë me qymyr etj. vendime kaq të rëndësishme kërkojnë të paktën formalisht konsultim me komunitetet në shkallë kombëtare apo lokale. Sepse të ngresh baza luftarake këtu, në një vend kaq të vogël, do të thotë jo vetëm të jesh nën shënjestër kot së koti, por edhe t’u mohosh shqiptarëve një copë territor, edhe të shkatërrosh bregdetin apo ndonjë zonë tjetër të vendit. A nuk ka dëgjuar Berisha se çfarë po ndodh në Italinë e Corrieres kundër zgjerimit të bazës së Vicencas? Si mund të marrë përsipër ai të heqë brekët e vendit të vet në këtë mënyrë fare të pakondicionuar!?
Kryeministri ynë vazhdon të flasë sikur të jetë pronari i vetëm i Shqipërisë edhe kur gazetari i Corrieres i thotë se imazhi jashtë shtetit i tij nuk është i mirë dhe i përmend tarfikun e armëve dhe Gërdecin. Ai jo vetem ua vesh korrupsionin amerikanëve, por zbulon edhe gjëra të tjera: thotë se na paska vendosur t’i japë armë gratis Afganistanit dhe se e ka bërë një gjë të tillë edhe gjatë luftës në Ballkan. Kur gazetari i kërkon se kujt, ai nxiton t’i thotë ta lerë këtë muhabet – sikur të jetë duke folur me ndonjë mik në kafene. Së pari, nga sa kemi lexuar shypin, kjo nuk na rezulton e vërtetë. Armët nuk janë dhënë gratis, por janë shitur, pa paragjykime miqësish apo armiqësish, veçse nuk dimë se në ç’farë xhepash kanë hyrë. E dyta, nëse janë dhënë gratis, pse u dashkan dhënë gratis, kur vendi ka kaq nevoja dhe, kush e mori këtë vendim për t’i dhënë gratis duhet të përgjigjet?
Por le të kalojmë më tej në intervistën skandaloze të Kryeministrit tonë. Kur bie fjala për emigrantët shqiptarë në Itali kryeministri flet sikur të ketë ardhur nga Hëna. Atij nuk i intereson fare se tani që ka ardhur në Pushtet “luani i gadishullit” në koalicion me një parti me tipare të qarta nacional - socialiste si ajo e Bosit (Lega Nord) aty ka filluar gjahu i emigrantëve në përgjithësi dhe i shqiptarëve në veçanti. Në vend që të reagojë, si kolegu i tij rumun, që ka protestuar disa herë për keqtrajtimin e bashkëatdhetarëve të tij në Itali, ai kërkon petulla me ujë: statusin e minoritetit për emigrantët atje saqë gazetari i thotë me ironi: “a mos po kërkoni që shqiptarët të trajtohen si tirolezët e jugut”, që janë popullsia më e privilegjuar e Italisë.
Edhe kur e pyetet më poshtë për Del Ponten dhe akuzat e saj kryeministri ynë jep një përgjigje aspak prej politikani: “Kjo grua nuk jep prova. Ndoshta është e afashinuar nga Agata Christi por është një imituese e keqe e saj. OKB-ka ka bërë një zgjedhje të tmerrshme me emërimin e kësaj gruaje…”. Unë e kuptoj se kryeministri nuk ka gjetur kohë të lexojë librin e Del Pontes. Mund ta kuptoj edhe maçoizmin e tij kur në çdo frazë thotë “kjo grua”, por, përderisa bën pjesë ndër ata njerëz që duhet të jenë të përgatitur për të dhënë përgjigje edhe për këtë çështje në petkun e kryeministrit të Shqipërisë, duhet të kishte ndonjë këshilltar që ta lexonte. Të paktën kapitullin për Kosovën. Sepse, në fakt, del Ponte ka dhënë shumë prova atje për faktin se Haradinaj me shokë kanë vrarë dhe frikësuar dëshmitarë shqiptarë dhe ai, nëse është vërtet i merakosur për Kosëvën dhe të drejtën, nuk duhet të qajë hallin e Haradinajt, por të kosovarëve që del se nuk qënkan në duar fort të sigurta dhe demokratike në atë vend. Kurse lidhur me akuzën për trafik organesh Del Ponte thotë vetëm se ka pasur denoncime dhe se ka kryer hetime që nuk kanë ofruar prova të mjaftueshme edhe për shkak të prokurorit shqiptar. Ai fare mirë, nëse është i sigurtë se nuk ka ndodhur asgjë e tillë në Burrel, mund të përgjigjej se shteti ynë është i gatshëm të japë të tërë mundësitë për t’u hetuar deri në fund kjo histori që të na hiqet përfundimisht njolla e një dyshimi të tillë. Mirëpo kryeministri ynë preferon të futet shpejt e shpejt në listën e atyre të pushtetëshmëve që denoncon del Ponte si pengues të drejtësisë.
Le të vijmë tani tek përgjigja mbyllëse e intervistës me të cilën përsëri nuk mund të pajtohem kurrsesi. I pyetur nëse do të vazhdojë të kandidojë Berisha përgjigjet se “në pension mund ta nxjerrë vetëm Zoti dhe populli shqiptar”. Që me “populli shqiptar” kupton votën kjo më duket e kuptueshme dhe e pranueshme, por nuk del qartë se çfarë kupton kryeministri me “Zoti”. Më shumë gjasa ka që ta ketë fjalën për ndonjë sëmundje të rëndë, përderisa flet për pension dhe jo për vdekje. Mirëpo kjo përgjigje tregon se Berisha nuk ka mësuar fare as nga përvoja e vendeve demokratike dhe as nga përvoja e vetë shqiptarëve. Nuk po përmend përvojën e vendeve demokratike, por po përmend vetëm atë tonën. A nuk e di Berisha se pasi u sëmur rëndë Enver Hoxha jo vetëm që nuk hoqi dorë nga pushteti, por nxitoi të varrosë sa më parë kë mundi e si mundi edhe nga rradhët e bashkëpunëtorëve të tij dhe askush nuk guxonte t’i thoshte se ishte i sëmurë jo vetëm fizikisht, por edhe mendërisht. A e ka parasysh ai atë thënien: “Të ruajtë Zoti mendtë”. Pushteti korrupton, pushteti zhvillon paranoja, mani madhështie, por edhe konsumon, prandaj të pushtetshmëve u duhen vendosur kufij në demokraci dhe jo të pritet vendimi i Zotit për tërheqjen e tyre.
E di që dikush do të nxitojë të më thotë: po ti që e ke mbështetur riardhjen e Berishës në pushtet, a nuk e dije se kush ishte Berisha? Nxitoj të them se kur e kam mbështetur, kam mbështetur principet që ka mbrojtur sepse ai erdhi në pushtet duke denoncuar Camorrën socialiste, duke premtuar Vlorën turistike kundër termocentraleve me naftë apo qymyr, duke premtuar ruajtjen e ambjentit dhe jo fabrika çimentoje që po gërryejnë e shkatërrojmë malet shqiptare, (e jo më centrale bërthamore), duke premtuar plane urbanistike dhe kontroll territori dhe jo bashkëpunim me shkatërruesit e territorit. Me një fjalë e kam mbështetur sepse premtoi të luftojë Camorrën dhe jo se do të bëhet kapo i Camorras shqiptare. Nxitoj gjithashtu të them se kjo nuk është një akuzë thjeshtë kundër personit Berisha, por kundër sistemit camorrist të ngritur në Shqipëri ku kryetari i qeverisë është njëherësh edhe kryetar i Camorras. Shtoj se, nga sa e kam ndjekur Berishën ve re se, veçanërisht pas Gërdecit, ndoshta për shkak të akuzave që e implikojnë familjarisht, kryeministri po bëhet totalisht autoreferencial; shikon një Shqipëri që e shikon vetëm ai, me një territor të madh sa Rusia, me kriminalitet më të pakët se Evropa, me siguri për ndërtimin e centraleve bërthamore dhe që, kur ndeshet me opinione të kundërta, nxiton të gjejë armikun kudo që nga New York Times deri tek gazetari i fundit shqiptar.
Nuk do të shkruaja kaq me dëshpërim, megjithatë, sikur të mos mendoja se me këtë historinë e centralit termobërthamor, çmenduria kamorriste duket sikur premton të kalojë të gjitha kufijtë dhe të mos konstatoja, nga ana tjetër, nënshtrimin apo komprometimin gati përfundimtar të tërë atyre që duhet t’u bien këmbanave të alarmit. Vendi duket i zhytur në një depresion dhe apati të thellë dhe, në këto kushte, mund të realizohet çdo çmenduri. Nuk çuditem sikur doktori ta quajë nesër termobërthamorin “çlirimi përfundimtar i Shqipërisë” dhe të gjithë ta duartrokasin si dikur shokun Enver. Në fakt që nga Metalurgjiku e këtej kemi pasur disa çlirime “të treta”, “të katërta”, mjafton të hedhësh sytë rreth e rrotull vendit, por ky do të ishte vërtet përfundimtari sepse, me një shpërthim të tij gërdecar, do të “çlirohemi” më në fund nga të gjitha streset dhe hallet që na kanë nxirë jetën.
Marre nga Gazeta "Korrieri".
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Arms for Afghans
This article was reported by C. J. Chivers, Eric Schmitt and Nicholas Wood and written by Mr. Chivers.
Ammunition supplied by an American contractor to Afghan forces. Some of it was in such poor shape that it was not used.
A Small American Arms Supplier Builds a Global Business
MUNITIONS Problems with old munitions were exposed recently by explosions at an Albanian depot.
Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.
Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.
In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.
Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.
This week, after repeated inquiries about AEY’s performance by The Times, the Army suspended the company from any future federal contracting, citing shipments of Chinese ammunition and claiming that Mr. Diveroli misled the Army by saying the munitions were Hungarian.
Mr. Diveroli, reached by telephone, said he was unaware of the action. The Army planned to notify his company by certified mail on Thursday, according to internal correspondence provided by a military official.
But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966.
“This is what they give us for the fighting,” said the colonel, Amanuddin, who like many Afghans has only one name. “It makes us worried, because too much of it is junk.” Ammunition as it ages over decades often becomes less powerful, reliable and accurate.
AEY is one of many previously unknown defense companies to have thrived since 2003, when the Pentagon began dispensing billions of dollars to train and equip indigenous forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its rise from obscurity once seemed to make it a successful example of the Bush administration’s promotion of private contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy.
But an examination of AEY’s background, through interviews in several countries, reviews of confidential government documents and the examination of some of the ammunition, suggests that Army contracting officials, under pressure to arm Afghan troops, allowed an immature company to enter the murky world of international arms dealing on the Pentagon’s behalf — and did so with minimal vetting and through a vaguely written contract with few restrictions.
In addition to this week’s suspension, AEY is under investigation by the Department of Defense’s inspector general and by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prompted by complaints about the quality and origins of ammunition it provided, and allegations of corruption.
Mr. Diveroli, in a brief telephone interview late last year, denied any wrongdoing. “I know that my company does everything 100 percent on the up and up, and that’s all I’m concerned about,” he said.
He also suggested that his activities should be shielded from public view. “AEY is working on a moderately classified Department of Defense project,” he said. “I really don’t want to talk about the details.”
He referred questions to a lawyer, Hy Shapiro, who offered a single statement by e-mail. “While AEY continues to work very hard to fulfill its obligations under its contract with the U.S. Army, its representatives are not prepared at this time to sit and discuss the details,” he wrote.
As part of the suspension, neither Mr. Diveroli nor his company can bid on any further federal work until the Army’s allegations are resolved. But he will be allowed to provide ammunition already on order under the Afghan contract, according to internal military correspondence.
In January, American officers in Kabul, concerned about munitions from AEY, had contacted the Army’s Rock Island Arsenal, in Illinois, and raised the possibility of terminating the contract. And officials at the Army Sustainment Command, the contracting authority at the arsenal, after meeting with AEY in late February, said they were tightening the packaging standards for munitions shipped to the war.
And yet after that meeting, AEY sent another shipment of nearly one million cartridges to Afghanistan that the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan regarded as substandard. Lt. Col. David G. Johnson, the command spokesman, said that while there were no reports of ammunition misfiring, some of it was in such poor condition that the military had decided not to issue it. “Our honest answer is that the ammunition is of a quality that is less than desirable; the munitions do not appear to meet the standards that many of us are used to,” Colonel Johnson said. “We are not pleased with the way it was delivered.”
Several officials said the problems would have been avoided if the Army had written contracts and examined bidders more carefully.
Public records show that AEY’s contracts since 2004 have potentially been worth more than a third of a billion dollars. Mr. Diveroli set the value higher: he claimed to do $200 million in business each year.
Several military officers and government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the investigations, questioned how Mr. Diveroli, and a small group of men principally in their 20s and without extensive military or procurement experiences, landed so much vital government work.
“A lot of us are asking the question,” said a senior State Department official. “How did this guy get all this business?”
An Ambitious Company
The intensity of the Afghan insurgency alarmed the Pentagon in 2006, and the American unit that trains and equips Afghan forces placed a huge munitions order through an Army logistics command.
The order sought 52 types of ammunition: rifle, pistol and machine-gun cartridges, hand grenades, rockets, shotgun slugs, mortar rounds, tank ammunition and more. In all, it covered hundreds of millions of rounds. Afghan forces primarily use weapons developed in the Soviet Union. This meant that most munitions on the list could be bought only overseas.
AEY was one of 10 companies to bid by the September 2006 deadline.
Michael Diveroli, Efraim’s father, had incorporated the company in 1999, when Efraim was 13. For several years, a period when the company appeared to have limited activity, Michael Diveroli, who now operates a police supply company down the street from AEY’s office, was listed as the company’s sole executive.
In 2004, AEY listed Efraim Diveroli, then 18, as an officer with a 1 percent ownership stake.
The younger Diveroli’s munitions experience appeared to be limited to a short-lived job in Los Angeles for Botach Tactical, a military and police supply company owned by his uncle, Bar-Kochba Botach.
Mr. Diveroli cut off an interview when asked about Botach Tactical. Mr. Botach, reached by telephone, said that both Michael and Efraim Diveroli had briefly worked for him, but that after seeing the rush of federal contracts available after the wars began, they had struck out on their own.
“They just left me and took my customer base with them,” he said. “They basically said: ‘Why should we work for Botach? Let’s do it on our own.’ ”
As Efraim Diveroli arrived in Miami Beach, AEY was transforming itself by aggressively seeking security-related contracts.
It won a $126,000 award for ammunition for the Special Forces; AEY also provided ammunition or equipment in 2004 to the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the State Department.
By 2005, when Mr. Diveroli became AEY’s president at age 19, the company was bidding across a spectrum of government agencies and providing paramilitary equipment — weapons, helmets, ballistic vests, bomb suits, batteries and chargers for X-ray machines — for American aid to Pakistan, Bolivia and elsewhere.
AGED ARSENAL Lt. Col. Amanuddin surveyed 42-year-old Chinese ammunition from AEY that arrived in crumbling boxes at his Afghan police post.
It was also providing supplies to the American military in Iraq, where its business included a $5.7 million contract for rifles for Iraqi forces.
Two federal officials involved in contracting in Baghdad said AEY quickly developed a bad reputation. “They weren’t reliable, or if they did come through, they did after many excuses,” said one of them, who asked that his name be withheld because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.
By this time, pressures were emerging in Efraim Diveroli’s life. In November 2005, a young woman sought an order of protection from him in the domestic violence division of Dade County Circuit Court.
The woman eventually did not appear in court, and her allegations were never ruled on. But in court papers, the woman said that after her relationship with Mr. Diveroli ended, he stalked her and left threatening messages.
Once, according to the file, his behavior included “shoving her to the ground and refusing to allow her to leave during a verbal dispute.” Other times, she reported, Mr. Diveroli arrived at her home unannounced and intoxicated “going about the exterior, banging on windows and doors.”
The woman worried that she could not ignore him, court records said, because his behavior frightened her.
Mr. Diveroli sought court delays on national security grounds. “I am the President and only official employee of my business,” he wrote to the judge on Dec. 8, 2005. “My business is currently of great importance to the country as I am licensed Defense Contractor to the United States Government in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and I am doing my very best to provide our troops with all their equipment needs on pending critical contracts.”
As AEY’s bid for its largest government contract was being considered, Mr. Diveroli’s personal difficulties continued. On Nov. 26, 2006, the Miami Beach police were called to his condominium during an argument between him and another girlfriend. According to the police report, he had thrown her “clothes out in the hallway and told her to get out.”
A witness told the police Mr. Diveroli had dragged her back into the apartment. The police found the woman crying; she said she had not been dragged. Mr. Diveroli was not charged.
On Dec. 21, 2006, the police were called back to the condominium. Mr. Diveroli and AEY’s vice president, David M. Packouz, had just been in a fight with the valet parking attendant.
The fight began, the police said, after the attendant refused to give Mr. Diveroli his keys and Mr. Diveroli entered the garage to get them himself. A witness said Mr. Diveroli and Mr. Packouz both beat the man; police photographs showed bruises and scrapes on his face and back.
When the police searched Mr. Diveroli, they found he had a forged driver’s license that added four years to his age and made him appear old enough to buy alcohol as a minor. His birthday had been the day before.
“I don’t even need that any more,” he told the police, the report said. “I’m 21 years old.”
Mr. Diveroli was charged with simple battery, a misdemeanor, and felony possession of a stolen or forged document.
The second charge placed his business in jeopardy. Mr. Diveroli had a federal firearms license, which was required for his work. With a felony conviction, the license would be nullified.
(Mr. Packouz was charged with battery and the charge was later dropped; he declined to be interviewed. To avoid a conviction on his record, Mr. Diveroli entered a six-month diversion program for first offenders in May 2007 that spared him from standing trial.)
A relative paid Mr. Diveroli’s $1,000 bail as his bid for the Afghan contract was in its final review.
To be accepted, the company had to be, in Army parlance, “a responsible contractor,” which required an examination of its financial soundness, transport capabilities, past performance and compliance with the law and government contracting regulations.
Miami-Dade P.D.
Efraim E. Diveroli
A Small American Arms Supplier Builds a Global Business
The week after a relative paid his bail, the Banc of America Investment Services in Miami provided Mr. Diveroli a letter certifying that his company had cash on hand to begin buying munitions on a large scale. It said AEY had $5,469,668.95 in an account.
AEY was awarded the contract in January 2007. Asked why it chose AEY, the Army Sustainment Command answered in writing: “AEY’s proposal represented the best value to the government.”
Eastern Bloc Arsenals
Both the Army and AEY have treated the sources of the ammunition the company purchases as confidential matters, declining to say how and where the company obtained it, the prices paid or the quantities delivered.
But records provided by an official concerned about the company’s performance, a whistle-blower in the Balkans and an arms-trafficking researcher in Europe, as well as interviews with several people who work in state arsenals in Europe, show that AEY shopped from stocks in the old Eastern bloc, including Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia.
These stockpiles range from temperature-controlled bunkers to unheated warehouses packed with exposed, decaying ammunition. Some arsenals contain ammunition regarded in munitions circles as high quality. Others are scrap heaps of abandoned Soviet arms.
The Army’s contract did little to distinguish between the two.
When the United States or NATO buys munitions for themselves, the process is regulated by quality-assurance standards that cover manufacturing, packaging, storage, testing and transport.
The standards exist in part because munitions are perishable. As they age, propellants and explosives degrade, and casings are susceptible to weathering. Environmental conditions — humidity, vibration, temperature shifts — accelerate decay, making munitions less reliable.
NATO rules require ammunition to be tested methodically over its life; samples are fired through braced weapons, and muzzle velocities and accuracy are recorded.
For rifle cartridges, testing begins at age 10 years, according to Peter Courtney-Green, chief of the Ammunition Support Office of NATO’s Maintenance and Supply Agency.
The Soviet Union, which designed the ammunition that AEY bought, developed similar tests, which are still in use. But when the Army wrote its Afghan contract, it did not enforce either NATO or Russian standards. It told bidders only that the munitions must be “serviceable and issuable to all units without qualification.”
What this meant was not defined. An official at the Army Sustainment Command said that because the ammunition was for foreign weapons, and considered “nonstandard,” it only had to fit in weapons it was intended for.
“There is no specific testing request, and there is no age limit,” said Michael Hutchison, the command’s deputy director for acquisition. “As the ammunition is not standard to the U.S. inventory, the Army doesn’t possess packaging or quality standards for that ammo.”
When purchasing such munitions, Mr. Hutchison said, the Army Sustainment Command relies on standards from the “customer” — meaning the Army units in Afghanistan. And the customer, he said, did not set age or testing requirements.
With the vague standards in hand, AEY canvassed the field. One stop was Albania, a fortress state during Soviet times now trying to join NATO. Albania has huge stocks of armaments, much if it provided by China in the 1960s and 1970s.
The quality of these stockpiles vary widely, said William D. G. Hunt, a retired British ammunition technical officer who assessed the entire stock for Albania’s Ministry of Defense from 1998 to 2002. He said a military planning to use the munitions had reason to worry: at least 90 percent of the stockpile was more than 40 years old.
“If there was any procurement made for combat purposes from that stockpile, I would be very dubious about it,” he said. “I am not suggesting that all the ammunition would fail. But its performance would tail off rather dramatically. It is substandard, for sure.”
Problems with Albania’s decaying munitions were apparent earlier this month, when a depot outside Tirana, Albania’s capital, erupted in a chain of explosions, killing at least 22 people, injuring at least 300 others and destroying hundreds of homes.
Before the Army’s contractors began shopping from such depots, the West’s assessment of Albanian munitions was evident in programs it sponsored to destroy them. Through 2007, the United States had contributed $2 million to destroy excess small-caliber weapons and 2,000 tons of ammunition in Albania, according to the State Department.
A NATO program that ended last year involved 16 Western nations contributing about $10 million to destroy 8,700 tons of obsolete ammunition. The United States contributed $500,000. Among the items destroyed were 104 million 7.62 millimeter cartridges — exactly the ammunition AEY sought from the Albanian state arms export agency.
Albania offered to sell tens of millions of cartridges manufactured as long ago as 1950. For tests, a 25-year-old AEY representative was given 1,000 cartridges to fire, according to Ylli Pinari, the director of the arms export agency at the time of the sale.
No ballistic performance was recorded, he said. The rounds were fired by hand.
On that basis, AEY bought more than 100 million cartridges for the Pentagon’s order. The cartridges, according to packing lists, dated to the 1960s.
The company also hired a local businessman, Kosta Trebicka, to remove the ammunition from its wooden crates and hermetically sealed metal boxes — the standard military packaging that protects munitions from moisture and dirt, and helps ensure its reliability and ease of transport in the field.
Mr. Trebicka, in interviews, said Mr. Diveroli wanted to discard the crates and metal boxes to reduce the weight and cost of air shipments and maximize profits. Several American officials said they suspected that the packaging was removed because it bore Chinese markings and the ammunition’s age.
The Czech Connection
As the cartridges in Albania were being prepared for shipment to Afghanistan, Mr. Diveroli began seeking ammunition from the Czech Republic to fill an order for Iraq’s Interior Ministry.
In May 2007, according to two American officials, the Czech government contacted the American Embassy in Prague with a concern: AEY was buying nine million cartridges through Petr Bernatik, a Czech citizen who had been accused by Czech officials of illegal arms trafficking.
The accusations included shipments of rocket-propelled grenades in violation of an international embargo to Congo, and illegal shipments of firearms to Slovakia.
Mr. Bernatik had publicly denied both accusations. But they were deemed credible enough in Washington that he was listed on the Defense Trade Controls watch list, according to one of the American officials.
This list, maintained by the State Department, is used to prevent American dealers from engaging suspicious traders in their business, in part to prevent legal arms companies from enriching or legitimizing black-market networks.
AEY has never been implicated in black-market sales. But the Czech government, which had discretion over the sale, asked the American Embassy if it wanted Mr. Bernatik involved in AEY’s deals, according to the two American officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share the contents of diplomatic discussions.
The United States did not try to block the transaction, one of the American officials said, in part because equipping Iraq was in the United States’ interest, and also because Mr. Bernatik had been accused, not convicted.
On May 7, 2007, the Czech government issued an export license. Mr. Bernatik, in a telephone interview, said he arranged seven flights to Iraq for AEY last year. “We have a normal business collaboration,” he said.
A Mysterious Middleman
The international arms business operates partly in the light and partly in shadows, and is littered with short-lived shell companies, middlemen and official corruption. Governments have tried to regulate it more closely for years, with limited success.
As Mr. Diveroli began to fill the Army’s huge orders, he was entering a shadowy world, and in his brief interview he suggested that he was aware that corruption could intrude on his dealings in Albania. “What goes on in the Albanian Ministry of Defense?” he said. “Who’s clean? Who’s dirty? Don’t want to know about it.”
The way AEY’s business was structured, Mr. Diveroli, at least officially, did not deal directly with Albanian officials. Instead, a middleman company registered in Cyprus, Evdin Ltd., bought the ammunition and sold it to his company.
The local packager involved in the deal, Mr. Trebicka, said that he suspected that Evdin’s purpose was to divert money to Albanian officials.
The purchases, Mr. Trebicka said, were a flip: Albania sold ammunition to Evdin for $22 per 1,000 rounds, he said, and Evdin sold it to AEY for much more. The difference, he said he suspected, was shared with Albanian officials, including Mr. Pinari, then the head of the arms export agency, and the defense minister at the time, Fatmir Mediu.
(Mr. Mediu resigned last week after the ammunition depot explosions; Mr. Pinari was arrested.) The Albanian government has been infuriated by Mr. Trebicka’s allegations. Sali Berisha, the prime minister, Mr. Mediu and Mr. Pinari all denied involvement in kickbacks. But Mr. Trebicka said that after he raised his concerns about Evdin with the Defense Ministry, his company was forced from the repackaging contract.
On June 11, 2007, Mr. Trebicka and Mr. Diveroli commiserated by phone about problems with doing business in Albania. Mr. Trebicka surreptitiously recorded the conversation, and later gave the audio files to American investigators.
The conversation, he said, showed that the American company was aware of corruption in its dealings in Albania and that Heinrich Thomet, a Swiss arms dealer, was behind Evdin.
In the recordings, which Mr. Trebicka shared with The Times, Mr. Diveroli suggests that Mr. Thomet, called “Henri,” was acting as the middleman.
“Pinari needs a guy like Henri in the middle to take care of him and his buddies, which is none of my business,” Mr. Diveroli said. “I don’t want to know about that business. I want to know about legitimate businesses.”
Mr. Diveroli recommended that Mr. Trebicka try to reclaim his contract by sending “one of his girls” to have sex with Mr. Pinari. He suggested that money might help, too.
“Let’s get him happy; maybe he gives you one more chance,” he said. “If he gets $20,000 from you ... ”
At the end, Mr. Diveroli appeared to lament his business with Albania. “It went up higher to the prime minister and his son,” he said. “I can’t fight this mafia. It got too big. The animals just got too out of control.”
In e-mail exchanges, Mr. Thomet denied an official role in Evdin. His involvement in the Albania deal, he said, had been in introducing Mr. Diveroli to potential partners and officials. Bogdan Choopryna, Evdin’s general manager, also said Mr. Diveroli’s allegations were not true. “We listen to the words of Mr. Diveroli, and then I am responsible for what he is saying?” he said. In addition to being an official with Evdin, Mr. Choopryna, 27, markets products for a Swiss company run by Mr. Thomet.
The dispute about Evdin’s role and who owns it remains publicly unresolved. Evdin had incorporated on Sept. 26, 2006 — the week after Mr. Diveroli bid on the Afghan contract, according to Cyprus’s registrar. The company listed its office in Larnaca, Cyprus, and its general director as Pambos Fellas.
A visit by a reporter to the address found an accounting business above a nightclub. Evdin had no office or staff there. And Mr. Fellas, who was inside, said that he was not Evdin’s general director, but “a nominee director” whose sole role was to register the company.
He had registered hundreds of such companies for a fee, he said, and knew nothing of Evdin’s business.
Some signs point back to Switzerland. Mr. Pinari initially told two reporters that he worked with Evdin via Mr. Thomet. (After a reporter told Mr. Thomet this, Mr. Pinari changed his story, referring the reporter to Mr. Fellas and Evdin’s office in Cyprus.) Mr. Diveroli also said the Cyprus company was run by a “Swiss individual.”Skip to next paragraph
Mr. Thomet has been accused in the past by private groups, including Amnesty International, of arranging illegal arms transfers under a shifting portfolio of corporate names. His activities have also caused concern in Washington, where, like Mr. Bernatik, he and Evdin are on the Defense Trade Controls watch list, an American official said.
Mr. Thomet said past claims that he had engaged in illegal arms trading were caused by “false statements by former competitors.”
Hugh Griffiths, operations manager of the Arms Transfer Profile Initiative, a private organization that researches illicit arms transfers, described Mr. Thomet as a broker with contacts in former Eastern bloc countries with stockpiles and arms factories. His proximity to AEY’s purchases, Mr. Griffiths said, raised questions about whether the Pentagon was adequately vetting the business done in its name.
“Put very simply, many of the people involved in smuggling arms to Africa are also exactly the same as those involved in Pentagon-supported deals, like AEY’s shipments to Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.
Under the suspension ordered Wednesday, the Army planned to continue accepting ammunition it had already ordered from AEY. As of March 21, it had ordered $155 million of munitions, according to the Army Sustainment Command.
In Afghanistan, American munitions officers are examining all of the small-arms ammunition AEY has shipped. The final shipment, which arrived in wooden crates, included loose and corroded cartridges, according to three officers. At Rock Island Arsenal, the contracting authority said it was cooperating with investigators, who have also visited Albania and Afghanistan.
And in Miami Beach, even before the suspension, AEY had lost staff members. Michael Diveroli, the company’s founder, told a reporter that he no longer had any relationship with the company. Mr. Packouz, who was AEY’s vice president, and Levi Meyer, 25, who was briefly listed as general manager, had left the company, too.
Mr. Meyer offered a statement: “I’m not involved in that mess anymore.”
Ammunition supplied by an American contractor to Afghan forces. Some of it was in such poor shape that it was not used.
A Small American Arms Supplier Builds a Global Business
MUNITIONS Problems with old munitions were exposed recently by explosions at an Albanian depot.
Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.
Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.
In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.
Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law. The company’s president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company’s purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania, according to audio files of the conversation.
This week, after repeated inquiries about AEY’s performance by The Times, the Army suspended the company from any future federal contracting, citing shipments of Chinese ammunition and claiming that Mr. Diveroli misled the Army by saying the munitions were Hungarian.
Mr. Diveroli, reached by telephone, said he was unaware of the action. The Army planned to notify his company by certified mail on Thursday, according to internal correspondence provided by a military official.
But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966.
“This is what they give us for the fighting,” said the colonel, Amanuddin, who like many Afghans has only one name. “It makes us worried, because too much of it is junk.” Ammunition as it ages over decades often becomes less powerful, reliable and accurate.
AEY is one of many previously unknown defense companies to have thrived since 2003, when the Pentagon began dispensing billions of dollars to train and equip indigenous forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its rise from obscurity once seemed to make it a successful example of the Bush administration’s promotion of private contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy.
But an examination of AEY’s background, through interviews in several countries, reviews of confidential government documents and the examination of some of the ammunition, suggests that Army contracting officials, under pressure to arm Afghan troops, allowed an immature company to enter the murky world of international arms dealing on the Pentagon’s behalf — and did so with minimal vetting and through a vaguely written contract with few restrictions.
In addition to this week’s suspension, AEY is under investigation by the Department of Defense’s inspector general and by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prompted by complaints about the quality and origins of ammunition it provided, and allegations of corruption.
Mr. Diveroli, in a brief telephone interview late last year, denied any wrongdoing. “I know that my company does everything 100 percent on the up and up, and that’s all I’m concerned about,” he said.
He also suggested that his activities should be shielded from public view. “AEY is working on a moderately classified Department of Defense project,” he said. “I really don’t want to talk about the details.”
He referred questions to a lawyer, Hy Shapiro, who offered a single statement by e-mail. “While AEY continues to work very hard to fulfill its obligations under its contract with the U.S. Army, its representatives are not prepared at this time to sit and discuss the details,” he wrote.
As part of the suspension, neither Mr. Diveroli nor his company can bid on any further federal work until the Army’s allegations are resolved. But he will be allowed to provide ammunition already on order under the Afghan contract, according to internal military correspondence.
In January, American officers in Kabul, concerned about munitions from AEY, had contacted the Army’s Rock Island Arsenal, in Illinois, and raised the possibility of terminating the contract. And officials at the Army Sustainment Command, the contracting authority at the arsenal, after meeting with AEY in late February, said they were tightening the packaging standards for munitions shipped to the war.
And yet after that meeting, AEY sent another shipment of nearly one million cartridges to Afghanistan that the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan regarded as substandard. Lt. Col. David G. Johnson, the command spokesman, said that while there were no reports of ammunition misfiring, some of it was in such poor condition that the military had decided not to issue it. “Our honest answer is that the ammunition is of a quality that is less than desirable; the munitions do not appear to meet the standards that many of us are used to,” Colonel Johnson said. “We are not pleased with the way it was delivered.”
Several officials said the problems would have been avoided if the Army had written contracts and examined bidders more carefully.
Public records show that AEY’s contracts since 2004 have potentially been worth more than a third of a billion dollars. Mr. Diveroli set the value higher: he claimed to do $200 million in business each year.
Several military officers and government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the investigations, questioned how Mr. Diveroli, and a small group of men principally in their 20s and without extensive military or procurement experiences, landed so much vital government work.
“A lot of us are asking the question,” said a senior State Department official. “How did this guy get all this business?”
An Ambitious Company
The intensity of the Afghan insurgency alarmed the Pentagon in 2006, and the American unit that trains and equips Afghan forces placed a huge munitions order through an Army logistics command.
The order sought 52 types of ammunition: rifle, pistol and machine-gun cartridges, hand grenades, rockets, shotgun slugs, mortar rounds, tank ammunition and more. In all, it covered hundreds of millions of rounds. Afghan forces primarily use weapons developed in the Soviet Union. This meant that most munitions on the list could be bought only overseas.
AEY was one of 10 companies to bid by the September 2006 deadline.
Michael Diveroli, Efraim’s father, had incorporated the company in 1999, when Efraim was 13. For several years, a period when the company appeared to have limited activity, Michael Diveroli, who now operates a police supply company down the street from AEY’s office, was listed as the company’s sole executive.
In 2004, AEY listed Efraim Diveroli, then 18, as an officer with a 1 percent ownership stake.
The younger Diveroli’s munitions experience appeared to be limited to a short-lived job in Los Angeles for Botach Tactical, a military and police supply company owned by his uncle, Bar-Kochba Botach.
Mr. Diveroli cut off an interview when asked about Botach Tactical. Mr. Botach, reached by telephone, said that both Michael and Efraim Diveroli had briefly worked for him, but that after seeing the rush of federal contracts available after the wars began, they had struck out on their own.
“They just left me and took my customer base with them,” he said. “They basically said: ‘Why should we work for Botach? Let’s do it on our own.’ ”
As Efraim Diveroli arrived in Miami Beach, AEY was transforming itself by aggressively seeking security-related contracts.
It won a $126,000 award for ammunition for the Special Forces; AEY also provided ammunition or equipment in 2004 to the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and the State Department.
By 2005, when Mr. Diveroli became AEY’s president at age 19, the company was bidding across a spectrum of government agencies and providing paramilitary equipment — weapons, helmets, ballistic vests, bomb suits, batteries and chargers for X-ray machines — for American aid to Pakistan, Bolivia and elsewhere.
AGED ARSENAL Lt. Col. Amanuddin surveyed 42-year-old Chinese ammunition from AEY that arrived in crumbling boxes at his Afghan police post.
It was also providing supplies to the American military in Iraq, where its business included a $5.7 million contract for rifles for Iraqi forces.
Two federal officials involved in contracting in Baghdad said AEY quickly developed a bad reputation. “They weren’t reliable, or if they did come through, they did after many excuses,” said one of them, who asked that his name be withheld because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.
By this time, pressures were emerging in Efraim Diveroli’s life. In November 2005, a young woman sought an order of protection from him in the domestic violence division of Dade County Circuit Court.
The woman eventually did not appear in court, and her allegations were never ruled on. But in court papers, the woman said that after her relationship with Mr. Diveroli ended, he stalked her and left threatening messages.
Once, according to the file, his behavior included “shoving her to the ground and refusing to allow her to leave during a verbal dispute.” Other times, she reported, Mr. Diveroli arrived at her home unannounced and intoxicated “going about the exterior, banging on windows and doors.”
The woman worried that she could not ignore him, court records said, because his behavior frightened her.
Mr. Diveroli sought court delays on national security grounds. “I am the President and only official employee of my business,” he wrote to the judge on Dec. 8, 2005. “My business is currently of great importance to the country as I am licensed Defense Contractor to the United States Government in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and I am doing my very best to provide our troops with all their equipment needs on pending critical contracts.”
As AEY’s bid for its largest government contract was being considered, Mr. Diveroli’s personal difficulties continued. On Nov. 26, 2006, the Miami Beach police were called to his condominium during an argument between him and another girlfriend. According to the police report, he had thrown her “clothes out in the hallway and told her to get out.”
A witness told the police Mr. Diveroli had dragged her back into the apartment. The police found the woman crying; she said she had not been dragged. Mr. Diveroli was not charged.
On Dec. 21, 2006, the police were called back to the condominium. Mr. Diveroli and AEY’s vice president, David M. Packouz, had just been in a fight with the valet parking attendant.
The fight began, the police said, after the attendant refused to give Mr. Diveroli his keys and Mr. Diveroli entered the garage to get them himself. A witness said Mr. Diveroli and Mr. Packouz both beat the man; police photographs showed bruises and scrapes on his face and back.
When the police searched Mr. Diveroli, they found he had a forged driver’s license that added four years to his age and made him appear old enough to buy alcohol as a minor. His birthday had been the day before.
“I don’t even need that any more,” he told the police, the report said. “I’m 21 years old.”
Mr. Diveroli was charged with simple battery, a misdemeanor, and felony possession of a stolen or forged document.
The second charge placed his business in jeopardy. Mr. Diveroli had a federal firearms license, which was required for his work. With a felony conviction, the license would be nullified.
(Mr. Packouz was charged with battery and the charge was later dropped; he declined to be interviewed. To avoid a conviction on his record, Mr. Diveroli entered a six-month diversion program for first offenders in May 2007 that spared him from standing trial.)
A relative paid Mr. Diveroli’s $1,000 bail as his bid for the Afghan contract was in its final review.
To be accepted, the company had to be, in Army parlance, “a responsible contractor,” which required an examination of its financial soundness, transport capabilities, past performance and compliance with the law and government contracting regulations.
Miami-Dade P.D.
Efraim E. Diveroli
A Small American Arms Supplier Builds a Global Business
The week after a relative paid his bail, the Banc of America Investment Services in Miami provided Mr. Diveroli a letter certifying that his company had cash on hand to begin buying munitions on a large scale. It said AEY had $5,469,668.95 in an account.
AEY was awarded the contract in January 2007. Asked why it chose AEY, the Army Sustainment Command answered in writing: “AEY’s proposal represented the best value to the government.”
Eastern Bloc Arsenals
Both the Army and AEY have treated the sources of the ammunition the company purchases as confidential matters, declining to say how and where the company obtained it, the prices paid or the quantities delivered.
But records provided by an official concerned about the company’s performance, a whistle-blower in the Balkans and an arms-trafficking researcher in Europe, as well as interviews with several people who work in state arsenals in Europe, show that AEY shopped from stocks in the old Eastern bloc, including Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia.
These stockpiles range from temperature-controlled bunkers to unheated warehouses packed with exposed, decaying ammunition. Some arsenals contain ammunition regarded in munitions circles as high quality. Others are scrap heaps of abandoned Soviet arms.
The Army’s contract did little to distinguish between the two.
When the United States or NATO buys munitions for themselves, the process is regulated by quality-assurance standards that cover manufacturing, packaging, storage, testing and transport.
The standards exist in part because munitions are perishable. As they age, propellants and explosives degrade, and casings are susceptible to weathering. Environmental conditions — humidity, vibration, temperature shifts — accelerate decay, making munitions less reliable.
NATO rules require ammunition to be tested methodically over its life; samples are fired through braced weapons, and muzzle velocities and accuracy are recorded.
For rifle cartridges, testing begins at age 10 years, according to Peter Courtney-Green, chief of the Ammunition Support Office of NATO’s Maintenance and Supply Agency.
The Soviet Union, which designed the ammunition that AEY bought, developed similar tests, which are still in use. But when the Army wrote its Afghan contract, it did not enforce either NATO or Russian standards. It told bidders only that the munitions must be “serviceable and issuable to all units without qualification.”
What this meant was not defined. An official at the Army Sustainment Command said that because the ammunition was for foreign weapons, and considered “nonstandard,” it only had to fit in weapons it was intended for.
“There is no specific testing request, and there is no age limit,” said Michael Hutchison, the command’s deputy director for acquisition. “As the ammunition is not standard to the U.S. inventory, the Army doesn’t possess packaging or quality standards for that ammo.”
When purchasing such munitions, Mr. Hutchison said, the Army Sustainment Command relies on standards from the “customer” — meaning the Army units in Afghanistan. And the customer, he said, did not set age or testing requirements.
With the vague standards in hand, AEY canvassed the field. One stop was Albania, a fortress state during Soviet times now trying to join NATO. Albania has huge stocks of armaments, much if it provided by China in the 1960s and 1970s.
The quality of these stockpiles vary widely, said William D. G. Hunt, a retired British ammunition technical officer who assessed the entire stock for Albania’s Ministry of Defense from 1998 to 2002. He said a military planning to use the munitions had reason to worry: at least 90 percent of the stockpile was more than 40 years old.
“If there was any procurement made for combat purposes from that stockpile, I would be very dubious about it,” he said. “I am not suggesting that all the ammunition would fail. But its performance would tail off rather dramatically. It is substandard, for sure.”
Problems with Albania’s decaying munitions were apparent earlier this month, when a depot outside Tirana, Albania’s capital, erupted in a chain of explosions, killing at least 22 people, injuring at least 300 others and destroying hundreds of homes.
Before the Army’s contractors began shopping from such depots, the West’s assessment of Albanian munitions was evident in programs it sponsored to destroy them. Through 2007, the United States had contributed $2 million to destroy excess small-caliber weapons and 2,000 tons of ammunition in Albania, according to the State Department.
A NATO program that ended last year involved 16 Western nations contributing about $10 million to destroy 8,700 tons of obsolete ammunition. The United States contributed $500,000. Among the items destroyed were 104 million 7.62 millimeter cartridges — exactly the ammunition AEY sought from the Albanian state arms export agency.
Albania offered to sell tens of millions of cartridges manufactured as long ago as 1950. For tests, a 25-year-old AEY representative was given 1,000 cartridges to fire, according to Ylli Pinari, the director of the arms export agency at the time of the sale.
No ballistic performance was recorded, he said. The rounds were fired by hand.
On that basis, AEY bought more than 100 million cartridges for the Pentagon’s order. The cartridges, according to packing lists, dated to the 1960s.
The company also hired a local businessman, Kosta Trebicka, to remove the ammunition from its wooden crates and hermetically sealed metal boxes — the standard military packaging that protects munitions from moisture and dirt, and helps ensure its reliability and ease of transport in the field.
Mr. Trebicka, in interviews, said Mr. Diveroli wanted to discard the crates and metal boxes to reduce the weight and cost of air shipments and maximize profits. Several American officials said they suspected that the packaging was removed because it bore Chinese markings and the ammunition’s age.
The Czech Connection
As the cartridges in Albania were being prepared for shipment to Afghanistan, Mr. Diveroli began seeking ammunition from the Czech Republic to fill an order for Iraq’s Interior Ministry.
In May 2007, according to two American officials, the Czech government contacted the American Embassy in Prague with a concern: AEY was buying nine million cartridges through Petr Bernatik, a Czech citizen who had been accused by Czech officials of illegal arms trafficking.
The accusations included shipments of rocket-propelled grenades in violation of an international embargo to Congo, and illegal shipments of firearms to Slovakia.
Mr. Bernatik had publicly denied both accusations. But they were deemed credible enough in Washington that he was listed on the Defense Trade Controls watch list, according to one of the American officials.
This list, maintained by the State Department, is used to prevent American dealers from engaging suspicious traders in their business, in part to prevent legal arms companies from enriching or legitimizing black-market networks.
AEY has never been implicated in black-market sales. But the Czech government, which had discretion over the sale, asked the American Embassy if it wanted Mr. Bernatik involved in AEY’s deals, according to the two American officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share the contents of diplomatic discussions.
The United States did not try to block the transaction, one of the American officials said, in part because equipping Iraq was in the United States’ interest, and also because Mr. Bernatik had been accused, not convicted.
On May 7, 2007, the Czech government issued an export license. Mr. Bernatik, in a telephone interview, said he arranged seven flights to Iraq for AEY last year. “We have a normal business collaboration,” he said.
A Mysterious Middleman
The international arms business operates partly in the light and partly in shadows, and is littered with short-lived shell companies, middlemen and official corruption. Governments have tried to regulate it more closely for years, with limited success.
As Mr. Diveroli began to fill the Army’s huge orders, he was entering a shadowy world, and in his brief interview he suggested that he was aware that corruption could intrude on his dealings in Albania. “What goes on in the Albanian Ministry of Defense?” he said. “Who’s clean? Who’s dirty? Don’t want to know about it.”
The way AEY’s business was structured, Mr. Diveroli, at least officially, did not deal directly with Albanian officials. Instead, a middleman company registered in Cyprus, Evdin Ltd., bought the ammunition and sold it to his company.
The local packager involved in the deal, Mr. Trebicka, said that he suspected that Evdin’s purpose was to divert money to Albanian officials.
The purchases, Mr. Trebicka said, were a flip: Albania sold ammunition to Evdin for $22 per 1,000 rounds, he said, and Evdin sold it to AEY for much more. The difference, he said he suspected, was shared with Albanian officials, including Mr. Pinari, then the head of the arms export agency, and the defense minister at the time, Fatmir Mediu.
(Mr. Mediu resigned last week after the ammunition depot explosions; Mr. Pinari was arrested.) The Albanian government has been infuriated by Mr. Trebicka’s allegations. Sali Berisha, the prime minister, Mr. Mediu and Mr. Pinari all denied involvement in kickbacks. But Mr. Trebicka said that after he raised his concerns about Evdin with the Defense Ministry, his company was forced from the repackaging contract.
On June 11, 2007, Mr. Trebicka and Mr. Diveroli commiserated by phone about problems with doing business in Albania. Mr. Trebicka surreptitiously recorded the conversation, and later gave the audio files to American investigators.
The conversation, he said, showed that the American company was aware of corruption in its dealings in Albania and that Heinrich Thomet, a Swiss arms dealer, was behind Evdin.
In the recordings, which Mr. Trebicka shared with The Times, Mr. Diveroli suggests that Mr. Thomet, called “Henri,” was acting as the middleman.
“Pinari needs a guy like Henri in the middle to take care of him and his buddies, which is none of my business,” Mr. Diveroli said. “I don’t want to know about that business. I want to know about legitimate businesses.”
Mr. Diveroli recommended that Mr. Trebicka try to reclaim his contract by sending “one of his girls” to have sex with Mr. Pinari. He suggested that money might help, too.
“Let’s get him happy; maybe he gives you one more chance,” he said. “If he gets $20,000 from you ... ”
At the end, Mr. Diveroli appeared to lament his business with Albania. “It went up higher to the prime minister and his son,” he said. “I can’t fight this mafia. It got too big. The animals just got too out of control.”
In e-mail exchanges, Mr. Thomet denied an official role in Evdin. His involvement in the Albania deal, he said, had been in introducing Mr. Diveroli to potential partners and officials. Bogdan Choopryna, Evdin’s general manager, also said Mr. Diveroli’s allegations were not true. “We listen to the words of Mr. Diveroli, and then I am responsible for what he is saying?” he said. In addition to being an official with Evdin, Mr. Choopryna, 27, markets products for a Swiss company run by Mr. Thomet.
The dispute about Evdin’s role and who owns it remains publicly unresolved. Evdin had incorporated on Sept. 26, 2006 — the week after Mr. Diveroli bid on the Afghan contract, according to Cyprus’s registrar. The company listed its office in Larnaca, Cyprus, and its general director as Pambos Fellas.
A visit by a reporter to the address found an accounting business above a nightclub. Evdin had no office or staff there. And Mr. Fellas, who was inside, said that he was not Evdin’s general director, but “a nominee director” whose sole role was to register the company.
He had registered hundreds of such companies for a fee, he said, and knew nothing of Evdin’s business.
Some signs point back to Switzerland. Mr. Pinari initially told two reporters that he worked with Evdin via Mr. Thomet. (After a reporter told Mr. Thomet this, Mr. Pinari changed his story, referring the reporter to Mr. Fellas and Evdin’s office in Cyprus.) Mr. Diveroli also said the Cyprus company was run by a “Swiss individual.”Skip to next paragraph
Mr. Thomet has been accused in the past by private groups, including Amnesty International, of arranging illegal arms transfers under a shifting portfolio of corporate names. His activities have also caused concern in Washington, where, like Mr. Bernatik, he and Evdin are on the Defense Trade Controls watch list, an American official said.
Mr. Thomet said past claims that he had engaged in illegal arms trading were caused by “false statements by former competitors.”
Hugh Griffiths, operations manager of the Arms Transfer Profile Initiative, a private organization that researches illicit arms transfers, described Mr. Thomet as a broker with contacts in former Eastern bloc countries with stockpiles and arms factories. His proximity to AEY’s purchases, Mr. Griffiths said, raised questions about whether the Pentagon was adequately vetting the business done in its name.
“Put very simply, many of the people involved in smuggling arms to Africa are also exactly the same as those involved in Pentagon-supported deals, like AEY’s shipments to Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.
Under the suspension ordered Wednesday, the Army planned to continue accepting ammunition it had already ordered from AEY. As of March 21, it had ordered $155 million of munitions, according to the Army Sustainment Command.
In Afghanistan, American munitions officers are examining all of the small-arms ammunition AEY has shipped. The final shipment, which arrived in wooden crates, included loose and corroded cartridges, according to three officers. At Rock Island Arsenal, the contracting authority said it was cooperating with investigators, who have also visited Albania and Afghanistan.
And in Miami Beach, even before the suspension, AEY had lost staff members. Michael Diveroli, the company’s founder, told a reporter that he no longer had any relationship with the company. Mr. Packouz, who was AEY’s vice president, and Levi Meyer, 25, who was briefly listed as general manager, had left the company, too.
Mr. Meyer offered a statement: “I’m not involved in that mess anymore.”
C. J Chivers reported from Nawa, Afghanistan, Russia and Ukraine; Eric Schmitt from Washington and Miami Beach; and Nicholas Wood from Tirana, Albania. Reporting was contributed by Alain Delaquérière and Margot Williams from New York, James Glanz from Baghdad, and Stefanos Evripidou from Cyprus.
Courtesy of NYTimes to albpolitic.blogspot
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