"(T)he inspector general is to be an independent guard against corruption...But not in Bushworld."

The Cookie Crumbles

BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED November 15, 2007

The role of the inspector general is to be an independent guard against corruption inside of the agency he serves. The inspector general should observe ethical standards higher than the mainstream, and should be a watchdog and a friend of the whistleblower. But not in Bushworld. George W. Bush introduced a whole new species of inspector general. Across Washington, he carefully picked persons who were known for their fierce ideological loyalty to the G.O.P. and to him, rather than for independence and rectitude. The message was clear: create an impossible environment for whistleblowers; indeed, silence them. There are some good IG’s out there, of course: Glenn Fine at Justice is an example. But the examples of the other sort have proliferated.

And for weeks the State Department’s IG, Howard “Cookie” Krongard, has been under the microscope. He’s been denounced aggressively by his own staff, whose complaints launched an FBI probe. But Cookie has held on to his post, refusing to resign.

<...>

The hottest issue for Krongard at the moment is the State Department’s extremely suspicious relationship with Blackwater. How could Krongard be running this probe when his own brother, former CIA Executive Director A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard, sits on Blackwater’s advisory board and has other close ties with the company? Here’s Cookie Krongard’s response to this question:


Except, of course, that the “ugly rumor” to which Cookie refers, that his brother sits on a Blackwater board, is absolutely true. Here’s Krongard’s exchange with Waxman after he took advantage of a break to “refresh” his memory about his brother’s relationship with Blackwater (he was informed that the Committee had already nailed him on the prevarication).

more

Blackwater's Brothers

Jeremy Scahill Thu Nov 15, 4:10 PM ET

The Nation -- Every day, new revelations emerge in the mounting scandal rocking the Bush Administration and the mercenary company Blackwater Worldwide. Much of the attention focuses on the now infamous shooting spree in Baghdad's Nisour Square on September 16, in which seventeen Iraqi civilians were killed and twenty-four wounded. FBI investigators are now alleging that fourteen were victims of unjustified and unprovoked shooting--some were shot while they were fleeing. Investigators also say they found nothing to substantiate Blackwater's claims of being fired on by Iraqis. This comes a month after a US Army investigation determined there was "no enemy activity involved" and labeled the shootings a "criminal event." But while Blackwater gets hammered in the press, the behind-the-scenes actions of the company's paymaster, the State Department, grow more scandalous by the minute.

<...>

Though Blackwater was founded in 1997, Blackwater Security Consulting--its mercenary division--was incorporated in Delaware on January 22, 2002. Within months, as the United States occupied Afghanistan and began planning the Iraq invasion, Blackwater Security was already turning a profit, pulling in hundreds of thousands a month from a valuable CIA contract.

One of the players in forging that first Blackwater Security contract was Buzzy Krongard, at the time executive director of the CIA, the agency's number-three position. Krongard, who was named to that post in March 2001, had an unusual background for a spook, having spent most of his adult life as an investment banker. He had built up Alex.Brown, the country's oldest investment banking firm, into one of the most successful, and eventually sold it to Bankers Trust, from which he resigned in 1998. There have been some insinuations that Krongard was working undercover for the CIA years before he officially joined the agency in 1998 as a special adviser to George Tenet. But he won't reveal how he met the CIA director, except to say that it was through "mutual friends." The Princeton alum, Hall of Fame lacrosse player and former Marine boasts of having once punched a great white shark in the jaw; and he keeps one of its teeth on a chain and pictures of the animal in his office. Despite his bravado, some at the agency thought of Krongard as a wanna-be, according to a 2001 Newsweek story published shortly after his ascension to the number-three spot. "A wanna-be? Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. That's as much as you're going to get," Krongard responded.

While working under Tenet at the CIA, Krongard acted internally, reorganizing divisions and pushing for projects like an intelligence venture capital firm, but he did on occasion speak publicly. In October 2001, he declared, "The war will be won in large measure by forces you do not know about, in actions you will not see and in ways you may not want to know about, but we will prevail."

more