[R-G] The sleazy advocacy of a leading "liberal hawk"

[RICHARD MENEC]

See embedded links at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/11/12/galbraith/print.html

The sleazy advocacy of a leading "liberal hawk"

Peter Galbraith's vast, undisclosed financial interests in the 
policies he spent years advocating as an "expert."

BY Glenn Greenwald

Nov. 12, 2009

The New York Times today details the unbelievably sleazy story of 
Peter Galbraith, one of the Democratic Party's leading so-called 
"liberal hawks" and a generally revered Wise Man of America's 
Foreign Policy Community.  He was Ambassador to Croatia under the 
Clinton administration in the mid-1990s and, in March, 2009, the 
Obama administration (specifically, Richard Holbrooke, Galbraith's 
mentor) successfully pressured the U.N. to name Galbraith as the 
second-in-command in Afghanistan.  The NYT does a good job today 
of adding some important details to the story, but it was actually 
uncovered by Norwegian investigative journalists and reported at 
length a month ago in pieces such as this one by Helena Cobban. 
In essence, this highly Serious man has corruptly concealed vast 
financial stakes in the very policies and positions he has spent 
years advocating while pretending to be an independent expert.

Galbraith was one of the most vocal Democratic supporters of the 
attack on Iraq, having signed a March 19, 2003 public letter 
(.pdf) -- along with the standard cast of neocon war-lovers such 
as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Danielle Pletka, and Robert Kagan -- 
stating that "we all join in supporting the military intervention 
in Iraq" and "it is now time to act to remove Saddam Hussein and 
his regime from power."  As intended, that letter was then praised 
by outlets such as The Washington Post Editorial Page, gushing 
that "it is both significant and encouraging that a bipartisan 
group of influential foreign policy thinkers, veterans of both 
Democratic and Republican administrations, has signed on to a 
statement of policy on Iraq that makes sense on the war." 
Throughout 2002 and 2003, Galbraith appeared in numerous outlets 
-- including repeatedly on Fox News and with Bill O'Reilly -- 
presenting himself as a loyal Democrat firmly behind the invasion 
of Iraq.  In 2002, he was an adviser to Paul Wolfowitz on Kurdistan.

After playing a key role in enabling the invasion of Iraq, 
Galbraith first became one of a handful of U.S. officials who 
worked on writing the Iraqi Constitution, and after he resigned 
from the government, he then continuously posed as an independent 
expert on the region and, specifically, an "unpaid" adviser to the 
Kurds on the Constitution.  Galbraith was an ardent and vocal 
advocate for Kurdish autonomy, arguing tirelessly in numerous 
venues for such proposals -- including in multiple Op-Eds for The 
New York Times -- and insisting that Kurds must have the right to 
control oil resources located in Northern Iraq.  Throughout the 
years of writing those Op-Eds, he was identified as nothing more 
than "a former United States ambassador to Croatia," except in one 
2007 Op-Ed which vaguely stated that he "is a principal in a 
company that does consulting in Iraq and elsewhere."  When he 
participated in a New York Times forum in October, 2008 -- 
regarding what the next President should be required to answer -- 
he unsurprisingly posed questions that advocated for regional 
autonomy for Iraqis generally and Kurds specifically, and he was 
identified as nothing more than the author of a book about the region.

What Galbraith kept completely concealed all these years was that 
a company he formed in 2004 came to acquire a large stake in a 
Kurdish oil field whereby, as the NYT put it, he "stands to earn 
perhaps a hundred million or more dollars."  In other words, he 
had a direct -- and vast -- financial stake in the very policies 
which he was publicly advocating in The New York Times, The 
Washington Post, and countless other American media outlets, where 
he was presented as an independent expert on the region.  As 
Cobban wrote:

     For the preceding four years, while Galbraith was an 
influential participant in Iraq-related constitutional and 
political discussions, he also had an undisclosed financial 
interest in a KRG-authorised oil development venture. . . .

     Here in the U.S., Galbraith has long been associated with the 
"liberal hawk" wing of the Democratic Party . . . Many members of 
this group have been liberal idealists - though some of those who, 
on "liberal" grounds, gave early support to Pres. George W. Bush's 
decision to invade Iraq later expressed their regret for adopting 
that position.

     Galbraith has never expressed any such regrets, and last 
November, he was openly scornful of Bush's late-term agreement to 
withdraw from Iraq completely. The revelation that for many years 
Galbraith had a quite undisclosed financial interest in the 
political breakup of Iraq may now further reduce the clout, and 
the ranks, of the remaining liberal hawks.

Unfortunately, that last sentence is likely wishful thinking. 
What Galbraith has done, as sleazy and dishonest as it is, is 
simply par for the course in accountability-free Washington.

Galbraith's relationship with the Kurds goes back many years.  He 
undoubtedly knew that overthrowing Saddam would empower his 
Kurdish friends and their ability to dole out oil contracts. 
Indeed, in his own 2006 book, he recounts that he began working on 
Kurdish autonomy and independence "two weeks after the fall of 
Saddam Hussein."  Less than a year later, having helped convince 
the public -- and many Democrats -- to invade Iraq, he formed a 
company that then acquired a huge stake in Kurdish oil.  And he 
then spent years running around trying to use his status as 
Foreign Policy Community expert to exploit the war he cheered on 
for his own massive personal gain, while keeping completely 
concealed those glaring conflicts of interests.

Reider Visser, a historian of southern Iraq, told The Boston Globe 
last month:  "Galbraith has been such a central person to the 
shaping of the Iraqi Constitution, far more than I think most 
Americans realize. All those beautiful ideas about principles of 
federalism and local communities having control are really cast in 
a different light when the community has an oil field in its midst 
and Mr. Galbraith has a financial stake."  So here's a leading 
advocate of the war on Iraq who used his influence in the U.S. 
Government and the Foreign Policy Community -- as well as the 
break-up of Saddam's regime -- to enrich himself on Iraqi oil.  As 
the NYT put it:

     As the scope of Mr. Galbraith?s financial interests in 
Kurdistan become clear, they have the potential to inflame some of 
Iraqis? deepest fears, including conspiracy theories that the true 
reason for the American invasion of their country was to take its 
oil. It may not help that outside Kurdistan, Mr. Galbraith?s 
influential view that Iraq should be broken up along ethnic lines 
is considered offensive to many Iraqis? nationalism. Mr. Biden and 
Mr. Kerry, who have been influenced by Mr. Galbraith?s thinking 
but do not advocate such a partitioning of the country, were not 
aware of Mr. Galbraith?s oil dealings in Iraq, aides to both 
politicians say.

     Some officials say that his financial ties could raise 
serious questions about the integrity of the constitutional 
negotiations themselves. "The idea that an oil company was 
participating in the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution leaves me 
speechless," said Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi, a principal drafter of 
the law that governed Iraq after the United States ceded control 
to an Iraqi government on June 28, 2004.

     In effect, he said, the company "has a representative in the 
room, drafting."

Remember how all those freakish and paranoid people -- on the 
crazed "Arab street" and in American-hating leftist circles -- 
actually believed in "conspriacy" theories such as the wacky 
notion that one of the motives for invading Iraq was a desire to 
exploit its oil resources?

Here we have yet another example of one of America's most Serious 
and respected "experts" advocating various policies while 
maintaining huge, undisclosed financial and personal interests in 
his advocacy.  He was given access to every major media outlet 
virtually on demand to do so -- the NYT, The Washington Post, NPR, 
CNN, Fox -- all while those interests remained concealed.  His 
uniting with the country's most extreme neocons to support the 
Bush administration's attack on Iraq didn't prevent the Obama 
administration from pushing him to be hired as the U.N.'s number 
two official in Afghanistan.  He continued to be revered by 
leading establishment Democrats as an important and respected 
expert.  In other words, Peter Galbraith is a perfect face showing 
how America's Foreign Policy Community and our political debates 
function.