Update: Committee schedules hearing for Tuesday
The US Embassy in Albania approved an effort to conceal the illegal Chinese origin of ammunition provided to troops in Afghanistan under a Pentagon contract by a just-indicted 22-year-old Florida man, according to an investigation by the House Oversight Committee.
In a 10-page letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Chairman Henry Waxman reviewed the committee’s findings in its investigation of AEY Inc., a start-up contractor that received up to $300 million in Pentagon contracts.
“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,” Waxman wrote. “The Committee has also received information that State Department officials. tried to conceal this information from the Committee.”
The committee announced its investigation in March after a report revealed that AEY’s 22-year-old CEO, Efraim E. Diveroli, was selling shoddy, decades old, Chinese manufactured munitions to US and Afghan forces.
Waxman’s letter laid out the results of the investigation:
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 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.
Copies of Waxman’s letter to Rice and further evidence are available on the Committee’s Web site.
The Oversight Committee initially invited Diveroli and other AEY representatives to testify at a hearing in March, soon after their conduct was exposed, but that hearing was postponed at the time. Waxman’s letter, released Monday, is the first new development in the committee’s investigation since then.
In March, RAW STORY also revealed Diveroli’s connection to a separate business catering to civilians, known as AmmoWorks. After initially taking down its Web site after this site and others began raising questions, AmmoWorks appears to be back in business.
UPDATE: The Oversight Committee announced it would convene a hearing on the AEY contracts Tuesday at 10 a.m. Witnesses include:
· Brigadier General William N. Phillips, U.S. Army, Commanding General, Picatinny Arsenal, Commander, Joint Munitions and Lethality Life Cycle Management Command
· Mitchell A. Howell, Executive Director, Ground Systems and Munitions Division, Defense Contract Management Agency, U.S. Department of Defense
· Stephen D. Mull, Acting Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Political Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State
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