Balkanalysis.com

In today’s post-conflict Balkans, integration is the keyword for Western policymakers. The region’s less attractive qualities — smuggling, corruption, war and economic sluggishness — will significantly diminish when it is brought into the fold. Political, and especially economic integration are the priorities. So says the West.

That said, why haven’t the South Balkan oil pipelines conceived almost a decade ago been built? What has caused this holdup, and will the situation change?

Several problems — some financial, most not — have stymied two apparently competing pipelines, the Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria, or AMBO, route connecting the Black and Adriatic seas, and the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis line between the Black and Aegean seas.

The latter, a joint project of the Russian, Bulgarian and Greek governments, has a target capacity of 40 million tons per year. The 175-mile project would cost from $630 million to $700 million, and would involve Russian oil interests. LUKoil owns Bourgas’ Neftochim refinery, and Yukos has recently weighed in with a $200,000 investment. According to project chief Christos Dimas, “Yukos is considered one of the supporting oil companies — they have participated from the beginning.”

Despite environmental concerns, Dimas is optimistic about Bourgas-Alexandroupolis: “Without any question at all it can handle all types of tankers, including VLCC’s,” he told United Press International. “The problem is not unique to the Aegean, but to the whole Mediterranean. The increased use of double-hulled tankers will help, but having both our pipeline and the Bosphorus route is the most advantageous solution for getting Black Sea oil to Western markets.”

AMBO backers, however, claim that Greece’s Alexandroupolis port isn’t deep enough to handle VLCC supertankers, and not large enough to comply with international turning radius requirements — whereas Vlore (in Albania) is. The 560-mile AMBO pipeline would cost $1.2 billion and have a target capacity of 35 million tons/year.

According to Gligor Tashkovich, executive vice president for government and media relations, AMBO’s great advantage is that it crosses the entire Balkan peninsula, thus eliminating completely the danger of an oil spill in the Aegean. This threat was driven home on Dec. 13, when a tanker off the coast of Attica caught fire. The blaze was extinguished by firefighters after three hours, and no environmental damage was reported. Yet with an economy dependent on tourism and the 2004 Athens Olympics fast approaching, can Greece continue to afford the risk to its environment (and image) that accompany tanker traffic?

At some point, arguing between the two is futile. The projects have such widely differing lengths and purposes that it’s not really possible to compare them by citing affordability. At the end of the day, the interests of private corporations and those with a personal stake in the countries involved will decide whether these pipelines get built, not the desire to cut costs.

The first and most fundamental problem both face is the question of how future Caspian oil will reach Bourgas. Both projects would run a tanker shuttle service from eastern Black Sea ports to fill their tank farms, and ultimately their pipelines. But until this delivery problem is solved, downstream solutions remain hypothetical.

Yet even assuming that Caspian outlets will be found, hypothetical problems still arise. John Roberts, chief editor with the Platt Energy Group, speculates that Balkan export routes may not even be needed. Citing expected capacities of the BTC (1 million barrels/day), CPC (700,000 barrels/day), and potential Caspian-Russia pipelines (400,000-500,000 barrels/day), Roberts raises a provocative question:

“Without any other pipelines, these can in principle handle at least 2.2 million barrels/day — and so probably cover all the exports of the Caspian/Azeri region. This doesn’t leave much room for other export lines … and, there may be lesser volume going to the Black Sea than we expected — so is it going to be worth building Balkan transit pipelines, considering the region’s low local consumption?”

The second major reason for the holdup has been the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, or BTC, pipeline connecting the Caspian and Mediterranean Seas. Conceived almost simultaneously with the two Balkan routes, BTC was also tortured by speculations until relatively recently, due to its own drawbacks. But for mostly political reasons, the U.S. government prioritized it. The Balkans were conveniently forgotten, and the BTC’s construction began on Sept. 18. Ironically, it was current AMBO President Ted Ferguson who provided the initial impetus for BTC, when he was with Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root in 1994.

Now that the Turks (the major beneficiaries of BTC) are no longer anxious about competitors, Balkan supporters hope for a fair hearing. Yet the strategic importance of the region has declined for the United States, which now has military outposts throughout Central Asia — where other pipelines may someday be built. And, Russia has started direct tanker shipments to America. The only producer capable of defying OPEC has big plans here. On Oct. 19 former Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov announced that Russia hoped to export 50 million tons of oil to the United States in 2003 alone. Remarkably, LUKoil has even bought up all the Getty Oil gas stations in America. The once-feared Russian invasion has turned out to be economic, not military.

In the Balkans, the United State’s final strategic goal was achieved in 1999, with the forcible acquisition of a permanent military presence — Kosovo’s enormous Camp Bondsteel. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, already downsized peacekeeping forces were depleted even further. American offensives in Afghanistan and (soon) in Iraq have meant a massive redeployment of forces. At the same time, the logistics crews that accompany them have been shifted. In Macedonia, NATO’s 700-strong force has dwindled to about 450 soldiers. Logistics and civil engineering crews for KFOR and Bondsteel have seen large staff cuts of late. The foreign media have all but deserted the place.

The current low visibility of the South Balkan region has made it necessary for pipeline backers to work even harder on project promotion. As will be seen in part two Tuesday, their hunt for investors must first address the questions of infrastructure, political stability and the business clim
ate of host countries.

We are frequently told that Macedonia remains “unstable” after the 2001 conflict, and therefore requires foreign overseers – ones who can somehow manage this instability and artfully transform it into something more akin to Western realities. This could conceivably involve ending the age of open-air shopping malls, while widening highways, making pizzas with tomato sauce instead of ketchup, and banishing forever the irrational but widespread fear of promaja (a draft).

Hypotheses and Reality

Yet since none of these is likely to happen in the near future, foreign planners are wondering how to come up with something better. There are vague invitations to join the European Union and NATO, two distant goals that some believe will suddenly solve all of the country’s problems, and banish forever the threat of Albanian secessionism. The theory goes that any future “freedom fighters” will be held in check by the stern hand of Brussels. Whether or not this is true, of course, is a hypothetical for now. It is, however, based on the untested belief that the strength of the Union precludes internal fighting. It is also to ignore the reality that the future status of Kosovo will ultimately determine whether Macedonia is to remain one country.

Losing the Race

To Macedonia’s great embarrassment, other, less developed countries such as Romania and Bulgaria are well ahead in the race to join NATO and the EU; Macedonia has only vague assurances. Even Turkey will negotiate for EU membership before Macedonia – though 96 percent of its territory lies in Asia. Despite its essential place historically and geographically in Europe, Macedonia remains forgotten. Why?

To be sure, some operative factors are out of Macedonia’s control, chief of all Turkey’s enormous importance for American foreign policy, especially now in Iraq. But the major internal setback (the 2001 war) arguably could’ve been prevented or ended sooner than it was. While many theories abound as to why the army could not quickly defeat a motley assortment of guerrillas, the fact remains that the West was not eager to help. In fact, former ARM spokesman Col. Blagoja Markovski told me in September that Macedonia was forced to buy weaponry from the Ukrainians only after requests to the NATO countries were quietly ignored. However, when the Ukrainian sales went ahead, US and NATO leaders loudly protested. And then there was the little factor of the United States government covertly supplying the Albanians with weapons, intelligence and logistics – for reasons that are still unknown.

By the time NATO had invited itself over in August, anti-Western sentiment was unfortunately – but understandably – high among most Macedonian citizens. Of course, after setting up shop, NATO and its apologists claimed that the country could not have survived without them – although this was a completely unproveable and hypothetical argument.

NATO’s Tenure: Overseeing the Surreal

Now, almost a year and a half later, NATO remains here – in smaller numbers – but the story remains the same: Macedonia still needs outside direction. Meddlesome outfits like the ICG continue to lecture the Macedonians about why they must rely on and be thankful for NATO. And now that it is scrambling to “join the club,” Macedonia is indeed scrapping Russian and Ukrainian armaments to buy only from NATO countries.

This reality is both tragic and confusing. The West did not treat Macedonia as an equal partner in early 2001, when there really was a chance to quickly and decisively end the war. When Macedonia was seeking Western support, it was withheld, only to re-emerge later when terms were more favorable for Western (and Albanian) negotiators. And what happened in between? Death, destruction and displacement, and a still-lingering suspicion of the West among Macedonians. NATO and the US have no doubt spent many thousands of dollars trying to convince Macedonians of their benevolent intentions. The irony is that they wouldn’t have had to spend a cent if they had just treated Macedonia as an equal from the beginning. But they didn’t. Now, the nadir has been reached, as it seems NATO cannot remember the country’s official name or language – an insult anywhere, but practically an act of aggression in beleaguered Macedonia.

But what’s done is done. Macedonians are now tired of thinking about conflict, about NATO, and about anything except securing their own economic survival. Every surreal Albanian provocation – most recently, the arrival of a triumphant Ali Ahmeti in Parliament – has failed to faze a disillusioned people convinced of their own powerlessness. In fact, the only ones who still care about these issues are the think-tanks, media and conflict-resolution organizations who will find themselves out of a job quite quickly, if certain controversies are not surreptitiously kept alive.

Calling Their Bluff

But they can’t have it both ways. If the Western intervention was indeed both necessary and successful, as they claim, then why must they continue to paint Macedonia as an “unstable” country that is still fundamentally a danger to itself? Is it for any other reason than to keep their jobs and their influence?

The funny thing about stability (and here’s a very Western idea) is that it’s all in your outlook. If people are told enough times that they live in a terrible, unstable and hopelessly corrupt country, then they will believe it.
And not only that, they will act like it. Macedonia is a prime example of this.

However, if the people – or even a few of them – believe that they have some reason to be proud of their country, that they have something to offer to visitors, and that they have a good reason for being (quite literally) on the map, then the reality can slowly change. But if something cannot be imagined, it cannot become a reality. All great inventors and scientists were ridiculed for their impossible dreams – until they made them come true. With dark foreboding, the “Macedonia Experiment” is often thought of as an accursed idea destined to fail, an unworkable coalition of identities, territories and ethnicities bent on its own self-destruction. But how could the experiment turn out for the better? Is there still a chance to save this great, though little country?

Prologue to a Solution

As with every other nation, the answer lies with the people themselves. In the same way that the voters get the leaders they deserve, the citizens get the country they deserve. But as regards NATO and the “instability” myth, there is an alternative – and one that almost certainly would work, with but a little effort.

When the media make vague statements about the “crisis region,” they generally mean the barricaded Albanian villages of the Tetovo and Kumanovo regions. It is commonly believed that these areas need policing and security, so that they won’t be lost forever. Yet there are still cases of Macedonian army and police being shot at by Albanian villagers; even NATO itself was attacked by Kosovo Albanians a few months ago. Do armed watchmen really diminish the chances of violence?

If one compares the United States, where policemen carry guns, to Ireland where they don’t, the contrast is striking. I lack the per capita figures, but anyone who has been to these two places would agree that the latter is far safer. Heavily armed, isolationist Albanian villagers will always perceive Macedonian security forces as their enemies. And probably they will always shoot at them. The police will no doubt always regard these villagers as potential terrorists, and therefore provoke them. And so the endless cycle of violence.

What’s needed is unarmed police – and revenue-generating ones at that. What could be this unknown commodity?

The Road to Peace, Understanding and – Money

Foreign investors, tourists and other visitors are the only people who can – in a completely unofficial, independent, and non-institutional way – guarantee a safe environment in areas of “instability.” The “non-governmental” organizations that have sprung up all over Macedonia have made the country easy to control – like some hazy land of the lotus-eaters. By simply registering a start-up organization with some touchy-feely name, and applying for grants, opportunists of all ethnicities are able to fleece both American and European taxpayers. The amount of money laundering, re-appropriated resources and outright theft that have accompanied the rule of the NGO’s is simply staggering – though hard to prove (after all, who wants to bite the hand that feeds them?).

But when one sees an “oppressed” Roma trade in his beat-up bicycle for a Land Rover, or some Macedonian villager buy a new house overnight, one has to wonder how they’ve done it. In some cases, newfound wealth actually does come through hours of hard work. But in many others, theft of grant money from NGO’s and US government agencies has been the great enabler.

And so, despite hating the Western interventionists for helping the Albanians in 2001, Macedonians have become reliant, and therefore acquiescent. In such conditions, there is little incentive for Macedonians to strike out on their own and try to foster a free-market atmosphere. The path of least resistance offers a pleasing, narcotic escape. Considering that they would have to deal with asinine governmental regulations and stifling bureaucratic slowness in order to start a private enterprise, it’s no wonder that they have opted for the easy money of the colonizers from abroad. Albanians who have felt shut out have turned to drug, weapons and human trafficking.

The Biggest Investment of All

Yet if Macedonia is to really “stabilize,” as is hoped, it will depend on the development of a truly independent media and a real free-market economy, fostered by foreign investors and local entrepreneurs alike. Although we have seen some hopeful signs this year, 2003 will be the true test of Macedonia’s economic mettle. It could happen – don’t forget that 2001 was supposed to be the year that Macedonia’s economy finally turned the corner. But this optimistic hope was abruptly killed by the arrival of war, almost two years ago.

Getting back to the subject of tourism – it is impossible to overestimate the value of having unarmed, unaffiliated foreigners in the most dangerous parts of the country. Forget about OSCE or EU monitors with their special badges. Forget about army or police patrols. The former only causes the Albanians to preen for their supposed benefactors. And the latter only inspire them to exhibit their martial qualities. Neither let them be themselves.

The supporters of the former NLA are well aware of the need for good public relations. Although they can always cook up a good excuse for killing a Macedonian, they can’t do in a foreigner – it would be too bad for their international image.

Therefore, bringing foreign visitors into precisely those areas that are usually “off-limits” is the best way to open up the country and really integrate it economically. To be sure, setting up a DUI office in Kocani was certainly not the way towards “integration.” Even if they were to put an SDSM office in Sipkovica, it wouldn’t be a step forward.

Democracy, the State, and Tourism

The idea that inter-party, statist initiatives can foster democracy is a sham. Such a goal – which, after all, is fundamentally an expression of non-coerced tolerance between citizens – can only be reached through independent initiatives, not through cynical ploys meant to score political points. Forget the political parties
. It’s time for entrepreneurs, investors – and especially, those innocuous, twenty year-old backpackers – to descend on Macedonia.

Ali Ahmeti’s DUI party claims “integration” to be its primary goal. The implication is that Macedonians (or Slavs, as they would contemptuously call them) are the ones who need to learn to “integrate” their identity and mindset with his. The truth is, the areas that really need an attitude change – and now – are those isolationist Albanian villages that have basically become small fortresses. But of course, Ahmeti’s insurrection was born in those mountain enclaves. I know of no Serb, Vlach or Macedonian village where a foreigner would feel endangered. Can we say the same for these others?

The answer, I hope, is yes. But the only way to know for sure is to go to these villages, to get tourists to go to these villages – many are set amidst breathtakingly beautiful nature – and to build or rebuild tourism centers in them. The prime example is the ski resort of Popova Sapka near Tetovo. Once Macedonia’s most popular, it was destroyed by Albanians who simply did not like outsiders. Theirs is the attitude that needs to change if Macedonia is to join the modern world as a united and functioning state.

Besides, developing tourism would also give these people some legitimate source of income, so that they will desist from mafia business – and not complain about being the forgotten victims of an uncaring system that they never wished to join anyway.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Finally, taking such a gamble will prevent crisis-management groups from taking credit for things they didn’t do. Many people are tired of these pompous, self-appointed overlords, who cannot think beyond the formulaic and bureaucratic language of “mandates” and “confidence building.” They are uncreative, unimaginative, and utterly humorless. A country molded in their image would be a frightening place indeed.

It’s true that without the West, any small Eastern European country is lost. The Macedonians, however, have seen the less attractive side of the West. A change would certainly be refreshing.

With the White House seemingly on an unavoidable collision course with Saddam Hussein, hawkish policy planners now face a new challenge: how to sell the war to an increasingly unenthusiastic public. All across America – from Long Island to Minneapolis, from Boston to Atlanta, from Sioux Falls to Sacramento to Seattle – antiwar demonstrations have been springing up, as even citizens normally disinterested in foreign affairs voice concern over the possible negative effects war would have on the economy. In addition, there is a growing unease that war with Iraq would negatively impact on America’s image abroad, and perhaps incite further al Qaeda terrorism as a form of revenge – although, ironically, bin Laden has no affection for Saddam. The president, of course, is desperately hoping he can find the two in cahoots, somehow.

Keeping in mind that Iraq never attacked the United States, neither in 1990 or now, the looming war is hard to justify. That is, unless public relations can again save the day.

A Paradigm Shift

The Gulf War was the first time America played the humanitarian card to justify attacking a much weaker country. What began with Bush’s “babies in incubators” myth (handled by PR whiz Hill & Knowlton) was perfected by Clinton, who almost ten years later used the all-too-popular (and all-too-bogus) myth of “ethnic cleansing” to justify attacking Serbia. Almost four years on, anti-Serbian bias still pervades the British and American media and think-tanks. Anti-Iraq coverage goes without saying.

After September 11^th, the paradigm has shifted from humanitarian intervention to terrorism pre-emption. Yet the White House’s self-declared right to “shoot first and ask questions later” portrays the administration negatively, as both cowboy desperado and confused paranoic. It also begs the question of whether ulterior motives are at work here, as John Pilger argues in a scathing indictment of US energy goals in Iraq.

Although Americans are much more clever this time around, after witnessing a decade of PR propaganda in the Yugoslav wars, the White House apparently believes that the average citizen will still support war, if it is only spun the right way. The only question is who will do the spinning.

Enter Rendon?

The last Gulf War was brought to you partially by a little company in Washington known as the Rendon Group. This PR giant has clients around the world, but none quite so grand as the United States government. Rendon was once enlisted to make the case – subtly and deceptively – for why America should support a war against Saddam. And in the end, it worked. But the worst thing? The PR blitz that captivated both media and ordinary citizens alike was paid for by the very people it was meant to seduce – the American taxpayers, whose funds continue to grease the wheels for the government’s war machine. However, the people ate it up – sadly, re-affirming the adage that the voters get the leaders they deserve.

The Unsuccessful Request

I thought, therefore, that an interview with the Rendon Group about their past successes and future aspirations would allow them a chance to give their side of the story – since most published reports have been overwhelmingly critical. However, my requests for an interview met only with silence. Were the nuanced masters of eloquent persuasion really at a loss for words?

Since they apparently are, I have been forced to conduct an interview with a respondent who is absent, drawing on Rendon’s publicly-made statements and independent investigations. Coming from an aggressively outspoken PR firm, silence would seem incrimination enough. Yet as we will see, even their own statements give them away.

In the following, the questions I had prepared come at the headings of each section.

How Would You Describe Your Services and Objectives?

“The Rendon Group (TRG) is a Global Strategic Communications Consultancy providing products and services to both public and private sector clients. TRG’s expertise includes strategic communications consultation, planning and evaluation; information strategy and operations; public and media relations planning and implementation; crisis management; news collection and analysis; information mapping; survey research; media production; and tactical communications team deployment. To date, TRG has worked in eighty (80) countries, frequently on location in a conflict environment, and has considerable experience in establishing field offices to support program objectives.”

This description – culled directly from the Rendon Group’s website – gives in “official” language a picture that can basically be boiled down to two words: information war. After first accumulating data, they manipulate it – and in some cases, sanitize it – to win either people’s emotional support or their dollars. In this age of civilized excess, when we are constantly being
bombarded with information, it requires a careful shaping effort to make that information meaningful. And, as we will see below, producing meaningful information is the first step towards producing war.

Who Are Your Clients?

PR companies are essentially soulless. Like mercenaries, they will work for anyone and everyone who can pay – with the possible exception of racist or subversive organizations, as that would be bad for their own PR.

However, this general lack of values is, paradoxically, what accounts for their perceived legitimacy. Working as it has for innocuous clients like the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the National Education Association has given the Rendon Group a veneer of respectability.

Among the full list of global clients, however, one finds others whose goals are ambivalent, or somewhat suspicious, or even downright dangerous. In most cases, however, the connection keeps coming back to support of US government and big business interests.

For example, we have the United States Trade & Development Agency, Colombian Ministry of Defense, the Government of Kuwait and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

The USTDA facilitates major international projects, funding feasibility studies and development for US-connected business interests. Wherever large infrastructure projects like oil pipelines are being contemplated, there is the TDA.

Oil is the link to the KPC, a company run by an assortment of sheiks – most of them educated in the United States. The company was founded in 1934 by a British-American consortium that has since morphed into BP and Chevron – two companies with large interests in the Middle East and Caspian areas. The government of Kuwait is a no-brainer, given Rendon’s efforts against Saddam in the Gulf War. And as for Colombia, the US has for years been selling arms to expedite the Colombian government’s war on Leftist rebels, and fuelling an unwinnable “War on Drugs” at the same time. It is clear that while the Rendon Group may have some “independent” clients (like the Association of Massage Therapists), the majority lie within a closed circle of governmental bodies that share overlapping policies – sadly, often harmonizing in war.

Which Clients Inhabit the Unknown Zone?

Then there is the rather odd assortment of Caribbean clients: the governments of Haiti, Antigua & Barbuda, Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, and neighboring Panama. Finally there is the St. Lucia Labour Party. There is little information for what must be a very interesting relationship here, as Rendon is silent about the affairs of its clients. What is publicly known is that in the mid-1990’s Rendon helped the embattled Aristide in Haiti (he paid through a bank account in Washington) and worked on a CIA contract to aid the opposition to Manuel Noriega in 1989. This was emulated soon thereafter in Iraq.

And Which Clients Should We Be Afraid Of?

Finally there are the decisively pro-War clients. There is the Air Intelligence Agency (AIA), which runs the Air Force’s “information warfare” center from its base in Lackland, Texas. In addition to the Defense Department itself, Rendon has worked with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. This secretive body is currently involved with the Bush Administration’s grandiose plans for an all-seeing national supercomputer. Although it is not mentioned on the company website, the CIA is one of the Rendon Group’s longest-standing partners. The final client is the White House itself, which of course has the final say over all of these bodies.

Have You Worked In The Balkans?

The Rendon Group was not so involved as other companies, notably Ruder-Finn, in the Yugoslav wars. However, it did aid Bosnian privatization and helped set up an interesting little project paid for by the US Department of Defense – the “Balkan Information Exchange.” This sprung up during the Kosovo bombardment to bolster the government’s position. And if its relation to previous government contracts was in any doubt, the fact that it eventually morphed into the “Balkan Times” settles the question.

A glossy, slickly-presented slice of the internet – available in a whopping nine languages – the Balkan Times is paid for by the US Department of Defense.

What Were Your Biggest Successes?

Company president John Rendon, a self-described “information warrior,” fondly recalled to a military audience one of his biggest successes of the Gulf War:

“If any of you either participated in the liberation of Kuwait City… or if you watched it on television, you would have seen hundreds of Kuwaitis waving small American flags,” John Rendon said in his speech to the NSC. “Did you ever stop to wonder how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American flags? And for that matter, the flags of other coalition countries? Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs.”

The flag shenanigan was so important because it “proved” to Arabic and other Muslim television viewers that America was their friend. People waving American flags and cheering on the US of A is a potent tactic anywhere in the world where jaded viewers need reassurance. As in Kuwait, such displays are generally encouraged – except, however, for times when they show American policy in contradiction, as in the mountain wilds of Macedonia.

Have There Been Any Failures?

Although they would be loath to admit it, there have been several instances of unprofessionalism from Rendon that only ended u
p wasting a lot of money. Most embarrassing of all was the anti-Saddam radio hour – conceived and executed six years ago, by a bunch of college kids in Boston.

For $3,000 a month – in which he worked about 8 days total – a Harvard Arabic student was whisked by limo to a recording studio rented out by Rendon. His qualifications? “I was a good Arabic translator who did a great Saddam imitation,” the student disclosed anonymously. The student’s job was to mimic Saddam in bogus speeches and mock the Iraqi leader in radio broadcasts that would (or so they thought) strike a chord with the Iraqi people. However, the conscientious student quickly found that the organization and execution of the project left something to be desired:

“The point was to discredit Saddam, but the stuff was complete slapstick,” the student says. “We did skits where Saddam would get mixed up in his own lies, or where [Saddam’s son] Qusay would stumble over his own delusions of grandeur… no one in-house spoke a word of Arabic,” he says. “They thought I was mocking Saddam, but for all they knew I could have been lambasting the US government.”

The scripts, he adds, were often ill conceived. “Who in Iraq is going to think it’s funny to poke fun at Saddam’s mustache,” the student notes, “when the vast majority of Iraqi men themselves have mustaches?”

Rendon also employed Jordanians and Egyptians whose accents were barely intelligible to the average Iraqi. The result? “The radio broadcasts were a complete mumble,” says the student – who has since left Rendon out of frustration at their ineptitude. While working there, however, he was kept in the dark about who was behind it all:

“I never got a straight answer on whether the Iraqi resistance, the CIA or policy makers on the Hill were actually the ones calling the shots,” says the student, “but ultimately I realized that the guys doing spin were very well and completely cut loose.”

This is corroborated a CIA agent who disparaged the project, charging that “the scripts were put together by 23-year-olds with connections to the Democratic National Committee.”

Should This Be Upsetting To American Taxpayers?

The short answer is yes. The clumsy student radio program was only part of Rendon’s work for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a pseudo-diplomatic proxy used as a puppet by Rendon and the CIA. The enormous INC fiasco shows better than anything else how the hard-earned money of the American taxpayer has gone directly down the drain, to fuel a propaganda war whose prime victims were those who had unwittingly paid for it.

What Was Rendon’s Role in Propping Up the Iraqi Opposition?

ABC’s Peter Jennings disclosed in 1998 that Rendon burned $23 million dollars in the first year of its contract with the CIA. It set up and christened the Iraqi National Congress (INC), as well as the Iraqi Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) and Radio Hurriah, a vehicle for Iraqi opposition propaganda.

The INC, a disparate group of Kurds and Iraqis opposed to Hussein, was set up in both northern Iraq and big Kurdish diaspora areas, notably London. In 1992 the CIA set up Ahmed Chalabi, an MIT-educated mathematician and dissident, to front the organization. Years later, the “help” Chalabi received from Rendon would come back to haunt him. An inside picture of the PR giant presents it as not only a puppet of war-mongers, but also as woefully corrupt and unaccountable – a double deceiver of the American people.

Rendon’s INC Free-For-All

A former CIA agent who worked with the INC called Rendon’s involvement details the prolonged scam that cost American taxpayers up to $150 million:

“The money went to consultants in Washington – millions, and millions, and millions of dollars,” he said, on strict condition of anonymity. “Millions” went to American consultants in London, as well as to other consultants posted around the Middle East, he alleged, who made small fortunes that were used later to buy big houses in poshest Washington neighborhoods.

“There was one woman who was getting $500,000 a year in salary” to work on the Iraq campaign in London, he said. “She was getting per diem when she was hired, about $400 a day in London.” Then she was put on the payroll, “but they never stopped the per diem,” he said. “So she was getting a salary of a hundred [thousand] and something, and then she moved into an apartment, so she wasn’t paying for a hotel. And this went on for three years. And then she said, ‘I need some office space,’ and so she went out and rented this office space. And then she subleased it. So right there I can account for a million dollars, siphoned off.

…At the end of the year we – the CIA’s Iraq Group – had money left over, so we got instructions from the DO [the CIA’s Directorate of Operations]: ‘Well, go and spend it.’ So we went out and bought brand new Jeep Cherokees… all the cars we had in the Middle East for the Iraqi program were going to the wives of the COS’s [the chiefs of station]… It was a $150 million rip-off. Go up to northwest [Washington, D.C.] and look at those big houses, and you’ll know how they got paid for.”

When the inevitable CIA audit came years later, however, Ahmad Chalabi was blamed for the waste; “but according to the CIA man, “Chalabi got nothing [illegal] from it.”

What Has Rendon Been Working On Since 9/11?

Shortly after al Qaeda struck in New York and Washington, the Rendon Group was enlisted to help pave the way for an attack on Afghanistan – at that time, something that was not a given. The urgency of the task was indicated by the fact that Rendon was awarded a contract – on a no-bid basis. Apparently, the military had no time to lose in selling a war before cooler heads could prevail and the window of opportunity slam shut. The PR effort was not only meant to win domestic support – but also “to win over the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims worldwide.” While the former won general acceptance, the latter did not succeed, and probably never will.

On 25 October 2001, Pentagon media officer Lt. Col. K
enneth McClellan explained why Rendon was chosen:

“We needed a firm that could provide strategic counsel immediately… we were interested in someone that we knew could come in quickly and help us orient to the challenge of communicating to a wide range of groups around the world.”

At first, the company was awarded $400,000 over four months to monitor media, conduct focus groups and opinion surveys, and cook up other ways to counter what the Pentagon saw as “disinformation” (i.e., any antiwar dissent). The contract was renewed for 2002.

Earlier this year, the Rendon Group was asked for some further details about this (and other) propaganda campaigns. But just like now, they were silent:

“A spokeswoman for the company said she could not reveal what the company did for the Pentagon on that project, but a well-informed source who has worked with Rendon said it went beyond wooing foreign journalists to setting up disguised-source, pro-U.S Web sites in several foreign languages and blast-faxing foreign media and search engines with pro-U.S. information.”

Will Rendon Help Spin Gulf War II?

Other investigators have found that the Rendon Group is “tight-lipped” about its involvement with the upcoming installment of Gulf War II. A current Rendon Arabic translator commented, “All I can say is that nothing has changed – the work is still an expensive waste of time, mostly with taxpayer funds.” While it would not be surprising if Rendon is hired to spin the next war, it will be interesting to see whether the American people will once again take the bait.

The verdict therefore seems to be that, while America clumsily bullies its way militarily across the Middle East, it will unleash an equally unprofessional – but lucrative – public relations campaign, and probably with the help of the now-tarnished Rendon Group. But that is no reason to be upset or surprised: after all, we get what we pay for.