an article about William Timmons, who John Mccain has chosen as his chief of staff for transition should he win the election.
turns out Timmons used to work for Saddam Hussein.
here’s the article.
moby
AP-
William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, was formerly an employee/lobbyist of Saddam Hussein.
The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period(Vincent and Park) on the Iraqi lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein’s government.
Timmons’ activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of Saddam Hussein stand in stark contrast to the publicly stated views of John Mccain.
John McCain strongly supported the 1991 military action against Iraq, and as recently as Sunday described Saddam Hussein as a one-time menace to the region who had “stated categorically that he would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he would use them wherever he could.”
Timmons declined to comment for this story.
An initial plan to purchase Iraqi oil through the American Red Cross faced opposition from the U.S. government. Vincent’s partner at the time, an American businessman named John Venners, suggested that they needed “help from some people that he knew very well” who “used to be high up in the government.” Venners recommended William Timmons.
According to Vincent’s testimony, Timmons immediately opened doors for the Iraqi-American lobbyist. He talked to then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger on Vincent’s behalf. He also contacted then-Sen. Bob Dole and John Bolton, then-undersecretary of state for international affairs, to discuss Vincent’s plan.
On March 15, 1995, Timmons wrote a memo (which is a matter of public record as an exhibit in the case) advocating that they and the Iraqis should enlist the assistance of U.S. oil companies to make their case.
Timmons once again apparently understood that his audience was Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government. Vincent testified that Timmons gave him the memo knowing that the document was “supposed to solicit the thoughts of the Iraqi government, if this is something they would seriously consider.” Vincent dutifully passed Timmons’ memo on to Nizaar Hamdoon, he testified.
Weeks later, in April 1995, Vincent was summoned to Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
As to Timmons’ later claims that he kept his distance from Vincent and Park and did not know much about what they and the Iraqis were up to, this exchange between a federal prosecutor and Vincent once again suggests otherwise:
Q: And when you returned to the United States, did you tell anyone about your visit with Saddam Hussein?
A: I told Bill Timmons and Tongsun Park.
Q: Why did you tell Bill Timmons about your visit with Saddam?
A: To let him know that we were talking to the leader of Iraq, and in essence we have access and assure him that any messages we were relaying between Iraqi and Tariq Aziz and anyone else, it was being transmitted to the president, Saddam Hussein, in Iraq.
Presciently, Time’s Scherer noted that McCain’s own staffers had early concerns that appointing Timmons could prove detrimental to the Arizona Senator’s presidential ambitions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/mccain-transition-chief-a_n_134595.html