Dear Maj. Richard J. McNorton,
Can you please have your team contact me soon; I would love to "see the whole story" about something that I read in the "mainstream media" this morning. Specifically, Walter Pincus of the
Washington Post wrote another piece about Duke Cunningham, Mitchell Wade, MZM, and Brent Wilkes, relating to the corruption inside the DoD concerning contract awards.
Pincus wrote
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
that "
Federal investigators are looking into contracts awarded by the Pentagon's newest and fastest-growing intelligence agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity, which has spent more than $1 billion, mostly for outsourced services, since its establishment in late 2002, according to administration and congressional sources."
Pincus goes on to write that
"
Also this week, prosecutors released a letter dated Feb. 24, 2004, from Cunningham to CIFA Director David A. Burtt II, in which the former member of the House defense appropriations subcommittee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence thanked the CIFA staff for supporting another multimillion-dollar program that involved MZM. CIFA, whose exact size and budget remain secret, was established in September 2002 to coordinate policy and oversee the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies. ...The agency was criticized after it was revealed in December that a database it managed held information on Americans who were peacefully protesting the war in Iraq at defense facilities and recruiting offices."
"
CIFA has had a connection to MZM dating to its formation, said congressional and administration sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. Burtt, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for counterintelligence at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, developed the concept for CIFA."
"A consultant to Burtt on the CIFA project was retired Lt. Gen. James C. King, who joined MZM after retiring in late 2001 as director of the Pentagon-based National Imagery and Mapping Agency. In August 2005, investment firm Veritas Capital bought MZM and changed its name to Athena Innovative Solutions Inc. King, who replaced Wade as president of MZM in June 2005, has remained president of Athena. A spokesman for Athena said yesterday that neither King nor the company would comment on MZM or matters under investigation."
"In late 2002, Cunningham made the contract for Wade's company, MZM, one of 'his top priorities' in the defense appropriations bill, according to the prosecutors' pre-sentencing filing. After Congress approved the money, Wade told unnamed Defense Department officials they had to "work something up" that would provide a 'real benefit to CIFA,' according to the prosecutors' documents."
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"The resultant program saw more than $6 million spent for a mass data storage system supposedly for CIFA that, according to the prosecutorial document, included almost $5.4 million in profit for MZM and a subcontractor. 'Adding insult to injury,' the prosecutors wrote, 'the final system sold to the government was never installed (as it was incompatible with CIFA's network system) and remains in storage in Arlington, Va.'"
CENTCOM, please let me know the real story.