Did NYT's Risen Get Played On Afghan Mineral Wealth Story? (Updated)

By Steve Hynd

James Risen, author of the New York Times report about $1 trillion worth of mineral wealth "just discovered" in Afghanistan, has hit back in an interview at pundits and bloggers who have called the piece a shill job for the Pentagon. Talking to John Cook of Yahoo! Newsroom, he said:

"Bloggers should do their own reporting instead of sitting around in their pajamas"

Risen also says he wasn't handed the story as a deliberate Pentagon leak.

So was the story a Pentagon plant, designed to show the American public a shiny metallic light at the end of the long tunnel that is the Afghan war, as skeptics allege? Risen said he heard about the Pentagon's efforts from Milt Bearden, a retired CIA officer who was active in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The men co-authored a book, The Main Enemy, together in 2003, and Bearden is now a consultant working with Brinkley's survey team.

"Several months ago, Milt started telling me about what they were finding," Risen said. "At the beginning of the year, I said I wanted to do a story on it." At first both Bearden and Brinkley resisted, Risen said, but he eventually wore them down. "Milt convinced Brinkley to talk to me," he said, "and Brinkley convinced other Pentagon officials to go on the record. I think Milt realized that things were going so badly in Afghanistan that people would be willing to talk about this." In other words, according to Risen, he wasn't handed the story in a calculated leak. Calls and e-mails to Brinkley and to Eric Clark, a Pentagon public relations contractor who works with him, were not immediately returned.

OK, time to do my own reporting. As I wrote in an exclusive last October, Bearden - the man behind Operation Cyclone, the program to arm the mujahedeen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan - is now mixed up with some definitely funny business involving the Afghan Defense Minister's son and a U.S. lobby group:

Hamid Wardak [the son of Defence Minister Rahim Wardak] is listed as one of the board members of a new pressure group, the Campaign for a U.S.-Afghanistan Partnership (�CUSAP�) which describes itself as "a membership organization of U.S. and Afghan citizens". 

CUSAP has already been quite active in D.C., employing lobbyists Patton Boggs LLP to make their case that "Afghanistan, through a long-term partnership with the United States, can become a strong, prospering nation." It's main lobbyist, Nicholas W.Allard, is a well-connected D.C. insider - he was previously chief of staff to Senator Pat Moynihan. According to OpenSecrets.Org, CUSAP has already spent $190,000 on lobbying in its short existence but, oddly, there's no physical address for given on its website - and its published paper apparently refers enquiries to junior lobbyists at Patton Boggs.

Perhaps that apparent penchant for secrecy comes from Wardak's colleague at CUSAP,the co-founder Milt Bearden.

...

Wardak and Bearden knew each other already, though. Hamid Wardak is also CEO and President of a company called NCL Holdings. On the company website, NHL Holdings describe their business:

"NCL has been tasked to provide all resources including logistics support and management necessary to provide transportation support for the secure long haul distribution of reconstruction, security, and life support assets from Forward Operating Bases (FOB) and distribution sites located throughout the Afghanistan Theater of Operations."

Bearden is listed as being on the advisory board of NCL Holdings. As is Elliot F Gearsen, Finance Director for the Joe Lieberman for President Campaign 2004. Those are the only two advisors.

The business connection between the Afghan defense minister's son and an ex-CIA man who armed the mujahedeen is interesting, given the NYT's report about Karzai's brother, especially since a scholarly report seems to have identified Hamid Wardak as allegedly one of the warlords running unregistered security forces that the U.S. has to deal with. But it might be purely coincidental, signifying nothing untoward.

However, that the defense minister's son and the ex-CIA guy are involved in a business that makes lots of money from the U.S. military's continued presence in Afghanistan while simultaneously running a camapign to boost for a continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan - and spending pots of money on lobbyists under that campaign's banner - might well be construed as a major conflict of interest.

So the question now is, did Risen get played by Bearden for Bearden's own purposes, or was the ex-CIA man simply a conduit for parties within the Pentagon and administration who wanted this story hyped at this particular time?

Update: It has been pointed out to me that I spelled Eliot F. Gersen's name wrong and that I missed his important affiliations as, according to NCL's website, "Executive Vice-President of Seminars and Public Programs at the Aspen Institute and American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust, responsible for the administration of the US Rhodes Scholarships" and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Interestingly, Milt Bearden no longer appears on the NCL website as an advisor, leaving Mr. Gerson as an "advisory board" of one, nor does he appear on the current list of board members for CUSAP. The CUSAP web-page describing Bearden as co-founded is now blank. Someone has made a deliberate effort to scrub all evidence of his connections with Wardak.

Update 2: Back in January, Aram Roston at The Nation confirmed Milt Bearden's connections with Wardak, CUSAP and NCL Holdings and added that NCL was under investigation for paying bribes to the Taliban using US taxpayer cash.