Fearing scandal, Air Force blocked generals' foreign consulting deals

Source: Washington Post

FEARING SCANDAL, AIR FORCE BLOCKED GENERALS’ FOREIGN CONSULTING DEALS

Two generals who oversaw U.S. supply routes through corruption-plagued Azerbaijan sought to profit from their connections once they retired. An Air Force lawyer objected. The Post sued to make the case public.

By Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones
Dec. 5 at 6:05 a.m.

During the height of the war in Afghanistan, U.S. military leaders flocked to the Caspian Sea nation of Azerbaijan to embrace its president, Ilham Aliyev, despite a report from the U.S. Embassy comparing the mustachioed strongman to mafia bosses in “The Godfather.”

Setting aside concerns about Azerbaijan’s culture of corruption, Pentagon officials persuaded Aliyev to open his country’s borders and airspace to critical U.S. and NATO supply routes to Afghanistan. In exchange, U.S. officials promised a closer diplomatic partnership with Aliyev and steered $369 million in defense contracts to Silk Way Airlines, an Azerbaijan cargo carrier that U.S. investigators say was controlled by the government.

Two U.S. Air Force generals — Duncan McNabb and William Fraser III — who oversaw the supply routes from 2008 to 2014 later tried to cash in on their Azerbaijan connections. Upon retiring from active duty, the four-star generals negotiated valuable consulting deals with Silk Way Airlines, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. One of them stood to earn $5,000 a day.

The Pentagon and State Department normally rubber-stamp requests from retired U.S. military personnel to work for foreign powers or companies controlled by foreign governments, having approved more than 95 percent of applications since 2015. But when the Air Force learned about McNabb’s and Fraser’s business ventures in Azerbaijan, officials flagged them as a potential embarrassment and a risk to national security, the documents show.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/air-force-azerbaijani-consulting/

Non-paywalled link: https://wapo.st/3gZjc2q