There are times when I’m kind of ashamed to work in the military-industrial complex:
Former congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm, Wired.com has learned.
Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia’s weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.
Both trips were part of the company’s effort to tap into the growing — and often legally murky — market for selling weapons from former Eastern Bloc countries to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
This has echoes of that 21 year old masseuse who was able to filch $300 million out of the DOD to sell useless only Chinese rounds smuggled through Albania to the ANA in Afghanistan. Years after the fact, that guy was arrested. Will Weldon face a similar fate? It’s unclear—Sharon Weinberger couldn’t find any government official who could say whether his actions—despite arranging arms deals with blacklisted countries—were legal or not.