The man who oils India's wheels

AsiaTimes ^ | Jan 25, 2005 | Ramtanu Maitra

[Gengis Khan]

The man who oils India's wheels By Ramtanu Maitra

No US ambassador since John Kenneth Galbraith massaged the Indian ego more efficiently than Robert D Blackwill. The former envoy to India (2001-2003) is now reportedly cultivating his Indian friends to win a lobbying contract for his firm, Washington-based Barbour, Griffith and Rogers International (BG&R). [1]

Blackwill's timing is right. India has terminated its relationship with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Field as a result of its failure to stop US government consideration of the sale of F-16s to Pakistan.

Blackwill resigned suddenly last November from his position as number two in the National Security Council (NSC), heading the Iraq Stabilization Group. He was considered a shoo-in for the NSC job in President George W Bush's second term, but his difficult temper, and his enemies, led to his summary resignation and dashed his hope to replace Condoleezza Rice as head of the NSC.

The Bush league Being close to former president George H W Bush, however, Blackwill has friends in high places. Soon after Rice sat him down and told him to quit, former Republican National Committee chairman and present Mississippi governor Haley Barbour's lobbying firm, Barbour, Griffith and Rogers International, hired Blackwill as president, and put him to work.

The appointment was not only a "Good Samaritan" act by Blackwill's friends; it also enhanced BG&R's prestige and made it a potent competitor for a host of contracts in Iraq, India and elsewhere. It is difficult to imagine at this point that any country that wants to be friends with the White House would turn down BG&R's advances.

Besides Blackwill and Haley Barbour, who is administering a "red state", BG&R also boasts a number of close associates of the extended Bush family. Ed Rogers, vice chairman and co-founder of BG&R with Haley Barbour in 1991, served as the deputy assistant to Bush senior and executive assistant to the White House chief of staff. Additionally, Rogers was the senior deputy to Bush-Quayle campaign manager Lee Atwater from February 1987 through the general election in 1988. Rogers also worked in the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Ronald Reagan administration when George H W Bush was vice president of the US.

The other partner, Lanny Griffith, chief operating officer at BG&R, joined the firm as partner in 1993. Previously, Griffith served Bush senior as assistant secretary of education for intergovernmental and interagency affairs from November 1991 until January 1993. He also served in the White House as special assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and was the southern political director for the 1988 Bush-Quayle presidential campaign.

The Kuwait incident But Blackwill has a special service to offer to BG&R with regard to India. Considered a highly successful ambassador, Blackwill mesmerized Indians with his pro-India and pro-Israel policies. Serving in Delhi at a time when the anti-Muslim and pro-Israel Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was leading the National Democratic Alliance, Blackwill seized on the deep involvement of Islamic militants in the September 11 attacks to push Washington closer to New Delhi.

New Delhi, for its part, found this a great opportunity as well to move closer to Israel and the US. India hoped to influence Washington to accept India's nuclear weaponization and its unquestionable importance in the region. To that effect, Blackwill played a very important role for India during the period 2001-2003.

But his difficult temper and ostensible refusal to suffer fools also created many enemies in the US State Department. Many of those enemies were not fools. For instance, his high-handed pro-India and anti-Pakistan reports from New Delhi led to the virtual removal of the US ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlain. The undermining of Chamberlain, a protege of US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, antagonized both Armitage and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

There is perhaps another reason why the State Department's top two did not appreciate Blackwill as much as Indian BJP leader L K Advani did. According to Powell and Armitage, Blackwill is too pro-Israel. His high-profile activity further weakens the US image in dealing with the difficult Israel-Palestine situation. There is no doubt that Powell did not appreciate more roadblocks in dealing with that complex and violent issue.

The fallout from the enmity between these powerful individuals showed up later. Blackwill, who had told the Indians that he would go back to academia, instead joined the NSC (July 2003-November 2004) under Rice, and was trusted with the thorny portfolio of Iraq policy. It was whispered then that Blackwill would be the NSC chief in Bush's second term in the event of Rice shifting to some other post.

Then, last September, Blackwill splashed into the news with reports that he had verbally abused and physically hurt a female embassy staffer during a visit to Kuwait. Since he resigned rather promptly, before any formal investigation took place, the content and sequence of things that led to the event remain unclear. Reports claim that Blackwill arrived at the Air France counter at Kuwait airport and learned he was not on the flight manifest. He then turned in fury to an embassy secretary who had accompanied him to the airport and demanded that he be given a seat on the flight, grabbing her arm at one point, officials said. The incident was reported to Rice by none other than Powell. It was also said that Powell and his deputy, Armitage, presented the evidence against Blackwill to Rice. "Condi only dismissed him after Powell and Armitage threatened to go public," a State Department source told a newsperson.

Blackwill disputes this version of the story. But barring a full investigation, this is what will be remembered.

Indian goodwill It is unlikely that the Kuwait airport incident will make it difficult for Blackwill to garner contracts for BG&R from the Indian Embassy or New Delhi. Though his pro-India stance allegedly comes from the depth of his heart, it is worth noting that Blackwill was also an open and enthusiastic advocate of Enron Inc, which turned out to be a massive fraud built in chrome and steel.

On November 21, 2001, in answer to a question at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Delhi about the dispute between Enron and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, Blackwill said, "The problem Enron has had in India will continue to cast a very dark shadow on foreign investments in India." Because the government of the state of Maharashtra had come to realize that it was being conned and ripped off by Enron (helped by a host of Indian politicians), it had suspended the grossly unfair payment arrangement and sent the matter to the courts. But long after Enron had bit the dust and top officials were hauled in on charges of fraud, Blackwill was still referring to the necessity for India to abide by the "sanctity of contract".

But if he antagonized some Indians with his pay-up-Enron-or-face-the-consequences rhetoric, he won the hearts of many more with his rhetoric about what India means to him. In one of his last speeches in New Delhi, Blackwill said: "... and more than any of this, the remembrances of the character of the people of India, which I will take back to America with me - of countless individuals over these two years who have taught me, counseled me, guided me, and protected me - who were generous to me beyond imagination. I could not repay their kindnesses to Wera [his wife, Wera Hilderbrand] and me no matter how many times I was reincarnated ... Mother India has changed my life - forever."

Goodbye Clintonites The appointment of lobbying firms had always been associated with political exigencies. The Bush election victory in 2000 led to the hiring of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Field by the Indian Embassy in April 2003, dumping the Clinton administration-favored Verner, Lipfert, Bernhard and Hand.

Akin, Gump has a very important friend of the Bush family on its roster: James C Langdon, a lawyer. And, according to Ken Silverstein, an investigative reporter based in Washington, the Akin firm is well connected to the Republican Party. Nine officials from the lobbying shop served as members of the Bush administration's 2000 Transition Advisory Teams, including Bill Paxon, the former congressman from New York, who remains close to the House Republican leadership. Akin, Gump is also close to Saudi Arabia. But after September 11, that may not be a strong selling point.

Interestingly, Akin, Gump had as strong a link with Enron, Inc as Blackwill had. In fact, Enron was represented by the group. It is widely known that Clinton's commerce secretary, the late Ron Brown, accompanied Enron chairman Kenneth Lay to India. Clinton treasury secretary Robert Rubin listed Enron as one of the firms with which he had had significant contact while at Goldman Sachs. Clinton advisors Bob Strauss and Vernon Jordan also worked at Akin, Gump.

But with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Field now out of the picture, the field is open for Blackwill to make BRG the next lobbying firm of India in Washington. Blackwill has already made the requisite noises, suggesting that he strongly resents the Bush administration's decision to sell the aforementioned F-16s to Pakistan.

Note [1] According to their website, "Barbour Griffith & Rogers, LLC, founded in 1991, is a company of lawyers, policy specialists and other professionals based in Washington, DC. Our firm is actively involved in the shaping of public policy issues that dominate the American political and corporate agenda. We serve as advocates in federal government relations, a vital link to state governments, and an ally in business development anywhere in the US and in markets around the world."

Ramtanu Maitra writes for a number of international journals and is a regular contributor to the Washington-based EIR and the New Delhi-based Indian Defence Review. He also writes for Aakrosh, India's defense-tied quarterly journal.