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A former ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan was being investigated by U.S. authorities for suspected money laundering through his wife's bank account. The suspicions center on Zalmay Khalilzad's alleged transfer of $1.5 million in May 2013 to an account in Vienna owned by Cheryl Benard.

A former U.S. ambassador is being investigated for laundering, according to papers found in a garbage container in Vienna. Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, is being investigated for money laundering, and several of his wife's bank accounts have been frozen in connection with the probe. The Justice Department investigation only became public on Sunday, when a blogger found relevant documents in a garbage container used by a state prosecutor's office in Vienna and posted them online. A day later, Austrian magazine Profil reported on the case.

Excerpt - WASHINGTON — Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is facing angry questions from other senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, a contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan. Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. Other officials said Mr. Khalilzad had planned to meet with Mr. Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States suggested on Sunday that Russia was interested in "regime change" in Georgia after Moscow rejected Tbilisi's offer of a cease-fire in the separatist region of South Ossetia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the president of Georgia "must go," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the Security Council. Khalilzad then looked straight at Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin and asked if Moscow was looking for "regime change."

<p>U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad exchanged sharp remarks with the Russian ambassador on Sunday, accusing Moscow of resisting attempts to make peace with Georgia after days of fighting have left hundreds of civilians dead.</p> <p>Khalilzad pointedly asked Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin in the U.N. Security Council session whether Russia's aim was to "change the leadership in Georgia" _ a charge Churkin did not directly address but seemed to deny.</p>

US Envoy Slams Iran's Alleged Destabilizing Role in Iraq April 28, 2008 AFP UNITED NATIONS -- The US ambassador to the UN on Monday slammed the alleged destabilizing role of Iran and Syria in Iraq and urged them to stop the flow of weapons and foreign fighters into their war-scarred neighbor. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told a Security Council meeting that recent clashes between Iraqi government forces and "criminal militia elements" in Baghdad and Basra pointed to "Iran's destabilizing influence and actions." He said the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as Qods Force, "continues to arm, train, and fund...

The United Nations Security Council has passed another resolution concerning Iran because its nuclear program is an unacceptable threat. Iran's violations of Security Council resolutions not only continue, but are deepening. Instead of suspending its proliferation-sensitive activities as the council has required, Iran is dramatically expanding the number of operating centrifuges and developing a new generation of centrifuges, testing one of them with nuclear fuel. Once again, Iran has not made the choice the world had hoped for; once again, the Security Council has no choice but to act. At stake is the security of a vital region of the...

White House Criticizes Envoy Over Iran January 30, 2008 The New York Times Helene Cooper WASHINGTON -- White House officials expressed anger on Tuesday about an appearance in which the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, sat beside the Iranian foreign minister at a panel of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Saturday. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, and the Bush administration has limited its official high-level dealings with Iran to discussions about Iraq, primarily in Baghdad. Administration officials said that Mr. Khalilzad’s appearance beside Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in...

The State Department reacted angrily to the appearance of UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on a panel at the Davos Economic Forum, along with two members of the Iranian government. The US restricts diplomatic contacts with Iran and requires prior approval for any such interaction. Apparently, Khalilzad took it upon himself to make that decision: An appearance by America's U.N. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, on a World Economic Forum discussion panel — alongside two Iranian officials, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, and a close aide to President Ahmadinejad, Samare Hashemi — was unauthorized by the State Department and angered Secretary of State Rice,...

In its abuse of American taxpayer dollars and trust, the United Nations has come up with many creative projects over the years, ranging from terrorist schoolhouses in Gaza, to procurement fraud, to per diems for pedophiliac peacekeepers. Now, the U.N. is on the brink of channeling millions in U.S. funds to pay for an encore of its notorious America-bashing, Israel-trashing conference held six years ago in Durban, South Africa. That U.N. jamboree, which opened in late August, 2001, was supposed to be all about the worthy cause of ending racism. Instead, it turned into such a frenzy of despotic and...

Hailed as the cure for ill will toward Washington and other diplomatic problems at the United Nations, the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, was taken down a peg over the weekend, as his own — and his country's — prestige were thrown into question. What will one of President Bush's favorite operators do now? Mr. Khalilzad sold to the 15 members of the Security Council a resolution in support of the Palestinian Arab-Israeli negotiations at Annapolis. But he acted like a star quarterback who botched the signals, ran ahead with the football, got the backs and coaches all confused, and ended...

Last year, John R. Bolton, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, recruited Mark D. Wallace as the U.S. representative for U.N. management and reform. Given that Bolton was a longtime critic of the U.N. bureaucracy, no one expected that Wallace would go meekly about his new job. And he didn't. He has met with informants eager to spill bureaucratic secrets, scrutinized internal audits and butted heads with U.N. officials he suspects are blocking his efforts to uncover corruption in development programs in places including North Korea and Burma. (snip) The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad,...

The US ambassador to the United Nations said ally Saudi Arabia was undermining efforts to stabilize Iraq. Zalmay Khalilzad's comments Sunday follow word from a senior defense official that a planned US weapons sale to Saudi Arabia and other moderate Gulf states was expected to be a topic this week when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visit the Middle East. The sale is expected to total $20 billion in sophisticated weaponry. Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Iraq, said an opinion column he wrote for The New York Times this month accusing US allies of...

To mark yesterday's fourth-anniversary of the war in Iraq, CBS News requested an interview with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad. The ambassador took time from a hectic war-time schedule to speak with Katie Couric from Baghdad, and in the course of the interview provided a first-hand view of how the new surge strategy is working. But when last night's Evening News aired, lo and behold, the interview never ran. It was instead relegated to an obscure corner of Katie's online blog. CBS apparently determined that Ambassador Khalilzad's comments weren't "newsworthy." Katie & Co. did find time for Bob Woodward...

Press Statement Office of the Spokesman Conference Call From Baghdad March 10, 2007 Conference Call With U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad MR. CASEY: Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Appreciate you joining us and especially given the hour. I really appreciate the fact that Ambassador Khalilzad has been able to join us this afternoon to give us a little bit of an overview of today's meeting in Baghdad. Know this is something that's been of great interest to everyone and we really appreciate him being able to take the opportunity to join us before he heads back here to Washington for...

BAGHDAD (AP) -- U.S. and Iranian envoys exchanged direct talks Saturday on efforts to end Iraq's violence and bolster its government, opening limited but potentially significant contacts that could ease their nearly 28-year diplomatic freeze. The discussions were confined to one session during a conference on Iraq stability, but they appeared to offer room for further interaction between the two nations _ which find themselves increasingly drawn toward common issues in Iraq as the nation's most influential allies. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he exchanged views with Iranian delegates "directly and in the presence of others" at...

Back in the '70s, an exchange of ping pong players between the United States and China began a thawing of relations between the two countries that paved the way for Richard Nixon's famous trip to Beijing. Could we be entering a similar stage with Iran that could come to be known as "orange juice diplomacy"? Diane Sawyer certainly seems to hope so, judging by her questions to US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad on Good Morning America today. Along the way, Sawyer seemed to willfully downplay the degree of Iran's responsibility for the Shia insurgency in Iraq. Sawyer spoke...

U.S. Says Quds Force Operations Director Among Detained Iranians January 24, 2007 Associated Press International Herald Tribune BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. ambassador said Wednesday that one of the Iranians detained by U.S. forces in Iraq during two raids over the past month was the director of operations for Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds faction, the organization responsible for funding and arming Iraqi militants. Zalmay Khalilzad said the recent raids were part of a "new strategy" to "go after their networks that are active here." The United States is building up its troops in the region, beyond the additional 21,500 on...

US Hunts 'Rogue' Agents January 15, 2007 Sky News The US will "go after" Iranian and Syrian agents which it says are operating in Iraq. US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the networks of agents were helping support the Sunni insurgency and Shi'ite death squads. Mr Khalilzad said the police would "change the behaviour" of Iran and Syria in what he said was a "defining moment" in the history of Iraq. "We're going after their networks in Iraq," he told a news conference. "We will target these networks in the ... expectation of changing the behaviour of these states." The move...

PRESIDENT BUSH WILL NOMINATE ZALMAY KHALILZAD -- AN AFGHAN MUSLIM CURRENTLY SERVING AS AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ -- AS THE NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N., ABC NEWS IS REPORTING... DEVELOPING...