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July 15, 2008 01:42 AM UTC

Inside Schaffer's "Iraq Problem"

  • 15 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The issue of Senate candidate Bob Schaffer’s work on local oil development contracts in Iraq, in the spotlight since similar dealings between American oil companies and local Iraqi governments emerged as a sticking point in the country’s attempts to craft a nationwide policy (considered vital to the country’s stability), defies simple analysis according to some. Or it’s quite clear, according to others.

As we noted in our first comments on these deals with the Kurdish Regional Government, the Bush administration seems to have adopted a two-faced policy: while uniformly advising against doing business with entities other than the Iraqi federal government in public, there is evidence that the administration more or less encouraged them in private–at least in the case of one such deal involving a close associate of President Bush reported by the New York Times. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government insists they are illegal and the State Department is on record opposing them, stating that they have “unnecessarily” inflamed tensions between the Iraqi federal and regional governments.

Grand Junction Sentinel reporter Mike Saccone started asking questions about Schaffer’s work with the Kurds on behalf of Aspect Energy after the story broke in the Times, resulting in an article last week that unambiguously called Schaffer’s dealings out as “problematic for Iraq and its attempts to establish a national oil policy.” Which is another way of saying, “Bob Schaffer cared more about scoring these deals than he did about American foreign policy goals in Iraq”–as we said before, a very serious indictment of a candidate for the US Senate, especially one who voted for the war just before he went to work for the oil company in question.

Opponent Mark Udall’s campaign quickly jumped on the story, hosting a press call on the subject Friday with two foreign policy experts who blasted Schaffer’s oil deals with the Kurds. As the Rocky Mountain News reported Saturday:

Two foreign-policy advisers ripped GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer on Friday, saying an oil deal his company negotiated in a region of Iraq jeopardized the safety of American troops.

The pair – dismissed by the GOP as liberal hit men – also said the contract violated U.S. policy against cutting deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government and Schaffer should have known that because of his experience in Congress.

Schaffer researched the country and political situation when he visited in 2006 while working as a senior vice president for Denver-based Aspect Energy. The oil deal was reached the following year.

“I think there is a serious question about who Bob Schaffer is,” said Rand Beers, former senior member of National Security Council staff who worked for every president since Ronald Reagan…

Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams, per usual, dismissed the two experts as “creeps” with “no credibility,” while Aspect Energy chairman (and GOP funder) Alex Cranberg defended the Kurdish deal as “legal” and beneficial to Iraq as a whole.

Interestingly, Denver Post reporter Michael Riley (of Schaffer/Abramoff fame) wrote some analysis of the story for Politics West that notes the conflictory advice given by the State Department to other oil companies, implying the situation might serve to indict the State Department as much as Bob Schaffer. In a counterpoint blog entry at the Grand Junction Sentinel, however, Saccone responds in detail and concludes that unlike some other companies, no evidence of any “unofficial” encouragement of Schaffer’s Kurdish oil deal exists-only the official State Department policy discouraging such deals.

Our view: it’s interesting to see reporters digging into the details of this story, but we predict it won’t matter much in the end. Clearly the official government position, both American and Iraqi, is that these oil contracts Schaffer negotiated with the Kurds are harmful to the goal of stabilizing the country and ending the war.

What’s Schaffer’s defense, other than everyone calling him out are ‘liberal creeps?’ Is he supposed to say that American foreign policy in Iraq is wrong? That Iraq should break up into cultural enclaves, as the Kurds have wanted for years and defying the national government on something as important as oil revenue would seem to encourage?

Is he supposed to say that some kind of ‘wink and nod’ from the Bush administration made it all okay, like other oil companies cited in these stories? That’s pretty much the only defense possible even under charitable analysis, and we don’t see how it helps. At all.

We’ve already been told about ads about this that are forthcoming, and they’re really, really bad for Schaffer. It doesn’t matter what the results are of a parlor game whose choices consist of, “did Bob Schaffer knowingly flout American foreign policy goals in Iraq?” versus “did Bob Schaffer get inside assurance from the Bush administration that what he was doing was okay, even though the official policy says it’s illegal and bad for Iraq?” They’re both easily painted as indefensible, especially in the present political climate–and the accusation is much easier to explain than the defense.

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15 thoughts on “Inside Schaffer’s “Iraq Problem””

  1. One of the key problems in Iraq that prevents the Iraqi people from moving forward to control their own destiny is a resolution to the allocation of oil profits.

    Until revenue sharing amongst the ethnic groups is finalized, there will be no “stepping up” by the Iraqis and there will be no long term stability.

    Schaffer’s oil deal undercut the revenue sharing agreement, undermining the Iraqi government, promoting instability and dooming the US to an unending occupation or Iraq to a civil war when we leave.

    Thanks Bob!

    1. Where were the lefties. Sitting on their hands, hoping the U.S. would lose in Iraq and hand them a political victory.

      Schaffer should take this issue and run with it. He was an active, entrepreneurial executive trying to create a win win deal for Iraq, the Kurds, the U.S. and his company.

      That namby pamby bureaucrats in the left leaning, anti-Bush State Dept. want to make an issue of what Schaffer did only shows how important it is to elect Schaffer to the Senate.

      We need somebody who’s done business in Iraq in the Senate, not some hard left environmentalist who has sat at home hoping for an insurgent victory and whining about how much we’re spending in Iraq to protect Americans and the world.

      2. Really, I thought he was trying to make money.  Who knew aspect energy was a humanitarian organization.

        BTW you don’t have a clue about what I think about the Kurds.  If fact I used to date a woman who had lived in a Kurdish refugee camp until she came here in 97.  I actually know kurds and like them and think that our Iraq policy should consider their needs when we exit.

        However, allowing the kurds to take the oil revenues is setting up a situation where the central government MUST fail. If that is the policy you want fine, but don’t pretend you want a stable Iraq.

        As far as

        That namby pamby bureaucrats in the left leaning, anti-Bush State Dept.

        I’m sorry the Bush was unable to purge the whole government based on adherence to the party line.  Perhaps Bush should have employed more of Stalin’s tactics, then we’d have the one party dogmatic adherence that worked so well in the Soviet Union.  I had no idea you were such a fan of the soviet style enforcement of party membership to participate in the government.

        Get a life or get a clue if you are going to respond to me, primate.

          1. .

            in politicizing the Defense Department, as well.

            The entire Pentagon staff seemed to go along with the 2004 reelection campaign tactic of an unprovoked invasion of a foreign country in 2003

            so that Bush could claim to be a “War President.”

            That included those in uniform.

            Any person who was not a rabid GOP partisan would have been compelled to speak out in the national interest.  

            A few did, and they were purged.

            .  

            1. Can anyone name a federal agency that hasn’t been politicized to an unprecedented extent over the last seven years?

              Remember in the lead-up to the 2002 election, the run-up to the Iraq War (“product roll-out”) and all through the spring, summer and fall of 2004, whenever the Bush Administration faced bad news or Democrats threatened to dominate the headlines? Within a day, the DOJ or the Department of Homeland Security would raise the terror alert level or pull some year-old terror indictment from the vaults.  

  2. That’s the other thread of Schaffer’s unravelling explicated by this story. Chuck Ashby wrote yesterday in the Pueblo Chieftan in a story headlined Schaffer-made oil contract may impede Iraqi unity:

    DENVER – U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer should have known that an oil contract he helped negotiate in Iraq last year would make it difficult for that nation to unify under a single government, two former national security advisors said Friday.

    As a result of the contract made with the Kurdish Regional Government, the United States could have a more difficult time stabilizing Iraq enough to remove its troops, say Rand Beers and Larry Korb. …

    The two men said that as a former congressman and candidate for U.S. Senate, Schaffer should have known that the contract was in opposition to U.S. foreign policy.

    “He . . . willfully disregards the policy of the government of the United States when he in fact from his experience might have given some strategic advice to the company that he was working for that perhaps this wasn’t a very good idea,” Beers said during a conference call with the press that was organized by Schaffer’s Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall. “He doesn’t seem to have done that, or at least he acquiesced to whatever the company policy was. I think that’s a serious question about who Bob Schaffer is and what he can do for the United States.” [emphasis added]

    In the end, it almost doesn’t matter whether Schaffer “knowingly flout[ed] American foreign policy” or “got inside assurance … that what he was doing was okay,” although either of those scenarios could catalyze this from a political mistake into a full-fledged scandal if Henry Waxman subpoenas Schaffer.

    1. “…he acquiesced to whatever the company policy was.”

      The most disturbing thing about this is that this is EXACTLY the same type of behavior Schaffer exhibited in the Marianas scandal.

      All principles are to be sacrificed for the company…

      1. Exactly. This lack of judgment and eagerness to trust his bankrollers is an enduring signature trait of Schaffer’s. It’s the same poor judgment that led him down Bill Orr’s path a few years ago.  

  3. …some of the ads take the tack that Schaffer endangered our troops for personal gain. That is a super-killer in an election.

    And this is so straightforward and simple that it’s easy to connect the dots for people. To make it even worse for him, he did it for an oil company – I can’t think of an industry more disliked at present (maybe mortgage banks).

    I think the biggest indicator of how much trouble Schaffer is in is people have to pick from all the possibilities to decide which issue is most damaging to him – there’s too many.

  4. There’s been a distinct lull in the Senate race advertising for a few weeks. Did the primary contestants gobble up all the available air time, or are Schaffer and Udall staying out of the way lest their messages get lost in the din?

    I’m curious when we’ll start seeing evidence of this anticipated massive advertising, especially since Udall is reportedly sitting on $3,957,532.20 after raising more than $2 million in the second quarter. We’ve yet to see anything from Schaffer since his ill-fated Denali ad in May, which hardly ran at all.

    When does the air war start?

    1. Yeah I imagine there are three things going on:

      1. Schaffer doesn’t have the money to do a sustained ad campaign (he couldn’t even afford Denver TV with his first ad)

      2. Running ads amidst the congressional primary candidates would just be confusing because a lot of voters don’t know the difference between the House and Senate, and if the primary ads get ugly both Udall and Schaffer could be drug down by that.

      3. Udall is 9 points up and doesn’t really need to be spending the money if he has to compete with the congressional primary candidates for people’s attention.

      1. Some part of that $5m total raised so far could go to the DNC, DCCC, or DSCC for other candidates.  That would get/keep him in good graces with the party and help himself by helping others.

        I’d love to see, e.g. Randy “Shotgun” Kuhl out of my former district of NY-29 to be replaced by Eric Massa.  Or, closer to home, Markey vs. Musgrave with a bit of extra DCCC money thrown in.

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