WASHINGTON-As one of its final acts of business before handing over limited authority to an interim Iraqi government two days ahead of schedule, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority referred to Iraq’s independent telecom regulator allegations of corruption in mobile-phone licensing in the war-battered country and a Pentagon recommendation that all three regional cellular permits be revoked.
Notice of the action was conveyed in a June 28 e-mail from the CPA to John Shaw, deputy undersecretary of international technology security at the Department of Defense. Shaw e-mailed then-CPA head L. Paul Bremer several times in recent weeks urging the cancellation of GSM licenses issued last fall to Orascom, Atheer and Asia-Cell. The cellular permit in the heavily Kurdish north was transferred in April to a group named Sana Tel.
GSM is the prominent wireless technology in the Middle East, though U.S. policy-makers and American wireless firms pushed hard to enable U.S.-developed CDMA technology to get a foothold in the region.
In a response to Shaw’s June 23 e-mail, Bremer’s office stated: “The CPA regards the allegation made by Deputy UnderSecretary John Shaw as serious, and has referred it to the Iraq Communications and Media Commission for investigation. As the independent institution solely responsible for licensing and regulating telecommunications, broadcasting, information services and other media in Iraq, the ICMC has the authority to suspend, terminate or withdraw telecommunications licenses. Individuals or organizations with information relevant to this matter are encouraged to cooperate with the ICMC in its conduct of a full and independent investigation.” The ICMC is comparable to the Federal Communications Commission in the United States.
The Pentagon would have preferred the cancellation of the three GSM mobile-phone licenses, but privately said the now-defunct CPA’s action will at least distance the United States from the scandal and allow the Iraqi government to “reshuffle the cards any way they want” and let “the U.S. … exert pressure with other funds to assure they clean up their act in this.”
In the United States, Shaw’s allegations-contained in a report that was the product of a DoD investigation-have been forwarded to the FBI for criminal investigation.
The Pentagon is also probing whether Shaw himself improperly tried to steer a first-responder wireless contract to CDMA backers Qualcomm Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc.
All GSM consortia are suspected of having alleged ties to former Hussein business associate Nadhmi Auchi. Ahmed Chalabi-another prominent Iraqi once promoted by the Pentagon as Iraq’s leader of the future before a falling out with the Bush administration-is believed by DoD to have connections to one or more GSM mobile-phone licensees in Iraq.
