Tuesday, December 24, 2013 06:08 AM
By: Elliot Jager
The Pentagon is investigating whether the main food and water supplier to U.S. forces in Afghanistan illegally moved provisions bound for U.S. service members through an Iranian port, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Anham FZCO was awarded a contract by the United States Defense Logistics Agency in the summer of 2012 — worth an estimated $8.1 billion — to provide food, water, and produce to American forces throughout Afghanistan.
According to the Journal, Anham shipped equipment it needed to establish the infrastructure for its food supply system in Afghanistan — steel, tractors, and refrigeration panels — through the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
After Journal inquiries, the company notified U.S. government authorities that some supplies had been moved by its foreign subcontractors through Iran and that it was trying to determine what had happened.
While Iran is the least expensive and most straightforward route for moving supplies into Afghanistan, U.S. law prohibits conducting business with Iran as a way to pressure that country into curbing enrichment of uranium which the United States and its allies believe is part of Teheran’s push for nuclear weapons.
Two Republican senators, Mark Kirk of Illinois and New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte had called on the Pentagon’s Inspector General to probe whether Anham had done business with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard which has economic control over the Bandar Abbas port, according to the Journal.
Supplying U.S. troops in Afghanistan is immensely complicated logistically.
While the U.S. troop presence is winding down, in 2012 the Pentagon needed to supply 250 locations and some 100,000 troops around Afghanistan. This required each week moving 22 million pounds of food, water, and produce.
Supplies need to be moved into the landlocked country, surrounded by Iran and Pakistan and in the north by Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Shipping through the former Soviet republics is said to be too expensive.
Pakistan has occasionally blocked U.S. shipments to protest drone strikes within its country.
Anham, headquartered in Dubai, was founded in 2004. Its principals have ties to predecessor companies in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The company holds other lucrative contracts with the Pentagon elsewhere in the Middle East.
Anham’s Afghanistan bid was more than $1 billion lower than its main competitor, the Journal reported.
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Category Archives: iran sanctions
Did ANHAM, Virginia-Based Firm, Use Our Tax Payer Dollars to Fund Iranian’s Revolutionary Guards to delivery food supplies to u.s. soldiers in Afghanistan? Sounds Crazy? Think Again!
Did ANHAM use American tax payer dollars to finance Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to delivery food supplies to u.s. soldiers in Afghanistan? Worse, how is IT POSSIBLE THAT ANHAM STILL holding the largest food contract for feeding American soldiers?A new December 23, 2013 reports by Bloomberg cited that Pentagon’s criminal investigations arm is seriously probing one of the American military’s largest suppliers in Afghanistan over allegations that it violated U.S. law by moving supplies through Iran, the Defense Department told lawmakers. An article in The Wall Street Journal in September, which prompted the investigation, disclosed that Anham relied on the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and on Iranian supply routes to move steel, tractors and refrigeration panels into Afghanistan to build warehouses and other logistical centers. Anham’s actions may have violated strict U.S. sanctions laws that prohibit American entities from conducting trade with Iran or Iranian companies by moving materials through the country, Obama administration officials said.
Anham made a voluntary disclosure in September to the Treasury and Commerce Departments regarding transshipments through Iran, after the company was contacted about the matter by the Journal. The logistics agency said Anham was “still in the process of providing documentation on the matter.” It added that “no changes have been made to the SPV Afghanistan contract” since the disclosure. “As Anham is still in the process of preparing their official disclosure to the Department of Commerce and Department of Treasury, any actions would be premature,” the statement read. “We will make an informed decision on next steps once we have all the facts.”
Senators Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) pressed the Pentagon’s Inspector General to open an investigation into Anham due to concerns the company may have directly done business with Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The corps controls some of the container ports at Bandar Abbas, the U.S. Treasury says. The U.S. lawmakers asked in an October letter to the Inspector General whether Anham’s contract could be restricted or terminated and if any disciplinary action had been taken against Anham executives. “Until the investigation is able to establish the relevant facts, we will not be able to respond meaningfully to the three questions posed,” Acting Assistant Inspector General Larry Turner responded to Mr. Kirk in a letter late last month. In that letter, the Inspector General’s office notified Mr. Kirk that it has “initiated an investigation into the public revelations concerning Anham FZCO’s alleged use of Iranian ports to supply U.S. forces in Afghanistan.” Anham executives also said Monday that the company’s chief executive officer, A. Huda Farouki, will step away from the day-to-day management of Anham in January, but will continue as the company’s board chairman and oversee an executive committee. Mr. Farouki will be succeeded by Jay Ward, who has served for the past year as Anham’s chief operating officer.
Anham’s lawyer, Clif Burns, said Monday the company hadn’t been notified of the probe and that the Inspector General’s office wouldn’t confirm to him any investigation. The probe introduces an unexpected turn in a contract that is likely to be one of the last major wartime-support awards in Afghanistan. It underscores the challenges facing the U.S. in the region after pursuing wars on Iran’s borders—in Iraq and Afghanistan—since 2001 and enacting a series of sanctions against Tehran in recent years in an effort to curb its nuclear program. The debate over Iran sanctions has intensified in Washington in recent weeks, after the Obama administration struck an interim deal with Tehran in November that seeks to curb the most advanced parts of Iran’s nuclear program, including the production of near weapons-grade fuel, in return for the West easing financial sanctions. The White House has opposed congressional efforts to impose new sanctions, and Iranian officials have chafed over recent U.S. enforcement of the existing sanctions.
Media Sources for this blog included:
I. http://www.unitedagainstnucleariran.com/company/anham-fzco
II. http://www.newsmax.com/Asia/afghanistan-pentagon-food-probe/2013/12/24/id/543560
III. http://blogs.defensenews.com/intercepts/tag/anham/
V. http://www.cfr.org/about/newsletters/archive/newsletter/n1626
Anham: CRIMINALLY INVESTIGATED BY PENTAGON FOR FINANCING IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS WITH US TAX PAYER DOLLARS 