An Ex-Spook Hustles in Kurdistan

Over at Mother Jones, Laura Rozen tells the story of Shlomi Michaels, a former Israeli commando trying his damnedest to hustle business in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In Rozen's telling, Michaels has "a habit of popping up, Zelig-like, at the nexus of foreign policy and the kinds of businesses that thrive in times of war -- security contracting, infrastructure development and postwar reconstruction, influence and intelligence brokering." It's an interesting profile of the kind of influence-peddler who thrives in the post-9/11 world:

By 2002, he was meeting with various Washington foreign policy hands in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel to discuss a joint venture to do business with the
Iraqi Kurds; after the invasion, those talks left him well positioned to win lucrative reconstruction contracts handed out by the Kurdish government. He helped introduce information in Washington that the
United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food scheme was riddled with corruption—a matter that became a key GOP talking point for promoting the war. Later
Michaels helped the Kurds find Washington lobbyists (Rogers' BGR) who would make the case that Kurdistan was owed some $4 billion in oil-for-food back payments. In June 2004, during his last days in Iraq,
US Iraq proconsul Paul Bremer sent three US military helicopters loaded with $1.4 billion in 100-dollar bills to Kurdistan, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Michaels sounds like an ex-spook on the make: Before arriving in
Washington, Rozen reports, Michaels tried his luck in Beverly Hills, running a coffee franchise, a martial arts studio, a real estate business, and a VIP security outfit for Hollywood types.

So is this just another guy trying to win business in post-war Iraq, or was there some other agenda? Rozen describes Michaels him as peddling a WMD dossier that would supposedly prove the existence of a covert Iraqi chemical weapons program, but the CIA doesn't bite.

Perhaps most intriguing is Rozen's interview with ex-Mossad chief Danny Yatom, who confirms his idea to start a "discreet strategic consultancy"
fronted by Michaels that would include former CIA Director James
Woolsey and former FBI chief Louis Freeh as partners. The consultancy, however, never gets off the ground. (In an e-mail to Rozen, Woolsey dismisses the whole notion: "Maybe somebody exaggerating hypothetical discussions over wine following some conference somewhere?")