John A. Shaw

For other people of the same name, see John Shaw (disambiguation).

John A. Shaw
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security
In office September 6, 2001 – December 11, 2004
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement
In office September 12, 1991 – 1993
Associate Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce
In office 1988–1991
Administrator of the Agency for International Development
In office 1988–1988
Vice President for Washington Operations for the Hudson Institute
In office 1987–1988
Personal details
Born	July 1, 1939 Philidelphia, PA, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Alma mater	Williams College

John A. "Jack" Shaw is a politcal apointee civil servant under several Republican presidents and in the private sector under Democratic presidents. His last appointment was as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security, and he left the DoD when the position was eliminated in a reorganization. Prior to his political appointment by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Shaw was President and CEO of the American Overseas Clinics Corporation. Prior senior positions in the government included the White House staffs of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. He served as White House Liaison to the US Defense Department under President Ford and to the US State Department under President Reagan.

Education and Personal Background

Shaw was born into a Philidelphia family, but spent a large amount of his wealth living in France in his youth and then married into a Houston family. Shaw graduated from high school at Kent School in 1957. He then received a B.A. from Williams College in 1962, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall, as well as a Masters (1967), and Ph.D. (1976) from Cambridge University, where he was a Fellow of Magdalene College. He has taught international security studies at Cambridge University, Williams College, Georgetown University, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He is married with two children and resides in Washington DC.

During his professorship at Williams College, he invested much of his own time and money to found the Williams College men's rowing team, despite heavy resistance from the administration at the time. In recognition of Shaw's perseverance, one of the shells in the John A. Shaw Boathouse is named Pride and Persistence. Additionally, an award bearing his name is given out each year to a male rower who epitomizes his will to keep fighting in the face of adversity.

Professional Background

In 1975 he was confirmed by the Senate as Inspector General of Foreign Assistance and Assistant Secretary of State, responsible for the oversight of all U.S. Foreign Military Sales, U.S. AID, the Peace Corps, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Export-Import Bank.

From 1978-80, Shaw returned to the private sector as a Vice President of Booz Allen & Hamilton International, overseeing the development, organization and management of two new industrial cities, Jubail and Yanbu, in Saudi Arabia. These cities constituted the largest development project in the world. He worked for several management consulting companies, the St. Phalle International Group and the Cambridge Consulting Group, overseeing international business development projects. From 1980-84 he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, specializing in Middle Eastern and International Business Affairs, and was Vice President for Washington Operations for the Hudson Institute, then overseeing the Center for Naval Analyses, from 1985-86.

From 1986-88 he served as Senior Advisor to the Administrator of Agency for International Development. From 1989-91 he served as Associate Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the Department of Commerce, and oversaw a major effort to reform the Bureau of Export Administration.

On September 13, 1991 he was appointed by President George H. W. Bush as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement, replacing Dennis Kloske who left accusing the Bush Administration of authorizing exports of high-technology products to Iraq over his objections. Shaw received a recess appointment when the revised Export Administration Act was vetoed.

With the arrival of the Clinton Administration, Shaw returned to the private sector. During this time he worked as CEO of American Overseas Clinics Corporation (AOCC). This was a Maryland shell corporation set up with the assistance of longtime republican supporter Samuel Kirk Millspaugh. AOCC was established specifically as a profit making endeavor based on the reputation of Johns Hopkins Health Systems, whom they named in their statutes. AOCC ended up being sued by its creditors and sued Johns Hopkins in a last effort to generate cash from the project. AOCC lost both cases. The creditors won their judgement and the case against Johns Hopkins Health System was dismissed with prejudice.

Controversies

Russia and Iraq WMD

Shaw was responsible for tracking Saddam Hussein's weapons programs before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He stated in October 2004, March 2005, and again in February 2006 that it was the Russians who helped Saddam Hussein to "clean up" his WMD stockpiles "to prevent the United States from discovering them." These claims were also made by General James R. Clapper.

In particular, on February 18, 2006, Shaw told a conference at The Intelligence Summit in Alexandria, Virginia, that "The short answer to the question of where the Weapon of mass destruction Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went" to Syria and the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, "They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) units out of uniform, that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence," Shaw said.

Shaw claimed that his sources for this information included the British MI-6, a Ukrainian source close to the late OSCE representative in Ukraine David Nicholas, former British ambassador to Ukraine, Qatar and Iraq, Julian Walker and former Ukrainian military attache in Washington and SBU head Ihor Smeshko. Shaw alleged that Evgeny Primakov flew to Baghdad in December, 2002 to arrange the shipments. In response, Primakov said "all of Shaw's sensational revelations are complete nonsense. To begin with, I was never in Iraq in 2002. I went there three weeks before the American invasion to deliver an oral message to Saddam from President Putin urging him to resign. ... The U.S. has gotten stuck there and now it can't justify what it has done in Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and now they are looking for way to explain that they had been there.”

Shaw stated that he went public with his comments regarding Russia moving Iraq's WMD when he did to help George W. Bush who he felt was being "crucified" by the revelations that over 350 tons of explosives had gone missing in Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion. He said "If I had not had the openly hostile environment in [Pentagon public affairs], I would have moved the story differently. Getting the truth out instantly was more important than process."

Although persistently repeated in neoconservative blogs regarding Syrian chemical weapons throughout 2012, Shaw's claims were dismissed for lack of evidence in 2005. At that time, the Iraq Survey Group formed a special working group to investigate and consider these and other claims of Iraqi WMDs. Charles Duelfer, head of inspectorate at time of publication, summarized the group's conclusion in the Duelfer Report: "Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place."

Corruption and Criminal Investigation of Shaw

Shaw was investigated by the FBI in relation to allegations of corruption in Iraq. Shaw denied the FBI investigation, however the investigation was confirmed be active in a letter from Rep. Henry Waxman on July 27, 2004.

Shaw was suspected of attempting to steer contracts in Iraq to friends and business associates. He made several unauthorized trips to Iraq, during which he illegally gained access to a U.S. facility. He then urged officials to fix the problems he had 'uncovered' by directing multimillion dollar contracts to companies of friends and associates using a rigged or no-bid process. The companies were Nana Pacific and SSA Marine. Soon after Shaw's illegal entry into the port facility, Nana Pacific was granted a contract worth up to $70 million to reconstruct the facility. Nana subcontracted $3.5 million in dredging work to SSA Marine.

Shaw also lobbied for a consortium of his friends to obtain cellphone licenses in Iraq. The consortium corporation was named Liberty Mobile and was fronted by Irish businessman Declan Ganley, with friends of Shaw, Julian Walker and Don DiMarino, a former Commerce Department colleague, on its board. When that consortium failed to win the bid, the company was renamed Guardian Net and Shaw arranged for Nana Pacific to front so that competitive bidding could be avoided and a sole source contract could be granted under provisions that favor Alaskan Native American owned companies. Shaw began an aggressive campaign for Nana. Shaw asked the Pentagon and the National Security Council to replace the Iraqi minister of communications with Sheik Sami al-Majoun, the Iraqi minister of labor, who, according to a CPA document, was a participant in the Qualcomm consortium bid. An investigation by Mother Jones later confirmed that Majoun had an interest in the Qualcomm bid. When Daniel Sudnick, the senior American adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Communications, made it clear that he would not permit Shaw's group to obtain a cellular license under guise of an emergency responder system, Shaw threatened Sudnick's staff saying that there "would be hell to pay". Sudnick reported Shaw's misconduct to Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator Paul Bremer and DoD Inspector General. This led to the investigation into Shaw's misconduct. Shaw then demanded that Sudnick resign or be fired. Shaw included allegations against Sudnick in his "Preliminary Findings: Report to the Inspector General into Mobile Telecommunications Licenses in Iraq" and attempted to launch an FBI investigation of Sudnick. Shaw's report was not authorized and is considered to be largely fabricated information. In response to Shaw's threat, Sudnick did not resign and was fired in April 2004. In April 2006, Sudnick sued the Department of Defence and Shaw for a variety of constitutional, statutory, and common law claims relating to Shaw's disclosure to the media and to persons within and outside the government of false information suggesting that Sudnick was offered or received bribes during his tenure with the Ministry of Communications and that Sudnick was under active criminal investigation in connection with these bribery allegations.

Although charges were never filed against Shaw as a result of the investigations, he was asked to resign. When he refused to resign, he was fired on December 10, 2004 as a direct result of the corruption allegations against him.

Murder of Dale Stoffel and Joe Wemple

On December 8, 2004, Dale Stoffel and Joe Wemple were executed in a military style ambush in Iraq. Stoffel had become a whistle-blower making allegations of senior level corruption among U.S. officials in Iraq. In an attempt to stay below the radar, Stoffel had contacted Sen. Rick Santorum and Pat Templeton to discuss the allegations. He had also obtained immunity from the FBI in exchange for his information. At the recommendation of Templeton, Stoffel spoke to Shaw about the accusations. In his accusations, Stoffel reported that DoD personnel, specifically including Col. Anthony Bell, were involved in fraud and corruption regarding the allocation of contracts in Iraq. Col. Bell oversaw the allocation of the cellular licenses that Shaw was interested in. Apparently, Shaw and the General contacted by Stoffel assured him that they would solve the issue. In the last contacts with his family and friends, Stoffel indicated that he was pleased that the issues were solved. There is conjecture that Shaw was an odd choice for Stoffel to contact, due to Shaw's own involvement in unethical activities. Shaw was fired by the DoD a few days after Stoffel's death.

Links

• Pentagon ousts official who tied Russia, Iraq arms
• Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms
• Photos point to removal of weapons
• Early warning
• Pentagon Deputy's Probes in Iraq Weren't Authorized, Officials Say
• From Baghdad to Chicago: Rezko and the Auchi empire