Meanwhile, a lawyer for Daniel Sudnick, formerly the top U.S. telecom expert in Iraq, last week confirmed that his client had complained to the Pentagon inspector general that Shaw tried to interfere with specifications for a new phone network for Iraqi emergency services to ensure that a group with connections in Ireland and Alaska receives a piece of the pie. Sudnick’s lawyer says his client was bullied and threatened by Shaw. Subsequently, the lawyer says, the Pentagon inspector general opened a criminal investigation. An aide to Shaw told NEWSWEEK that Shaw denied wrongdoing and was only trying to ensure that an American technology called CDMA got an opportunity to expand into Iraq. Shaw told the Los Angeles Times that he was friends with a member of the Irish-American consortium, but had no financial ties with it.
Much of the controversy revolves around Auchi, whose brother was killed by Saddam Hussein but who supported efforts to ship humanitarian aid to the former regime. French authorities last year convicted him in an illegal-payments scheme. A spokesman said Auchi had an ownership stake in a consortium that won the cell-phone license for Baghdad and central Iraq, but denied Auchi had any involvement in corruption or connections with other Iraqi cell-phone licensees.
