The U.S. military's Missile Defense Agency signed a $97 million contract with a Kremlin-connected nonprofit, to help secure Russia's aid in anti-missile projects.

Pentagon higher-ups ultimately quashed the deal between the agency and International Exchange Group, or IEG, for "facilitating" Russian "cooperation" on target missiles and early-warning radars. But the 2004 agreement shows the strength of the connections between the Defense Department, IEG and former Congressman Curt Weldon, now under investigation by the FBI. Earlier this week, news emerged that the wife of one of Weldon's staffers was reportedly paid money by IEG for work never performed.

On the surface, the non-profit IEG was merely working to facilitate U.S.-Russian partnerships. In a 2006 interview with Sharon Weinberger, Weldon revealed that the organization did much, much more. With IEG, Weldon said, "you can get access to any [WMD] sites you want in Russia, you can get cooperation with any project in Russia. We’ll give you access the inner circle of President Putin."

In a letter to IEG, Brig. Gen. Mark Shackelford, then deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency, said he wanted to "establish a relationship" with the nonprofit for precisely that kind of access. The Missile Defense Agency wanted to use Russian missiles to test American "detection and tracking equipment." And he was hoping to include "Russian radar data for early warning of third-country ballistic-missile launches ... into the United States ballistic-missile defense system." Here are the first two pages of the $97 million contract with IEG to gain Russian participation in those efforts.

Traditionally, the Missile Defense Agency had never been enthusiastic about Russian cooperation. It killed the RAMOS (Russian American Observation Satellite) project several years ago. So why did the agency agree to take part in this dubious relationship? Well, for starters, Weldon was one of the seminal supporters of missile defense, helping the agency at its height secure over $10 billion a year in funding. But the entire structure of IEG was suspect and smacked of conflict of interest: Why should the U.S. government have to pay an openly Kremlin-linked nonprofit in order to ensure government cooperation?

Is Weldon the villain in all of this? It's important to note that Danger Room didn't obtain these documents through some secret sources: Weldon handed them to us, as part of our research for these reporters' new book about atomic travels. Some level-headed people in the nonproliferation community still credit Weldon with showing genuine interest in nuclear security. So why did Weldon support this scheme? Here are a couple of possibilities: A) Weldon had a financial interest in IEG, or B) Weldon had no financial interest in IEG and honestly believed this was the only way to gain Russian cooperation. There's also a third possibility: Weldon had a financial interest in IEG and believed this would help nuclear cooperation.

Speaking of would-be villains: Who in the Pentagon can we credit for saving the Pentagon from paying $100 million to this shady Russian outfit? That would be Doug Feith, who was widely criticized for his management of the Pentagon's policy shop. Weldon blamed Feith's office for scuttling the deal; the people there apparently questioned its legality.

[Photo: MDA]

- Sharon Weinberger and Nathan Hodge

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