Bout’s Iraq work continued even after President Bush signed a July 2004 order forbidding U.S. citizens from doing business with Bout after he allegedly supplied weapons to Liberian dictator Charles Taylor’s regime. (Bout has not yet been assigned a U.S. lawyer. His brother told a Moscow radio station that he was a “simple businessman” who “only transported cargo.”) But in a 2005 letter to Congress, the then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confirmed that “both the U.S. Army and Coalition Provisional Authority did conduct business with companies” that had subcontracted with Bout. Among those firms: Halliburton, the oil-services giant formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Pentagon records show Bout’s aircraft landed 149 times at U.S. bases. A Pentagon official, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, said the firms flying into U.S. air bases had not been officially linked to Bout; the department revoked their landing rights later in the summer of 2004 after they refused to disclose who employed them. The arrangement, this official said, reflected the Pentagon’s thinking at the time. “It was a case of, ‘If the troops need it, get it to them and we’ll clean up the paperwork later’.” DEA operations chief Michael Braun said he’s not worried about the prospect of Bout’s raising at trial his past work for the U.S. government. “We’re just happy we took his butt off the street,” he said.
