Richard Bradshaw, a consulting-services manager for an Australian security firm that played a two-and-a-half-year role in planning the Asian Games, says that "the ministry of the interior is essentially the chief ministry in charge of internal security"—for the games and other matters. Bradshaw says that he "heard the name of Giuliani Partners quoted in this town," but that he knew nothing directly about their Asian Games involvement, adding that "maybe they just dealt with high levels in the government." But Hassan Sidibe, the interior ministry's press officer, says that a special organizing committee handled contracts for the Asian Games and that "the minister of interior was part of that committee."
In addition to specific references to the natural-gas and Asian Games deals, Giuliani Partners has hinted at broader ties to Qatar. A New York Post story in January that was filled with quotes about Giuliani Partners' clients from Michael Hess, a managing partner at the firm, reported that Giuliani himself "has given advice from Qatar to Spain." Another Post story in May reported that Giuliani had made lucrative speeches in 30 countries—which he does in addition to his Giuliani Partners business—and named Qatar as one of those locations. A New York Times story in January, also laced with Hess quotes, reported that Pasquale J. D'Amuro, the ex-FBI chief who replaced Bernard Kerik as the head of Giuliani's security division, "has traveled to meet with executives in Japan, Qatar, and other nations, often focusing on clients who seek the firm out for advice on how to protect against a terrorist attack." Any of these dealings in Qatar that involved security would necessarily connect the firm with the interior ministry run by Abdallah al-Thani.
Illustration by Wes Duvall
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Special reporting by Samuel Rubenfeld and additional research by Adrienne Gaffney and Danielle Schiffman
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Peter Boyer, whose New Yorker profile of Giuliani appeared this August, quoted D'Amuro and Giuliani about the expertise and work of Ali Soufan, an Arabic-speaking Lebanese-American who also left the FBI to become the international director of Giuliani Security. Both D'Amuro and Giuliani said that Soufan, the lead investigator in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, had been spending "most of his time" in a Persian Gulf country that is a Giuliani client. Boyer didn't identify the country, but another source familiar with Soufan's assignment has confirmed that Soufan has, until recently, been based in Qatar. "The firm has helped the country with training, and with a revamping of its security infrastructure," Boyer wrote. "The locale is an ideal listening post for someone whose expertise is unraveling the tangle of international terror." Soufan was the firm's point man with the royal family, according to another former FBI operative, even providing security advice for Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, the emir's favorite of his three wives.
Gulf States Newsletter, a respected news publication in the region, used similar language this October to describe the firm's business in Qatar. Closing a lengthy piece of boosterism that assessed who was getting security contracts in Qatar, the newsletter cited a sole example "in the field of high-end consultancy," namely what it called "well-partnered players like Giuliani Associates." It said the firm had, "through a combination of luck and good positioning, become trusted partners" of the Qatari government. The "key lesson for any security sector incomer," concluded the newsletter, is that "in Qatar it is necessary but not sufficient to be technically competent. As ever, it may be who you know, not what you know, that wins the day."
Despite this ample supply of evidence, Sunny Mindel, the firm's spokeswoman, denied in a November 11 Post story that Giuliani Partners "had any ties to Qatar Petroleum." Mindel may have meant that the company's business in Qatar had come to an end, parsing her verbs carefully, or she may have been denying that the contract came directly from the petroleum entity, suggesting that the government itself paid for this security advice. Mindel's elusive answers are consistent with other efforts by the company to conceal the Qatar deals, even as Giuliani and others have occasionally talked openly about them. These efforts suggest that Giuliani is aware the association could prove disquieting, even without the embarrassing connection to the notorious KSM.
The best example of how Giuliani's Qatar ties could prove disastrous for his presidential candidacy occurred a year ago, at the opening of the Asian Games on December 1, 2006, eleven days after Giuliani registered his presidential exploratory committee. Ben Smith, then of the Daily News and now with Politico.com, obtained a detailed internal memo from the Giuliani campaign in January, and it contained a travel schedule. Smith wrote that "Giuliani spent the first weekend in December in Doha, Qatar, at the Qatari-government sponsored Asian Games, on which he had reportedly worked as a consultant." Giuliani's calendar indicates that he arrived in Qatar on December 2 and left on December 3, heading to Las Vegas to address the state's GOP. The Qatari government spent $2.8 billion to host the games, building a massive sports complex with security very much in mind. "We have 8,000 well-trained security members and the latest technology that were used in the Olympics," said a security spokesman.
On December 1, the day before Giuliani arrived, the emir's special guests at the lavish opening, attended by 55,000, were Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and Syrian president Bashar Assad, all of whom are Qatar allies and were pictured sitting together on television. Giuliani's presence that weekend wasn't noted in news coverage at the time, even though his firm had apparently provided security advice for an event that included Ahmadinejad, whose country Giuliani has since promised to "set back five years" should it pursue its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad was later assailed by opponents in his own country for watching a female song-and-dance show that was part of the opening extravaganza. The presence of Hamas's Haniyeh, who attended private meetings with the emir while Giuliani was in Qatar, might also have been embarrassing to Giuliani, since Qatar agreed to pay $22.5 million a month to cover the salaries of 40,000 Palestinian teachers, as well as to create a bank in the territories with a $50 million initial deposit. This break in the boycott against Hamas orchestrated by the U.S. and Israel prompted a stern rebuke from the State Department on December 5.
