"The only time I heard Nana's name was when [Shaw and his team] were in Baghdad," said a former CPA official involved in the ports. "The notion was that this might well be a vehicle where you could in fact get things moving quickly that needed to be done, such as dredging and so forth."
Soon after Shaw's visit, the CPA granted Nana a construction and communications contract worth up to $70 million. Nana then subcontracted $3.5 million in work to SSA Marine, which recently completed the dredging.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday August 11, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 66 words Type of Material: Correction
Iraq reconstruction -- An article in Section A on July 7 about reconstruction contracting practices in Iraq quoted a former Coalition Provisional Authority official as saying that Deputy Defense Undersecretary John A. "Jack" Shaw was in Iraq illegally. As stated elsewhere in the article, Shaw had obtained permission to visit Iraq. The official was referring to Shaw's visit to the Iraqi port of Umm al Qasr.
Nana also is linked to Shaw's other investigation.
Late last year, Shaw began looking into the award of cellphone licenses in Iraq after receiving complaints from a longtime friend, Don DeMarino, who had worked under Shaw at the Commerce Department.
DeMarino was a director of a consortium called Liberty Mobile, one of the losing bidders in the contest that awarded the cellphone licenses, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to three other firms.
Relying on information from DeMarino and Liberty Mobile's president, Declan Ganley, Shaw cast doubt on the validity of the awards by leaking to several media outlets information that he said showed corruption in the process, said current and former Pentagon sources. He also provided the evidence he had gathered to the inspector general.
In December, the inspector general's office released a report saying that no basis had been found for Shaw's accusations. The office referred part of the complaint to the British government for further investigation of two British CPA officials involved in the licensing process, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Times.
British authorities exonerated the men. Later, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz wrote to the British ambassador clearing them.
"The British ambassador in the U.S. has received notification that no British citizens are under investigation by the U.S." in the contract matter, a British Embassy spokesman said.
Soon after Liberty Mobile lost the bidding war last fall, Shaw began pushing Nana to win a no-bid contract to build a communications system for the Iraqi police, fire and security forces, according to officials with the now-dissolved CPA and documents obtained by The Times. He then tried to change the language of the contract to allow the creation of a cellphone network, according to interviews and documents.
