McCain's Biggest Problem... Charlie Black

Black held the chair position at BKSH & Associates until March of this year, when he finally made the decision to publicly step down as chairman and shift all of his energy to working in McCain’s Presidential campaign. (It was Charlie Black whom Obama referred to when stating that McCain had lobbyist running their firms from the campaign bus.) In the years that Black worked at BKSH, their client list contained the mega-giants of the American corporate world, giants such as Philip Morris, General Electric, AT&T and General Motors. While these connections are eye-opening to the extent that they may be a window into just how committed the McCain campaign is to distancing themselves from corporate America, it is not until one looks further down the list of Black’s former clients that it becomes a truly chilling experience. The two clients on Black’s former client list that are the most troubling seem to be Blackwater and Ahmed Chalabi.

While Black’s work with Blackwater was relatively brief, it came at a pivotal moment in the life of the private military contractor’s existence. BKSH was the chief consultant for Blackwater during their testimony before Congress.

Black’s affiliation with Chalabi was much more extensive. It appears that Black was pleased with the work that Chalabi’s organization, the Iraqi National Congress (IRC), was able to accomplish from this quote, “The INC became not only well known, but I think the message got out there strongly.”

The INC which Black is referring to is now known as the leading disinfo team that lobbied heavily in Washington, with the guidance of Black and BKSH, for regime change in Iraq via an American led military invasion. Chaliabi’s hope was to have the IRC, as essentially an American client regime, installed in Iraq after Saddam was ousted.