February 16, 2003

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's choice to head the state's Department of Homeland Security resigned from a Lancaster TV station in 1990 after it was revealed he was consulting for an arms dealer that was illegally funneling weapons to Iraq.

...Keith Martin, the former managing editor and nightly anchor for WGAL Channel 8, resigned after it was learned he accepted $10,000 from International Signal and Control of Lancaster to counsel the then-embattled company on how to handle media relations. He said then he resigned to spare the station bad publicity.

The arrangement came to light in a civil suit when James H. Guerin, the former head of ISC, acknowledged hiring Martin, who at the time was also an officer in the Pennsylvania National Guard.

...By November 1990, government officials revealed that Iraq had obtained cluster bombs, which release hundreds of smaller bombs, through Guerin's Chilean business partner.

[The above is an oblique reference to Carlos Cardoen, who was at the center of the "Iraq Gate" scandal during the Bush I administration. For details see the book "Spider's Web" by Alan Friedman; also http://www.bis.doc.gov/enforcement/CaseSummaries/CarlosCardoen.html ]

Related Links:

• Homeland Security, Homeland Profits (CorpWatch, Dec. 21, 2001)
  
• Enforcement Case Histories: Anatomy of a Successful Investigation (re: Carlos Cardoen) (US Bureau of Industry & Security Export Enforcement)
  
• Carlos Cardoen: a bibliography - from NameBase
  
• 'IraqGate: The Big One That (Almost) Got Away. Who Chased It – and Who Didn't' (Mar.-Apr. 1993 - Columbia Journalism Review)
  
• Iraqgate Document Collection - Information about the microfiche collection of 1,900 documents published by the National Security Archives. Available at many public and university libraries.
  

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