Prometheus 6

Editor's note: The full document is available here.

Did McCain's foreign-policy advisor profit from the Iraq war?
In a confidential memo, a company tells investors consultant Randy Scheunemann can help it win Iraqi oil contracts -- because he was a "key player" in getting the U.S. to invade.
By Mark Benjamin

Aug. 01, 2008 | As recently as last year, John McCain's senior foreign-policy and national security advisor, a neoconservative who played a leading role in pushing for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, was trying to use his role in promoting the Iraq war to make money off Iraqi oil. In a confidential memo, a company called World Strategic Energy, for which top McCain aide Randy Scheunemann was an executive consultant, told prospective investors that Scheunemann could help World Strategic Energy win oil contracts in Iraq because he was well-connected in the Iraqi exile community and had been a "key player" in getting the U.S. involved in Iraq. The memo was first published by blogger and Salon contributor Lindsay Beyerstein, who wrote that the 44-page brochure-style "placement memorandum" was being circulated to potential investors in late 2007.