| James Langdon's mandate as chairman of PFIAB was short by any standards. Named in February, 2005, Langdon, a lawyer specializing in energy at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, was caught up in scandal this summer following revelations in the Washington Post. He had helped Akin Gump win a lobbying contract for the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) in its fight to buy the American oil group Unocal. As for Brent Scowcroft, Langdon's predecessor as chairman of the PFIAB, he had publicly voiced his disapproval of U.S. military action in Iraq, a stand that cost him his post at the end of last year. Starting from Dec. 20, the PFIAB will count six new members (see graph below). The choice of Stephen Friedman, a former executive of MMC Capital (Marsh and McLennan Companies) and of Goldman Sachs, as chairman underlines the strong presence of financiers on the board. Curiously, PFIAB counts very few intelligence professionals even though the board's role is supposedly to advise the president on the relevance of information collected by various agencies and on the legality of their operations. Bush seems to have preferred to nominate a lot of very close friends from the oil industry or contributors to his presidential campaigns. Still, the executive director of PFIAB will be Stefanie Osburn, who worked for 20 years for the CIA and is currently chief of staff to the deputy director of national intelligence for management, Patrick Kennedy. |
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