NCL Holdings

NCL Holdings, LLC. is according to its website on December 24, 2009, "a small business and global provider of logistics and professional service solutions with a profound Afghan heritage. We provide quality professional services to the United States Government (USG), and private sector. Our diverse range of professional services includes logistics management and planning, transportation support, life support & sustainment operations, interpretation & translation, counternarcotics programs, convoy security, personal security details, as well as static security. Our professionals provide cost effective, and innovative solutions and staffing at every service level."

On December 22, 2009, The Nation magazine reported "As President Obama prepares a massive military buildup in Afghanistan, a House subcommittee has launched an investigation into whether Defense Department contractors are paying off the Taliban to protect American supply lines. ... One of the contractors under investigation is NCL Holdings, a US firm headed by Hamed Wardak, the Afghan-American son of Afghanistan's defense minister, General Abdul Rahim Wardak.  ... Parallel to his business ventures, he's been running an aggressive foreign policy campaign in Washington to keep the US heavily vested in Afghanistan. A confidential lobbying memo obtained by The Nation shows that Wardak commissioned a blue-chip lobbying firm to push for an extended US presence in Afghanistan -- a potentially lucrative outcome for NCL.  Earlier this year Patton Boggs LLP, Washington's most monied lobbying firm, established a nonprofit front group ( Campaign for a U.S. - Afghanistan Partnership ) on Wardak's behalf to act as the 'face' of a campaign for increased US engagement in Afghanistan, according to confidential legal records. ... Hamed Wardak is listed as 'one of eight founders' of CUSAP. A brilliant young man, he was valedictorian of his class at Georgetown in 1997 and won a Rhodes Scholarship. His CUSAP bio describes his company, NCL, as a 'global professional services' firm. There is no mention that NCL has Defense Department contracts in Afghanistan worth tens of millions of dollars."

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 * Hamed Wardak
 * Patton Boggs