Giuliani on 'Meet the Press', defends Qatar ties

By M&C US News Dec 10, 2007, 16:11 GMT

Former New York City Mayor and Republican Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani (R) and his wife Judith Nathan (L), walk out of ground zero during ceremonies at the World Trade Center site 11 September 2007 in New York marking the sixth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks. EPA/STAN HONDA/POOL

Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani reaffirmed yesterday that he continues to hold a financial stake in the security consulting firm he launched after leaving the New York mayor's office, and said the company's client list will continue to remain confidential.

Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Giuliani defended the arrangement, saying the public is already aware of every "significant" client of Giuliani Partners.

"Just about every single client of Giuliani Partners, which is my security company, has been discussed, has been examined, certainly every significant one," he said.

Giuliani has declined to identify his clients on the grounds that they entered into confidentially agreements with his firm.

Giuliani formed the consulting firm in early 2002, offering "management consulting service to governments and business" and over the next five years it earned more than $100 million.

The New York Times reports that Giuliani Partners has represented a pharmaceutical company enduring a lengthy investigation; a confessed drug smuggler who hired Giuliani to ensure his security company could do business with the federal government; and the horse racing industry, wanting to restore public confidence after a revealed betting scandal.

Most of his firm's clients have never been listed on its web site or identified publicly by associates, and two of the most controversial among them was revealed in recent weeks.

One involved a 2005 agreement to provide security advice to the government of Qatar.

The second involved a partnership proposing a Southeast Asian gambling venture. Among the partners were relatives of a Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.

NBC's Tim Russert asked Giuliani about both relationships during an hour-long interview yesterday.

"Are you aware that the interior minister [of Qatar] appointed in 2001 and re-appointed this year by the emir of Qatar is Abdul al Thani, the former minister of Islamic Affairs and a strict Wahhabi Muslim who has been identified in U.S. press and government reports as a protector of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?" Russert asked, referring to a Nov. 7 Wall Street Journal report about Giuliani's business dealings in Qatar with some of the same people that were alleged to have protected Mohammed, a September 11th participant.

"Am I aware of this? Yes, I'm aware of it now," Giuliani said. The candidate then explained that doing business with Qatar should be encouraged, not demonized.

"This is a country that's modernizing, it's a country that's moving in a direction that we want it to move in," Giuliani said.

About the business arrangement that involved the Hong Kong family with ties to the North Korean dictator, Giuliani said, "I think the person involved, if it's correct, was a 1 percent owner that had no involvement with us, we never worked for, had nothing to do with."

"When you deal with clients, and you take on the problems of clients, and you try to help them, it may be that somewhere, someplace, they did something that was questionable or arguably questionable," Giuliani told Russert. "The things we have done with them are honorable, ethical, useful, and helpful."