Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

The Gov­ern­ment has asked Dr Hafi­zo­ol Mo­hammed to step down as a mem­ber of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 coup at­tempt, in the light of rev­e­la­tions about his aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, but he has re­fused.

The T&T Guardian learned at­tor­neys Jagdeo Singh–who is al­so one of the at­tor­neys for the com­mis­sion–and Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Christlyn Moore met with Mo­hammed around 5 pm on Tues­day at the Hilton Trinidad, St Ann's, in an at­tempt to con­vince him to step aside.

The meet­ing last­ed for more than five hours, but Mo­hammed re­fused to budge.The Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed last week that Mo­hammed ob­tained his DSc in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions from At­lantic In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty (AIU), which is de­scribed by var­i­ous Web sites as a diplo­ma mill.

Mo­hammed, who has asked to be ex­cused from the com­mis­sion to seek le­gal ad­vice, ad­mit­ted to ob­tain­ing the un­ac­cred­it­ed de­gree be­cause of his age and the flex­i­bil­i­ty it of­fered.He is ex­pect­ed to pro­duce sev­er­al cer­tifi­cates to prove his oth­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions at a press con­fer­ence sched­uled for this af­ter­noon at the cham­bers of at­tor­ney Mar­tin George in the Guardian build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

Cab­i­net sources yes­ter­day said the ex­pla­na­tion he gave for ob­tain­ing the DSc and list­ing a dead T&T pres­i­dent, Sir El­lis Clarke, and a non-ex­is­tent Turk­ish one on his CV did not sit well with sev­er­al min­is­ters."Things are just not adding up and he was giv­en the op­tion to step down. We are await­ing the re­sponse from his lawyers at this time," a Cab­i­net source dis­closed.

But new in­for­ma­tion sur­fac­ing now sug­gests even be­fore the rev­e­la­tions about Mo­hammed's DSc were made pub­lic, a cab­i­net min­is­ter was con­cerned over the ap­point­ment and in­formed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.

Asked on Wednes­day if any is­sues had pre­vi­ous­ly been raised about Mo­hammed's back­ground, Ram­lo­gan replied, "I was nev­er aware."

To a ques­tion about why the dis­crep­an­cies in Mo­hammed's CV were not picked up, Ram­lo­gan said, "You are as­sum­ing that the same CV you have is the one that was sup­plied to me."

Asked if he was im­ply­ing that a dif­fer­ent CV was sent to him, Ram­lo­gan said, "I was very care­ful with my words, and said what was pro­vid­ed on the CV to me was ver­i­fied."

Re­mind­ed that the Amer­i­can Mil­i­tary Uni­ver­si­ty said it had no record of Mo­hammed be­ing a stu­dent there, Ram­lo­gan replied, "I can't com­ment on that. If and when that is pro­vid­ed in writ­ing, I pre­sume he will have to an­swer to that."

Al­so caus­ing con­cern were oth­er claims in Mo­hammed's CV, in which he list­ed a stint as chief ad­min­is­tra­tor of the North At­lantic Treaty Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Na­to) in Turkey be­tween Ju­ly 1995 and De­cem­ber 1996.

Na­to's on­line list­ing of key per­son­nel from 1951 to the present does not in­clude Mo­hammed in any se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive ca­pac­i­ty.

Min­is­ters al­so ex­pressed con­cern over Mo­hammed's state­ment that he had been chief of the hu­man re­source, plans and poli­cies di­vi­sion at the US Army Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Com­mand at Fort Bragg, North Car­oli­na. While there, he said he par­tic­i­pat­ed in op­er­a­tions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, So­ma­lia, Rwan­da, South Ko­rea and Haiti.

The US army asked the T&T Guardian to e-mail its re­quest for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the in­for­ma­tion. A re­sponse is ex­pect­ed to­day.

Both the PM's se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er, Gary Grif­fith, and for­mer ju­nior Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Don­na Cox, al­so said they had no knowl­edge of the post of se­nior in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty an­a­lyst for the strate­gic di­vi­sion and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs di­vi­sion of the T&T gov­ern­ment, an­oth­er po­si­tion Mo­hammed says he held.

What Mo­hammed's CV says

Mo­hammed is pres­i­dent and CEO of Peosys (www.peosys.us), based in Vir­ginia, in the Wash­ing­ton DC met­ro­pol­i­tan area.His wife Rosemin Mo­hammed is its chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer and vice-pres­i­dent.

The com­pa­ny's Web site de­scribes it as a "Small Dis­ad­van­taged Busi­ness, Ser­vice-Dis­abled Vet­er­an-Owned Busi­ness."

Dr H Ali Mo­hammed found­ed Peosys LLC in 2000, says the Web site, "with the prin­ci­pals (sic) of pro­vid­ing ex­pe­ri­enced man­age­ment con­sult­ing re­sources to US fed­er­al, state and lo­cal gov­ern­ments, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, pri­vate agen­cies and in­ter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ments."

The com­pa­ny of­fers "a laser-like full life cy­cle sup­port in­clud­ing key per­for­mance met­rics to tai­lor a so­lu­tion."

Among the ser­vices it of­fers are:

�2 pro­fes­sion­al and man­age­ment de­vel­op­ment train­ing

�2 ed­u­ca­tion­al sup­port

�2 graph­ic de­sign

�2 da­ta ware­hous­ing/cus­tom com­put­er pro­gram­ming

�2 com­put­er sys­tems de­sign

�2 child care

Mo­hammed's en­try in World­wide Who's Who (http://hal­imo­hammed.com) says:

�2"Draw­ing on his ex­pe­ri­ence as a se­nior in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty an­a­lyst for the strate­gic di­vi­sion and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs di­vi­sion of the Trinida­di­an gov­ern­ment, Dr Mo­hammed worked for the US Pen­ta­gon...In the com­ing years, Dr Mo­hammed in­tends to ex­pand his busi­ness in­ter­na­tion­al­ly through brand­ing, net­work­ing, and con­sult­ing."

�2It says he is af­fil­i­at­ed with: the Mid­dle East In­sti­tute, the Wash­ing­ton In­sti­tute for Near East Pol­i­cy, the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion, Coun­terin­sur­gency Cen­ter, US De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, and the VFW.

(VFW is Vet­er­ans of For­eign Wars, an of­fi­cial non­prof­it ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tion for US mil­i­tary vet­er­ans.)

�2His day-to-day re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clude: "Ful­fill­ing a con­tract with the gov­ern­ment of T&T as a com­mis­sion­er of in­quiry; re­search­ing the coup in 1990; in­ves­ti­gat­ing and pro­vid­ing his find­ings re­gard­ing the events that led to this coup, such as the short­com­ings of gov­ern­ment agen­cies."

�2The awards and ho­n­ours he has re­ceived are list­ed as:

Le­gion of Mer­it; Bronze Star Medal for Com­bat Hero­ism; Three-Time Re­cip­i­ent, De­fense Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Medal; Four-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Medal; Two-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Joint Ser­vice Com­men­da­tion Medal; Three-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Army Com­men­da­tion Medal; Two-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Joint Ser­vice Achieve­ment Medal; Army Achieve­ment Medal; Good Con­duct Medal; Na­tion­al De­fense Ser­vice Medal with One Bronze Star; Armed Forces Ex­pe­di­tionary Medal with One Bronze Star; South West Asia Ser­vice Medal with Two Bronze Stars; Ko­rea Ser­vice Medal; Armed Forces Ser­vice Medal; Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Ser­vice Medal; Armed Forces Re­serve Medal; Mil­i­tary Out­stand­ing Vol­un­tary Ser­vice Medal; NCO Pro­fes­sion­al De­vel­op­ment Rib­bon with Nu­mer­ic 3; NA­TO Medal; Sau­di Kuwaiti Lib­er­a­tion Medal; Kuwaiti Lib­er­a­tion Medal; Over­seas Ser­vice Rib­bon with Nu­mer­ic 5; Army Ser­vice Rib­bon; Para­chute Badge; Mer­i­to­ri­ous Unit Com­men­da­tion; Two-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Army Su­pe­ri­or Unit Award; Joint Mer­i­to­ri­ous Unit Award; Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea Army Novice Air­borne Badge.

Mo­hammed's sev­en-page CV in­cludes the fol­low­ing po­si­tions and as­sign­ments, some of which he list­ed as se­cret or top se­cret:

�2Mid­dle East Desk Of­fi­cer/Se­nior In­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty An­a­lyst, HQ, De­part­ment of the Army In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs and Strate­gic Plan­ning, the Pen­ta­gon (top se­cret) 2006-11

–Sub­ject Mat­ter Ex­pert for the MId­dle East, (in­clud­ing Asia, Pa­cif­ic, North Amer­i­ca, and Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean) (sic)

�2Con­sul­tant, Un­der Sec­re­tary of De­fense (Per­son­nel & Readi­ness), Pen­ta­gon 2004-5

–Co-founder for the es­tab­lish­ment of the Mil­i­tary Se­vere­ly In­jured Joint Sup­port Op­er­a­tions Cen­ter, lat­er re­ferred to as the Wound­ed War­rior Pro­gram

How­ev­er, Wikipedia says: "The Wound­ed War­rior Project was found­ed in 2002 in Roanoke, Vir­ginia by John Melia with the as­sis­tance of fam­i­ly and friends...Be­sides John, the orig­i­nal founders of WWP in­clud­ed Jim Melia (John's broth­er), John F Melia (John's fa­ther), Al Gior­dano and Steven Nardizzi."

�2 Con­sul­tant, US Sen­ate (top se­cret) 2002

Draft­ed nu­clear, bi­o­log­i­cal and chem­i­cal threat as­sess­ment for the US Sen­ate

�2 UN rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Na­to, Bosnia, 1997

–De­vel­oped pro­gramme to pre­vent Serbs, Croats and Bosni­ans from en­gag­ing in eth­nic cleans­ing and geno­cide

–Pre­pared fed­er­a­tion for its first de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions

�2 Chief ad­min­is­tra­tor, Na­to, Turkey 1995-96

�2 Bat­tal­ion com­man­der, 18th Air­borne Per­son­nel and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Bat­tal­ion, Desert Storm, 1991

–Led 1,200 air­borne sol­diers

Ac­cord­ing to his CV, his pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence in­cludes:

�2 "Sol­id ad­vis­er and con­sul­tant in the Mid­dle East ex­clu­sive­ly" (sic). Mo­hammed's clients are list­ed as: the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Sau­di Ara­bia, Jor­dan, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Aus­tralia, South Ko­rea, Japan, In­dia, Pak­istan, Cana­da, Turkey, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Na­to, the UN, Dept of De­fense.

�2 Spe­cial ad­vis­er and con­sul­tant to UN, Na­to, Am­bas­sadors, Gen­er­al Of­fi­cers, Par­lia­ments and Po­lit­i­cal Lead­ers

�2 In­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates June 11-present

�2 Peosys was con­tract­ed with the US Dept of La­bor in In­fo tech­nol­o­gy and man­age­ment (se­cret) Dec 2008-June 2011. The com­pa­ny, ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed,

–eval­u­at­ed da­ta sources and key per­for­mance tar­gets us­ing da­ta sets, in­te­gra­tion and con­sis­ten­cies with var­i­ous re­port­ing meth­ods

–im­ple­ment­ed en­ter­prise da­ta ware­house al­low­ing users to ac­cess and analyse pro­gram da­ta for dif­fer­ent pro­grams through a sin­gle por­tal

–saved hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars through ef­fi­cien­cy

A search at www.Fed­Spend­ing.org for the pe­ri­od 2000-2012 shows that con­tracts award­ed to Peosys amount­ed to US$1,003,495 in 2010; US$985,000 in 2009; and US$5,700 in 2008.

Among the ref­er­ees Mo­hammed lists in his CV are:

�2 Mustapha Ibra­ham, Chief Jus­tice of T&T (sic)

�2 Dr Neal (sic) Parsan, T&T am­bas­sador to the US

�2 Dr the Hon Sir Richard Chel­tenham...Chief Jus­tice of Bar­ba­dos (sic)

Aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments:

Mo­hammed's the­sis, Law and Pol­i­tics in Is­lam, pro­duced as part of his doc­tor­ate in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs at the un­ac­cred­it­ed At­lantic In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, is 70 pages long, in­clud­ing a four-page bib­li­og­ra­phy and two pages of in­tro­duc­tion. Nu­mer­ous pas­sages of the the­sis are tak­en ver­ba­tim and un­cred­it­ed from on­line re­sources that in­clude Wikipedia, Is­lam­o­pe­dia On­line and why­is­lam.org.