President Barack Obama delivers an address on Guantanamo at the National Archives on May 21, 2009, during which he said that "a thorough process of periodic review" was needed to ensure that "any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified." (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

This story was reported by ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer.

The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.

The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change.

But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

Nearly two years after Obama’s pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo, more inmates there are formally facing the prospect of lifelong detention and fewer are facing charges than the day Obama was elected.

That is in part because Congress has made it difficult to move detainees to the United States for trial. But it also stems from the president’s embrace of indefinite detention and his assertion that the congressional authorization for military force, passed after the 2001 terrorist attacks, allows for such detention.

After taking office, the Obama administration reviewed the detainee population at Guantanamo Bay and chose 48 prisoners for indefinite detention. Officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that number will likely increase in coming months as some detainees are moved from a transfer category to a continued detention category.

If signed by President Obama, the new order will provide added review for detainees designated for long-term detention. The order, which is being drafted jointly by White House staff in the National Security council and the White House counsel, will offer detainees in this category a minimal review every six months and then a more lengthy annual review. Detainees will have access to an attorney, to some evidence against them and the ability to challenge their continued detention.

Prisoners who have been deemed “high-value detainees,” including the alleged conspirators of the 2001 attacks, have been designated for prosecution in civilian or military courts.

“It’s been clear for a while that the government would need to put in place some sort of periodic review, and that it would want it to improve on the annual review procedures used during the previous administration,” said Matthew Waxman, a professor at Columbia Law School who worked on detainee issues during the Bush administration.

A White House official, who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity, later confirmed that the draft order has not yet been given to the president. The official had few details but said the order “would set up periodic review of the detention status of those detainees who cannot be tried,” in either military commissions or federal courts.

In 2008, Guantanamo detainees won the right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention in court. The executive order aims to create an executive branch review which would occur separately from the court review and would weigh the necessity of the detention, rather than its lawfulness, officials said.

“Perhaps the dangerousness of the detainee’s country of origin could change, or the group that the detainee is affiliated with could cease to exist,” one official explained.

Some detainees from Yemen may be sent home if security conditions there improve. Currently, there is a moratorium on transfers from Guantanamo to Yemen.

The official described the draft order as “an important piece of the government’s approach to Guantanamo.”

At a speech on Guantanamo in May 2009, Obama said that “a thorough process of periodic review,” was needed to ensure that “any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified.”

The White House first began work on an Executive Order in the spring of 2009 that was the subject of a joint story by ProPublica and the Washington Post in June 2009. An administration official at the time said the order was under consideration but had not yet been completed. Civil rights groups which oppose indefinite detention came out strongly against the possibility of an executive order.

Weeks later, administration officials said the White House had decided to work with Congress on indefinite detention, rather than through Executive Order. But by the end of 2009, the White House had said it would not support legislation.

Then, in 2010, a government task force on Guantanamo completed a year-long review that placed 48 detainees in long-term detention. In its report, task force members said those detainees would be “subject to periodic Executive Branch review.”

Bobby Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas who worked briefly on the administration’s detention task force, said an executive order would provide detainees which an additional layer of review. He also said it offered a compromise since an executive order can be withdrawn at anytime.

“The order takes on additional restraints and lasts as long as the president wants. The White House gets just what it wants, no more or less. And, unlike with legislation, the order doesn’t have staying power if the next administration doesn’t want it.”

Jameel Jaffer, a national security lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, agreed that “more review is better.” But he said that an executive order would only “normalize and institutionalize indefinite detention and other policies,” that were set in place by the Bush administration.

Pictured, from left to right, top: Amir Sharafkhaneh, Samuel Dagogo-Jack, Stephen Landy. Bottom: Farhad Zangeneh, David Rizzieri, Eliot Brinton.

This story was reported by ProPublica’s Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein.

They are among pharma’s most successful speakers, featured at dinner after dinner promoting companies’ favored pills to their peers. Each has earned at least $200,000 since 2009 from this moonlighting.

A review of the highest-earning physicians in ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs database offers insight into why some medical professionals are drawn to this lucrative sideline—and into the diverse qualifications that drug companies are willing to accept to boost sales.

James Cole, right, independent counsel representing the House Ethics Committee and his assistant, Kevin Wolf, deliver a report to the Ethics Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 17, 1997. The special counsel investigating ethics violations charges against House speaker Newt Gingrich recommended that the speaker be fined $300,000 and given a reprimand. (Luke Frazza/AFP/Getty Images)

This story was reported by ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer.

The Obama administration is preparing to announce the nomination of James M. Cole to serve as deputy attorney general, according to two individuals with first-hand knowledge of the appointment.

Cole, a partner at Bryan Cave, is a top white-collar criminal defense attorney in Washington, D.C., and former federal prosecutor who served as deputy of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Division during the Clinton administration. He is also a long-time friend and former colleague of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Cole did not immediately return a phone or e-mail message for comment. Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, said: “No decision has been made at this stage.” One current Justice Department official and a second former official said Holder and the White House had settled on Cole’s nomination in recent days. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the nomination is still confidential and the White House is only now completing the vetting process.

Holder’s previous deputy, David Ogden, left the department in February after serving less than a year. Ogden led Obama’s transition team for the Justice Department, but officials said he and Holder did not work well together and that Ogden agreed last fall to step down.

In addition to his years in government, Cole, 57, has had a number of high-profile clients, including Edwin Edwards, the former Democratic governor of Louisiana. He has also served as an independent monitor at AIG. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Cole and his firm were paid more than $20 million by AIG as part of negotiated settlements reached in 2004 and 2006 between the insurance giant, the Justice Department, the SEC and former New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Although Cole’s oversight role continued into 2009, he did not oversee the credit default swap contracts that led to AIG’s near collapse in September 2008.

Cole may be best known in Washington for a yearlong investigation into former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1996, when Cole was special counsel to the House ethics committee. Cole’s report found that Gingrich had misused tax exempt funds and provided false information to the committee inquiry. The findings led to a stinging rebuke of Gingrich, with House lawmakers voting 395-28 to reprimand the speaker and fine him $300,000.

The No. 2 at the Justice Department manages daily operations. Ogden returned to Wilmer Hale, where he is a partner. Since his departure, the job has been filled on an acting basis by Assistant Attorney General Gary Grindler.

The Washington Post reported in February that Dan Marcus, a law professor from American University, was being considered for the job along with Grindler and two other Justice Department officials.

Italian anti-terrorist prosecutor Armando Spataro, pictured right, arrives for a Mar. 3, 2010, press conference announcing the arrests of Italians and Iranians suspected to have trafficked arms to Iran. (Giuseppe Cacace/Getty Images/AFP)

This story was reported by ProPublica’s Sebastian Rotella.

MILAN – The Italian businessman sounded worried on the wiretap.

Alessandro Bon was a politically connected entrepreneur and former sales representative for Beretta, the Italian gun manufacturer. But behind that facade, he was leading a ring of Italian arms dealers and Iranian spies who were illegally selling ammunition, helicopters and other military hardware to Iran, according to Italian court documents obtained by ProPublica.

As investigators listened in October, Bon gave one of his associates bad news: Some German sniper scopes they had sold to Iran had surfaced among Taliban militants fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan.

“You want to know where they found two of the sniper scopes, between you and me?” Bon said, according to a transcript of the call. “In Afghanistan … They fired on German soldiers with two of the sniper scopes and the serial numbers were traced … and the [German] police are investigating because they were in the hands of the Taliban … I wonder what the hell they were doing in Afghanistan.”

Bon didn’t know it, but he had problems closer to home. His alleged clandestine business had already caught the eye of Italian authorities, who in March arrested him, four other Italians and two alleged Iranian intelligence officials. Two more Iranians remain fugitives. All nine are charged with violating international embargoes barring sales of arms and military technology to Iran. All have denied wrongdoing.

The case has been reported in Italy, but transcripts of wiretaps, in court documents obtained by ProPublica, offer a rare inside look at Iran’s aggressive global campaign to buy prohibited deadly goods. Using layers of front companies and smuggling pipelines run by Iran’s increasingly powerful security forces, Iranian buyers prowl black markets in search of suppliers ready to take a risk for a profit, according to investigators and Western intelligence officials interviewed for this article.

U.S.-led international sanctions haven’t stopped the illicit sales, experts say, because European countries have longtime commercial ties to Iran and aren’t inclined to crack down, particularly in the current economic slump. Italy alone did more than $9 billion worth of legitimate trade with Iran in 2008.

Most countries “do not devote significant resources to investigating or prosecuting export control violations,” wrote Michael Jacobson, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in an article published by the think tank last year. A “public prosecutor has stated that his country has only uncovered ‘the tip of the iceberg’ of the black market activity involving Iran’s nuclear program.” Jacobson continued, ” the European Union is not in a position to oversee the shortcomings of its member states in this area.”

The Milan arms ring operated undetected for at least three years, authorities say, allegedly moving – or trying to move – sniper scopes, various types of munitions, explosive chemicals, helicopters, parachutes, helmets and scuba gear worth millions of dollars. The cast of characters includes a political boss known as a “bulwark of Christ,” an Iranian journalist turned accused spy and a fast-talking lawyer with an alleged audacious plan to set up a covert Iranian base in Italy.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, a Brussels-based senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Milan prosecution stands out because it is unusual for European authorities to dismantle an Iranian arms procurement network.

“It is infinitely easier for Iran to break the rules than it is for law enforcement and the judiciary to put together a case,” said Ottolenghi, author of “Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and The Bomb. ”

The Italian suspects had experience in the Middle East arms market and links to Italy’s political and corporate elite. They saw no reason to stop doing business despite a European Union ban on military trade with Iran in 2006 and a United Nations ban in 2007, investigators say.

The Hunt Begins

The network’s troubles started in June when the suspects strayed into the sights of two top law enforcement agencies: a Milan unit of the Financial Guard, the Italian police force that investigates customs and tax-related crimes, and a prosecutors’ office with a tradition of pursuing corruption and terrorism cases.

The prosecutor in the case, Armando Spataro, led a historic investigation that ended in November with the conviction of two dozen CIA officials, in absentia, for the abduction of an Egyptian cleric here in 2003. Spataro’s prosecution also helped topple high-ranking officials of Italy’s foreign spy agency, worsening tensions with the administration of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a frequent critic of Italy’s independent-minded prosecutors.

The lead about the arms trafficking scheme came from Romanian customs officials, who were embroiled in a court fight with Bon, the Italian entrepreneur, over a shipment of 200 German sniper scopes. The merchandise had been confiscated in 2008 at the Bucharest airport en route to Iran.

Bon, 43, went into business on his own about five years ago after working in exports for Beretta, the firearms giant. He lives in Monza, a prosperous, politically conservative town near Milan.

According to an investigative report in an arrest warrant, Bon and an associate had sent the sniper scopes to a Romanian front company to mask the final destination: Iran. Investigators found an e-mail from Bon with instructions to the Romanian shipping agent: “You will find attached the bill for the Consignee in Teheran. THE BILL MUST NOT ACCOMPANY THE MERCHANDISE!!!”

The Financial Guard began wiretapping Bon and his associates, enlisting the help of Italy’s domestic intelligence agency and police in other countries to trace the web of smuggling routes.

Within weeks, investigators had reason to believe that the Italian arms dealers were hatching brazen multimillion-dollar deals with Iranian spies.

The Iranian Connection

The Financial Guard identified the main arms buyer as Bakhtiyari Homayoun, a suspected Iranian intelligence official who shuttled between Europe and Tehran.

Homayoun, 46, ran a front company in Tehran that was one of several Iranian firms operating as a government procurement network, according to the investigative report. A hard-nosed negotiator, he chewed out his Italian partners when they pestered him about debts or failed to deliver the goods.

In early August, Homayoun pressured Bon to free the blocked sniper scope shipment in Bucharest and get it to Iran. The Iranian complained that he was feeling heat from higher-ups to close the deal, according to a wiretap transcript.

“This is coming from the minister’s office, I can’t do anything,” Homayoun told Bon in English. “You know that the minister changes next week. Everything will be different next week, so they want to finish everything before leaving their posts.”

Homayoun’s shopping list offers insight into the goals of Iran’s procurement networks and its ties to Islamic militants. Western intelligence officials say many of the munitions, explosives and other arms he ordered were probably intended not for the conventional military, but rather for proxy forces that are believed to be supported by Iran: the Iraqi insurgency, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. U.S. military chiefs also have accused Iran of providing military assistance to the Taliban.

Financial Guard officers are investigating the clues about how sniper scopes ended up in the Taliban’s arsenal. They are also pursuing leads that some of the 1,000 sniper scopes Homayoun bought, paying up to $2,600 each, may have reached insurgents in Iraq. According to the investigative report and Italian officials, British troops discovered the same kind of scopes in Iraqi militant hideouts in Basra in 2006 and 2007.

The Investigation Widens

The wiretaps of the calls between Homayoun and Bon soon opened an unexpected door into a dark side of Italian politics.

On Aug. 22, Bon complained that an Italian associate had jeopardized the group’s relationship with a mysterious political protector by failing to cough up a kickback.

“Every six months he has to pay a politician in Italy and he has not paid him yet,” Bon explained, according to the investigative report. “And I need the support of this politician, so send me the money and I will put aside the money for the politician.”

The politician is identified in a prosecutor’s report and by investigators as Pier Gianni Prosperini, 64, a powerful boss in the Lombardy region. Prosperini is also suspected of brokering arms deals with Eritrea, which like Iran has been accused of supporting Islamic extremist groups, according to the prosecutor’s report.

The burly Prosperini leads a far-right, anti-immigrant party. Campaign posters depict him in medieval warrior’s attire defending a castle, sword in hand and crucifix on chest. They describe him as a “bulwark of Christ” and “scourge of Islamic terrorism and criminality.”

Prosperini denies being involved in arms trafficking, according to his lawyer, Ettore Traini.

“We have heard that a politician is mentioned in the investigative documents related to Iran, but we do not know that it is him,” Traini said in an interview. “We have not been formally notified of those allegations because the investigation remains secret.”

A few weeks after the political lead emerged, the investigation changed directions again. Investigators listened in disbelief as their wiretaps detected another apparent Iranian spy – this one a veteran television correspondent based in Rome.

Acquaintances describe the correspondent, Hamid Masoumi, as a quiet, polite 50-year-old. He has lived in Italy since 1993, speaks fluent Italian and moved in influential Roman circles.

German sniper scopes were among the arms confiscated by the Italian police.

The wiretaps exposed Masoumi as a “high-ranking operative of the Iranian secret intelligence services,” according to the investigative report. As part of his covert activities, he sometimes presented himself as an employee of Iran’s national airline and often operated out of the Iranian embassy, according to the report. He also denied the accusations,

The senior investigator in the case told ProPublica that Masoumi co-founded the front company in Romania with one of Bon’s associates. The company officially dealt in telecommunications equipment, but it completed only one transaction, the investigator said: the export of the 200 Schmidt & Bender sniper scopes that were blocked at the Bucharest airport.

“Why is Masoumi, a TV journalist, involved in a Romanian front company?” the senior investigator said. “How does the Iranian government explain that?”

Following instructions from an Iranian embassy official in Rome recorded during wiretapped calls, Masoumi also spied on critics of Iran, prosecutors allege. He grilled an Italian journalist who had contributed to a book about Iran’s opposition movement, asking if any Iranian exiles were among the authors, according to the investigative report.

“Are there any Iranians involved?” Masoumi demanded during a phone conversation in September. “Are there any Iranian names?”

Masoumi’s intrigues enabled him to “soften” Italian news coverage of the Iranian regime’s violent repression of the opposition, according to the prosecutor’s report. Intercepted communications with Italian journalists show that Masoumi promised them visas to Iran and access to officials if they would tone down negative reports about Iran, the prosecutor’s report says.

The Talkative Son

As investigators pored over hours of phone calls and e-mails, a picture emerged of a group that was simultaneously sophisticated and undisciplined.

The suspects bickered over money and muscled each other out of deals. The Italians called the Iranians “penguins” behind their backs, apparently referring to their taste for black and white outfits. The Italians discussed apparent criminal activity at length with friends, wives and mothers.

In Monza, Bon kept his mother well informed, though she has not been charged. He spilled the beans about the intercepted shipment in Bucharest during a wiretapped call in October: “Mamma, the merchandise was going directly to Iran.”

Bon seemed well aware of laws against military sales to Iran, according to the investigative report. On Oct. 8, he e-mailed a company in Taiwan inquiring about micro-cameras, miniature recording devices and other spy-gear. He claimed his client was an “Italian anti-terrorist intelligence unit,” according to an intercept transcript

A representative of the company wrote back asking if the spy-gear was really for the Italian police. She explained that she had just received an identical request from a broker for the Iranian government.

The transcript says Bon responded indignantly: “I really don’t know what Iran is doing since this nation is under embargo by our nation and most Western nations. Our company works only with the Italian police and armed forces.”

Bon promptly contacted a second Taiwanese company about the same products and forwarded the data to Homayoun in Tehran, according to the investigative report.

Bon’s lawyer, Nadia Germana, disputes the charges.

“His version differs greatly from the allegations by the prosecution,” Germana told ProPublica. “He looks forward to explaining his point of view. There is a question of interpretation about what constitutes military arms.”

Bon’s 39-year-old girlfriend, Danila Maffei, allegedly helped send four shipments of sniper scopes to Iran through Switzerland, according to the investigative report. Swiss authorities didn’t notice anything amiss until the Iranians tried to return some of the merchandise via Switzerland in August 2007, saying it was defective. Swiss officials confiscated the shipment.

The Big Lawyer

The case gathered momentum in December when Masoumi, the Iranian journalist in Rome, organized an Italian suspect’s trip to Tehran for a sit-down about lucrative deals.

Masoumi described Raffaele Rossi Patriarca as a “big lawyer from Italy” with “big clients” during calls to a Tehran associate, who worked with the Iranian foreign ministry and secret services to prepare the visit, according to the investigative report.

Patriarca, a prominent 45-year-old lawyer based in Turin, comes off as brash in the recorded conversations. During a call home from Tehran on Dec. 8, the lawyer bragged that he had just met with a “highly decorated Iranian general” about a $20 million sale of nine helicopters, according to a wiretap transcript.

The wiretaps show he also discussed offering the Iranian brass a 747 cargo jet, fuses for munitions and explosive chemicals – and that he outlined a startling proposal to create a secret Iranian operations base on Italian soil.

“I will present them with what I think will make it easier to manage all their requirements,” he said. “The acquisition of a company in Italy … with a certificate of incorporation and bank account … with a building in an airport … with two hangers that have direct access to the roadside … .the possibility of converting conference rooms and creating sleeping quarters … If they have a minimum of entrepreneurial vision … they’ll hit the jackpot, a total bingo.”

Patriarca denies wrongdoing. His lawyer says the trip to Iran didn’t involve banned military equipment.

Patriarca’s aggressiveness aggravated Iranians and Italians alike, but he made things happen, according to the investigative report. At one point he took two Iranian suspects to Norway in a determined hunt to rent them a helicopter, reminding them to conceal the fact that the Iranian government was the true client, according to the investigative report.

In a more vulnerable moment, though, the lawyer checked to make sure his ventures had the blessing of apparently influential figures in the Italian capital, according to a wiretap transcript.

“Listen, is everything set with Rome?” he asked another suspect as he prepared to leave for Tehran. “It’s not that I want to disrespect anyone … it’s just for my peace of mind and the peace of mind of those I leave at home … I’m leaving a wife and two kids at home.”

The vaguely mentioned power players in Rome have not yet been identified, investigators say.

The Downfall

A week after the lawyer’s trip to Tehran, the ring suffered a major blow.

Prosperini, the political boss whom the Italians allegedly paid for protection, was arrested in a separate corruption scandal involving government contracts. Prosperini has agreed to a plea bargain in that case. He has not been charged with arms trafficking, but is still under investigation for suspected links to the Milan ring.

The politician’s downfall stunned the accused Italian traffickers, who prosecutors suspect are involved in Prosperini’s alleged arms deals with Eritrea. Bon, his mother and others expressed “very grave concern” about the arrests during phone calls, according to the prosecutor’s report.

“I don’t know what the hell to do,” Bon said on Jan. 13, according to a wiretap transcript. “I’m also anxious.”

Over the next few weeks, the phone conversations grew tense. The quarrels with the Iranians got worse. Patriarca’s relentless deal-making alarmed the others, according to the investigative report.

“Raffaele called me yesterday, he told me he’s coming up to see you with a squad of penguins,” or Iranians, an agitated Bon told an Italian suspect in a wiretapped call. “I told him if you want to go to jail that’s your damn problem … I’m terrified around him, I swear.”

The suspect told Bon: “What worries me is the day … that they fit him with new bracelets,” meaning handcuffs.

Less than two months later, seven of the nine suspects were in handcuffs.

The Italians have all denied any wrongdoing, and Iran’s foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, has rejected the charges against the four Iranians. He denounced the arrests as an “immature and politically motivated” attack by the Italian government.

Last month when we first wrote about the faux “Census” mailers from the Republican National Committee, we reported that though deceptive, the mailings were likely legal.

That could change soon.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation that specifically bans misleading mailings that are designed to look like they’re from the Census Bureau. The new bill requires that any mailing marked “census” include the sender’s name and address, plus a disclaimer that the survey is “not affiliated with the federal government,” reports the Associated Press.

At the time, the fake census mailings — which were really fundraising surveys from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Though Politico reports that such mailings from Republicans have been around for several years, the practice was of particular concern this year because of the 2010 census. The U.S. Census Bureau itself has warned that the use of misleading forms could undermine response for the official census and increase the costs of follow-up.

The bill goes to the Senate next, where it is expected to move forward.

Sen. Charles Schumer, left, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen speak to the media on Feb. 11, 2010. Schumer and Van Hollen plan to introduce a bill aimed at offsetting the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations and unions to use their general funds to run television ads that say outright whether a candidate should be elected. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

This story was reported by ProPublica’s Chisun Lee.

The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won’t know it, because it’s easy for them to legally hide their political spending.

Under current disclosure laws for federal elections, it’s virtually impossible for the public to track how much a business spends, what it’s spending on, or who ultimately benefits. Experts say the transparency problem extends to state and local races as well.

“There is no good way to gauge” how much any given company spends on elections, said Karl Sandstrom, a former vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission and counsel to the Center for Political Accountability. “There’s no central collection of the information, no monitoring.”

Companies invest in politics to win favorable regulations or block those “that could choke off their business model,” said Robert Kelner, chairman of Covington & Burling’s Washington, D.C., political law group. But they’d rather hide these political activities, he said, because they fear backlash from customers or shareholders.

For instance, a company may want to help Democratic politicians who support health care reforms that would benefit the company, but it worries about offending “Republican shareholders who may care more about their personal ideology than about their three shares of stock in the company,” said Kelner, who says he represents many politically active Fortune 500 companies. “The same would be true on the other side of the political spectrum.”

Businesses must reveal their identities on public reports to the Federal Election Commission if they buy advertising on their own. But one popular and perfectly legal conduit for companies wanting to influence politics under the radar is to give money to nonprofit trade groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber and its national affiliates spent $144.5 million last year on advertising, lobbying and grass-roots activism — more than either the Republican or Democratic party spent, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of public records — while legally concealing the names of its funders. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the Chamber is building a grass-roots political operation that has signed up about 6 million non-Chamber members.

Some of the positions the Chamber has successfully advanced on behalf of its donors include a nationwide campaign to unseat state judges who were considered tough on corporate defendants and opposition to a federal bill that would have criminalized defective auto manufacturing.

Now the Jan. 21 Supreme Court ruling that increases the potential political clout of businesses is drawing fresh attention to the problem of tracking them.

That decision (PDF), Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allows corporations to run television ads that don’t merely speak to an issue but say outright whether a candidate should be elected, and allows them to do so any time they want to, using their general funds. The ruling also gives nonprofit groups like the Chamber these new freedoms, because they are technically structured as corporations.

Before, corporations had to rely on employee and shareholder contributions to a separate political account to finance the most explicit commercials and, in the months before an election, any issue ads that mentioned a candidate. Although the decision addressed federal election rules, its constitutional rationale also dismantles similar restrictions in 24 states.

Soon after the ruling, two Democrats — Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York — announced they were writing a bill to make it easier to tell which companies are backing which ads in federal elections. An outline (PDF) of that bill, which is expected to be introduced this week, proposes forcing nonprofit groups to identify those who fund their political commercials.

At present, nonprofit groups don’t have to disclose the sources of their advertising money, unless the donors specified that their contributions were intended for political ads.

“Unless you’re sort of dumb enough to designate your contribution to the Chamber,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, “no one will ever know who’s the source of those funds.”

Politically active nonprofits exist across the ideological and policy spectrum and include unions as well as trade groups. Their funders include both corporations and individuals, some of them very wealthy. But campaign finance experts say groups that advocate specifically for business tend to have the greatest resources, simply because corporations have the most money to give.

The lack of tracking mechanisms sometimes leaves company officials themselves in the dark about their organization’s political activities, said Adam Kanzer, managing director and general counsel of Domini Social Investments, which files shareholder resolutions to push corporations to adopt self-monitoring and disclosure practices.

“In a lot of our conversations with companies, they say, ‘We don’t know exactly how our money is getting spent. It’s hard to get those answers,’” Kanzer said. One major drug manufacturer, he said, signed on for voluntary disclosure after learning that its funds had supported a state judicial campaign that many voters — who could be customers or shareholders — viewed as racist.

The public price of spotty disclosure is not being able to gauge the real effects of corporation-backed politics, McGehee said. She questioned one argument, often made by defenders of the Citizens United decision, that the 26 states that have long allowed unlimited corporate advertising in their elections haven’t suffered more political corruption than the rest of the nation.

“How would you know? Most of those states have next to no disclosure,” McGehee said. Corporations “could be buying outcomes left and right, but because of no disclosure, we don’t know.” A 2007 examination by the National Institute on Money in State Politics found that, while 39 states required some degree of disclosure by political advertisers, the laws in most were riddled with loopholes. Only five states required enough detail to link sponsors with specific ads, the report said.

Rep. Van Hollen said the disclosure requirements he and Schumer are drafting would uncover the corporate political money flowing through nonprofit channels.

“If corporations spend money in these campaigns, we cannot allow them to hide behind sham organizations and dummy corporations that mislead voters,” he said in a written comment to ProPublica. “Voters have a right to know who is delivering and paying for the message.”

The requirements would apply to unions and liberal nonprofits as well as trade groups, according to the early outline of the bill. The proposal mentions additional transparency requirements — such as mandating corporate disclosures to shareholders and “stand by your ad” appearances by CEOs of companies that finance commercials directly — and seeks outright bans on political advertising by government contractors, bailout recipients and companies significantly controlled by foreigners.

A strong disclosure law would be “hugely effective” in revealing who is paying for political speech, said Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman and head lawyer for John McCain’s presidential campaigns, who is now general counsel at Campaign Legal Center.

But precisely for that reason, Potter said, politics may get in the way of any serious reform. He expects trade groups on the right, unions on the left and other cause groups across the board to fight hard against such legislation.

Already the political battle is taking shape.

Asked to comment on the push for more disclosure, the Chamber’s chief legal officer and general counsel, Steven Law, instead attacked the political motives of the proponents. “Unions overwhelmingly support those who are pushing this legislation,” he said in an e-mail. “This isn’t about reform, it’s about politicians trying to secure advantages for themselves before an election.”

That reaction drew fire from one of the nation’s most politically active unions, the Service Employees International Union, which also declined to comment on the new disclosure proposals. “The coming flood of corporate and foreign money into our elections through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a threat to democracy, plain and simple,” said Anna Burger, SEIU’s secretary-treasurer, in an e-mail. She called on legislators to “drag the Chamber’s practices into the light of day.”

The Chamber revealed more about its view of disclosure in an amicus brief (PDF) it filed in the Citizens United case on behalf of the 3 million business members it says it has. It supported the plaintiff, a nonprofit corporation called Citizens United, which wanted the Supreme Court not only to lift corporate advertising bans but also to strike down the existing disclosure requirements.

The Chamber argued that those requirements inhibited corporations from speaking out. If the public discovered that corporations were “taking controversial positions,” it might punish them, the brief said. As an example, it pointed to a 2005 boycott of ExxonMobil products after the public learned the company was lobbying Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

That argument failed to persuade the high court, which by an 8-1 majority decided to leave the current disclosure laws intact.

Transparency is important, wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority, because it helps voters “give proper weight to different speakers and messages,” and because it allows citizens to “see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.”

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C

This story was reported by ProPublica’s Chisun Lee.

A federal judge who spoke at length with ProPublica about his experience working through about a dozen constitutional challenges mounted by Guantanamo prisoners is being asked by a detainee’s lawyer to remove himself from a pending case based on quoted portions of his interviews.

In one comment, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C said, “How confident can I be that if I make the wrong choice that he won’t be the one that blows up the Washington Monument or the Capitol?” In a recusal motion (PDF) filed Friday, lawyer H. Candace Gorman said this statement suggests the judge’s personal fears – not just the facts of the case – will drive his decision whether to order the release of her client.

Sticky situations like this are one reason the vast majority of judges avoid talking to the press about pending cases. That means the public rarely sees their deliberative process – the thoughts they wrestle with, the ideas they discard – and is left only with their final written opinions, if they choose to write at all. In the Guantanamo cases these decisions [3] are literally opaque – they’re heavily blacked out for security reasons.

Lamberth and two of his colleagues gave detailed interviews for our article, which aimed to shed light on the usually obscure workings of the third branch of government in an area of unusually great public interest. Their comments lent fresh perspective to a long-running debate, recently chronicled at Scotusblog, about whether a law establishing a new preventive detention process would better protect public safety and detainees’ rights in the battle against terrorist forces.

They also ventured to sound human – not the first quality typically associated with the federal bench – by speaking of struggles not just of intellect but also of conscience.

For instance, Lamberth said, under the current system the judges are grappling with the prospect of keeping detainees in prison most likely for life based on far less evidence than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” proof that is required in ordinary criminal cases.

Were the judges too human? In Lamberth’s case, Gorman argues, yes. “[W]ill this Court hold Petitioner indefinitely in fear that it might make a mistake?” her motion asks. This fear, she claims, makes the judge improperly partial to the government’s position that he should deny the habeas petition of Abdal Razak Ali, an Algerian captured in Pakistan in March 2002, and endorse his continued detention.

There are different ways to look at all this. Most judges probably worry about making mistakes –perhaps the more troubling scenario is a judge who believes himself infallible – and it may be better to know they worry than to pretend they don’t. But what is good for the public to know could be prejudicial to a litigant – we’ll just have to see how this one plays out – and that’s what matters in court. Which brings us back to the general tendency of judges to stay mum. And which may explain why Gorman, who writes a blog about Guantanamo where she frequently criticizes government secrecy, believed she had the duty to press this unusual motion on behalf of her client against one of the few judges who has been transparent.

Both Gorman and Lamberth politely declined to comment on the pending motion.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia speaks at an American Bar Association breakfast about Attorney General Eric Holder's recent decision to put the reputed Sept. 11 mastermind and four accused henchmen on trial in New York federal court on Dec. 17, 2009. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

This story was reported by ProPublica’s Chisun Lee.

Three judges on the federal trial court hearing challenges brought by Guantanamo prisoners are calling on Congress and the Obama administration to enact a law to address one of the nation’s most perplexing moral and legal dilemmas: When can the United States indefinitely detain terrorism suspects?

In lengthy interviews, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth and two of his colleagues on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said that deciding whether to release these prisoners raises unprecedented questions about security and liberty that need to be addressed by lawmakers. Their willingness to discuss their concerns in detail — something federal judges rarely do in cases pending before them — underscores the seriousness with which they view the lack of guidance from lawmakers.

“Judges aren’t in the business of making law — we interpret law,” said Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee. “It should be Congress that decides a policy such as this that has a monumental impact on our society and makes a monumental impression on the world community.”

Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, said the judges are struggling “to adapt legal principles to a whole new sphere of human existence that we’ve never witnessed in history as far as I know.” The problem, he and the other judges say, is that the battle against terrorist groups doesn’t fit the classic definition of war, with clearly defined enemies who would be released when the conflict was settled. Because U.S. law doesn’t currently have any other option for captives held in a conflict without end, terrorism detainees could be locked up for life, the judges say.

The judges also say the risk in ordering a detainee to be released seems much greater than in past conflicts, because a return to the battlefield is not just a return to traditional frontlines but to possible attacks on civilians.

“How confident can I be that if I make the wrong choice that he won’t be the one that blows up the Washington Monument or the Capitol?” Lamberth said.

Neither the Obama administration nor Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., whose support would be crucial to passing such a law, responded to requests for comment on the judges’ plea. A Leahy aide indicated that congressional Democrats won’t act unless the White House does. “The administration has not yet offered a proposal for a system of prolonged detention,” the aide said.

The judges’ position drew support from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Judiciary and Armed Services committees who said he’ll introduce legislation in the spring to create a legal framework for terrorism detention.

“Our country needs to get a grip on this,” said Graham, who for six years was an Air Force lawyer, advising pilots on the law of war during the first Gulf War. “The courts, God bless ‘em, are trying to figure out questions that are outside of their lane.”

The judges have been working on the Guantanamo cases since 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees could contest their detention under the constitutional doctrine of habeas corpus, which protects individuals from unlawful imprisonment by the government. Their task: Determine if the government had enough evidence that a prisoner was involved in al-Qaida or Taliban-linked hostilities to validly detain him as an enemy fighter.

Without any laws or legal precedent to guide them, the judges have had to piece together their own standards for everything from what kinds of conduct constitute enemy activity to how to evaluate evidence obtained from harsh interrogations. Individually they’ve drawn on general principles of law and one another’s work to come up with methods they believe are fair. But the judges say they want central guidelines to answer the many difficult questions these cases can raise, such as how to evaluate the unusual intelligence and interrogation evidence involved and how certain they should be of the truth before delivering a judgment.

“It’s an honor to have the responsibility of blazing the trail in determining how justice should be administered in these cases,” said Judge Ricardo Urbina, a Clinton appointee. “By the same token it’s also at times frustrating when not all the rules are clear and not all the specifics of how a matter should be dealt with are before us.”

A major appeals court decision this month gave the lower court some guidance, Judge Lamberth said, but — as the decision’s author herself wrote — many critical questions about how to evaluate the detentions still demand an answer from Congress.

So far judges have decided 41 of the challenges [1] brought by some 200 detainees and have determined that 32 of the men should be released. Only 21 of those prisoners have actually left Guantanamo, however, because the Obama administration, like its predecessor, is resisting the courts’ authority to compel their release — a dispute that’s now before the Supreme Court.

Lamberth said one challenge the judges are struggling with is the prospect of keeping someone in prison for life based on far less evidence than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” proof that is required in ordinary criminal cases. Currently prisoners can be held at Guantanamo based solely on secondhand or even thirdhand reports of their hostile activity, and they don’t have the right to challenge the government’s informants in court.

“If they meet the definition of enemy combatant, then under our traditional legal authority they’re held for the duration of hostilities,” Lamberth said. But “how long will the duration of hostilities here last? I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody on the face of the earth knows. So it makes it difficult for a legal judgment, and I think better suited for a legislative judgment about what other kinds of options might be available.”

Graham wants Congress to step in and lift the specter of indefiniteness from the judges’ decisions by establishing a process that allows detainees who lose in court to periodically have their cases reviewed.

“Congress should weigh in so that a person is not without a legal remedy forever. That’s unacceptable. The detainee should know, the American people should know — what happens next?” he said.

Graham said legislation should also create clear steps for addressing the greatest fear in these cases: The possibility that someone who is ordered to be released will commit an atrocity.

The judges are duty-bound to set aside such worries because they are allowed to focus only on the facts of the case before them — the prisoner’s activities at the time he was captured, which in these cases was as long as eight years ago.

“I’m sure all of us are concerned about the problem of international terrorism, and all of us were affected one way or the other by the various terrorist acts. But when you have an individual [before you], you can’t factor those considerations,” Walton said.

The public doesn’t always understand the limitations of the judges’ role, Urbina said.

He said he was reminded of that not long after he issued one of the most publicized rulings in the Guantanamo cases, deciding that a group of Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, should be released into the United States.

He said he was pulled aside at his high school reunion by a “terrifically nice, very successful lawyer.”

“What are you doing? These people are terrorists!” Urbina said the lawyer told him. “You want to bring them here, to blow up our cities and our homes and put us all at risk?”

Urbina said he tried to explain that he had looked at the evidence and had done what justice required. “Have you read anything about these people?” he asked the lawyer, “These are people who the government says are not terrorists.”

If Congress doesn’t pass a comprehensive detention law, Urbina said, the judges will continue answering the detention questions on their own. Armed with almost no precedent and only the Constitution, “we must turn to our common sense, our sense of reasonableness, our overall sense of what the law is created to achieve, and our own kind of visceral understanding of what’s fair and what isn’t.”

Malek Hadi was working with the U.S. military police when a homemade bomb detonated beneath his Humvee in September 2006. It cost him his right leg and several fingers. Documents show AIG insurance withheld his disability benefits in an effort to force him to accept a lump-sum settlement. Left: Hadi in Baghdad. Right: Hadi in his Arlington, Texas, apartment (Allison V. Smith/For The Los Angeles Times.)

This report was written by ProPublica’s T. Christian Miller and co-published with the Los Angeles Times.

After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the U.S. military discovered that rebuilding the country and confronting an insurgency required a weapon not in its arsenal: Thousands of translators.

To fill the gap, the Pentagon turned to Titan Corp., a San Diego defense contractor, which eventually hired more than 8,000 interpreters, most of them Iraqis.

For $12,000 a year, these civilians served as the voice of America’s military, braving sniper fire and roadside bombs. Insurgents branded them collaborators and targeted them for torture and assassination. Many received military honors for their heroism.

At least 360 interpreters employed by Titan or its successor company were killed between March 2003 and March 2008, and more than 1,200 were injured. The death toll was greater than that suffered by the armed forces of any country in the American-led coalition, other than the U.S. Scores of translators assisting U.S. forces in Afghanistan have also been killed or wounded.

An insurance program funded by American taxpayers was supposed to provide a safety net for interpreters and their families in the event of injury or death. Yet for many, the benefits have fallen painfully short of what was promised, an investigation by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica found.

Interviews, corporate documents and data on insurance claims show that:

• Insurers have delayed or denied claims for disability payments and death benefits, citing a lack of police reports or other documentary evidence that interpreters’ injuries or deaths were related to their work for the military. Critics, including some U.S. Army officers, say it is absurd to expect Iraqis or Afghans to be able to document the cause of injuries suffered in a war zone.
• Iraqi interpreters sent to neighboring Jordan for medical treatment say they were pressured to accept lump-sum settlements from insurers, rather than a stream of lifetime benefits potentially worth more, and were told that if they didn’t sign, they would be sent back to Iraq — a likely death sentence.
• Interpreters who have immigrated to America as refugees have ended up penniless, on food stamps or in menial jobs because their benefits under the U.S. insurance program are based on wages and living costs in their home countries, not in the United States. Payments intended to provide a decent standard of living in Iraq or Afghanistan leave the recipients below the poverty level in this country.

Malek Hadi was working with U.S. military police outside Baghdad when a homemade explosive detonated beneath his Humvee in September 2006. The blast tore off his right leg, mangled his left and sheared off several fingers.

Today, Hadi, 25, lives alone in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Arlington, Texas. He struggles to climb the stairs to his second-floor apartment on crutches. He has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder but is not receiving treatment because his insurer has refused to pay for it.

He lives on $612 a month in disability payments –- the maximum available under the war-zone insurance system.

“When we were in Iraq, we were exactly like the soldiers,” Hadi said. “Why are we treated differently now?”

Retired Army Col. Joel Armstrong, who served in Iraq and was a leading proponent of the 2007 U.S. troop buildup, or “surge,” that helped reduce violence in the country, said Iraqi interpreters were crucial to the strategy’s success.

“Without them, you really can’t operate effectively as a force. It’s just impossible,” Armstrong said. It is deplorable, he added, that interpreters injured while assisting American troops have had to fight for benefits.

“Every American should feel terrible about it,” he said. “It’s a shame.”

American International Group Inc. (AIG), the principal provider of insurance coverage for interpreters in Iraq, declined to answer detailed questions on its policies or comment on specific cases.

Marie Ali, a spokeswoman for the AIG unit that sold the coverage, said the company “is committed to handling every claim professionally, ethically and fairly. In all cases, it is our policy to respect the privacy of our customers and claimants and not discuss the specifics of individual claims.”

Under a World War II-era law known as the Defense Base Act, companies working under contract for the U.S. military must provide workers’ compensation insurance for their employees, both Americans and foreign nationals. The cost of the coverage is built into Pentagon contracts and so is ultimately paid by taxpayers.

The insurance system, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, once handled a few hundred claims a year. It expanded dramatically after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because of the Pentagon’s heavy reliance on civilian contract workers to drive fuel trucks, cook meals and provide other support services.

Today, there are more civilian workers than uniformed soldiers in the two battle zones, and more than 1,400 contract workers have died.

Interpreters in Iraq were covered by insurance purchased by their employer, first Titan Corp. and later L-3 Communications, a New York defense contractor that acquired Titan in 2005. L-3 paid AIG more than $20 million a year in premiums, according to corporate records.

Once a worker files an injury claim, the employer’s insurer must begin paying benefits within two weeks or file a “notice of dispute.”

Interpreters who suffered the worst injuries, such as loss of a limb or severe brain damage, typically received compensation relatively quickly. That is because they were treated at U.S. military facilities in Iraq, where staff members documented their injuries.

In other cases, AIG often had difficulty establishing to its satisfaction that interpreters’ injuries or deaths were work-related. The company routinely filed notices of dispute while it investigated the claims.

“Even determining the facts of an accident – the location and the circumstances – can be a challenge,” Charles Schader, AIG’s president of worldwide claims, told a Congressional panel in June. “Without sufficient information, examiners cannot make timely final determinations within 14 days.”

To pay death benefits, AIG required police reports or other supporting documents, according to former L-3 officials. Internal L-3 records from 2005 show that AIG examiners sent to Iraq were able to find documentation deemed necessary for benefits in only half the cases examined.

“If you’re missing one piece of documentation, you got denied,” said Colleen Driscoll, former chief claims manager for L-3. “These guys get murdered coming and going to work, and AIG turns them down because they don’t have a letter from the insurgents.”

Driscoll, a former U.N. refugee official, left L-3 in 2007. She said the cause was a dispute with company executives over treatment of injured interpreters.

She and another former L-3 official, Jennifer Armstrong, said their experience suggested that 10 percent to 20 percent of the company’s Iraqi workers who should have received benefits were denied.

Armstrong said that in one instance, a slain interpreter’s widow and children had to live for months in the company’s compound in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad while they waited for death benefits to be approved. It was too dangerous for them to remain in their home, and they could not afford to relocate, she said.

“The Iraqis were looked at as second-class citizens,” said Armstrong, who now works for another defense contractor. “It just became a business. When it became a business, you lost sight of the goal.”

L-3 did not respond to requests for comment.

AIG arranged for many of the most severely wounded Iraqis to be transferred to neighboring Jordan, where medical facilities were better and interpreters did not face the risk of assassination.

Emad Hatabah, a Syrian-trained physician who had been medical director of AIG’s Jordanian subsidiary, exercised broad authority over their care. A medical evacuation company that Hatabah owned transported interpreters from the war zone. He selected their doctors and arranged stays at hotels and rehabilitation clinics.

Once their treatment was concluded, Hatabah presented interpreters with settlement agreements providing for lump-sum payments, in return for which AIG would be released from further liability.

Several Iraqis said Hatabah pressed them to sign and told them that if they refused, they would be sent back to Iraq. In spring 2007, more than a dozen interpreters sent L-3 officials a petition complaining of “bad treatment” by Hatabah and asserting that he had threatened to have them deported.

One of the interpreters, Ali Kanaan, suffered vision damage and burns to more than a third of his body as a result of a 2006 suicide bombing.

Kanaan said Hatabah offered him a $61,000 settlement on AIG’s behalf. He said that when he resisted, Hatabah told him that if he didn’t accept the lump sum, he would have to return to Iraq to pursue a claim for disability benefits.

Kanaan decided to take the offer.

“If you obey Dr. Emad’s rules, you’ll be fine,” he said. “If you don’t, you got kicked out.”

Kanaan later immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee. Now 23, he works 12 hours a day in a cigarette store in Denver. At night, he cleans the stove hoods in restaurant kitchens. The caustic chemicals irritate his skin grafts, he said.

Hatabah, interviewed in Amman, the Jordanian capital, said the interpreters received exemplary care. He denied pressuring any of them to sign settlements or threatening to send them back to Iraq.

Hatabah said AIG’s office in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, sent him settlement agreements and his only role was to witness the signing of the documents. He said that because he is employed by AIG, he took care never to act as the treating physician for any interpreters, in order to eliminate even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“I believe we did more than a good job,” Hatabah said. “It was a perfect job.”

Interpreters and other injured workers can appeal insurers’ denials through a dispute-resolution system in the Department of Labor. Ultimately, an administrative law judge decides the matter. The department must approve all settlements, and officials are supposed to review offers with the affected workers to make sure compensation is “adequate.”

“The whole purpose is to recognize that a guy who’s never had a $100,000 check in his life before is a sucker for a bad deal,” said Joshua Gillelan, a former lawyer for the department who now represents civilian workers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But few Iraqis know they have rights in the system, and interpreters interviewed for this report said the Labor Department never contacted them about settlement offers.

“Nobody called me or told me or did anything for me,” said Nazar Taei, 40, whose legs were riddled with shrapnel during a mortar attack in 2006.

After he arrived in the U.S. as a refugee, AIG offered Taei an $18,500 settlement, he said. He was dissatisfied with the amount, but accepted it.

“I told AIG, ‘Is this enough for somebody to start his life, who lost his job, a part of his life?’” recalled Taei, a Denver resident who recently enlisted in the U.S. Army and hopes to become a translator. “They said, ‘Those are the rules. We can’t do anything for you.’”

In at least one case, an AIG representative discouraged Iraqis from reaching out to the Labor Department. In an e-mail exchange last year, the father of an L-3 interpreter killed in a car bomb wrote to AIG, seeking to speed payment of death benefits.

The father, who revealed details of the case on condition of anonymity, asked an AIG examiner in Dubai about contacting Labor officials.

“I wouldn’t advice you to do so,” the examiner replied by e-mail. “You would be taking the full responsibility of the outcomes.”

Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis declined requests for an interview. In a statement, the Labor Department said the increase in civilian contract workers in Iraq and Afghanistan has posed formidable challenges for the war-zone insurance system. The department has no employees posted in Iraq, Afghanistan or surrounding countries, nor any speakers of Arabic or Afghan dialects.

The statement said Labor depends on insurers and defense contractors to inform workers of their rights and to report injuries.

“There is no way to accurately monitor compliance as the many levels of subcontracting to workers from around the globe makes such oversight impossible,” the statement said. “We understand and are concerned about the fact that we are unable to place staff at the front lines to ensure that all workers understand their rights.”

After the homemade explosive blew off his leg in 2006, Malek Hadi was sent to Jordan for treatment. There, AIG offered him a $60,000 lump-sum settlement, he said.

Hadi rejected the offer and said he was deported to Iraq within a month.

He later returned to Jordan as a refugee. He had applied for disability benefits but was not receiving any, and he could not get an explanation from AIG, he said. He lived on handouts from family and friends while waiting for permission to immigrate to the U.S.

Internal AIG documents indicate that a claims examiner withheld Hadi’s benefits in an effort to force him to accept the lump sum. Hadi was “clearly entitled” to benefits, a different AIG examiner wrote in a memo dated August 2008. The company had not paid because the previous examiner “was trying to get the claimant to decide whether to settle his claim,” the memo said.

After arriving in the U.S., Hadi again contacted AIG, this time seeking medical treatment as well as disability payments. A psychologist working with a refugee agency in Texas had diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, Hadi’s prosthetic right leg was causing sharp pains and his damaged left leg ached constantly.

AIG formally contested the claim, saying that he needed further medical evaluation. This past summer, more than three years after Hadi’s leg was blown off, AIG began paying him disability benefits of $612 a month. The insurer still has not approved his request for medical treatment.

Hadi spends most of his days in his apartment in Arlington, Texas, watching Arabic television and texting friends back home. “I lost my leg. My life is broken,” he said. “For what?”

A favorite possession is a gold coin given to him by a member of the 89th Military Police Brigade after he was injured.

“Proven in Battle,” it says.