Oil Adds Sheen to Kazakh Regime

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Some of Washington’s top political consultants traveled to this city in the summer of 1998 to huddle with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Their daunting mission: Convince the world that his oil-rich, authoritarian regime was actually a budding democracy.

This political SWAT team launched the opening salvo in a high-powered, high-priced lobbying campaign that seized on America’s need for oil to win U.S. support for a government with a penchant for shuttering newspapers and manipulating elections.

It was a remarkable effort both for whom it involved and what it accomplished.

Backed heavily by the U.S. oil industry, the six-year, multimillion-dollar push recruited a small army of onetime officials whose experience and contacts translated into considerable influence.

Participants included a former secretary of State, a onetime U.S. attorney general and an ex-presidential aide. Also involved were a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee and a leading fundraiser for future President George W. Bush -- as well as a New York consultant now facing federal charges that he made payoffs to Nazarbayev in separate business dealings.

The team that met in Almaty, dubbed the “P-Group,” circulated fliers on Capitol Hill hailing Nazarbayev for promoting “an active independent press” and creating “a free and democratic electoral system” -- even as the Kazakh leader was cracking down on domestic opponents. Another team of consultants arranged free trips to Kazakhstan for journalists who wrote upbeat articles, while others lobbied Congress and the White House to promote the country’s potential as a major U.S. oil supplier.

The lobbying strategy is detailed in public records and copies of dozens of internal memoranda obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The campaign got results: It rallied supporters in Congress and helped win key concessions from the current Bush administration that allowed the release of U.S. aid despite continuing corruption and human rights problems.

Administration officials rejected requests for interviews to discuss the U.S. relationship with Kazakhstan. Roman Vassilenko, first secretary at the Kazakh Embassy in Washington, said relations reflect legitimate improvement in his country. “Kazakhstan is struggling but moving forward,” Vassilenko said.

Kazakhstan is one among a new generation of oil suppliers to the United States. Many of these are developing countries eager for U.S. aid -- but even more important, for the aura of legitimacy conferred by official U.S. approval. Positive words from Washington can help ease doubts about doing business in their countries, as well as blunt criticism from domestic foes.

To forge closer ties to the U.S., these countries routinely hire consultants and lobbyists. American oil companies also promote the cause of countries where they operate to win favor with host governments.

A Times examination identified dozens of ex-officials from the Reagan, Clinton and two Bush administrations who have worked for the oil industry or for foreign governments with extensive energy reserves -- and, almost invariably, poor human rights records.

The ex-officials include prominent names such as Brent Scowcroft, a national security advisor to former President George H.W. Bush. Scowcroft served as a board member and paid consultant for Pennzoil-Quaker State Co. and has been active in promoting closer ties between the United States and Azerbaijan, another Caspian energy producer. The ranks also include lesser-known figures such as Witney Schneidman, a deputy assistant secretary of State for African affairs in the Clinton administration who consults for oil giant Amerada Hess, which has substantial interests in West Africa.

The oil lobby has found an especially receptive ear in the administration of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- former oilmen who picked industry veterans for key positions and focused on improving the United States’ energy security.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham warned in March 2001 that the U.S. faced a major crisis in supplies over the next two decades.

Two months later, a Cheney-led energy task force issued a report that urged that the United States find sources of imports other than the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, citing the Caspian region, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

The task force downplayed conservation as a means of reducing the gap between domestic production and demand. “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy,” Cheney said.

The pursuit of oil has been a vital element of U.S. foreign policy for decades, but it has become an even more pressing issue in recent years: Domestic oil now supplies less than half of what Americans consume; by 2025, 70% of the nation’s petroleum is expected to come from abroad.

At the same time, the United States is trying to move away from dependence on the Middle East. That goal became more important after the Sept. 11 attacks. Arab anger over U.S. support for Israel and the invasion of Iraq has added urgency to the administration’s drive to forge closer ties with oil-rich regimes outside the Persian Gulf.

The new suppliers, however, have serious problems of their own. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened the door to large reserves in the oil-rich Caspian Basin, but democracy in those countries has been stifled by authoritarian regimes.

Improved technology also has increased oil production in sub-Saharan Africa, but the boom has bred massive government corruption, causing more poverty and instability.

Although America’s new oil allies “are often a threat to their own people ... they do not harbor or finance groups that threaten U.S. interests,” David Goldwyn, an oil industry consultant and former Energy Department official, told Congress last fall.

Moreover, current and former U.S. officials say, the countries in question become more stable and democratic as a result of the American influence that oil development brings.

Mark Siegel, a key member of the P-Group, said he was proud of his work for Kazakhstan. “I did a lot of good things. I made a contribution,” he said. “I have no regrets about working for democratization for Kazakhstan.”

Others ask who really is influencing whom.

Kazakh authorities have “petrodollars without limit, which they use to buy influence in Washington,” said Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), a critic of U.S. engagement with Nazarbayev. “There has been no movement towards a real democracy.”

Oil Fuels Boom in Key City

The city of Almaty has the bustle of an oil boomtown. New office buildings and luxury housing developments are popping up. Well-to-do locals and Western oil company employees fill bars such as Stetson’s -- and nightclubs like Petroleum, where some of the city’s most expensive prostitutes court customers.

American companies have invested billions of dollars in Kazakhstan, whose estimated potential oil reserves are as high as 110 billion barrels. That’s far smaller than Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil producer, but about five times higher than estimated U.S. reserves.

Oil production fueled economic growth of 9.5% last year in Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth-largest country in area. The nation is six times as big as California but has only half as many people.

“Kazakhstan could well be producing over 3 million barrels of oil per day by the end of this decade, making the country one of the world’s top five oil-exporting nations,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told the U.S.-Kazakhstan Business Assn. in Washington on April 27. Before joining the administration, Armitage ran a consulting firm that did business in the Caspian region.

He praised Nazarbayev for making Kazakhstan the “most stable and prosperous Central Asian state.”

But few people have benefited. In 1993, when it was first ranked as an independent country in a United Nations survey of quality of life, Kazakhstan rated 54th among 173 countries; by last year it had dropped to 76th among 175.

Repression and legal harassment have eliminated Nazarbayev’s strongest political challengers and muzzled the press. The State Department’s most recent human rights report, released in February, said that “almost all media outlets willing to criticize the president directly were either closed, intimidated, or the subjects of law enforcement actions” and that opposition journalists had been systematically targeted with “politically motivated [legal] charges.”

While a Times reporter visited the offices last fall of Oleg Katsiev, head of a media organization that has published stories critical of Nazarbayev, government tax auditors were combing through the group’s financial records.

An interpreter assisting the reporter received threatening phone calls from unidentified men after several interviews with critics of the regime. The threats stopped after a complaint was lodged with the Kazakh Embassy in Washington, which denied government involvement in the harassment.

Nazarbayev’s family has profited handsomely from the country’s new oil wealth. One of his daughters owns the construction firm that has built much of Almaty’s new housing and office space. Another daughter controls a media conglomerate.

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department indicted James H. Giffen, the New York business consultant, on charges he funneled more than $78 million in “unlawful payments” to Nazarbayev and his former prime minister, Nurlan Balgimbayev. The indictment says the money came from fees Giffen received from oil companies that won stakes in Kazakh oil fields. The complaint charges that he made the payments to ensure he retained his role as the Kazakh government’s oil negotiator.

The complaint charges that Giffen gave Nazarbayev and his wife gifts such as his-and-her snowmobiles, and that he set up a Swiss account that purchased millions of dollars worth of jewelry.

Nazarbayev and Balgimbayev have publicly denied wrongdoing. Kazakh officials have said the accounts Giffen set up are controlled by the state, not the president and Balgimbayev. Oil companies say they knew nothing about the alleged improper payments.

Good Start Impresses U.S.

Kazakhstan’s democratic prospects seemed far brighter in May 1992, when Nazarbayev arrived in Washington amid a wave of euphoria prompted by the collapse of the Soviet Union five months earlier.

President of the Kazakh Soviet republic during the final days of communism, Nazarbayev became head of the newly independent country. He won plaudits from the West for agreeing to return to Russia nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union had based in his republic.

The U.S. hailed Kazakhstan as a model for Central Asia, and Nazarbayev, unlike hard-liner Saparmurad Niyazov in neighboring Turkmenistan, was viewed as a reformer who would dismantle the communist legacy.

At home, Nazarbayev was a symbol of national independence and pride. He reached out to all ethnic groups, but was especially admired by Kazakhs, who barely outnumbered ethnic Russians at the time of independence.

In Washington, President George H.W. Bush warmly greeted Nazarbayev, and administration officials looked on as he and Chevron executives signed agreements calling for a partnership in Kazakh oil fields.

In 1993, Chevron acquired a 50% stake in the giant Tengiz field in western Kazakhstan. Within a few years, other American oil companies had negotiated stakes of their own. Nazarbayev rolled out the welcome mat for them, establishing a Foreign Investors’ Council that included Mobil and Chevron.

James A. Baker III brokered the emerging U.S.-Kazakh relationship while serving as the elder Bush’s secretary of State. In December 1991, during the final days of the Soviet Union, he and Nazarbayev discussed Kazakhstan’s future while enjoying a sauna at a villa in the mountains above Almaty.

After leaving office, Baker became a partner at the Baker Botts law firm in Houston, which offered advice to energy companies seeking to invest in Kazakhstan and other nations of the Caspian region.

Baker was not available for an interview, but his son, James Baker IV, who works on international projects in the law firm’s Washington office, answered questions about the firm’s Caspian business. The younger Baker said that he had represented Western energy companies seeking to invest in Kazakhstan and also advised its government on “investment-related matters.”

Asked whether his father’s government experience had enhanced the firm’s prospects, Baker said: “He has been very careful and reserved in his business development activities, but it would be disingenuous to say it hasn’t been an asset.”

The United States’ political engagement grew along with its corporate investment. In 1994, the Clinton administration established the U.S.-Kazakhstan Joint Commission, headed by Nazarbayev and Vice President Al Gore.

Robert Baer, a former CIA officer who covered the Caspian region during the Clinton years, said oil executives met regularly with National Security Council staffers to discuss Central Asia.

“In my experience, there was an unprecedented level of input from oil companies,” Baer said. “We considered it to be in our national interest for oil companies to invest there, and we didn’t want anything to get in the way.”

But Nazarbayev’s commitment to democracy was waning.

“Nazarbayev came to realize that there would be no serious consequences for his antidemocratic actions,” said Martha Brill Olcott, a Caspian expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has consulted for ChevronTexaco.

In 1995, a year before a scheduled presidential election and only four years after Kazakhstan gained independence, Nazarbayev staged a referendum that extended his term for four years. The State Department described the election as “marred by irregularities,” and in a report from the period said corruption was “pervasive throughout the government.”

None of this seriously affected U.S.-Kazakh relations. A few months after postponing the presidential vote, Nazarbayev came to Washington, where he and Gore hashed out details of a pipeline that would carry oil from Chevron’s Tengiz field to international markets.

“My feeling was that it was better to be engaged with them than not engaged,” said Richard Morningstar, who served as President Clinton’s special advisor on Caspian energy issues. “It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it was better than it would have been without American involvement.”

Group Mounts PR Assault

By most accounts, 1998 marked a serious downturn in Kazakhstan’s human rights situation. Several newspapers that had been critical of the government were shut down. The regime passed a national security law that Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based group, said was “used to deter and punish [its] political opponents.”

The law, which was enacted as public criticism of Nazarbayev was growing, defined “unsanctioned gatherings” and “prevention of the growth of investment activity” as threats to national security.

Western governments, including Washington, called on Nazarbayev to improve the situation. Instead, with the assistance of American PR specialists, he tried to spin it. Over the next two years, his regime paid more than $4 million to consultants with at least nine public relations companies, law firms and lobby shops.

Nazarbayev chose his friend Giffen to lead the offensive. A New York business consultant with a law degree from UCLA, Giffen began negotiating deals for American companies in the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Giffen met Nazarbayev during the Soviet era. U.S. prosecutors say the Kazakh leader assigned him to negotiate deals with foreign oil companies seeking to invest in Kazakhstan after the country’s independence.

Nazarbayev gave Giffen a Kazakh diplomatic passport, court records show, and the indictment says Giffen also was granted the title of “counselor to the president.” When Nazarbayev traveled to the U.S., Giffen accompanied him to meetings with government officials, according to others in attendance.

“He was Washington’s de facto ambassador to Kazakhstan,” said Baer, the former CIA officer.

The team of political consultants that Giffen assembled in 1998 brought considerable muscle to Nazarbayev’s efforts to win Washington’s approval. The P-Group (“P” for political) included:

* James C. Langdon Jr., an energy lawyer at the Washington office of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, a prominent Washington law firm and lobby shop. Langdon is a leading fundraiser for Bush. Akin Gump received $1 million for its legal and lobbying work on Kazakhstan’s behalf, according to its foreign agent disclosure filings with the Justice Department.

* Siegel, a former Democratic National Committee executive director, who at the time served on the board of the National Democratic Institute, which was promoting democracy programs in Kazakhstan. His contract called for a daily rate of $2,800 to $3,000 from the Kazakh government, according to foreign agent disclosure filings.

* Jay Kriegel, a prominent corporate consultant and former senior vice president at CBS Inc. who was charged with keeping Giffen “fully and regularly apprised of activities, intelligence and problems” in the P-Group, according to a copy of a memo obtained by The Times.

* Michael K. Deaver, vice chairman of public relations giant Edelman who was a deputy chief of staff to President Reagan.

The P-Group developed a thick strategy document and presented it to Nazarbayev on Sept. 1, 1998. A copy of the document, obtained by The Times along with copies of dozens of other internal memorandums, said that the P-Group members “strongly believe in democracy.” However, they said that they understood Kazakhstan’s need to “balanc[e] international norms and demands for reform with the need for political stability.”

The document said significant steps were needed to solve Kazakhstan’s problems, including widespread corruption.

Just two weeks after delivering to Nazarbayev the P-Group’s recommendation for a cleanup, Giffen, the federal indictment charges, secretly deposited a $30-million bribe in one of the president’s Swiss bank accounts.

A month after receiving the document, Nazarbayev called a presidential election for Jan. 10, 1999, nearly two years earlier than planned. Parliament simultaneously passed constitutional amendments that increased the presidential term from five to seven years and abolished a requirement for a 50% minimum turnout.

Shortly thereafter, Nazarbayev barred his primary opponent, former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin, from running. Kazhegeldin subsequently was forced into exile.

The P-Group sought to ensure, as one confidential document it sent to Kazakh officials and Giffen put it, that the election would be “perceived by the international community as free and fair.”

Siegel was coauthor of a Nov. 20, 1998, internal P-Group memo that laid out what Kazakhstan needed to do to conduct an election perceived as free and fair. He noted the importance of swaying the National Democratic Institute -- the pro-democracy group on whose board he sat.

A third memo described how the P-Group would seek to “sell” stories to the Western press by developing “repeatable and persuasive messages,” among them that Nazarbayev had “brought stability to a geopolitically strategic area of the world.”

According to internal documents, Deaver recruited former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger -- who at the time was on the boards of Halliburton and Phillips Petroleum, both of which had interests in Kazakhstan -- to write an opinion piece for the Washington Times. Eagleburger, who served in the Cabinet of the first President Bush, wrote that Nazarbayev had “rigorously pursued policies to transition the country to democracy” and that “its continuing success depends on the active support and encouragement from the West.”

Deaver said his primary work involved recruiting “third parties” to write opinion pieces, but he couldn’t recall asking Eagleburger to write the Washington Times article. David Crosson, who then worked with Deaver, said Eagleburger had written the Op-Ed piece as part of the campaign. He said the P-Group did not pay people it recruited to write the pieces. Eagleburger, who is now a senior public policy advisor to the Washington office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, a law firm that does significant business overseas, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The P-Group failed to win international acceptance of the election. Kazakh officials said Nazarbayev won 82% of the vote, but the U.S. State Department labeled the election “seriously flawed.”

Asked recently whether the P-Group had any concerns about Nazarbayev or doubts about his commitment to democracy, Deaver said: “It was a client. Our job was to get people to write articles and get them placed. Beyond that, it’s hard to recall.”

Siegel described the P-Group’s work as promoting “democratization” and proposing political reforms. “Political and economic structures and statutes in Kazakhstan have been substantially reformed, although there is still much left to do,” he said in an e-mail reply to questions from The Times.

Langdon and Kriegel would not answer questions about their work for Nazarbayev.

In 2000, the Justice Department confirmed that it was investigating Giffen’s role in Kazakhstan. Fearing that the case might jeopardize close ties to the U.S., the Nazarbayev regime later hired Dick Thornburgh, an attorney general in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, as an advisor.

Kazakhstan also hired Reid Weingarten, a leading white-collar criminal defense attorney who had worked in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. Weingarten wrote a letter to the Justice Department, as reported in 2002 by the New York Times, saying that he was “deeply concerned” that U.S. relations with Kazakhstan -- which he noted had “significant oil and gas reserves” -- would deteriorate if prosecutors aggressively pursued the case.

Nonetheless, Giffen, who is charged with money laundering and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, is scheduled to go on trial in October. He and his attorney Steven Cohen declined to comment for this report.

In a March 16 court filing, Giffen, who has pleaded not guilty, asked that charges be dropped because the crimes he is charged with were “acts he committed on behalf of [Kazakhstan] and while acting pursuant to its legal directives.” The filing said that Giffen’s acts might seem unusual in the United States, but “imposing American domestic conceptions of honest services on all the world’s governments” would “wreak havoc” on the smooth functioning of international law.

In a counter-filing, U.S. prosecutors said that even if Giffen had not violated Kazakh law, he had certainly violated U.S. law.

“Giffen and the republic [Kazakhstan] have repeatedly sought to stymie the investigation by asserting that various investigative efforts encroached on the republic’s sovereign prerogatives,” the counter-filing said.

P-Group members declined to comment about the indictment of Giffen.

Articles Follow Paid Trips

The investigation curtailed Giffen’s high-profile involvement in U.S.-Kazakh relations. But that had been only one front in Nazarbayev’s charm offensive.

Gerald Carmen, a former U.S. representative to the United Nations in Geneva, became one of the Kazakh government’s most highly paid consultants. His Carmen Group received more than $1.1 million for work in 1999 and 2000, according to foreign agent disclosure records. (As further thanks, Nazarbayev gave him a tasseled cap and decorative whip, the records show.) Carmen did not return phone calls seeking comment.

In a memo to a Kazakh official, Carmen said he would help “establish President Nazarbayev as one of the foremost emerging leaders of the New World.”

Records show that Carmen’s office met with lawmakers and paid for at least four writers -- syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, Providence Journal associate editor Philip Terzian, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. of the American Spectator and Scott Hogenson of the Conservative News Service -- to travel to Kazakhstan in 1999 and 2000. All wrote articles that Carmen circulated on Capitol Hill and had published in Kazakhstan.

Geyer and Hogenson noted that they traveled at the government’s invitation, but none of the writers disclosed the source of funding for the trips.

Geyer and Terzian visited in late 1999, when Kazakhstan was holding elections for the lower house of Parliament. They wrote columns that criticized Nazarbayev but offered sympathetic -- and at times upbeat -- commentary.

International observers found the elections substandard, Geyer wrote, but she said they were a positive first step. “The elections looked good on the surface, and the government deserves credit for holding these first-ever elections for anything on a multiparty basis in Kazakhstan,” she wrote.

The U.S. State Department said the balloting “fell short of international standards” and that the regime had prohibited “some government opponents from running because they previously had been found guilty of political offenses such as publicly insulting the president.”

Tyrrell and Hogenson traveled to Kazakhstan early the next year, and filed enthusiastic dispatches. In an opinion piece published in the Washington Times, Tyrrell wrote that Kazakhstan “has at least four highly competitive political parties, ... the freedoms of our Bill of Rights, and commendable tolerance.”

All the journalists told The Times that the Carmen Group’s financial sponsorship did not influence their reporting.

“I’m a little beyond that,” Geyer said.

‘Silk Road Caucus’ Emerges

Three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Nazarbayev visited the United States once more. In Houston, he met with former Secretary of State Baker and the first President Bush. Then he flew to Washington, where he attended a lunch at which Cheney played host and had a White House meeting with the current President Bush.

Nazarbayev’s cooperation in the Bush administration’s war against terrorism was one factor behind the warm reception. During the fighting to the south in Afghanistan, he allowed U.S. warplanes to use Almaty’s airport.

The welcome by the U.S. president also was a testament to Kazakhstan’s growing oil clout. Nazarbayev and Bush signed a series of agreements, including one that called for cooperation on energy security.

To keep bilateral relations on track, U.S. oil companies with major investments in Kazakhstan stepped up their own lobbying efforts. ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips helped found and finance the U.S.-Kazakhstan Business Assn.

In late 2001, the association and oil company lobbyists helped assemble the Congressional Silk Road Caucus, which has fought for closer ties with Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states. Caucus co-chairs Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have together received nearly $600,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests since 1995, according to figures from the Federal Election Commission.

Brownback, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said U.S. relations with Kazakhstan have been “much more robust” under Bush than they were during Clinton’s presidency.

“Under Clinton they felt like all we cared about was human rights,” he said. Now energy and national security concerns have been elevated and the regime is moving in a “very positive direction,” he added.

Landrieu said Kazakhstan was an attractive alternative to oil suppliers in the Middle East. “As we ... minimize our reliance on the [OPEC] cartel, opening up opportunities in the Caspian is all for the better,” she said. “Kazakhstan has a very strong president, some might say too strong. But for emerging nations, I’m not sure it’s bad to have strong executive leadership.”

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, inserted a statement in the Congressional Record on Sept. 24 in support of Kazakhstan.

“Mr. Speaker, if the United States is to become truly energy independent, it must seek non-OPEC alternatives for our supply of oil,” Barton’s statement said. “Kazakhstan can -- and is willing to -- help greatly in this endeavor.”

The statement was nearly identical to a draft prepared by Patton Boggs, a top Washington lobbying firm that is paid $60,000 a month by Kazakhstan, its foreign agent filing shows.

Larry Neal, a spokesman for Barton’s House committee, issued a statement defending the use of the draft from the lobbying firm.

“Some think Congress has no business listening to people who are paid to know something,” Neal said. “They think congressmen would do better to get all their information from newspapers and social activists. We think that’s baloney. We take our facts where we find them, and we use them where we choose.”

A source at Patton Boggs who spoke on condition of anonymity said the firm routinely drafted statements that members of Congress inserted in the Congressional Record.

Vassilenko, the Kazakh Embassy official, pointed to improvements, also cited by the State Department, in religious freedom and efforts against human trafficking, and noted that Nazarbayev had vetoed a draft media law that had been strongly criticized by local journalists and Western governments.

“Anyone who says the human rights situation has gotten worse is mindless of the changes that have taken place,” Vassilenko said.

‘On the Right Track’

Despite its oil wealth and corps of hired Beltway friends, Kazakhstan still faces significant problems in Washington.

Last May, the Senate passed a resolution calling on Nazarbayev “to create a political climate free of intimidation and harassment.” During a trip to Kazakhstan last fall, Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor, criticized Nazarbayev’s human rights record, saying, “There is a lot of development still needed here ... in terms of democracy.”

But the money and effort put into Kazakhstan’s public relations campaign have paid off with a series of significant victories in Washington:

* At the urging of the oil industry, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans dropped Kazakhstan from the government’s list of nonmarket economies, which imposes tougher sanctions on countries in the event of trade disputes with the United States. His decision, in March 2002, came two months after a report from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, ranked Kazakhstan 131st among 161 countries in terms of economic freedom. The report said the country was “mostly unfree.”

* The Bush administration certified in July 2003 that the Nazarbayev regime had shown “significant improvement” in human rights, even though the State Department had just issued a harsh report on conditions in Kazakhstan. The report said the country’s “poor human rights record worsened” in 2002 and that there had been little progress in key areas such as free elections and media freedom. The administration defended the certification, which allowed $51 million in U.S. aid to go to Kazakhstan in 2003, by saying that the Nazarbayev regime “now appears to understand the need to rectify” the situation.

* In December, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell again certified that Kazakhstan was making progress on human rights, a finding necessary to release funds from a U.S. program that helps former Soviet states dismantle their intercontinental ballistic missile arsenals.

His decision came over the opposition of Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who said the United States should rebuke Kazakhstan for failing to make improvements, but release the funds under a special waiver.

* In January, four members of the Silk Road Caucus introduced a House bill that would grant permanent normal trade relations to Kazakhstan, reducing tariffs on its exports to the United States. Approval of the status has generally been portrayed by the government as a reward to countries for improving their human rights record.

The House bill came after several years of lobbying by major oil companies and the U.S.-Kazakhstan Business Assn. The executive director of the business association, former career State Department official William Veale, has written letters calling for enhanced trade status for Kazakhstan to 140 members of Congress, according to the association’s internal newsletter.

ChevronTexaco alone delegated six lobbyists to the fight last year. The Bush administration has voiced its support for the measure, which has not yet been voted on by Congress.

Such steps have been noted with appreciation in Kazakhstan. In February, Dariga Nazarbayeva -- one of the president’s daughters and founder of a new political party -- came to Washington for meetings with administration officials and members of Congress.

During her stay, a Times reporter spoke to her at a reception held by a lobbying firm as about 50 government officials, oil industry representatives and lobbyists waited to meet her.

“Relations with the U.S.,” she told the reporter, “are definitely on the right track.”

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Times staff writer Warren Vieth and researcher Mark Madden in Washington contributed to this report.

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Helpful old hands

Kazakhstan assembled top U.S. legal, lobbying and public relations help in its campaign to win favor in Washington, including a number of high-ranking former officials, some of whom formed the “P-Group,” a political SWAT team.

Michael K. Deaver, President Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, recruited “third parties” to write newspaper opinion pieces for the public relations campaign.

Jay Kriegel, a former senior vice president at CBS Inc., was asked to keep key consultant James H. Giffen “regularly apprised” of P-Group activities.

James Langdon Jr., an energy lawyer and a leading fundraiser for President Bush. His firm did lobbying and legal work for Kazakhstan.

Dick Thornburgh, an attorney general in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, was hired by the Kazakh government to provide legal advice.

Reid Weingarten, a former Justice Department lawyer, wrote a letter to his old agency warning of risks to U.S.-Kazakh ties if prosecution of Giffen went ahead.

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Seconding the motion

When lobbyists prepared a draft statement for promoting Kazakhstan as a source of oil that would be largely unaffected by OPEC moves, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) was willing to adopt their ideas and language:

What lobbyists suggested: “Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the Republic of Kazakhstan for its potential to enhance our nationÕs energy independence and for its significant contributions in support of the United States in the War on Terror. I ask that my colleagues join me in recognizing the strategic importance of Kazakhstan to our nation’s well-being.

It is widely recognized that the United States relies greatly on imports of OPEC oil from the Middle East. This reliance is exacerbated by the present instability of that region. Our dependence upon this source of energy has constrained our foreign policy throughout the world and has threatened our security. Mr. President, if the United States is to become truly energy independent, it must seek non-OPEC alternatives for our supply of oil. Kazakhstan can -- and is willing to -- help greatly in this endeavor...”

What Rep. Barton entered into the Congressional Record:

“Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the Republic of Kazakhstan for its potential to enhance our nation’s energy independence and for its significant contributions in support of the United States in the War on Terror. I ask that my colleagues join me in recognizing the strategic importance of Kazakhstan to our nation’s well-being.

It is widely recognized that the United States relies greatly on imports of OPEC oil from the Middle East. This reliance is exacerbated by the present instability of that region. Mr. Speaker, if the United States is to become truly energy independent, it must seek non-OPEC alternatives for our supply of oil. Kazakhstan can -- and is willing to -- help greatly in this endeavor...”

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A Central Asian alternative

The U.S. search for oil outside the increasingly unstable Middle East has led to Kazakhstan, along with other countries of the Caspian Basin.

Kazakhstan (formerly a republic of the Soviet Union)

Capital: Astana (moved from Almaty in 1998) Area: 1,049,151 square miles Population: 16.8 million (July 2003 est.) Median age: 28.2 years Life expectancy at birth: 63.5 years

Ethnic groups: (1999 census) Kazakh 53.4% Russian 30.0% All others 16.6%

Religion: Muslim 47% Russian Orthodox 44% Protestant 2% Other 7%

Population below poverty line: 26% (2001 est.) Economic growth rate: 9.5% (2003 est.)

GDP composition by sector: Services 51% Industry 40% Agriculture 9%

Social measurements Corruption: Scores 2.4 on a scale of 0 (very corrupt) to 10 (clean) Human rights: “Poor” rating from the State Department Human development: Ranked 76th by the U.N. among 175 nations (1 is highest, 175 lowest)

Region’s potential The Caspian Basin’s proven reserves are small compared with those of major producers, but its estimated potential is large.

Proven reserves (Billions of barrels) Saudi Arabia 262 Canada 180 Iraq 113 Venezuela 77 United States 22 Kazakhstan 18

Estimated potential (Billions of barrels) Kazakhstan 101-110 Azerbaijan 39-44 Turkmenistan 39-40 Russia 7 Uzbekistan 2-3 Caspian total 188-204

Russian figures include only areas near the Caspian Sea

Sources: Energy Information Administration--”Caspian Sea Region: Key Oil and Gas Statistics,” August 2003; CIA World Fact Book; Transparency International; ESRI.

Graphics reporting by Mark Madden

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