Pentagon’s Brinkley Plays Afghan Matchmaker for IBM, JPMorgan

The skyline of the city of Herat, in the westernmost corner of Afghanistan, is dominated by the Qala Ikhtyaruddin, a 700-year-old stone citadel. On a chilly December afternoon, as the sun begins to dip, the citadel’s grounds are largely unoccupied. The general public isn’t allowed in until renovations to the time-ravaged site are finished. Paid for in part by a $725,000 grant from the U.S. government, the project is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2011.

Paul A. Brinkley isn’t the general public. As a U.S. Defense Department deputy undersecretary, he moves freely behind the barricades, ushering a handful of American visitors, including Silicon Valley executives Atul Vashistha of Neo Group Inc. and Mike Faith of Headsets.com Inc., through dark corridors and up steep stairways to the highest reaches of the fortress, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Jan. 10 edition.