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John Shaw, a senior Defense Department official in charge of international telecommunications security, is apparently the target of the investigation, the Anchorage Daily News reported Saturday.

The $70 million contract, awarded to a consortium headed by NANA Pacific, was to provide transportation and telecommunications services in Iraq. The contract included building a first-responder network to link police, fire, ambulance and other emergency officials.

Shaw allegedly pressured contracting officers with the U.S-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad to expand the scope of the $70 million contract.

The Los Angeles Times reported on the investigation last week.

NANA Pacific is a subsidiary of NANA Regional Corp. of Kotzebue, representing shareholders with ancestral ties to the Northwest Arctic.

NANA Pacific got started in 2001 to provide construction services.

Because NANA Pacific is Native-owned, it can receive sole-source federal contracts under a Small Business Administration program that allows for preferential treatment.

Since receiving the contract, NANA Pacific and its partners - including telecom giants Lucent and Qualcomm - have started dredging a deep-water port in the Iraqi city of Umm al Qasr.

Plans to start building the emergency communications network have been put on hold.

Shaw reportedly tried to expand the NANA Pacific contract to include building a commercial cellular telephone network throughout Iraq, a project that could net hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Reiser acknowledged that NANA Pacific's contract proposal included the option of building a commercial cellular network. The proposal was written that way because that's what the Pentagon wanted, she said.