Iraq fraud inquiry focuses on retired Army colonel [View All]

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators are searching for suspicious transactions in the personal bank records of a retired Army colonel who ran the contracting office in Baghdad during the early stages of Iraq's $125 billion reconstruction.

The focus on Anthony B. Bell opens a window into the scope of a long-running inquiry of fraud and corruption that's gathering steam even as U.S. forces are beginning to leave the country.

While contracting procedures and oversight in Iraq have improved dramatically in recent years, that hasn't slowed investigators trying to piece together the scale of corruption that undermined the largest nation-building effort in U.S. history.

Bell is suspected by investigators of being a key figure in a loosely connected network of U.S. officials who allegedly steered contracts to companies that paid them millions of dollars in return.



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