Inquiry on Graft in Iraq Focuses on U.S. Officers

[Joanne98]

By JAMES GLANZ, C.J. CHIVERS and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq have significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program, according to interviews with senior government officials and court documents.

Court records show that last month investigators subpoenaed the personal bank records of Col. Anthony B. Bell, who is now retired from the Army but who was in charge of reconstruction contracting in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 when the small operation grew into a frenzied attempt to remake the country’s broken infrastructure. In addition, investigators are examining the activities of Lt. Col. Ronald W. Hirtle of the Air Force, who was a senior contracting officer in Baghdad in 2004, according to two federal officials involved in the inquiry.

It is not clear what specific evidence exists against the two men, and both said they had nothing to hide from investigators. Yet officials say that several criminal cases over the past few years point to widespread corruption in the operation the men helped to run. As part of the inquiry, the authorities are taking a fresh look at information given to them by Dale C. Stoffel, an American arms dealer and contractor who was killed in Iraq in late 2004.

Before he was shot on a road north of Baghdad, Mr. Stoffel drew a portrait worthy of a pulp crime novel: tens of thousands of dollars stuffed into pizza boxes and delivered surreptitiously to the American contracting offices in Baghdad, and payoffs made in paper sacks that were scattered in “dead drops” around the Green Zone, the nerve center of the United States government’s presence in Iraq, two senior federal officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html?_r=1

[ShortnFiery]

1. Start investigating General "Peaches" Petaraeus.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/gen-petraeus-and-a-high_b_94458.html

Military ethicist indicted Gen. Petraeus in suicide note

New evidence has come to light about the suicide of Col. Ted Westhusing a military ethicist who committed suicide in Iraq in 2005, asserting that he would rather die than dishonor himself any further in a profit-driven war:

Now, a new article reveals -- based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act -- that Westhusing's apparent suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on "corruption, human right abuses and liars." One of those commanders: the new leader of the "surge" campaign in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

Robert Bryce of the Texas Observer obtained Westhusing's suicide note which reads:

Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. —You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff—no msn support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential—I don’t know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs . You are not what you think you are and I know it.

COL Ted Westhusing

Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.

Bryce confirms earlier reports Westhusing was particularly distraught by the corruption of the private military contractors.

[Joanne98]

2. Yes. He's a snake in the grass.

[Overseas]

3. K&R for the Bush Gang War Profiteering File. //nt