Former U.S. official admits to kickbacks in Iraq (your tax dollars stolen)

[FormerRepublican]

"WASHINGTON - A former U.S. occupation official in Iraq pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to steal more than $2 million and rigging bids on $8.6 million in reconstruction contracts.

Robert J. Stein, 50, of Fayetteville, N.C., admitted that he and his coconspirators smuggled millions of dollars out of Iraq into the United States aboard commercial airliners and laundered cash through multiple bank accounts in Switzerland, Amsterdam and Romania.

Stein was a Defense Department employee who served as a contract official for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, controlling more than $82 million in funds slated for rebuilding the Middle Eastern country.

He told U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that he also stole $600,000 in cash and used coalition money to buy dozens of machine guns and other weapons for use by a private security company he and his coconspirators had formed to operate in Iraq."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11148258/

[Mark5]

1. oops

yet I am not surprised.

[electropop]

2. And he got away with it for so long because...

his bosses were doing it too? Or they just weren't looking?