A former contract official for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq has pled guilty to conspiracy to steal over $2M and award contracts to a particular businessman in exchange for $1M in cash and goods.
If you're gonna take kickbacks...
Stein, who has an earlier federal fraud conviction, used the money he stole or was paid by Bloom to buy a single-engine Cessna airplane, a top-of-the-line Porsche and other cars, grenade launchers, machine guns, diamond rings and other jewelry, and property in North Carolina, he said in his signed statement.
Now that's eclectic taste! Machine guns? Grenade launchers?
Stein said he helped steer more than $8.6 million in contracts to companies controlled by Bloom, a U.S. citizen who has lived in Romania for many years. The contracts were for less than $500,000 each, the limit of Stein's authority as the top contracting official in Hillah, 50 miles south of Baghdad.[snip]
The statement includes frank e-mails between Stein and Bloom about payments and phony bids for contracts. "I love to give you money," Stein wrote after approving a $200,000 contract for the police academy in January 2004.
If there were any honest Republican Congresspeople (yes, yes, an oxymoron, I know) there'd be a special prosecutor looking into war profiteering in Iraq.
Posted by Linkmeister at February 2, 2006 11:51 AM | TrackBack