"DESVIOS" "DE MILES DE MILLONES DE DÓLARES",
DE LA AYUDA ESTADOUNIDENSE PARA LA
RECONSTRUCCIÓN DE IRAK".
(Página 2ª)
"ESTAS CORRUPCIONES, ESTÁN A LA ORDEN DEL DÍA, EN EL EJERCITO AMERICANO, EN EL ESPAÑOL, EN EL BRITÁNICO, Y EN EL RESTO DE PAISES".
"SE ENCUENTRAN EN LOS PARTIDOS POLÍTICOS, INSTITUCIONES GUBERNAMENTALES, AYUNTAMIENTOS, ASOSIACIONES, ONGS. DONDE HAY DINERO; NACE EL CORRUPTO".
"17.02.2009."The current focus on Colonel Bell is revealed in federal court papers filed in Georgia, where he has a residence and is trying to quash a subpoena of his bank records by the Special Inspector General. The papers, dated Jan. 27, indicate that Colonel Bell’s records were sought in connection with an investigation of bribery, kickbacks and fraud".
"Skip to next paragraph".
"Col. Anthony B. Bell".
Reach of WarGo to Complete Coverage"
"Colonel Bell said that he sought to quash the subpoena not because he had anything to hide, but because the document contained inaccuracies. "If they clean it up, I won’t have a problem", he said, suggesting that he would cooperate".
"He declined to detail the inaccuracies, although his handwritten notations on the court papers indicated that the home address and the bank account number on the subpoena were incorrect.
Asked whether he knew why the records had been subpoenaed, he said, “That is not for me to direct what they’re going to do".
"Another case that has raised investigators’ suspicions about top contracting officials involves a company, variously known as American Logistics Services and Lee Dynamics International, that repeatedly won construction contracts for millions of dollars despite a dismal track record".
"One contracting official, committed suicide in 2006, a day after admitting to investigators that she had taken $225,000 in bribes to rig bids in favor of the company. At least two other former contracting officials in Iraq have admitted to taking bribes in the case and are cooperating with investigators".
"It is unknown what information, they may have provided on Colonel Hirtle, a high-ranking contracting official in Baghdad. But Colonel Hirtle signed the company’s first major contract in Iraq in May 2004, a roughly $10 million deal to build arms warehouses for the fledgling Iraqi security forces, according to a copy of the contract and federal officials". The warehouses went largely unbuilt. Investigators said the inquiry into the Lee case was continuing".
"I can’t talk to any media right now, because I don’t know anything about this and I’ve got to do some research on it,” Colonel Hirtle said when reached by phone in California, before abruptly hanging up".
"The next day, Colonel Hirtle said he had been "taken aback" by questions about an investigation involving himself. “I try to keep things as transparent and aboveboard as I can,” he said, referring questions to an Air Force public affairs office".
"The Air Force referred questions to the "United States Army Criminal Investigation Command", where a spokesman, Christopher Grey, said the command "does not discuss or confirm the names of persons who may or may not be under investigation".
"An extraordinary element of the current investigation is a voice from beyond the grave: that of Mr. Stoffel, who died with a British associate, Joseph J. Wemple, in a burst of automatic gunfire on a dangerous highway north of Baghdad in December 2004 as he returned from a business meeting at a nearby military base".
"A previously unknown Iraqi group claimed responsibility for the killings, which remain unsolved. The men may simply have been unlucky enough to be engulfed in the violence that was then just beginning to grip the country".
"On May 20, 2004, a little more than a week after Colonel Hirtle signed the Lee company’s warehouse contract, Mr. Stoffel was granted limited immunity by the Special Inspector General for what amounted to a whistle-blower’s complaint. Copies of the immunity document were obtained from two former business associates of Mr. Stoffel".
"The picture of corruption Mr. Stoffel painted, including the clandestine delivery of bribes, was "like a classic New York scenario", said a former business associate".
"Fifty thousand dollars delivered in pizza boxes to secure contracts,” said the former associate, a consultant in the arms business with whom Mr. Stoffel sometimes worked in the former Eastern bloc. "Of course, it just looked like a pizza delivery".
"It was Mr. Stoffel’s experience with Eastern bloc weaponry that helped him win a contract to refurbish Iraq’s Soviet-era tanks as part of a program to rebuild Iraq’s armed forces. Mr. Stoffel’s company remains locked in a dispute over payments it says are owed by the Iraqi government".
"His problems with American officials were what led him to make the accusations of corruption. Mr. Stoffel, the associate said, “was trying to do this as quietly as possible, to blow the whistle.”
“He knew enough about what was going on, and he was getting pretty frustrated".
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