The Crooks in the U.S. Army

Robert J. Stein

While the Republicans are complaining that we are wasting too much money on the economic stimulus package, more news is coming out about how billions of dollars were embezzled by our own U.S. military officers.

Why isn't House Republican Leader John Boehner screaming about how this money was wasted?  All the more reason to think the Republican stink over the recent bill is only partisan game playing.

--

A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff
Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq reconstruction billions

By Patrick Cockburn in Sulaimaniyah, Northern Iraq
Monday, 16 February 2009

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

"I believe the real looting of Iraq after the invasion was by US officials and contractors, and not by people from the slums of Baghdad," said one US businessman active in Iraq since 2003.

In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in "pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money. He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering....more

see "Former U.S. Official in Iraq to Plead Guilty to Corruption," New York Times, February 1, 2009

link to photo