Iraq is Center of Military Covert Oil Overt Business in this decade

‹ Millions More For Drone Contractor Implicated In Corruption — Profit Opportunities, Even After Nuclear Holocaust › 01.SEP.2010 IRAQ: COMBAT TROOPS OUT, “SECURITY ESCORT TEAMS” IN NEWS, ORIGINAL REPORTING | BY COREY PEIN Welcome, followers of Tim Shorrock, Joshua Foust, Josh Mull, Gregory Foster and others who’ve graciously mentioned this site on Twitter. Posting will be a bit light for the next two weeks; until I leave my full-time job, I owe it my attention. Those who’ve followed the news from Iraq closely know Obama’s big speech last night on the end of “combat operations” was a “meaningless milestone,” and that regular US forces in Iraq will be more or less replaced by private military contractors. In fact, only hours before Obama glossed over that fact, by way of mentioning the US “transitional force” that will remain in Iraq, the US Army was updating a solicitation for Iraq “Reconstruction Security Support Services.” The chosen companies will “continuously gather, interpret, and expeditiously apply information on the security situation throughout Iraq,” as well as supplying guards and “Security Escort Teams.” Those teams differ from combat forces in that—well, they’re probably better-paid. Here’s a list of 77 interested bidders on that particular not-at-all-combat-related contract. Some of the interested companies are more well-known than others. I’ll flesh out the corporate ownership information ASAP—keep checking back here. (blank) (blank) MATRIX USA SECURITY 927 NOBLE AVE COOS BAY OR 974203128 USA Allen Dale JANUS SECURITY IRAQ LTD (JSI) building 9, street 10, area 609, Baghdad, Iraq Baghdad 1 area 609 IQ Anduha Michael TW & COMPANY, INC. 4355 NICOLE DR LANHAM MD 207064349 USA Avery Cecil SECURITY MANAGEMENT AND INTEGRATION COMPANY, INC 1423 EAST 29TH ST TACOMA WA 984044008 USA Barker William APOLLONIA BUSINESS SOLUTIONS, LLC 2011 CRYSTAL DR STE 400 ARLINGTON VA 222022112 USA Bass Robert ROBERT CURTIS BASS 2705 SOMBROSA ST CARLSBAD CA 920099153 USA Biddle Sara INDEPENDENT POWER SYSTEMS, INC. 810 N WALLACE AVE UNIT A BOZEMAN MT 597153020 USA Bland James SEVEN 7 AGENTS CONSULTING GROUP, LLC 4649 NANNIE HELEN BURROUGHS AVE NE STE 201 WASHINGTON DC 200193662 USA Booth Daniel GDM DEFENSE GROUP, INC 280 LUCKEY RD LYTLE TX 780523617 USA Burke Michael 1FORCE GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS, LLC 5825 GLENRIDGE DR NE STE 4-101 ATLANTA GA 303285544 USA Celentano Michael MCNEIL TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 6564 LOISDALE CT STE 900 SPRINGFIELD VA 221501822 USA Cox Peder ECOLOG INC. 2011 CRYSTAL DR STE 400 ARLINGTON VA 222023709 USA Creighton Creighton SENTINEL INTERNATIONAL PTY LTD PO Box 4251 Kirwan 1 4817 AU Davis Dave INTEGRATED SYSTEMS IMPROVEMENT SERVICES, INC. 4116 AVENIDA COCHISE STE Q SIERRA VISTA AZ 856355841 USA DiMuzio Melissa CAROLINA LINKAGES, INC 3 BROAD ST STE 450 CHARLESTON SC 294013011 USA DiPofi Pasquale NORTHBRIDGE SERVICES GROUP 3070 Lake Crest Circle #400-323 Lexington KY 40513 US Dorsey Joe CAROLINA LINKAGES, INC 3 BROAD ST STE 450 CHARLESTON SC 294013011 USA Dublin C. B H DEFENSE LLC 2300 9TH ST S STE 503 ARLINGTON VA 222042320 USA Eidan Hanan AL DALHAM CO. COB Basrah Basrah 1 09374 IQ Falisi Ross VERTUS, INC. 240A SW 8TH ST OCALA FL 344710977 USA Farrell Greg LACONIA GROUP, INC., THE 12323 ROCHESTER DR FAIRFAX VA 220306324 USA Finn Thomas FINNERA, INC. 518 S RTE 31 STE 120 MCHENRY IL 600507464 USA Friend Roscoe ERINYS IRAQ LTD BIAP FREEZONE BAGHDAD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT BAGHDAD IRQ frier kevin OPS PROTECTION SERVICE, LLC 42681 LONDON DR PARKER CO 801384720 USA Graziano Gregory CONTRACT MANAGEMENT AND GENERAL CONSTRUCTION SERVICES 13 CIRCLE DR RIVERHEAD NY 119016000 USA Greany Thomas CAVAN INSURANCE GROUP, LLC 9C PARK PLACE PRINCETON NJ 085426918 USA Gunderson Clay D & G INTERNATIONAL, LLC 23896 HIDDEN VALLEY TRAIL RAPID CITY SD 577027323 USA Hardy Delroy BLACK WIND PROTECTION SERVICE INC. 5607 OLD BOYCE RD BOYCE LA 714099202 USA Harmon Gary VALOR CONCEPTS, LLC 7951 MONUMENT LN STE 101 RALEIGH NC 276153271 USA Harrison Tom AECOM GOVERNMENT SERVICES, INC. 1200 SUMMIT AVE STE 320 FORT WORTH TX 761024406 USA Hecker C. KINGFISHER SYSTEMS, INC. 1600 N BEAUREGARD ST STE 300 ALEXANDRIA VA 223111732 USA hasan ahmed ADRAG ALRUKI almansoor ramadan 14 street baghdad 1 none IL Hernandez Susie TACTICAL TRAINING SPECIALISTS LLC 9975 WADSWORTH PKWY 253 WESTMINSTER CO 800214296 USA Howell Jimmie SECURITY CONCEPTS AND PLANNING, LLC 4286 MOONFLOWER LN POLLOCK PINES CA 957269499 USA Hughes Carl M & E GROUP LTD BUILDING 27A STOURBRIDGE WE DY7 5DY GBR Hungerford Kathleen INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE CORPORATION 15830 FOLTZ PKWY STRONGSVILLE OH 441494745 USA Jackson Reginald WOLFPACK SECURITY, INC. 9699 EXCHANGE ST FISHERS IN 460388787 USA Johnson Byron EROTSER GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS (EGS) L.L.C. 1459 MONTCLAIR CT SMYRNA GA 300806100 USA Jones Charlie I.T. OUTSOURCING, LLC 29700 NW OLSON RD GASTON OR 971198225 USA Kay John CARAVAN LOGISTICS O O D BLVD RAKOVSKI 20B SOFIA 1202 BGR Keller Marshall FWG GROUP 9600 ALICE LN WINNEMUCCA NV 894459444 USA Knight Alissa BRIER & THORN, LLC 1600 TYSONS BLVD FL 8 MCLEAN VA 221024872 USA Ludwig Steve DXB INTERNATIONAL GRAND HAMED AVENUE DOHA QAT Lumley Sean AEGIS DEFENCE SERVICES LTD 39 VICTORIA ST LONDON SW1H 0EU GBR Marchegiano Thomas GLOBAL STRATEGIES GROUP (INTEGRATED SECURITY), INC. 1501 FARM CREDIT DR STE 2400 MC LEAN VA 221025000 USA Martherus Jayson ADVANCED SECURITY CONCEPTS CORPORATION 16027 VENTURA BLVD STE 601 ENCINO CA 914362728 USA Mayo Joe EVERGREEN INTERNATIONAL AVIATION, INC 3850 NE THREE MILE LN MCMINNVILLE OR 971289402 USA Morin Chris ORION MANAGEMENT, LLC 8003 FORBES PL STE 100 SPRINGFIELD VA 221512215 USA Michael J. PROPOSAL WAREHOUSE LLC 720 Lovejoy Rd. Fort Walton Beach FL 32548 US Murray Edwin CONTRACT CONSULTING SERVICES 24479 REED CT RIDGELY MD 216601756 USA NIGHTRAVEN JOHN NIGHTRAVEN USA 10764 W MTN VW DR AVONDALE AZ 853231153 USA Nkomo T. ACEGUARD, INC. 45510 SEVERN WAY STERLING VA 201668942 USA Ochoa Cecilia A1 PROTECTIVE SERVICES, INC 1846 SAN JOSE AVE SAN FRANCISCO CA 941122454 USA OConnell Michael RONCO CONSULTING CORPORATION 2300 N ST NW STE 2100 WASHINGTON DC 200011220 USA Oliver Jeremy JEREMY OLIVER ACKERSTR. 28 VILSECK BA 92249 DEU Owens David OWENS-COFFIELD CONSULTING LLC 3520 HILLTOP DR AUGUSTA GA 309065732 USA Reilly Stephen ERSM (GUERNSEY) LTD SUITE 402, SABA TOWER 1 JUMEIRAH LAKE TOWERS, PO BOX DUBAI ARE Rostad William NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR THE TRAINING OF ADVANCED RESPONDERS 22025 RATTAN DR WAYNESVILLE MO 655838319 USA Rousseau Alan R&P EXECUTIVE SERVICES 5 N 3RD ST. STE 2010 MEMPHIS TN 381032691 USA ROWDON PJ ONS21 SECURITY SERVICES 306 ERWIN EDGEWOOD TX 751173339 USA Scheel Win SALLYPORT GLOBAL SERVICES LTD CLARENDON HOUSE, 2 CHURCH STREET HAMILTON BMU Shinn Michael PROMETHEUS GLOBAL CORPORATION 14121 PARKE LONG CT # 220 CHANTILLY VA 201511647 USA Skar Gil SOUTHEASTERN PROTECTIVE SERVICES INC 4360 OLD YORK RD ROCK HILL SC 297328124 USA Smith Neil RISK RECOVERY 21550 PROVINCIAL BLVD # 109 KATY TX 774506094 USA Solan Jolene TIGERSWAN INC. 3452 APEX PEAKWAY APEX NC 275025756 USA Soudyn-Rodriguez Jacqueline SPECTER CORPS SOLUTIONS INC. 220 ORANGE AVE STE 105 CORONADO CA 921181439 USA Spencer Michael TAPESTRY SOLUTIONS, INC. 5643 COPLEY DR SAN DIEGO CA 921117903 USA Suria Algene OLIVE GROUP FZ-LLC 22ND FLOOR AL THURAYA 1, DUBAI MEDIA CITY DUBAI ARE Tresky William GCH SERVICES, LLC 6801 N GLEN HARBOR BLVD STE 205 GLENDALE AZ 853073700 USA Turi Marc TURI DEFENSE GROUP, INC. 7251 W LAKE MEAD BLVD STE 300 LAS VEGAS NV 891288380 USA Warren Jonathan DARKHORSE 1155 N BRAGG BLVD SPRING LAKE NC 283903116 USA Weldon Samuel GLOBAL SECURITY AND SURVEILLANCE ROUTE 1 BOX 81 F WEOGUFKA AL 351839728 USA Wiggins Alex SITREP GLOBAL SECURITY CONSULTANTS 34339 WOODSHIRE DR WINCHESTER CA 925968302 USA Williams Cecilia CONSEQUENCE MANAGEMENT, INC 3771 GLEBE MEADOW WAY EDGEWATER MD 210371961 USA Williams Darrell COMMUNITY CARDIO 3926 GAITHERSBURG LN HOPE MILLS NC 283482092 USA Winkler Gary LINC GOVERNMENT SERVICES, LLC 101 WALTON WAY HOPKINSVILLE KY 422404929 USA Wood Jim BLACK DIAMOND SECURITY GROUP, LTD. 1515 MONROE ST WAYNESBORO VA 229802421 USA =============== You are here: Home » Oil » Production & Exports » New Iraq oil exports by Jan. 31 New Iraq oil exports by Jan. 31 Iraqi Oil Minister Abdul Karim al-Luaibi holds a jar of crude from the newly discovered Dima oil field in Missan province during a press conference Jan. 18, 2012, at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad. (BEN LANDO/Iraq Oil Report) By BEN LANDO AND STAFF of Iraq Oil Report Published January 19, 2012 Tankers will start loading crude from new export terminals by Jan. 31, marking the completion of the first phase of a southern oil export expansion project. "This is the most important project to be implemented in Iraq – not only in the oil sector but all of Iraq," said Oil Minister Abdul Karim al-Luaibi at a press conference Wednesday. When all of its stages are complete, the multi-billion dollar project will add 5 million barrels per day (bpd) of export capacity through the Arabian ... ================

New report slams US reconstruction of Iraq

By JAMES GLANZ, C.J. CHIVERS and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: February 14, 2009

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(A writ requiring appearance in court to give testimony.) 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.

Mr. Stoffel, who gave investigators information about the office where Colonel Bell and Colonel Hirtle worked, was deemed credible enough that he was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for his information, according to government documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with officials and Mr. Stoffel’s lawyer, John H. Quinn Jr. There is no evidence that his death was related to his allegations of corruption.

Prosecutors have won 35 convictions on cases related to reconstruction in Iraq, yet most of them involved private contractors or midlevel officials. The current inquiry is aiming at higher-level officials, according to investigators involved in the case, and is also trying to determine if there are connections between those officials and figures in the other cases. Although Colonel Bell and Colonel Hirtle were military officers, they worked in a civilian contracting office.

“These long-running investigations continue to mature and expand, embracing a wider array of potential suspects,” a federal investigator said.

The reconstruction effort, intended to improve services and convince Iraqis of American good will, largely managed to do neither. The wider investigation raises the question of whether American corruption was a primary factor in damaging an effort whose failures have been ascribed to poor planning and unforeseen violence.

The investigations, which are being conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Justice Department, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command and other federal agencies, cover a period when millions of dollars in cash, often in stacks of shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills, were dispensed from a loosely guarded safe in the basement of one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces.

Former American officials describe payments to local contractors from huge sums of cash dumped onto tables and stuffed into sacks as if it were Halloween candy.

“You had no oversight, chaos and breathtaking sums of money,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who helped create the Wartime Contracting Commission, an oversight board. “And over all of that was the notion that failure was O.K. It doesn’t get any better for criminals than that set of circumstances.”


In one case of graft from that period, Maj. John L. Cockerham of the Army pleaded guilty to accepting nearly $10 million in bribes as a contracting officer for the Iraq war and other military efforts from 2004 to 2007, when he was arrested. Major Cockerham’s wife has also pleaded guilty, as have several other contracting officers.

In Major Cockerham’s private notebooks, Colonel Bell is identified as a possible recipient of an enormous bribe as recently as 2006, the two senior federal officials said. It is unclear whether the bribe was actually offered or paid.

When asked if Major Cockerham had ever offered him a bribe, Colonel Bell said in a telephone interview, “I think we’ll end the discussion,” but stayed on the line. Colonel Bell’s response was equally terse when asked if he thought that Colonel Hirtle had carried out his duties properly: “No discussion on that at this time.”

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.

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.”

Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt from Washington, David Beasley from Atlanta, Margot Williams from New York, and Riyadh Mohammed from Baghdad.
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New report slams US reconstruction of Iraq

-NY Times
14 Dec 2008 01:41:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
NEW YORK, Dec 13 (Reuters) - An unpublished federal draft report depicts the U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq as a $100 billion failure doomed by bureaucratic infighting, ignorance of basic elements of Iraqi society and waves of violence there, The New York Times reported in its Sunday editions.

The Pentagon issued inflated progress reports to cover up the reconstruction's failure once the effort began to lag, according to the Times, which received copies of the document from two people who had read the draft but were not authorized to comment publicly about it.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is cited as saying, for example, that in the months after the 2003 invasion the Defense Department "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces -- the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'"

Powell's contention was supported by both the former ground troops commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and L. Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator before the Iraqi government takeover in June 2004. Powell declined to comment on his quoted remarks, the Times said.

The report, "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, led by Stuart Bowen Jr., a Republican lawyer who visits Iraq often and maintains a staff of engineers and auditors there, the newspaper said.

It was based on some 500 interviews and more than 600 audits, inspections and investigations on which Bowen's office has reported for years.

Bowen's deputy, Ginger Cruz, declined to comment to the newspaper on the substance of the history, but said it would be presented on Feb. 2 at the first hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, created by Democrat-sponsored legislation.

Among the draft report's conclusions is that some five years after its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan following World War II, the U.S. government still does not have the policies, technical capacity or organizational structure needed for a project even approaching this one's scale, the newspaper said.

It found that the reconstruction effort did little more than restore what had been destroyed during the U.S. invasion and subsequent looting. And it concluded the effort had failed in part because no single agency in the U.S. government had primary responsibility for the job.

Partisan politics also figured in, as when a Republican lobbyist working for the U.S. occupation authority implored the Office of Management and Budget to fund $20 billion in new reconstruction money in August 2003.

"To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the President," wrote the lobbyist, Tom Korologos. "His election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt," the draft quoted Korologos as saying.

The Bush administration supported the request and Congress allocated the money later that year. (Writing by Christopher Michaud; editing by Todd Eastham)

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Iraq Auditor Warns of Waste, Fraud In Afghanistan

By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, February 2, 2009; Page A06

After five years of investigations and 250,000 pages of audits, Stuart W. Bowen Jr. wishes he could say that the $50 billion cost of the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq was money accounted for and well spent.

"But that's just not happened," Bowen said.

Instead, the largest single-country relief and reconstruction project in U.S. history -- most of it done by private U.S. contractors -- was full of wasted funds, fraud and a lack of accountability under what Bowen, the congressionally mandated special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, calls an "ad hoc-racy" of lax or nonexistent government planning and supervision.

And despite the Iraq experience, he said, the United States is making many of the same mistakes again in Afghanistan, where U.S. reconstruction expenditures stand at more than $30 billion and counting.

"It's too late to do the structural part and make it quickly applicable to Afghanistan," Bowen said in an interview last week. None of the substantive changes in oversight, contracting and reconstruction planning or personnel assignments that Congress, auditors and outside experts proposed as the Iraq debacle unfolded has been implemented in Afghanistan.

But President Obama could take several steps to mitigate future damage, Bowen said. They include devoting more attention to military and civilian personnel and to reconstruction and relief assignments, and taking advantage of the expertise developed through hard-won experience in Iraq. Instead of the "multiple versions" of the federal acquisition regulations adopted and amended by "multiple agencies" operating in Iraq, Obama "could just issue a FAR regulation applicable to Afghanistan that everyone will follow" in issuing and supervising contracts, he said.

"To bring this all together," Bowen said, "the president should order a Red Cell," a high-level group drawing from the departments of State and Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development that would turn Obama's orders into action.

Bowen's office, known as SIGIR, is releasing a book today that recounts the Iraq experience and suggests how to avoid future mistakes. "Hard Lessons" is being published as the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting holds its first public hearing. Created by Congress last year, the commission will examine expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan and propose solutions for "systemic" problems that waste taxpayer dollars.
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Legislation to create the commission was introduced by Democratic Sens. James Webb (Va.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and was inspired by the "Truman Committee," which conducted hundreds of hearings and investigations into government waste during and after World War II.

"Hard Lessons," a draft of which was leaked to the news media in December, concludes that the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq was a failure, largely because there was no overall strategy behind it. Goals shifted from "liberation" and an early military exit to massive, ill-conceived and expensive building projects under the Coalition Provisional Authority of 2003 and 2004. Many of those projects -- over budget, poorly executed or, often, barely begun -- were abandoned as security worsened.

In a preface to the 456-page book, Bowen writes that he knew the reconstruction was in trouble when he first visited Iraq in January 2004 and saw duffel bags full of cash being carried out of the Republican Palace, which housed the U.S. occupation government.

Security was a constant problem, not only for military and civilian officials serving in Iraq but also for SIGIR. Auditor Paul Converse was killed in March during a rocket attack in Baghdad, following a year in which five other SIGIR employees were wounded.

The book recounts, in colorful detail based on SIGIR interviews with nearly all the principals, the deep divisions during the same period between the Pentagon, under Donald H. Rumsfeld; the State Department under Colin L. Powell; and the White House office of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage recounts an argument between Rumsfeld and Rice in the fall of 2003 during which each said the other was in charge of supervising the Coalition Provisional Authority.

The book also includes numerous demonstrations of the Bush administration's lack of preparation to run Iraq after the March 2003 invasion. In one previously publicized case recounted in "Hard Lessons," Bowen's auditors discovered a cash disbursement of $57.8 million by the CPA to the U.S. comptroller for south-central Iraq. "Pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" were removed from the CPA vault in Baghdad and driven to the regional office in two unarmored SUVs. There, the local acting comptroller, Robert J. Stein Jr., who later was convicted for money laundering and fraud, had himself photographed with mountains of cash.

Overall, SIGIR and other law enforcement agencies have obtained 35 convictions, including two major bribery schemes involving $14 million solicited by U.S. military officers who ran Kuwait-based units contracting for the billions of dollars in supplies sent to Iraq.

SIGIR also reported on the inability of Iraqi firms to compete with U.S. contractors, due in part to the complicated U.S. bidding system: "Online contracting, which frequently entailed bids of more than a hundred pages, bewildered Iraqi contractors who were used to sealing a business deal with just a handshake."

When he took the job five years ago, Bowen said,

"I didn't know that we didn't have a system to protect our interests abroad in post-conflict or contingency operations. . . . It would have been a much funner job to issue 250 reports on how well our rebuilding program went . . . and that the money was well accounted for and that we're leaving Iraq a peaceful and democratic place and nonviolent country."

Given that $4 billion in appropriated U.S. reconstruction funds remain unspent in Iraq, Bowen's work is not likely to end anytime soon.


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Is America ripe for Hitler Mark II?

The answer to some; is impossible to happen, since we are living in a different time and people have learned not to fall in the trap of right-wing extremists. But many aspects of present conditions on the American ground may be somewhat similar to those of Germany in 1932.

To start with there is a high unemployment. There are many heavily-armed and angry right extremist groups. The nation to large extent is made of God-fearing political Zombies. What is needed is a charismatic leader who can formulate a political platform concentrating on blaming the Jews for the current economic meltdown and the niggers for sabotaging the 'American Century', undermining the Whitehouse and Washington traditions. Most of Churches with White Anglo Saxon Protestant members will support this plan as a divine salvation. Organisations like Black water can be asked to recruit, train and arm thousands, especially white veterans from the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. Certain TV stations like Fox news will not be reluctant to support the plan. The so-called American intelligentsia can swallow their words the way the German intellectuals ended up rotting in concentration camps. If there is one country where it is possible for another Hitler to emerge, it is in the United States of America.
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times