Wanna know one more reason why so many Generals think Donald Rumbsfeld's departure is long overdue? Wanna know why Muslims in the Middle East and Iraqis in particular have come to distrust and despise the US Government? From
Today's WaPo:
Philip H. Bloom admitted his part in a scheme to give more than $2 million in cash and gifts to U.S. officials in exchange for their help in getting reconstruction contracts for his companies...
The court papers unsealed yesterday paint a picture of how Bloom, a businessman with operations in the United States and Romania, used gifts of cash, cars, plane tickets and jewelry to secure lucrative reconstruction contracts from December 2003 to December 2005. Bloom also supplied women to provide sexual favors at his Baghdad villa to the CPA officials who helped ensure that his companies won the contracts he wanted.
There are more indictments coming, and there's more below the fold...
Today's
WaPo reports on the guilty plea of Philip H. Bloom, who bribed his way to nearly $9 million in contracts with a 25% profit margin... with
our tax money.
How bad was the CPA under the inept leadership of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush? It was like a friggin' mafia-run whorehouse and casino:
E-mail exchanges between Bloom and his conspirators show that they had highly specific demands for what bribes they wanted. One official coveted a 2004 GMC Yukon sport-utility vehicle with all-wheel drive, a "Summit White" exterior and a "Sandstone Leather" interior. Another, the chief of staff, apparently instructed Bloom through an intermediary that he wanted an electric-blue Nissan 350Z hard-top convertible but that there were only two such cars in the western United States. "There is a car in California that has all these features, plus a satellite radio. Cost (including shipping to Salt Lake City): $35,990," the unidentified intermediary wrote to Bloom in a June 25, 2004, message.
Not only did Bloom admit to obtaining contracts by bribing offcials with some $2 million in cash, gifts and procured sex, he did so in partnership with Robert J. Stein, Jr. -- a convicted felon.
Yes, folks, you can't legally vote in parts of the US if you're a convicted felon, but you can get Iraq reconstruction contracts worth millions of taxpayer dollars...
Apart from all the sordid details (and you have to wonder if Bloom's whorehouse was inside the Green Zone) it's worth noting that there are several more indictments expected:
More arrests are likely. The documents unsealed yesterday refer to an unidentified co-conspirator who was chief of staff for the CPA office in Al-Hillah, which supervised the reconstruction of all of south-central Iraq.
Remember, this was going on when the pro-invasion, pro-Bush, McCarthyist hysteria was in full-throttle against any and every truth-teller... When all the facts finally come out, Americans are going to feel even more profoundly ripped-off and abused over Iraq than they are starting to feel now.