This page was updated/moved to Nov. 17 diary:
Philip Bloom Case: Iraq coalition-contractor conspiracy - v.2.0
Finally, one of their crimes are under the sun today.
Justice served by Patrick, but not by Fitzgerald. This time the revelation was brought by another Pat - Patrick McKenna Jr. - an investigator for the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq.
NBC: Massive bid-rigging scam alleged in Iraq
By Aram Roston / Producer, NBC News
WASHINGTON | NOV. 16 -- A criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Washington on Wednesday alleges a web of corruption and bid rigging in Iraq by officials who worked with the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led agency that ran Iraq for more than a year after the 2003 invasion.
The complaint accuses an American-Romanian businessman, Philip H. Bloom, of paying officials from the coalition's south-central region "bribes, kickbacks and gratuities, amounting to at least $200,000 per month," in order to obtain reconstruction contracts through a bid-rigging scam.
Continue to Nov. 17 diary: Philip Bloom Case: Iraq coalition-contractor conspiracy - v.2.0
According to the complaint,
Bloom "conspired with United States government contract employees and military officials to obtain fraudulently government contracts."
A government affidavit alleges that in one instance, the officials rigged bids for contracts in Hillah and Karbala, two cities 50 to 60 miles south of Baghdad. In some cases, Bloom's companies performed no work, Patrick McKenna Jr., an investigator for the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq, said in the affidavit.
NBC must be putting some 'really visible' weight on this news, since usually it's so rare to see the producer's name as its author.
The article describes a coalition official's involvement, and reveals who is this 'death merchant/war thieve':
One official said to admit involvement
Another coalition official, who worked with the first, has been cooperating with investigators and has admitted he "unlawfully received cash and goods" from Bloom, according to the complaint.
Bloom, according to the complaint, ran several companies in Iraq and Romania, including one called GBG Logistics.
According to a biography of Philip Bloom on the Web site of one of his companies, he is an "expatriate American with a war chest of experiences" operating a variety of firms overseas since the 1970s, including Haitian and Puerto Rican airlines. The biography says that "Bloom is possessed off an uncanny knack for finding business, almost psychic in nature."
GBG Logistics says on its Web site that it has worked on a variety of Iraq reconstruction projects. "As one of the first private firms to enter the Iraqi market in April 2003, GBG Logistics is primarily devoted to identifying and developing new business opportunities in the reconstruction effort," it says.
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The report takes us way back to the Bremer-era's coalition government:
There have been allegations and suspicions of corruption under the coalition government, which ran Iraq from just after the invasion in March 2003 until June 2004 and was headed by former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, and during the Iraq reconstruction process, but
this is the first criminal case to be brought in U.S. courts alleging wrongdoing by coalition officials.
Previously, the Hillah region came under scrutiny after the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction reported in an audit that $100 million in seized Iraqi funds could not be accounted for.
Although this was a relatively brief column, it's going to be a tipping point to reveal more of infamous bribes in Iraq. I'm expecting some Newsweek analysts can grab this issue and give us a whole picture with more details... at least the fundamental scheme: what they're reconstructing over there -- was not a new country, but the same rotten military-industry crime network.
Scored another big minus factor to the White House.
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LINK: IRAQ CONSPIRACY? MSNBC.com