Former executives of Custer Battles -- an American firm accused of stealing millions from Iraq reconstruction projects and banned from further government contracts -- have continued doing contracting work and have formed new companies to bid on such projects, The Associated Press has learned.
The politically-connected parasites at Custer Battles, not happy enough to have so far escaped fraud convictions over Iraq contract wrong-doings, are at it again. They have 'founded' new puppet contracting firms, boldly located in Custer Battles own offices in their industrial space in Rhode Island and going for the big government bucks again. AFTER being banned by the military and federal government.
The skinny on the skinning
On the day that 1,700 soldiers are officially declared killed in Iraq since the invasion, and after several days of mercenary complaints that they were abused after being detained by the US Marines that they fired on, this is just more acid into an already raw wound. These people were banned for some fraud that a member of the mafia could only dream about scoring.
Custer Battles employees have also been accused of firing on unarmed Iraqi civilians, of using fake offshore companies to pad invoices by as much as 400 percent, and of using forgery and fraud to bilk the American government. Two former associates have filed a federal whistle-blower suit, accusing top managers of swindling at least $50 million.
There needs to be Congressional investigation about this kind of abuse of position, power, and inside the beltway connections.
"They're like mushrooms, they just keep sprouting up," said Franklin Willis, a former CPA official and Reagan administration member who testified in Washington that Custer Battles had defied government control and did what it wanted in Iraq.
"They are extremely clever. They are extremely brazen. They've never let truth get in the way of their economic ambitions."
After Kos's diary about the group that mixed it up with the Marines... I see that this nightmare needs to come to a very open and public head sooner rather than later.