New Details on Largest Single Iraq War Bribery Case Yet

The New York Times has a front page story that both humanizes an Army officer "accused of orchestrating the largest single bribery scheme against the military since the start of the Iraq war" and takes you through some of the institutional breakdowns that make corruption in defense contracting more likely.  The systemic weaknesses detailed in the article were:

• "Military officials said a major assigned to award such large contracts for the Army Contracting Agency should have at least 10 years of experience in 'broad acquisition,' a minimum of four years of direct contracting experience and annual ethics training. But the procurement workload from the Iraq war grew so big so fast that the Pentagon was forced to rush people with virtually no training or experience into some of its most complicated contracting jobs, Army officials said."
• "Oversight was virtually nonexistent by design. There were no auditors at Camp Arifjan, and contracts worth more than $500,000 were the only ones requiring review in Washington. Most contracts were written for about $100,000. It was also common for contracting officers to use 'blanket purchase agreements,' allowing them to open a line of credit with a company with little more than a promissory note, much like a customer at a small-town grocery store."
• "Ideally, Army officials said, the purchasing cycle would be divided among at least three contracting officers. One would take an order for supplies from a unit commander and seek bids from companies to fill the order. Another would award the contract, and a third would oversee delivery of the goods. That system, officials said, would allow each contracting officer to serve as a check on the others."
• "At Camp Arifjan, a single contracting officer handled all three parts of the process, giving the officers broad discretion and creating opportunities for unit commanders to join conspiracies by inflating their troops’ needs. What resulted, said Mr. Young, the Army Contracting Agency director, was 'a web of deceit.'"

In a sidebar, the story also tallies up charges filed against 29 people for corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I've posted the NYT sidebar image here, then, according to its tally, quickly downloaded some (not all) of the original indictments/complaints/information in each of the cases from PACER and posted them below, roughly in the order they're listed in the sidebar image.

• Criminal complaint (pdf) as to Maj. John Lee Cockerham;
• Indictment (pdf) of Col. Curtis G. Whiteford, Lt. Col. Debra M. Harrison, Lt. Col. Michael B. Wheeler, William Driver and Seymour Morris, Jr. (Phillip Bloom, Lt. Col. Bruce D. Hopfengardner (information (pdf)), Robert H. Stein are listed as co-conspirators);
• Criminal complaint (pdf) as to Gheevarghese Pappen;
• Information (pdf) on Chief Warrant Officer Peleti Peleti Jr.;
• Indictment (pdf) of Bonnie Murphy;
• Information (pdf) on Samir Mahmoud;
• Indictment (pdf) of Jeff Alex Mazon and Ali Hijazi;
• Information (pdf) on Glenn Allen Powell;
• Criminal complaint (pdf) as to Faheem Mousa Abdel Salam;
• Criminal complaint as to Mohammad Shabbir Khan (pdf) and Zubair Khan (pdf) and information on Stephen L. Seamans (pdf);
• Indictment (pdf) of Jesse D. Lane Jr.;
• Information (pdf) on Christopher J. Cahill.

-- Nick Schwellenbach

Comments

[Connie the Contractor]

The excuse that these contracting officers didn’t have adequate “training and experience” necessary to do their jobs is really outrageous. This is the tired old line that is being used by so-called “acquisition reformers” to excuse or explain away screw-ups. Pardon me, since when does one have to be trained and/or have “adequate experience” to learn not to solicit bribes, commit fraud and/or engage in other obvious criminal behavior? The “lack of training and experience” excuse doesn’t wash any longer. The root cause of these problems is a lax contracting system that practically invites fraud. The architect of the current acquisition reform mess, Harvard professor and oft-times contractor lobbyist Steven Kelman even had the nerve to pen an op-ed piece for the Washington Post entitled “No Cronyism in Iraq”:

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2003/kelman_cronyism_iraq_wp_11003.htm

Whatever you say, Steve.

Connie

[Bondo]

Looks like Operation Ill Wind II or better yet Iraqi Wind is in action. Plenty of press about arresting small fish and smal dollars. Every bandito is a rogue employee but never a rogue company/coporartion. Lots of audit reports on wasted dollars but no fines or refunds for the contractors. Same old scam with changes to the FAR to stop the fraud but it's the same broken record/CD/DVD.