Iraq: Free-fraud zone?(what does it take for a contractor to get convicted)

[maddezmom]

The majority of recent headlines may not be especially encouraging, but at least one group has found plenty to celebrate in news about Iraq: war contractors. From the beginning, one of the distinguishing factors of this war has been the tremendous reliance on private contractors in everything from logistics to security to rebuilding efforts. And over four years, the allegations of waste, fraud and abuse by private contractors have been piling up.

The U.S. Army has opened 50 criminal investigations into contractors involved in operations in Iraq, Kuwait (a staging area for Iraq) and Afghanistan. Pertaining to Iraq alone, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction had, as of December 2006, 78 open investigations.

The good news for these contractors has come in the form of two court rulings, one from last year and the other delivered earlier this month.

Both rulings involved fraud cases against a U.S. firm called Custer Battles. Custer Battles' Web site carries the perhaps telling motto "Transforming Risk Into Opportunity" and summarizes the company's operations in Iraq as providing "security assistance, critical infrastructure and protection, and business facilitation."

~snip~

The bar for fraud seems to have been set mighty high for U.S. contractors operating in Iraq. One might ask just what it takes to get convicted of the offense. And one might further ask where the accountability is. Accountability for our tax dollars and for seized Iraq government assets, yes. But also -- and perhaps more importantly -- accountability for the reconstruction projects upon which Iraqi stability, and the ability of our men and women in uniform to return home, might well rest.



more: http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070302/FALLON04/703020404

earlier article:

Judge Clears Contractor of Fraud in Iraq
Custer Battles Handled Baghdad Airport Security

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page D01

A federal judge has dismissed a civil case against a military contractor accused of improperly billing Iraq reconstruction authorities for tens of millions of dollars worth of security services that it did not provide.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria said there was no evidence that Custer Battles, a firm started by Army veterans Scott Custer and Michael Battles, committed fraud under a $16.8 million contract to provide security at the Baghdad International Airport in 2003.


"It gives them the vindication they deserve," said Robert T. Rhoad, an attorney for Custer and Battles. "They've been fighting these legal battles for the last three years to try to clear their names from these irresponsible claims that have been made by their competitors."

The case is one of two brought against Custer Battles over its work in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion until a government was elected. A jury found the company, which had offices in Northern Virginia, liable for fraud in an earlier case, but Ellis dismissed that verdict. He ruled that it was improper to bring the charges up in U.S. court because the authority was not a U.S. entity.

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020801871.html

© February 20, 2007



A two-year investigation has finally begun to shed some light on the trail of taxpayer dollars that paid for Blackwater USA's famously ill-fated security mission in Fallujah, Iraq, in March 2004.

Blackwater's contract was less than a month old when four of its security operatives were ambushed and killed, some of their bodies mutilated and hung from a bridge in an incident that changed the course of the Iraq war.

Blackwater was at the bottom of a four-tiered chain of contractors. The Moyock, N.C.-based company says it billed the next company up the chain $2.3 million. At the top of the chain was KBR, a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton Co.



Now the Pentagon has calculated that by the time KBR got around to billing the government, the tab to the taxpayers for private security work had reached $19.6 million. The government is moving to take that money back, charging that it was improperly spent.




more:
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=119795&ran=143615&tref=y