Probe into Iraq contract fraud centers on Camp Arifjan

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Army Maj. John L. Cockerham, 41, a contracting and procurement officer assigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, is escorted to a van outside the federal courthouse July 25 in San Antonio. Cockerham, his wife and his sister were arrested as a result of an investigation into an Army contract-rigging and bribery case that was described by a federal official as the largest to emerge from the Iraq reconstruction effort.


Probe into Iraq contract fraud centers on Camp Arifjan
By Robert H. Reid - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Nov 24, 2007 7:21:22 EST

KUWAIT CITY — The flashy Laila Tower office building in this wealthy oil capital is a world away from the mean streets of Baghdad. But the U.S. government says they are linked by a web of fraud and bribery that stole millions of dollars provided by American taxpayers to support U.S. combat troops in Iraq.

The U.S. military and prosecutors have launched 83 criminal investigations into alleged contract fraud, including a total of $15 million in bribes.

It was the apparent suicide of an Army major in Baghdad a year ago that brought them to the 15th floor of the Laila Tower. There, overlooking the Persian Gulf, is the firm run by American George H. Lee and his family, a small part of that huge web.

None of the Lees has been charged with any crime. But the Army suspended them from doing business with the U.S. government, and a U.S. federal judge upheld the order in August, as a military investigation into their case continues.

The case of Lee, a 64-year-old former Army supply clerk, provides rare insight into how fraud was able to occur, in part by exploiting the chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It also shows the flaws in the U.S. system of bids between private contractors and the U.S. military officers who doled out billions of dollars in contracts since 2003, often with little oversight.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/ap_iraq_contractfraud_071123/