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tequila
08-28-2007, 08:03 AM
Iraq Weapons Are a Focus of Criminal Investigations (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/world/middleeast/28military.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print) - NYTIMES, 28 Aug.


Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here.

The inquiry has already led to several indictments of Americans, with more expected, the officials said. One of the investigations involves a senior American officer who worked closely with Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per) in setting up the logistics operation to supply the Iraqi forces when General Petraeus was in charge of training and equipping those forces in 2004 and 2005, American officials said Monday ...

Stan
08-28-2007, 08:46 AM
Russia's News and Information Agency RIA (http://en.rian.ru/world/20070827/75130368.html) reports


TEHRAN, August 27 - A Russian found transporting explosives was detained in southeast Afghanistan near the Pakistani border on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack, according to the official news agency of neighboring Iran, IRNA.

The agency said police in Afghanistan's Paktia province arrested three men - a Russian and two Afghans - all disguised in Hijab, Islamic women's clothing. Officers searched their car, and found about 500 kg of explosives.

The Russian said he entered Afghanistan through the border with Pakistan, where he had traveled via Egypt, Turkey and Iran, and planned to return to Russia through Tajikistan.

The agency gave only the suspect's first name, Andrei, and said he was a Muslim.

tequila
08-30-2007, 08:59 AM
U.S. Weapons, Given to Iraqis, Move to Turkey (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/washington/30contract.html?hp)- NYTIMES, 30 Aug.


Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_m_gates/index.html?inline=nyt-per) that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department’s inspector general to Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) next week to investigate the problem, the officials said.

Pentagon officials said they did not yet have evidence that Iraqi security forces or Kurdish officials were selling or giving the weapons to Kurdish separatists, as Turkish officials have contended ...

tequila
08-31-2007, 08:08 AM
U.S. says company bribed officers for work in Iraq (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/washington/31contract.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print)- NYTIMES, 31 Aug.


An American-owned company operating from Kuwait paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to American contracting officers in efforts to win more than $11 million in contracts, the government says in court documents.

The Army last month suspended the company, Lee Dynamics International, from doing business with the government, and the case now appears to be at the center of a contracting fraud scandal that prompted Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_m_gates/index.html?inline=nyt-per) to dispatch the Pentagon inspector general to Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) to investigate.
Court documents filed in the case say the Army took action because the company was suspected of paying hundreds of thousands in bribes to Army officers to secure contracts to build, operate and maintain warehouses in Iraq that stored weapons, uniforms, vehicles and other matériel for Iraqi forces in 2004 and 2005.

A lawyer for the company denied the accusations.

One of the officers, Maj. Gloria D. Davis, a contracting official in Kuwait, shot and killed herself in Baghdad in December 2006. Government officials say the suicide occurred a day after she admitted to an Army investigator that she had accepted at least $225,000 in bribes from the company. The United States has begun proceedings to seize Major Davis’s assets, a move her heirs are contesting ...