From The Boston Globe, 4/16/06:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/04/16/us_firms_suspected_of_bilking_iraq_funds/
US firms suspected of bilking Iraq funds
Millions missing from program for rebuilding
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff
WASHINGTON --
American contractors swindled hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi
funds, but so far there is no way for Iraq's government to recoup the
money, according to US investigators and civil attorneys tracking
fraud claims against contractors.
Courts in the United States are beginning to force contractors to
repay reconstruction funds stolen from the American government.
But legal roadblocks have prevented Iraq from recovering funds that
were seized from the Iraqi government by the US-led coalition and then
paid to contractors who failed to do the work.
A US law that allows citizens to recover money from dishonest
contractors protects only the US government, not foreign governments.
In addition, an Iraqi law created by the Coalition Provisional
Authority days before it ceded sovereignty to Iraq in June 2004 gives
American contractors immunity from prosecution in Iraq.
''In effect, it makes Iraq into a 'free-fraud zone,' " said Alan
Grayson, a Virginia attorney who is suing the private security firm
Custer Battles in a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former employees.
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A Republican Bush-created Iraq honey pot for crooked U.S. corporations
to feed in.
Harry
.
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