From The Los Angeles Times, 1/21/05:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-death20jan20,0,2295167.story?coll=la-home-headlines
U.S. Contractor Slain in Iraq Had Alleged Graft
The weapons dealer had accused officials in the Defense Ministry of a
kickback scheme.
By Ken Silverstein, T. Christian Miller and Patrick J. McDonnell,
Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON --
An American contractor gunned down last month in Iraq had accused
Iraqi Defense Ministry officials of corruption days before his death,
according to documents and U.S. officials.
Dale Stoffel, 43, was shot to death Dec. 8 shortly after leaving an
Iraqi military base north of Baghdad, an attack attributed at the time
to Iraqi insurgents.
Also killed was a business associate, Joseph Wemple, 49.
The killings came after Stoffel alerted senior U.S. officials in
Washington that he believed Iraqi Defense Ministry officials were part
of a kickback scheme involving a multimillion-dollar contract awarded
to his company, Wye Oak Technology, to refurbish old Iraqi military
equipment.
The FBI has launched an investigation into the killings and whether
they might have been retaliation for Stoffel's whistle-blowing
activities, according to people familiar with the inquiry.
The FBI declined to comment.
Stoffel, of Monongahela, Pa., made his allegations in a Dec. 3 letter
to a senior Pentagon official and in a meeting with aides to Sen. Rick
Santorum (R-Pa.).
Soon after, Stoffel was summoned to the Taji military base in Iraq by
coalition military officials to discuss his concerns about his
contract.
He complained about payment problems with a mysterious Lebanese
businessman designated by the Iraqis as a middleman, sources said.
As Stoffel, Wemple and an Iraqi interpreter left the Taji base in a
car Dec. 8, another vehicle rammed theirs head-on.
Two masked men jumped out and executed the two Americans in a
fusillade of bullets, according to news accounts at the time.
Their interpreter fled and is missing.
Stoffel's death has prompted new worries about the integrity of the
reconstruction effort in Iraq, which has been plagued by accusations
of corruption and cronyism almost from the start.
One U.S. official said that corruption problems involving middlemen
and kickbacks were become increasingly widespread as the Iraqis began
to exercise more control over the contracting process.
Stoffel's killing drew scrutiny from investigators not only because of
his whistle-blowing activities but also because of his mysterious and
controversial past.
Stoffel worked on a top secret U.S. program in the 1990s to buy
Russian, Chinese and other foreign-made weapons for testing by the
U.S. military, according to documents and interviews.
Stoffel's Iraq deal was the first large-scale contract issued and
funded directly by the Iraqi government for military purposes, and was
crucial for training and equipping the Iraqi army, considered a key
component of the U.S. strategy for exiting Iraq.
Failing to stop the alleged corruption "will set a very negative
precedent for subsequent dealings with the Iraqi military, harm U.S.
companies seeking to do business according to U.S. law, and be the
source of embarrassment and political tension to the Bush
administration with respect to the effort in Iraq," said Stoffel's
letter to the Pentagon, which was obtained by The Times.
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There's gonna be a lot more of this during the next four years, folks.
Corruption and assassinations, that is.
Harry
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