Remember when certain people tried to spread the idea that we invaded in Iraq because of corruption in the Oil-for-Food program?
The New York Times is reporting that numerous criminal charges have been, and will be, filed against U.S. government officials and contractors, relating to bribes and kickbacks which have been paid in order to get lucrative contracts. I can't say I'm surprised.
A person named Philip H. Bloom, who apparently had oversight over recontrsuction contracts, has been charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, conspiracy to launder money and interstate transportation of stolen property.
Other Americans in the Coalition Provisional Authority, have been charged and are being investigated.
"This is the first case, but it won't be the last," the Times quotes Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office.
Mr. Bloom, of course, should be considered legally innocent until are charges are proven in a court of law.
Mr. Bloom's lawyer, Robert Mintz of Newark, said, "The complaint and the supporting affidavit were unsealed for the first time today and we're in the process of reviewing the allegations."
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The e-mail exchanges between Mr. Stein and Mr. Bloom, as detailed in the papers, are remarkable in their illustration of the daily business of apparently greed and graft. "I love to give you money," Mr. Stein wrote on Jan. 3, 2004, as he began steering work on an Iraqi police academy to Mr. Bloom.
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