Iraq Funding Officer Sentenced

By TChris, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 12:50:21 PM EST
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Robert Stein, the former comptroller and funding officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, was sentenced to 9 years in prison after pleading guilty to bribery and money laundering charges.

He admitted conspiring with Philip H. Bloom, a U.S. citizen with businesses in Romania, Bruce D. Hopfengardner, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, and others including several high-ranking Army officers. Bloom, who controlled companies in Iraq and Romania, bid on projects using dummy corporations and Stein ensured that one of the firms was awarded the contract, according to court documents. ...
The businessman allegedly showered Hopfengardner and Stein with luxury gifts such as cash, premium airline seats, jewelry and sexual favors from women at his Baghdad villa.

Bloom and Hopfengardner await sentencing.

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Iraq Funding Officer Sentenced | 4 comments (4 topical)

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Sentenced to... (none / 0) (#1)
by desertswine on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 01:06:26 PM EST

nine years in prison for helping steer millions of dollars in Iraqi reconstruction aid to a businessman in exchange for plane tickets, watches, alcohol, cigars and sexual favors.

Damn, corruption is cheap nowadays.

Jim O'Bierne (yes that one) (none / 0) (#2)
by Che's Lounge on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 04:21:23 PM EST

Arrest him.

Send him to Gitmo for a weekend.

He'll talk.

If that's what they love, let's fight them here so we don't have to fight over there.

Sorry, O'Beirne (none / 0) (#3)
by Che's Lounge on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 04:22:49 PM EST

War Profiteering-Treason Or A Business Oportunity? (none / 0) (#4)
by john horse on Tue Jan 30, 2007 at 04:57:52 PM EST

Contrast the behavior of the Roosevelt administration during WWII with the Bush administration during the Iraq invasion/occupation.

During World War II, Harry Truman head a committee to investigate shady wartime business practices. He referred to some forms of war profiteering as a form of "treason". Truman considered business practices that resulted in "waste, inefficiency, mismanagement and profiteering" during a time of war to be unpatriotic. According to FDR "I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster."

For the Bush administration, war profiteering in Iraq is just another business opportunity, a license to steal for large corporations like Halliburton. Making a corrupt official like Robert Stein the comptroller and chief funding officer for the CPA was like letting the fox guard the henhouse.