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Iraq Weapons Are a Focus of
Criminal Investigations
JAMES
GLANZ and ERIC SCHMITT
NY Times
Tuesday Aug 28, 2007
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 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.
There is no indication that investigators have uncovered any
wrongdoing by General Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, who
through a spokesman declined comment on any legal proceedings.
(Article continues below)
This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen federal
investigators, Congressional, law enforcement and military officials,
and specialists in contracting and logistics, in Iraq and Washington,
who have direct knowledge of the inquiries. Many spoke on condition
of anonymity because there are continuing criminal investigations.
The inquiries are being pursued by the Army Criminal Investigation
Command, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, among other agencies.
Over the past year, inquiries by federal oversight agencies have
found serious discrepancies in military records of where thousands
of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces actually ended up.
None of those agencies concluded that weapons found their way
to insurgents or militias.
In their public reports, those agencies did not raise the possibility
of criminal wrongdoing, and General Petraeus has said that the
imperative to provide weapons to Iraqi security forces was more
important than maintaining impeccable records.
In an interview on Aug. 18, General Petraeus said that with ill-equipped
Iraqi security forces confronting soaring violence across the
country in 2004 and 2005, he made a decision not to wait for formal
tracking systems to be put in place before distributing the weapons.
“We made a decision to arm guys who wanted to fight for
their country,” General Petraeus said.
But now, American officials said, part of the criminal investigation
is focused on Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph, who reported directly
to General Petraeus and worked closely with him in setting up
the logistics operation for what were then the fledgling Iraqi
security forces.
That operation moved everything from AK-47s, armored vehicles
and plastic explosives to boots and Army uniforms, according to
officials who were involved in it. Her former colleagues recall
Colonel Selph as a courageous officer who was willing to take
substantial personal risks to carry out her mission and was unfailingly
loyal to General Petraeus and his directives to move quickly in
setting up the logistics operation.
“She was kind of like the Pony Express of the Iraqi security
forces,” said Victoria Wayne, who was then deputy director
of logistics for the overall Iraqi reconstruction program.
Still, Colonel Selph also ran into serious problems with a company
she oversaw that failed to live up to a contract it had signed
to carry out part of that logistics mission.
It is not clear exactly what Colonel Selph is being investigated
for. Colonel Selph, reached by telephone twice on Monday, said
she would speak to reporters later but did not answer further
messages left for her.
The enormous expenditures of American and Iraqi money on the
Iraq reconstruction program, at least $40 billion over all, have
been criticized for reasons that go well beyond the corruption
cases that have been uncovered so far. Weak oversight, poor planning
and seemingly endless security problems have contributed to many
of the program’s failures.
The investigation into contracts for matériel to Iraqi
soldiers and police officers is part of an even larger series
of criminal cases. As of Aug. 23, there were a total of 73 criminal
investigations related to contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan,
Col. Dan Baggio, an Army spokesman said Monday. Twenty civilians
and military personnel have been charged in federal court as a
result of the inquiries, he said. The inquiries involve contracts
valued at more than $5 billion, and Colonel Baggio said the charges
so far involve more than $15 million in bribes.
Just last week, an Army major, his wife and his sister were indicted
on charges that they accepted up to $9.6 million in bribes for
Defense Department contracts in Iraq and Kuwait.
Investigations span the gamut from low-level officials submitting
false claims for amounts less than $2,500 to more serious cases
involving, conspiracy, bribery, product substitution and bid-rigging
or double-billing involving large dollar amounts or more senior
contracting officials, Army criminal investigators said. The investigations
involve contractors, government employees, local nationals and
American military personnel.
Questions about whether the American military could account for
the weaponry and other equipment purchased to outfit the Iraqi
security forces were raised as early as May of last year, when
Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and then the chairman
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a request to an independent
federal oversight agency to investigate the matter.
But federal officials say the inquiry has moved far beyond the
initial investigation of hundreds of thousands of improperly tracked
assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols that grew out of Senator
Warner’s query. In fact, Senator Warner said in a statement
to The New York Times that he was outraged when he was briefed
recently on the initial findings of the investigations.
“When I was briefed on the recent developments, I felt
so strongly that I asked the Secretary of the Army to brief the
Armed Services Committee right away, which he did in early August,”
Senator Warner said in a statement.
An Army spokesman declined to comment on the briefing by the
secretary of the Army, Pete Geren. In a sign of the seriousness
of the scandal, the Defense Department Inspector General, Claude
M. Kicklighter, will lead an 18-person team to Iraq early next
month to investigate contracting practices, said Geoff Morrell,
the Pentagon press secretary.
Mr. Morrell said Mr. Kicklighter, a retired three-star Army general,
would stay in Iraq indefinitely to investigate contracting abuses,
and was empowered to fix problems on the spot or take action if
his team identified potential criminal activity.
Congressional officials who have been briefed on the Defense
Department inspector general’s inquiry said Monday that
one focus would be on weapons, munitions and explosives. In addition,
Mr. Geren, the Army secretary, is expected to announce later this
week the creation of a panel of senior contracting and logistics
specialists to address any systemic problems they identify.
Senator Warner’s request last May for an independent federal
oversight agency to investigate the accountability of weapons
and equipment given to Iraqi security forces underscored concern
about the issue.
That federal agency, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction,
responded with a report in October 2006 that found serious discrepancies
in American military records of where thousands of the weapons
actually ended up. The military did not take the routine step
of recording serial numbers for the weapons, the inspector general
found, making it difficult to determine whether any of the weapons
had ended up in the wrong hands.
In July 2007, the Government Accountability Office found even
larger discrepancies, reporting that the American military “cannot
fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols,
80 items of body armor, and 115,000 helmets reported as issued
to Iraqi security forces as of Sept. 22, 2005.”
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