A government contractor defrauded the Coalition Provisional Authority
of tens of millions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction funds and the
Bush administration has done little to try to recover the money, an
attorney for two whistle-blowers told Democratic lawmakers yesterday.
The lawyer, Alan Grayson, represents two former employees who charged
in a federal lawsuit that the security firm Custer Battles LLC of
Fairfax was paid approximately $15 million to provide security for
civilian flights at Baghdad International Airport, even though no
planes flew during the contract term. Grayson said the firm received
$100 million in contracts in 2003 and 2004, despite a thin track record
and evidence the government was not getting its money's worth. A former
Coalition Provisional Authority official who briefly oversaw the
airport security contract also spoke, depicting a temporary governing
body awash with cash but lacking in the necessary controls to ensure
that money generated from the sale of Iraqi oil actually went to
rebuilding the country. "I wish I could tell you that the Bush
administration has done everything it could to detect and punish fraud
in Iraq," Grayson said. "If I said that to you, though, I would be
lying." The Pentagon has suspended Custer Battles from receiving new
contracts, but Grayson said the Justice Department declined last fall
to help pursue the case, now pending in federal court in Alexandria. [more]