From The Sunday Times February 22, 2009 Shot arms dealer 'knew too much' Dale Stoffel told top brass of endemic corruption before his hit-style murder Sarah Baxter in Washington
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5780478.ece>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5780478.ece THE death of an American arms dealer in Iraq has led to one of the most intricate and far-reaching inquiries into corruption among US military officers in Iraq. Some suspect that he was killed because he was a whistleblower who knew too much. When Dale Stoffel, 43, was gunned down on his way into Baghdad at the height of the insurgency in Iraq, his murder appeared all too predictable. He was an adventurer who seemed to have met his end at the hands of jihadists while engaged in one of the riskiest businesses on the planet. However, it has emerged that Stoffel had complained to US authorities about a multi-million-dollar contracting office where two senior American officers had worked. The two officers are now under investigation. Stoffel's death in 2004, along with that of Joseph Wemple, 49, his friend and colleague, had all the hallmarks of an assassination. His black BMW was found with the bonnet smashed and windscreen shattered in a grim part of the Iraqi capital near the banks of the Tigris. David Stoffel, his younger brother, who worked with him at his company Wye Oak Technology, said: "Joe [Wemple] was shot once through the eye at long distance while driving at 90mph. My brother was shot six times, in the front, the back, the shoulders and the head." Shortly afterwards, a rambling tape from an unknown jihadist group called him a "CIA shadow director" and "close friend of George Bush". "It was exactly like you see in the movies, with the guy in the black and white headscarf," David Stoffel said. "I think it was a setup." Since his brother's murder he has received several death threats, warning him to stay away from Iraq. Dale Stoffel had the swagger of a soldier of fortune. "This is what I was born for," he used to say. He knew how to lay his hands on weapons from former Soviet bloc countries and saw the opportunity for rich spoils in Iraq. He had reckoned without the huge scale of corruption, not just among Iraqis but at the heart of the US military, which was securing a $125 billion reconstruction effort. "We didn't mind not winning contracts - it was not having the possibility of winning contracts that was the problem," said David Stoffel. "These people were taking bribes just to put names on the bidders' list." Dale Stoffel's whistleblowing and line of work earned him many enemies in Iraq, including prominent Iraqis and Middle Eastern contractors with whom he had done business. There is no suggestion that the two US officers were involved in his killing. Stoffel had passed on hair-raising stories to Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, about pizza boxes stuffed with tens of thousands of US banknotes being delivered to American contracting offices in the guise of takeaway food. There were dead drops for cash in paper sacks all over the green zone, from which the Americans ruled Iraq, and Stoffel claimed he had been swindled out of $25m owed to Wye Oak for refitting Saddam Hussein's tanks and armoured vehicles so they could be used by the new Iraqi army. Stoffel made sure his complaints were heard at the highest level. Before his death he sent an e-mail to a senior assistant of General David Petraeus, the US commander, pleading for tighter controls. "If we proceed down the road we are currently on, there will be serious legal issues that will land us all in jail," he warned. He also met Jack Shaw, a senior Pentagon official who had been conducting inquiries into corruption in Iraq. "He was a very intense person," Shaw recalled. "Everybody on our side liked him very much because he did his work on time and under budget." Bowen continued to investigate the allegations of corruption at the heart of the US occupation after Stoffel's death and has been doggedly tracking large sums of cash in and out of Iraq for years. The two officers known to Stoffel have been at the centre of Bowen's inquiries. US investigators have subpoenaed the personal bank records of Colonel Anthony Bell, a retired army officer who was in charge of multi-million-dollar government contracts for reconstruction in 2003-4. Bell petitioned the court last month to block the request on grounds of financial privacy. US investigators are also looking into the activities of Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald Hirtle, of the air force, who was based at the same contracting office. Both men told The New York Times last week that they had nothing to hide, but declined to discuss the inquiry. Bowen told The Sunday Times that Iraq provided ample opportunities for corruption on a vast scale. It was "a cash-only environment, involving the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars - and, as our cases have revealed, the controls were weak", he said. He has just produced a report, Hard Lessons: the Iraq Reconstruction Experience, describing vaults containing "pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" and construction projects such as the Babylon police academy that were so shoddy, they were unfit for use. "Its applicability is significant for Afghanistan," Bowen warned. The US has already spent $32 billion on rebuilding in Afghanistan, with precious few controls, and is about to embark on a military and civilian surge. "The lesson of Iraq is that if you don't carefully implement the process, you will lose the money and not achieve your goals," he said. David Stoffel said he doubted his brother's killers would ever be found, but hoped Bowen's investigations would mean his life was not wasted. "We're still owed that $25m," he said ruefully. "I'd give it all up to have my brother back. He was my world, my best friend, my confidant, my brother, my boss. He always claimed bullets bounced off of him. We found out that wasn't true." Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib jail reopened yesterday with a new name: Baghdad Central prison. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [email protected] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. 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