So this guy spent $2 million to get $8.6 million, and now he faces 40 years:
Philip Bloom, a U.S. businessman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, bribery and money laundering in connection with a bid-rigging probe of Iraq reconstruction contracts.
The Justice Department unsealed the plea agreement today in federal court in Washington. Bloom admitted paying a former comptroller for the disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority and other officials more than $2 million in money and gifts to win $8.6 million in contracts.
Bloom faces up to 40 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. Under the terms of the plea agreement, he also must pay $3.6 million in restitution and forfeit $3.6 million in assets to the U.S., the Justice Department said.
The magnitude of the corruption by our outsourced government in Iraq is finally coming to light:
Piece by piece, Halliburton over here, a corrupt company over there, we have heard various individual cases of overcharging and fraud by American firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last weekend, a Globe story connected some of the dots of corruption. Of $20.7 billion in Iraqi bank accounts and oil revenues seized by the Coalition Provisional Authority in the US-led invasion of Iraq, $14 billion was given out for reconstruction but tens of millions of dollars were unaccounted for. A year ago, an audit by the inspector general found no evidence of work done or goods delivered on 154 of 198 contracts. Sixty cases of potential swindles are under investigation.
As the columnist summed it up: “This is robbery, not reconstruction.”
