US Embassy in Iraq Builder Tied to Kickbacks

This video from the USA says about itself: ‘The [U.S. Congress] Oversight Committee holds a hearing, “Allegations of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse at the New U.S. Embassy in Iraq.”‘

From Associated Press:

Iraq Embassy Builder Tied to Kickbacks

By PETE YOST

September 20, 2007

The Kuwaiti company building the U.S. embassy in Baghdad has been accused of agreeing to pay $200,000 in kickbacks in return for two unrelated Army contracts in Iraq.

The scheme, outlined in a now-sealed court document obtained by The Associated Press, allegedly involved First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting and a manager for Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. or KBR, a firm hired to handle logistics for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The document summarizes grand jury testimony from the former KBR manager, Anthony J. Martin, who pleaded guilty in July to taking kickbacks in 2003.

Although the government has tried to keep First Kuwaiti’s name out of public records related to Martin’s case, details from his grand jury testimony were found by a defense lawyer, J. Scott Arthur of Orland Park, Ill., who included a summary in a six-page document filed last Friday in an unrelated federal court case in Rock Island, Ill. The AP downloaded a copy of the document from the court’s Web site shortly before a judge ordered the document sealed and removed from the public record.

US Stanford campus in uproar over fellowship for Rumsfeld: here.