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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 16th,
2007 - Company in Bribe Scandal is Penalized |
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Company in Bribe Scandal is Penalized By Gary Contreras San Antonio Express-News August 16, 2007 A Kuwaiti company embroiled
in the largest military bribery scandal to come out of the Iraq war has been
temporarily barred from doing business with the U.S. government and is under
criminal investigation by the Army, according to a report obtained by the San
Antonio Express-News, and an Army spokesman. The Army's so-called
debarment of Green Valley Co., finalized May 18, is retroactive to Dec. 1,
2006, and effective through Dec. 1, 2009. It followed an administrative
inquiry in which the Army accused the company of overbilling the government
for more than $1.3 million in wastewater removal services military officials
say it never performed. Green Valley was a
subcontractor in a $7 million latrine and Dumpster services contract signed
off on by Army Maj. John L. Cockerham, 41, the Fort Sam Houston-based
contracting officer accused of accepting $15 million in bribes from various
contractors for almost two years. According to the report,
which was obtained through a federal Freedom of Information Act request, the
Army's administrative inquiry found that Green Valley's employees were
pretending to empty tankers full of sewage from Camp Arifjan, a U.S. troop
base near Kuwait City. Green Valley is also among
at least eight companies being investigated by a federal contract fraud and
mismanagement task force that includes the Defense and Justice departments,
Army, FBI, IRS and an inspector general keeping tabs on the $44.5 billion
used to rebuild Iraq. The companies are being probed over allegations that
they paid bribes to Cockerham in exchange for lucrative contracts. According to the report,
Green Valley had been awarded multiple contracts to provide base operating
and transportation support to U.S. government facilities in Kuwait and Iraq. The nearly 200-page report
does not mince words about Green Valley's wastewater removal work: "Green Valley engaged
in a scheme to defraud the government by artificially inflating the amount of
black and gray water removed from Camp Arifjan during the period between on
or about 1 December 2005 and on or about 28 February 2006," Robert N.
Kittel, an Army suspension and debarment official, wrote in a May 18 memo
informing Green Valley general manager Mustafa I. Howayji that his company
was blacklisted. "The brazen nature of
the misconduct which Green Valley is accused of participating in calls into
question whether the company may ever be determined to be responsible to do
business with the United States government in the future." According to its Web site,
Green Valley offers services in transportation, water tankers, sewage and
fuel trucks, refrigeration trailers, forklifts, tents and sleeping bags,
construction equipment, stationery, mineral water, latrines, generators and
Dumpsters. The company's contract was a
blanket purchase agreement for services at Camp Arifjan, including the supply
of tents, latrines, Dumpsters, lighting and removal of black and gray water.
It had a total ceiling of $7 million over the two years it was to be
performed: Oct. 18, 2004 to Oct. 18, 2006. Green Valley was a subcontractor
to another Kuwaiti company called Palm Springs, which was not cited for
wrongdoing in the report. Repeated phone calls from
the Express-News to Green Valley's offices and cell phones in Kuwait listed
for Howayji and Assistant General Manager Mohamed I. Howayjij were not
answered. E-mail inquiries also received no response. The Army's criminal
investigations arm - which is part of the multi-agency fraud and abuse task
force - is taking a hard look at Green Valley, but has not filed charges. The Cockerham link The only public reference to
Green Valley in the criminal investigation of Cockerham appears in a federal
lawsuit the Justice Department filed. The lawsuit sought to keep $172,109 of
suspected bribery proceeds found in a Detroit bank account frozen. Those court records link the
account to a Detroit-area man named Megde "Mike" Ayesh Ismail, who
worked for various contractors in Kuwait, including Green Valley. According
to the documents, Ismail approached Cockerham with a scheme to make money
while Cockerham was deployed in Kuwait. The records state the
following: "Mike described a
situation where he would solicit a bribe from his employer, Green Valley, and
its principal, Mohammed, in return for the award of a bottled water contract.
Cockerham expected to take approximately $800,000 from Green Valley and Mike expected
to take money as well. Mike and Mohammed met Cockerham in the parking lot of
Camp Arifjan ... with a briefcase containing approximately $300,000.
Cockerham understood that Mike would repatriate the money to the United
States for him in return for a commission." Cockerham's lawyer, Jimmy
Parks Jr., has said his client will plead not guilty. Suspicions piqued According to the debarment
report, suspicions about Green Valley arose in November 2005 because the
company's truck tankers were returning to Camp Arifjan sooner than usual from
runs meant to empty sewage, and periodic bills were high for off-peak latrine
use at night, when most troops were asleep. Soldiers then observed Green
Valley tankers parked and not collecting or dumping any sewage. At other
times, Green Valley truck drivers were seen attaching and detaching hoses
from the tankers without actually pumping or disgorging wastewater. Drivers
also were observed switching from empty tankers to trucks full of sewage -
the loads were supposed to have been emptied off site but were not - so they
could be counted again and again, according to the report. After Green Valley stopped
doing work at Camp Arifjan, the amount of wastewater claimed declined
significantly, Kittel's report noted. The company never responded
to the allegations. But in an unsigned April
2006 letter included in the report's evidentiary exhibits, Green Valley said
the company had been in existence for eight years. In the letter - a sales
pitch for another wastewater removal contract at the Kuwaiti Naval Base, Camp
Patriot - Green Valley also bragged about being one of the three largest sanitation
and waste management companies in Kuwait and boasted that it had done work
for a major military contractor, KBR, and the Army. Cockerham, who was stationed
alternately at Camp Arifjan and Camp Doha between 2004 and 2005, signed off
on the latrine and Dumpster contract, initially with Green Valley, the
debarment paperwork shows. He, his wife, Melissa, 40, and his sister Carolyn
Blake, 44, of Sunnyvale, are charged in what Bowen has said is the biggest
bribery probe to date in the reconstruction of Iraq. In court documents, federal
authorities allege that Cockerham planned to take at least $15 million in
bribes for steering lucrative military contracts to unspecified companies in
Kuwait and Iraq. They also allege he had
already received $9.6 million - some of it picked up by his wife and Blake
and placed in safety deposit boxes in Kuwait and Dubai so it could be moved
to offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean. Cockerham and his wife
remain jailed in San Antonio, while Blake, who pleaded not guilty, is free on
bail. All are pending possible indictment. Database Editor Kelly
Guckian contributed to this report. External link: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/MYSA081707_01A_Green_Valley_34b58fb_html35204.html |