U.S. Official convicted of theft of Iraqi funds

Here is a story about the kinds of theft, money-laundering and criminality that was common under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq under Jerry Bremer.

Robert J. Stein, 50, of Fayetteville, N.C., admitted that he and his coconspirators smuggled millions of dollars out of Iraq into the United States aboard commercial airliners and laundered cash through multiple bank accounts in Switzerland, Amsterdam and Romania.

Stein was a Defense Department employee who served as a contract official for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, controlling more than $82 million in funds slated for rebuilding the Middle Eastern country.

Stein was a felon who had been convicted of fraud in 1996. Makes you wonder what kinds of personnel standards the Republican CPA had.