US official admits to stealing reconstruction money

Considering that billions are unaccounted for, this is just a drop in the bucket. But it's a start. I won't even mention the irony of it coming to light just as the administration asks for another hundred billion in funds for Iraq. I'll bet you can hear the sound of contractors licking their chops all the way from Turkey.

A former U.S. occupation official in Iraq pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to steal more than $2 million and rigging bids on $8.6 million in reconstruction contracts.

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.