CROOKED ARMY CAPTAIN CAUGHT WITH $50K
CASH BRIBE IN IRAQ - SHOOK DOWN CONTRACTOR
FOR CUT OF THE PROFITS - FIELD ORDERING
OFFICER NABBED WITH MONEY RIGHT AFTER
PAYOFF MADE - ASSOCIATED PRESS DESERVES
KUDOS FOR EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON IRAQ FRAUD
"WHISTLEBLOWERS" BEING PUNISHED AND
HARASSED FOR DOING THE RIGHT THING - THE
UNNECESSARY IRAQ WAR BREEDING GROUND
FOR THIEVES AND WAR PROFITEERS (CHENEY)

When Army Capt. Austin Key tried to shake down a civilian contractor in Iraq he got more than he bargained for. The crooked officer got his $50,000 payoff, but didn't suspect that his victim had already gone to the authorities, and a trap had been set.

This past July, according to an unsealed federal indictment, Key approached a U.S. civilian contractor who provides services and supplies to American forces and demanded $125,000 in order for the company to continue to do business with Uncle Sam.

Later, the corrupt captain lowered his price, to $50,000 in cash, for providing the contractor "advance information" on bidding and contracts that would give the civilian owner an unfair advantage over competing contractors.

The "mark" went to the CID and Key's remarks were caught on tape. The shocked and angry captain was arrested in Baghdad a short time after he pocketed the illegal bribe.

Besides a bad conduct discharge and loss of benefits, the Watertown, N.Y. man, if convicted, faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $150,000.

IRAQ "WHISTLEBLOWER" HARASSED AND LOCKED UP
INSTEAD OF REWARDED

Meanwhile, in another horror story of wide scale corruption and rampant fraud, "whistle blowers" in Iraq are finding out loss of job, and even detention awaits their efforts to report dishonesty.

MilitaryCorruption.com salutes The Associated Press for an excellent investigative article on this very disturbing trend.

The wire service cites Navy veteran Donald Vance, who was tossed into a jail cell and subjected to intensive round-the-clock questioning as if he were an Arab terrorist, all because he tried to expose illegal arms sales.

"He (Vance) thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and land mines and rocket launchers - all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary," the AP reported. Vance told an FBI agent the buyers were "Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees."

The news story revealed the company Vance worked for, Iraqi-owned Shield Group Security Inc., was a virtual "Wal-Mart for guns."

Vance gave photos and documents to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he "couldn't trust anyone in Iraq," and what was his reward? He was treated as a criminal himself! Kept in solitary confinement, his ears assaulted constantly by loud, blaring music, the frustrated whistle blower felt he was being punished for being honest.

He was locked up for 97 days of hellish confinement in Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside of Baghdad that once held Saddam Hussein.

Finally released from his fraudulent imprisonment, Vance and a colleague who also provided intelligence to authorities, have filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago alleging they were "illegally imprisoned" and subjected to mental torture tactics "reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants."

MilitaryCorruption.com wishes them good luck.