Committing fraud looking into fraud

It's the very "meta-ness" of this that blows my mind.

The company contracted to look into waste and fraud in Iraq produced no usable product. The contract was awarded to the "newly formed consulting firm" on a sole source contract. "Mazur could not comment on the firm's qualifications because he was unable to find a copy of its proposal.

And, while I'm talking about corruption in Iraq, unsurprisingly, the top Iraqi corruption official has been threatened with death. But what caught my eye was the reintroduction of the name al-Samarraie.

In perhaps the most publicized recent case, an estimated $2 billion disappeared from funds to rebuild the electricity infrastructure.

Former Electricity Minister Ayham al-Samaraie, who holds both U.S. and Iraqi citizenship, was convicted in that case and sentenced to two years in prison. He escaped from an Iraqi-run jail in the Green Zone on Dec. 17 and turned up in Chicago on Jan. 15. Al-Samaraie has said the Americans helped him escape.

You may remember that al-Samarraie's "escape" from Iraqi custody was carried out by contractors of Dyncorp. $2 billion in rebuilding money that might have helped stem the tide disappears, and he is now safe and free in Chicago.

(If I remember right, he was a Republican donor.)