BAGHDAD – Iraq displayed hundreds of recovered artifacts Tuesday that were among the country’s looted heritage and span the ages from a 4,400-year-old statue of a Sumerian king to a chrome-plated AK-47 bearing Saddam Hussein’s image.

The 542 pieces are among the most recent artifacts recovered from a heartbreaking frenzy of looting at museums and archaeological sites after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and in earlier years of war and upheaval. The thefts swept a stunning array of priceless antiquities into the hands of collectors abroad.

So far, 5,000 items stolen since 2003 have been recovered. And culture officials said they hoped the display would encourage more nations to cooperate in the search for 15,000 pieces still missing from the Iraqi National Museum, one of the sites worst-hit by looters after the fall of Baghdad seven years ago.

The director of the National Museum, Amira Alawan, praised the international community for helping Iraq find and recover its cultural heritage. But he said not all countries are cooperating, naming Spain and Lebanon as among the nations that have refused to hand over missing Iraqi artifacts.

The items displayed at the Foreign Ministry included relics of the world’s most ancient civilizations.

The most prominent was the headless statue of a king from the ancient Sumerian civilization, which is more than 4,000 years old. It was discovered in the 1920s at the ancient city of Ur in southern Iraq and was stolen from the National Museum.

The FBI listed its theft among the world’s top 10 art crimes. Experts say the statue, carved from black diorite with cuneiform inscriptions along the back and the shoulders, is the oldest known representation of an Iraqi monarch.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security located the statue in the United States in May 2006 and handed it over to Iraqi diplomats in Washington two months later.

Among the newest pieces of Iraq’s recovered past was a chrome-plated AK-47 with a pearl hand grip and a small image of Saddam next to the gun sight. It was taken from Iraq to the U.S. as a war trophy by an American solider who found the rifle during a 2007 raid in Baghdad.

“Today is a celebration in Iraq. This is bringing back the civilization and the cultural heritage of Iraq,” said Mohammed Muhsen Ali, deputy director of the National Museum.

Iraqi and world culture officials have for years struggled to retrieve looted treasures but with little success.

The U.S. military was heavily criticized for not protecting the National Museum’s trove of relics and art after Baghdad’s fall in 2003. Thieves ransacked the collection, stealing or destroying priceless artifacts that chronicled some 7,000 years of civilization in Mesopotamia, including the ancient Babylonians, Sumerians and Assyrians.

The display also included more than 5,000-year-old cylindrical seals used by the Sumerians to seal written documents and a centuries-old pair of golden earrings from the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, just south of the present day northern city of Mosul.

The earrings were discovered in 1988 under the floor of a palace belonging to an Assyrian king. They were stolen from the National Museum two years later and found at an auction house in New York in 2009.

The latest recoveries, made over the past five years, were hailed as a great achievement by government officials who vowed to continue the battle to reclaim looted artifacts.

“We will not stop,” said Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. “We will continue our efforts in order to return the last precious pieces to their legitimate owners.”

Iraq’s ambassador to the U.S. Samir Shakir Sumaida’ie told reporters at the event that more than 600 pieces have also been unaccounted for since last year when they were transported by the American military from the U.S. to Baghdad and delivered to the office of the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

“We have confirmation from the U.S. military that the pieces that include mostly cylindrical seals reached the prime minister’s office last year, but until now we have no information on their current location,” Sumaida’ie said.

The prime minister’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.

___

Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

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Obama’s remarks were designed to remind voters that he’s fulfilling his pledge to end the U.S. war in Iraq , one of the biggest issues of his 2008 election victory. He’s also trying to rouse voters to support Democrats in congressional and state elections this November.

His remarks were somewhat muted however, as the U.S. transition occurs without a new Iraqi coalition government in place five months after elections were held there and growing doubts back home about the U.S. war in Afghanistan , where violence is at an all time high.

The president doesn’t face re-election until 2012, but as head of the Democratic Party he’s been shifting toward campaign mode for this November’s races. Obama also is looking to boost his own job approval ratings, which have been stuck below 50 percent all summer, by touting his accomplishments. Last week, he traveled to Michigan to promote his administration’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry as a success, telling Chrysler and GM workers that without the federal intervention 1 million more jobs would have disappeared.

His speech on Monday to the Disabled American Veterans at a conference in Atlanta likewise aimed to show his administration’s progress toward fulfilling his campaign pledge to get U.S. troops out of Iraq , though rhetorically he had a more nuanced case to make.

Having once called the Iraq war “dumb” and having run for president pledging to end the war, Obama wants to take credit for ending the combat mission while praising the troops’ achievements. He said, “Because of the sacrifices of our troops and their Iraqi partners, violence in Iraq continues to be near the lowest it’s been in years.”

Meanwhile, even after U.S. combat operations end on August 31 , some 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for counterterrorism, training and support missions. All U.S. troops are to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 under the current agreement with the Iraqi government.

“By the end of this month, we’ll have brought more than 90,000 of our troops home from Iraq since I took office,” Obama said, but added, “The hard truth is, we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq .”

House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio issued a statement praising Obama “for listening to our commanders in the field” but added, “This is no time to celebrate.” He warned that the stalled formation of a new government in Baghdad and a recent attack on Shiite pilgrims prove how vulnerable Iraq remains.

Obama defended his and others’ opposition to the war, saying “there are patriots who supported going to war and patriots who opposed it.”

Following the speech, Obama left to speak at a Democratic National Committee fund-raising event where 200 guests were expected to donate a combined $500,000 .

The president also made a point in his Monday remarks of reassuring that his health care overhaul will not limit veterans’ access to prosthetics or other government health care benefits. Many congressional Democrats are on the defensive for having voted for it.

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The US department of defence has called in forensic accountants to help track $8.1bn (£5.2bn) of $9.1bn in Iraq‘s oil revenue entrusted to it after the fall of Baghdad, following an official audit that revealed the money was missing.

The funds were to be used for spending on reconstruction during 2004-07, a period when Iraq was under weak transitional rule.

The report was issued today by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which had previously criticised poor book-keeping by senior officials throughout the last seven years.

Iraqi officials said they knew nothing about the missing billions and had no means to find where they had been spent. “We will speak to the oil ministry finance committee tomorrow about this,” said a spokesman for Iraq’s oil minister.

The revelation was made against a backdrop of limited services nationwide made worse by a summer that has seen demand for electricity well exceed Iraq’s meagre means to supply it through weeks of staggering heat.

The reconstruction of Iraq’s worn-out infrastructure was to be a central plank of the US military’s achievement. However, as combat forces steadily withdraw from the country to meet a 31 August deadline of only 50,000 troops remaining – mostly engineers and trainers – Iraqis are pointing to a dearth of the services that they were promised.

The Pentagon pledged to undergo a process of “archival accounting” to track missing funds, some of which is thought to be a result of shoddy book-keeping. However, the audit could not find any documentation to substantiate how the Pentagon spent $2.6bn. An additional $53bn has been allocated by Congress to rebuilding Iraq and the audit committee is examining whether those funds can be accounted for.

“I will need a lot of convincing,” said Adnan Makhoul, a businessman from the Baghdad suburb of Karrada. “In fact I will never believe it, look around and tell me how any money has been spent.”

Yunadim Kenna, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s economic committee, said the massive shortfall had its roots in the heady early days after the fall of Saddam Hussein when billions of dollars of reconstruction contracts were handed out by the-then Coalition Provisional Authority.

“In the beginning, the contracts were huge, especially with the American companies and local mediators. It was not supervised well and it was very clear there was massive corruption, especially in projects related to the oil, defence and interior ministries.

“The Americans were spending wildly in the early days. We didn’t know what on and there was no documentation. But after 2008, things became more organised.”

Meanwhile, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, arrived in Baghdad tonight citing “stunning” security progress before he landed.

The most senior US military officer is due to review the troop withdrawal plans, which are running ahead of schedule as the White House and Pentagon refocus attention on Afghanistan after seven years in Iraq.

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Iraqi forces were today posting “wanted” photos of four alleged senior al-Qaida figures who escaped last week from the US-built Camp Cropper prison along with the warden suspected of helping them flee.

The four alleged terrorists and their jailer drove out of the prison deep inside the US military‘s main base in Baghdad on Tuesday, four days after American generals marked the handover of the installation to the Iraq government with the presentation of a giant gold key.

The militants’ escape was confirmed only on Thursday, hours after several militant Islamist websites gloated that the four al-Qaida figures would never be re-captured.

“We confirm that four members of the Islamic State of Iraq have escaped from Cropper,” the Islamic State of Iraq said in a statement.

The audacity of the breakout and the alleged betrayal that facilitated it have electrified Iraq and embarrassed US officials, who had hailed the handover of the prison as a leap forward as they prepare to depart after seven years of occupation.

The investigation is now focused on 34-year old warden Omar Hamis Hamadi al-Duleimi, a protege of the American taskforces who had run the jail.

The Iraqi justice ministry claims it had been told to appoint him as warden.

“We were surprised by this man,” said the justice minister, Dara Nouredin. “We were told that we could trust him.”

Efforts to find Duleimi intensified over the weekend, with security forces searching Anbar province and his home in west Baghdad. Iraqi and US officials believe that Duleimi drove the four escapees out of the giant US base himself, using a recently built access road that avoided the main camp.

Details have also emerged of Duleimi’s background and meteoric rise. According to one close friend, who holds a prominent position in another prison, Duleimi – who hails from a powerful Sunni tribe near Ramadi – was part of the first prison guard course started by the US military in 2006.

“His English was very good and he was trusted by the Americans,” the friend said. “By 2008 he was running a company of guards. The warden job was his first big breakthrough.”

Transforming the image of the prisons in Iraq had been a key focus of the US military after the Abu Ghraib scandal of 2004. Ever since, close to 90,000 men have been detained in its two prisons, Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca on the Kuwaiti border.

Accordingly, Duleimi had been mentored for four years in how to run the facility after the withdrawal of US troops.

But the warden’s friend says there were “some signs that his loyalties were not to his masters”.

“He behaved in what I would say to be a sectarian way and there were many complaints from the prisoners about this,” the friend said. “It was also clear that he loved money.”

The incident has prompted comparisons with an attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan in December in which a tried and tested informant detonated a suicide belt in a room full of intelligence officers, killing seven and maiming several more.

“It underscores just how difficult it is to do business in these parts of the world,” said one US official. “Trust is an essential part of things and as we’ve seen it is not easy to establish.”

Today security officials were posting “wanted” photographs of Duleimi and the four escapees at army checkpoints.

The Iraqi justice ministry is investigating the incident and is due to release its findings by the end of the month.

An Iraqi official confirmed that guards considered to have been close to Duleimi had been arrested. Most guards on duty the night of the breakout have also been locked up.

American officials would not comment publicly about the breakout, referring inquiries to the government of Iraq. Iraqi officials also refused to discuss the case.

US forces now have only 200 detainees directly under their control and the planned withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq by the end of August is reported to be running ahead of schedule.

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The two-week-old twins Zainab and Ruqqaya Naseer, from the Shiite holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq, are joined at the hip and have problems with their digestive and reproductive systems.

Salim Mohammed, spokesman for Najaf Health Authority, told CHICAGOPRESSRELEASE.COM that the family was waiting for passports to be issued to allow the girls to travel.

“The conjoined twins are in good health and they are expected to leave for Saudi Arabia within the coming three days,” he said.

Saudi King Abdullah offered to fly the twins, who were born on June 5, to Riyadh and to pay for the separation surgery, according to a statement by chief surgeon Abdullah al-Rabia at the King Abdul-Aziz Medical in Riyadh.

Al-Rabia has performed nearly 30 successful surgeries for conjoined twins from 16 countries. Those included another set of Iraqi conjoined twins who were separated after 20 hours of surgery in 2006.

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LONDON, May 18 /CHICAGOPRESSRELEASE.COM/ — A group of Iranian families today asked the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, for his help in negotiating with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (aka Rajavi cult, MEK, MKO, PMOI, NCRI) to give visiting rights to the detainees in Camp Ashraf in Diyala province.

The parents of captives in Camp Ashraf were responding to news that the mothers of three young Americans detained in Iran, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal, are on their way to visit their children in prison there.

They said, “We are so happy for these families that negotiations with Iran have resulted in allowing these visits on compassionate grounds. Everyone in the world knows the strength of the bond between parent and child. We hope they will achieve their wishes in Iran.”

For nearly four months the families have been encamped outside the camp which houses members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist cult. The cult leaders refuse to allow ordinary members to have any contact with the outside world and will not negotiate with external bodies. Some members have been trapped inside the camp for over twenty years.

Although the Government of Iraq is responsible for the camp, officials say their hands are tied because the MEK have powerful backers in Washington, even though it is on the U.S.’s own terrorism list. The families told Mr. Hill, “We witnessed ourselves that American soldiers intervened on behalf of the MEK leaders when Iraqi soldiers tried to help us get inside the camp.”

Urging Mr. Hill to intervene on their behalf with the leaders of the MEK the families said, “Your government successfully arranged for the mothers of U.S. detainees in Iran to visit their children on compassionate grounds… But, if America can negotiate this with Iran, we certainly expect that you can negotiate with this small terrorist group so that its members can meet freely with their families.”

NOTE TO EDITORS: Anne Singleton is a consultant at Middle East Strategy Consultants Ltd which also operates the information website www.Iran-Interlink.org. Ms Singleton is a leading expert on the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation and the relationship between cults and terrorism.

SOURCE Iran-Interlink

http://www.Iran-Interlink.org

Families of MEK Victims in Camp Ashraf, Iraq Want Same Visiting Rights as U.S. Detainee Families in Iran | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.

WASHINGTON — Europeans’ aversion to military force is limiting NATO’s ability to fight wars effectively, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

In remarks to a forum on rewriting the basic mission plan for the NATO alliance, Gates called for far-reaching reforms in an organization that was created 61 years ago as a political and military bulwark against the former Soviet Union and its Red Army.

The early successes of NATO in averting post-World War II eruptions of European conflict have led to a new set of concerns, Gates said.

“The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st,” he told an audience filled with uniformed military officers from many of NATO’s 28 member countries.

The danger, he added, is that potential future adversaries may view NATO as a paper tiger.

“Not only can real or perceived weakness be a temptation to miscalculation and aggression, but, on a more basic level, the resulting funding and capability shortfalls make it difficult to operate and fight together to confront shared threats,” Gates said.

France’s Defense Ministry said it had no comment on Gates’ remarks.

In his more than three years as Pentagon chief, Gates has repeatedly urged European members of NATO to boost their defense budgets and to find ways to modernize their forces, while also praising their commitment to fighting alongside the United States in Afghanistan.

“For many years, for example, we have been aware that NATO needs more cargo aircraft and more helicopters of all types, and yet we still don’t have these capabilities,” he said. “And their absence is directly impacting operations in Afghanistan. Similarly, NATO requires more aerial refueling tankers and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms for immediate use on the battlefield.”

Gates welcomed the in-depth effort by NATO to revise and update what it calls its “strategic concept,” or its basic mission document. He stressed that it must be more than a paper exercise, given the real world conflicts NATO is fighting today — with about 120,000 troops, including U.S. forces, in Afghanistan, and the prospect of staying there in some numbers for years to come.

“Most are living in austere conditions, and many are facing enemy fire on a daily basis,” he said. “That is a stark reminder that NATO is not now, nor should it ever be, a talk-shop or a Renaissance weekend on steroids. It is a military alliance with real-world obligations that have life-or-death consequences.”

A group of experts led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is working to update NATO’s strategic concept. It was last revised in 1999, before the alliance began substantial military operations beyond its borders — most notably in Afghanistan.

Gates’ speech kicked off a daylong seminar at the National Defense University to wrap up preliminary thinking on how to revise the strategic concept. The final product is expected to be formally adopted at an alliance summit in November in Lisbon, Portugal. NATO nations had a major falling out over the Iraq war in 2003, with several, including France, Germany and Belgium, opposing it and blocking alliance participation.

In remarks Monday night on the same subject, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said NATO’s basic purpose has changed little since its birth in 1949.

“I believe that the original tenets of NATO’s mission — defending our nations, strengthening trans-Atlantic ties, and fostering European integration — still hold,” she said. What needs to change is how the alliance pursues its goals, she added.

“As any good soldier knows, success in a protracted struggle is not simply a matter of having more troops or better equipment. It’s also a function of how effectively you adapt to new circumstances,” she said. “You don’t win by fighting the last war.”

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

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Mayor Kristina Kovarik contends the foundation accomplished little in the nearly five years it was unofficially in charge of building Heroes of Freedom Memorial Park where police headquarters once stood on Old Grand Avenue.

Morris has disputed the claim.

Although controversy over Heroes of Freedom erupted in October, it came to a head Jan. 25 when village trustees voted 3-2 against overriding Kovarik’s veto of an agreement that officially named the foundation as the project’s developer.

Kovarik and the village were named in the complaint lodged Thursday in Lake County court by the Pfc. Geoffrey Morris Memorial Foundation and Morris. The foundation is named for Morris’ Marine son who died in the Iraq war in 2004.

Morris wants a judge to issue an order declaring he and the foundation have a right to exclusive use of the “Heroes of Freedom Memorial” name, and that the village cannot prevent him from completing the project.

The civil suit also seeks unspecified damages from the village of more than $200,000 that Morris contends the private foundation spent to improve the publicly-owned former police headquarters site on Old Grand Avenue.

“It would be unjust for the village to reap the benefit of the foundation’s improvements to the property and its work on the memorial without any compensation to the foundation,” the lawsuit states.

Morris said he didn’t want to sue the government he was elected to represent in 2009.

Kovarik said today she had yet to receive the lawsuit. She said Gurnee will have to spend public money on lawyers to address the litigation.

“I am surprised a sitting trustee would sue the very people he was elected to represent,” Kovarik said. “There were certainly plenty of other alternatives.”

Under the agreement, Morris would have had to meet several construction timelines and finish Heroes of Freedom by Dec. 31, 2014. He said Kovarik’s refusal to be specific about why she soured on the deal forced him to file the lawsuit.

As of last month, nine flag poles representing every military branch and temporary lights were the most visible work done on the memorial. A garden, bronze statues projected to cost $250,000, a walkway and benches had not been built.

Morris and some supporters removed the flags and disconnected the lights after the village board did not overturn Kovarik’s veto Jan. 25. Morris recused himself from discussing the memorial or voting on the veto.

Kovarik said she still wants a memorial for the Iraq and Afghanistan troops, just on a smaller scale than envisioned by Morris.

Morris was not a trustee when he began the memorial effort. He said he took on the project at the request of village officials in 2005.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

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The defendant, Thomas P. Randell, 37, of Chicago, a deportation officer from 2000 to 2009, admitted that he facilitated the destruction of the master immigration files of two aliens to interfere with the administration of immigration laws, and, in a separate scheme, admitted that he fraudulently provided an immigration stamp conveying temporary legal resident status to an alien who was eligible for deportation.

The guilty plea was announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Armando Lopez, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General.

Randell, who was indicted in early 2008, remains free on bond while awaiting sentencing, which U.S. District Judge Wayne Anderson scheduled for March 25, 2010.

He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for obstruction of justice and 15 years in prison for producing a false identification document and a $250,000 fine on each count.

According to a written plea agreement, the government anticipates that Randell’s advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines range is 27 to 33 months in prison.

As a deportation officer, Randell was responsible for supervising aliens who had been ordered deported, but were not in immigration custody.

Randell met Alien A in 1998 while he was serving as an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention officer and Alien A was in INS custody. Alien A was subsequently released from custody and a friendship between the two developed.

In 2002, Alien A received a letter from the INS stating that his deportation was imminent. Alien A asked Randell to help in blocking the deportation and the deportation of Alien B, an acquaintance of Alien A who had received the same letter.

Both Aliens A and B were Iraqi citizens of Assyrian decent. Randell told Alien A he would see what he could do to prevent any adverse action by INS.

In response to Alien A’s request, Randell offered to make the complete master immigration files of both aliens “disappear” in a way that could not be traced back to Randell. Alien A accepted Randell’s offer and, in early 2003, Randell obtained the files and subsequently aided and abetted Aliens A and B in shredding the files.

Randell also admitted that in June 2005 he fraudulently placed an Alien Documentation Identification and Telecommunication (ADIT) stamp in the Hungarian passport of Alien C, a legal permanent resident whose “green card” had expired.

An ADIT stamp provides the same evidence of legal immigration status as a green card. Investigation determined that Alien C had become eligible for deportation after receiving state felony convictions.

Randell admitted that he obtained an ADIT stamp from an unspecified employee of the Department of Homeland Security as such stamps are not issued to deportation officers and issuing this benefit was not within the scope of his duties.

Randell also admitted to a previous instance of providing an ADIT stamp to Alien C in 2003 at the behest of Alien A.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Buvinger.

MEDIA CONTACT:

United States Attorney’s Office, 312-353-5300
Northern District of Illinois

Former U.S. Immigration Officer Pleads Guilty to Destroying Government Files, Producing False Immigration Document | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.

According to his plea agreement, Darwish is a Canadian citizen born in Iraq. From 2000 to March 2003, Darwish worked as an accountant and driver at the Iraqi Interests Section (ISEC) within the Algerian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The ISEC was formed in 1991 after the U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Iraq for invading Kuwait. In December 2003, Darwish resumed his employment at the newly reopened Iraqi Embassy in Washington, D.C., and continued to work there until March or April 2004. Darwish was never identified, registered, or recognized by the Department of State or the Attorney General of the United States as a diplomatic or consular officer of the Government of Iraq, or an officially or publicly acknowledged and sponsored official, representative, or employee of said government.

Darwish’s employment at the ISEC was arranged for him by Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, an Iraqi national and member of the Ba’ath Party. Al-Dellemy owned a restaurant called the Gourmet Shish Kebab in Laurel, Maryland and in January 2000, he obtained certification from the Department of Labor to hire Darwish to work as a cook at the restaurant. In June 2001, Al-Dellemy petitioned the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to obtain a visa allowing Darwish to work at the restaurant. The visa was subsequently approved in September 2001. In November 2001, Darwish filed an application with INS to obtain lawful permanent resident status based on his employment at Gourmet Shish Kebab. From 2001 until his application was ultimately denied on August 30, 2006, Darwish applied for, and was granted, continuing authorization to maintain his employment at Gourmet Shish Kebab. At no time during this process did Darwish or Al-Dellemy reveal to immigration authorities that Darwish was working at the ISEC/Embassy. In supporting documents filed with immigration authorities both Darwish and Al-Dellemy falsely alleged that Darwish’s employment as a cook at Al-Dellemy’s restaurant was the basis for Darwish’s entry into, and continued presence in, the United States.

During his tenure at the ISEC and Embassy, Darwish took direction from government officials within the establishments and performed whatever tasks were requested of him. On January 6 and 7, 2004, Al-Dellemy asked Darwish to locate any files maintained by the ISEC regarding an individual previously working for the Government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Darwish reported back to Al-Dellemy that the files relating to this individual and others associated with the ISEC and the Ba’ath Party regime had been ordered destroyed by the former Chief of Station for the ISEC.

Following the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces in March 2003, the United States military came into possession of various confidential documents generated by the IIS. Among these documents were three items pertaining to Darwish: a cash receipt documenting a $200 payment to Darwish on March 27, 2000, through the Washington Station, as compensation for his “assistance;” a document dated June 22, 2002, identifying Darwish as an employee at the ISEC; and a report dated August 6, 2002, documenting that Darwish had been told by a named individual that Iraqi volunteers, including that individual, were being trained by the U.S. military in Virginia and getting paid $2000 per month.

On May 20, 2003, during an interview with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Darwish gave false information regarding the start and length of his employment at the ISEC and his salary. He also failed to disclose that Al-Dellemy secured his employment at the ISEC. On October 13, 2005, Darwish signed a sworn affidavit in Maryland, in connection with his application for lawful permanent resident status in the United States, in which he falsely represented that he entered the United States in June 2001 for the purpose of being employed at Al-Dellemy’s restaurant, when, in fact, he had been in the United States since at least 2000; and failed to reveal his employment and activities at the ISEC and the subsequently reopened Iraqi Embassy.

U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for October 23, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. Darwish faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The government and the defendant have agreed that 15 months in prison is the appropriate disposition of this case.

Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, age 68, previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government, specifically, as an agent of Iraq, and faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for conspiracy to act as an agent for a foreign government. His sentencing is scheduled for September 11, 2009, at 10:00 a.m.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their investigative work. Mr. Rosenstein commended Assistant United States Attorney Christine Manuelian, who is prosecuting the case, as well as Senior Trial Attorneys Robert E. Wallace and Clifford I. Rones, from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, who provided assistance in the case, and Assistant United States Attorney Harvey E. Eisenberg, Chief of National Security, who supervised this case.

Former Maryland Man Pleads Guilty to Immigration Violations, Defendant Lied On Immigration Documents About Working for the Government of Iraq | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.

Young, a U.S. citizen who resided in the Philippines until his arrest in connection with this case, entered his guilty plea today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., before Judge Claude Hilton. Young pleaded guilty to both counts of a two-count superseding indictment filed on May 21, 2009, charging him and Robert Jeffery with conspiracy and theft of government property. Young’s sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 30, 2009.

In his plea, Young admitted that in October 2007, he and other co-conspirators agreed to participate in a scheme to steal fuel from the U.S. Army. Young also admitted that between October 2007 and May 2008, he and his co-conspirators, purportedly representing Department of Defense contractors in Iraq, used fraudulently-obtained documents to enter the Victory Bulk Fuel Point (VBFP) in Camp Liberty, Iraq, and presented false fuel authorization forms to steal aviation and diesel fuel from the VBFP for subsequent sale on the black market. The United States owns and operates the VBFP in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The VBFP supplies fuel to both military units and U.S. government contractors operating in and around the Victory Base Complex. To retrieve and transport the stolen fuel from the VBFP, Young admitted that he and his co-conspirators employed several individuals to serve as drivers and escorts of the trucks containing the stolen fuel.

During Young’s participation in the scheme, he and his co-conspirators stole from the U.S. Army fuel worth approximately $39.6 million. As a result of the scheme, Young received approximately $1 million in personal profits.

At sentencing, Young faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a fine of the greater of $250,000 or twice the value gained or lost.

In a related case, Lee William Dubois pleaded guilty on Oct. 7, 2008, to participating in the same scheme. In his plea, Dubois admitted that he obtained government-issued common access cards for the drivers and escorts of the trucks and also presented false documents to the VBFP authorizing his co-conspirators to draw fuel. Dubois admitted that he and his co-conspirators stole approximately 10 million gallons of fuel, and that Dubois received at least $450,000 in personal profits from the subsequent sale of the fuel on the black market. Sentencing for Dubois is scheduled for Sept. 4, 2009.

The superseding indictment filed on May 21, 2009, charges Robert Jeffery, 55, a former master chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy, with conspiracy and theft of government property in connection with the same fuel theft scheme. The indictment alleges that Jeffery served as the lead escort for the fuel trucks for several months and illegally retrieved thousands of gallons of fuel from the VBFP. Jeffery is a U.S. citizen who, until his arrest in connection with this case, resided in the Philippines. Jeffery’s trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 10, 2009.

The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Linick, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, and Fraud Section Trial Attorneys Andrew Gentin and Brigham Cannon. The investigation of this case was conducted by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI and members of the National Procurement Fraud Task Force and the International Contract Corruption Task Force (ICCTF).

The National Procurement Fraud Task Force, created in October 2006 by the Department of Justice, was designed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of procurement fraud associated with the increase in government contracting activity for national security and other government programs. The ICCTF is a joint law enforcement agency task force that seeks to detect, investigate and dismantle corruption and contract fraud resulting from U.S. Overseas Contingency Operations, including in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait.

Former Military Officer Pleads Guilty to Participating in Scheme to Steal Fuel Worth $39.6 Million from U.S. Army in Iraq | Chicago Press Release Services - Chicago's leading press release newswire service; professional press release services, press release distribution and newswire services.