Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 101st officer handed out millions in Iraq

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 03:25:37 -0500

101st officer handed out millions in Iraq
Money seized from Saddam is going to rebuild country

Associated Press

OWENSBORO, Ky. &mdash; In Iraq, Capt. Harper Cook liked playing Robin
Hood.

Cook, an officer in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps for the
101st Airborne Division, handed out millions of dollars seized from Saddam
Hussein to Iraqi workers.

"I'd go down and draw the money out and put it in a backpack to give to the
contractors," said Cook, 33, who returned to Owensboro last week. "Once I
drew out $500,000 in cash."

Cook's division commander spent $50million of the ousted dictator's money
seized in Iraq and from bank accounts around the world. The money went to
build roads, repair schools, dig wells and make dozens of other
improvements over the past five months.

Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, and
other commanders were given control of the money for the Commander's
Emergency Response Program, Cook said.

"We put that money into the hands of military commanders to help the Iraqi
people," Cook said Friday.

During his deployment from September to February, Cook was Petraeus'
"pay officer" and handed out cash for any project the commander ordered.

"You can't look around Mosul without seeing something we did," Cook said.
"Each brigade commander had their own bag of money, too. We fixed
schools, built roads, dug wells for areas that had never had wells; we gave
rewards" for people turning in rocket-propelled grenades.

The largest payment, $350,000, went to a local supplier for hundreds of
hand-held Motorola radios for the Mosul police department, Cook said. Cook also
bought radios for other
cities and villages.

Cook stretched the money as best he could, but even so the markup for most items
was 15percent to
25percent. Bids were taken for services or items costing more than $10,000, he
said.

In his position, Cook is responsible for prosecuting soldiers who commit crimes
while enlisted.

He was at one time the Army's lead prosecutor against Sgt. Hasan Akbar, who is
accused of killing two
other soldiers after throwing grenades into the command center of the 101st's
1st Brigade at Camp
Pennsylvania in Kuwait last March.

Cook was responsible for pleading the government's case at Akbar's Article 32
hearing, the military's
version of a grand jury hearing.

The case against Akbar is pending.

http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/02/15ky/met-4-money02150-3556.html

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