A well-told and disturbing tale from the Washington Monthly about the life and death of Dale Stoffel, an American arms contractor killed in Iraq last year after blowing the whistle on massive kick backs and corruption schemes he'd witnessed. Reporter Aram Roston, an acquaintance of Stoffel, writes that Stoffel's fatal experience in Iraq is a morality tale of the larger American project there:

What does become clear, from dozens of interviews with people who knew Stoffel and from documents that detail his work, is that Dale Stoffel's life—and death—was a version, in miniature, of the American occupation itself. His personality, with its mix of idealism, ideology, and self-interest, mirrored those of the senior administration staff and young officials who manned the American headquarters in Iraq. Stoffel and these administration officials shared a belief that they were clever enough, tough enough, and committed enough to impose their will on a dangerous land through the use of key Iraqi insiders. But, in the end, their Iraqi friends used them.

Go read, and check out the LA Times' March investigation of Stoffel's murder as well. As you might imagine, the Chalabi clan and a strikingly dishonest Lebanese middleman Raymond Zayna feature in the story of rampant corruption and violence. But while Roston establishes motive, whether either had a hand in the killing of Stoffel may not ever be determined, and as in so many other aspects of the Iraq chaos, justice may prove elusive.

Posted by Laura at June 6, 2005 04:56 PM