Dale Stoffel

Dale C. Stoffel (November 18, 1961 – December 8, 2004) was an American businessman and arms dealer who was involved with the American reconstruction efforts following the Iraq War.

After alerting the Pentagon to corruption and payment irregularities involving U.S. personnel in the Coalition Provisional Authority and with the Iraqi government, he was killed in an ambush in Taji, Iraq.

In 1985, Stoffel was recruited by the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to work on missile technology.

In his first year at ONI, his coworker, Jonathan Pollard was arrested for espionage.

Stoffel openly despised dishonesty and repeated for years that Pollard was a money grubber who used spying for Israel as a way out.

In 1987, he was part of the ONI team that proved that the USS Stark was hit by two missiles, which made it difficult for the Iraqis to claim a single accidentally fired missile was responsible.

During the 1990s, he worked on a top-secret program for the United States military, procuring Russian, Chinese, and other foreign-made weaponry for testing.

In this job, he used Eastern European contacts, especially in Ukraine and Bulgaria, allowing him to purchase surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft systems.

He later became a businessman and arms dealer.

His lifestyle mirrored that of a soldier of fortune and he was known to routinely carry an automatic weapon slung across his shoulder with a cigar in his mouth.

Among his duties, he was executive vice president of international development for Canonsburg-based CLI Corp.

He had a close relationship with a number of Washington lobbyists connected to Ahmed Chalabi.

After the Iraq War, Stoffel's company, Wye Oak Technology, received one of the first contracts issued by the new Iraqi Ministry of Defense to refurbish the country's Soviet-era T-55 tanks and artillery.

After General David Petraeus sent a July 20, 2004 letter to Iraqi Minister of Defense, Hazim al-Shaalan, pledging full support for Stoffel, the contract to Wye Oak was awarded and signed on August 16, 2004.

The contract was jointly administered by Wye Oak and another Stoffel-related company, CLI, Inc.

The first shipment of tanks arrived in Iraq in November and were used to supply Iraq's 1st Mechanized Brigade.

It is reported that Stoffel understood the risks involved with his job, but hoped that by aiding the Iraqi military, he could help U.S. troops return home sooner.

All told, his contracts with the Iraqi government were worth more than US$40 million.

On May 20, 2004, Stoffel was granted limited immunity from prosecution by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) in a whistleblower complaint.

He gave investigators information regarding U.S. corruption in the Iraqi reconstruction effort that implicated Colonel Anthony B. Bell, and SIGIR opened an investigation of him among others.

Col. Bell was later implicated in the bribery case of Maj. John Cockerham.

In his statement, Stoffel described thousands of dollars in payments being delivered to American contracting offices in pizza boxes, pizza delivery-style, and dead drop payoffs in paper sacks dropped off throughout the Green Zone.

Immediately after delivering the first batch of tanks in November 2004, Stoffel alerted the Pentagon to irregularities regarding the way his company was being compensated.

In a November 30, 2004 e-mail to a senior assistant of Petraeus, Stoffel stated, "If we proceed down the road we are currently on, there will be serious legal issues that will land us all in jail".

The Iraqi Ministry of Defence's method of payment gave rise to his suspicions that Iraqi officials were receiving kickbacks.

The Ministry was routing payments through Raymond Zayna, a French-Lebanese businessman with a company called General Investment Group, who claimed to be acting as an escrow agent under power of attorney, but later claimed to be a partner of Wye Oak.

Stoffel also alleged that the Ministry was forcing him to use preferred sub-contractors.

By November, Stoffel was owed $24.7 million from the Ministry.

His case was part of a larger trend involving middlemen and kickbacks in the Iraqi government and the rebuilding process.

Stoffel returned to the United States in November 2004.

He met with Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who wrote to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on December 3, 2004, on Stoffel's behalf, urging the Pentagon to address the issue of payment to Wye Oak Technology with the Iraqi Minister of Defense, Hazim al-Shaalan.

With an introduction made by Republican insider Pat Templeton, Stoffel met with Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. "Jack" Shaw to discuss payment to his company and his concerns of corruption in both the U.S. and Iraqi procurement efforts.

Shaw's office forwarded the complaint to the Department of the Army.

This would prove useless as Shaw, himself under investigation by the FBI for corruption related to Iraq reconstruction contracts, was fired on December 10, 2004 - two days after Stoffel's death.

Stoffel returned to Iraq on December 5, 2004.

A short time later, he and his business partner Joseph Wemple attended a meeting chaired by British Brig. Gen. David Clements, who was deputy commander of the mission to train Iraqi troops, at the Iraqi Ministry of Defence.

Present at the Meeting were Ziyad Cattan of the Iraqi MOD and Raymond Zayna, the Lebanese businessman.

After some discussion, Clements told the Iraqi MOD to provide Zayna with the authorization necessary to release the money.

Zayna agreed to make an immediate payment of $4.7 million to Stoffel on the condition that Stoffel provides detailed invoices.

Friends and colleagues report that Stoffel considered the problem solved at that time.