Iraq fraud case focuses on interpreting spreadsheet

Quad City Times

An Excel spreadsheet that crunched the numbers for three fuel tanker bids in Kuwait in the days preceding the invasion of Iraq either showed a simple mistake or a purposeful manipulation that led to the project costing eight times more than estimated, testimony Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Rock Island showed.

For attorneys of Jeff Mazon, accused of rigging the bid and facing trial for fraud, a spreadsheet deciphered Wednesday shows that the overworked contract manager at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait made a simple mistake. The mistake, the say, should have been caught by three people who signed off on the contract but was not.

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Mazon was responsible for issuing subcontracts under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. The contract, managed by a command on Arsenal Island and awarded to KBR, provides everything from laundry service to food for the U.S. military.

Mazon is accused of inflating the bid to benefit LaNouvelle.

When Mazon left KBR in June 2003, Ali Hijazi, a LaNouvelle manager, gave him a $1 million check, “an award for Mazon’s favorable treatment of LaNouvelle,” prosecutors say. Hijazi also is charged in connection with the case. He remains at large in Kuwait.