Senior US military officers have become targets of a federal corruption probe that is focused on a 125-billion-dollar effort to rebuild Iraq following its 2003 US-led invasion, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Citing senior government officials and court documents, the newspaper said on its website that last month, investigators had subpoenaed personal bank records of Colonel Anthony Bell, who was in charge of reconstruction contracting in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and is now retired from the Army.
According to the report, investigators are also examining the activities of Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Hirtle of the Air Force, who was a senior contracting officer in Baghdad in 2004.
It is not clear what specific evidence exists against the two men, and both deny any wrongdoing, The Times said. But officials say that several criminal cases over the past few years point to widespread corruption in the operation the men helped run, the paper noted.