(Daily Beast) Jacob Siegel - Between 2007 and 2009 the Iraqi government spent $85 million to purchase ADE-651 bomb detectors that are still carried today by police and soldiers manning checkpoints in Baghdad. The "magic wands" were sold by British businessman James McCormick, who repackaged a device designed to find golf balls. In 2010 McCormick was arrested by British authorities for fraud and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2013. The wands provide a visible symbol of Iraq's rampant corruption. They were bought despite warnings that they didn't work and kept in service after it was proved they didn't work.
2015-05-15 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive