Shot USSA arms dealer ‘knew too much’

Dale Stoffel told top brass of endemic corruption before his hit-style murder

THE death of an American arms dealer in Iraq has led to one of the most intricate and far-reaching inquiries into corruption among US military officers in Iraq. Some suspect that he was killed because he was a whistleblower who knew too much.

When Dale Stoffel, 43, was gunned down on his way into Baghdad at the height of the insurgency in Iraq, his murder appeared all too predictable. He was an adventurer who seemed to have met his end at the hands of jihadists while engaged in one of the riskiest businesses on the planet.

However, it has emerged that Stoffel had complained to US authorities about a multi-million-dollar contracting office where two senior American officers had worked. The two officers are now under investigation.

Stoffel’s death in 2004, along with that of Joseph Wemple, 49, his friend and colleague, had all the hallmarks of an assassination. His black BMW was found with the bonnet smashed and windscreen shattered in a grim part of the Iraqi capital near the banks of the Tigris.

David Stoffel, his younger brother, who worked with him at his company Wye Oak Technology, said: “Joe [Wemple] was shot once through the eye at long distance while driving at 90mph. My brother was shot six times, in the front, the back, the shoulders and the head.”

Shortly afterwards, a rambling tape from an unknown jihadist group called him a “CIA shadow director” and “close friend of George Bush”. More