The first civil fraud trial of contractors accused of war profiteering in Iraq goes to trial tomorrow, according to the Washington Post.  The contractors, Scott Custer and Michael Battles, are accused of “overcharging the government millions of dollars by running inflated expense billings through a series of shell companies they created.” The trial is expected to highlight problems within the Coalition Provisional Authority that ruled Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government.

The New York Times reports that Robert Stein, a Coalition Provision Authority official in charge of distributing $82 million worth of contracts, pleaded guilty to bribery, money laundering, conspiracy, and a number of firearms felonies for his part in stealing millions of dollars from the Iraq reconstruction fund and funneling it into his pockets and the bank accounts of a contractor named Philip Bloom. Stein, an ex-felon with a previous fraud conviction, and Bloom have both been charged, along with their accomplices in the U.S. military, for stealing money intended to build police stations, a library, and a center to promote democracy among other things. This is the first prosecuted case of fraud in the Coalition Provisional Authority’s rule of Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion of the country.