Brit Convicted of Selling Fake Bomb Detectors, Many in Iraq Still Using Them

Oli Scarff/Getty Images(LONDON) -- An antenna on a black hinge was once a silly, useless gift for anyone trying to find lost golf balls. But British businessman Jim McCormick claimed the device could detect bombs, drugs, even ivory, turning a piece of plastic into a multi-million dollar business -- despite knowing it was ineffective. And for that, a British court ruled, he has blood on his hands.

McCormick, 57, slapped a new label on the $20 "Golfinder" and marketed it as an "Advanced Detecting Equipment," selling them for as much as $5,000 each to Iraqi officials, whom he bribed. He improved the design and sold 6,000 second-generation devices for as much as $40,000 each, amassing a fortune of more than $75 million, according to legal documents.

A British court Tuesday convicted McCormick of three counts of fraud, and now police vow to go after his riches, which include a $7 million British home formerly owned by Nicholas Cage, houses in Florida and Cyprus, and a $1 million yacht.

"McCormick is a fraudster who over the last 10 years has made, manufactured, and sold a device that is completely incapable of detecting explosives, drugs, or any other substance," Detective Superintendent Nigel Rock told reporters. "There are no working parts in that device. It is empty."

McCormick's main market was Iraq, where he traveled at the height of the sectarian war and sold $40 million worth of the devices, according to a BBC Newsnight investigation that led to a British government ban on its sale.

Iraqi police officials introduced "Mr. Jim" at press conferences, and officers fanned out across the city, holding the simple-looking antennas, believing they would detect bombs.

But the court ruled Tuesday McCormick knew all along that the devices couldn't even detect a golf ball, and that he put people at risk.

"McCormick for 10 years has sold this device in countries that are wracked with terrorism and wracked with explosions," said Rock. "He has paid no heed to the people who've stood on checkpoints and security posts believing this device worked."

Officials in Iraq have said they provided a false sense of security. In one case, according to the British media, a bomb that exploded in Baghdad crossed through 23 checkpoints where McCormick's fake bomb detector was being used.

"He has no conscience. He is morally bankrupt," Haneen Alwan, an Iraqi woman who needed 59 operations after being injured in a January 2009 bomb blast, told the BBC. Alwan’s unborn child was lost in the blast. "How could he sell them just for money and destroy other people's lives?"

McCormick's claims were extraordinary. He said his company, ATSC, had four laboratories working independently and that an employee "like Q in James Bond" had created the technology. He commissioned low-budget commercials in which a house and car blow up before the screen fills with the words "PREVENT IT." His commercials and literature claimed to detect explosives within 200 feet, even if they were deep underground or inside lead-lined rooms. As one expert witness who testified in the trial put it: the device's antenna "was no more a radio antenna than a 9-inch nail."

The devices were also sold to Pakistan and have been used outside of major American hotel chains in Karachi, as witnessed by this reporter.

"We will now pursue McCormick's wealth," Rock said, "and make sure crime does not pay."

Iraqi General Jihad al-Jabiri, who used to lead the Baghdad bomb squad and helped McCormick win his contract, is now serving a jail term for corruption.

Reporters cornered McCormick outside the courtroom. Asked how he could continue to defend his product, he said simply, "I'm still defending it. I still am."

Meanwhile, Iraqis are still using his device at checkpoints across Baghdad.
As part of the BBC investigation, a whistleblower described how he walked away from the company after confronting McCormick.

"I said, 'If this really doesn't work, I can't be any part of it,'" the whistleblower told the BBC. "He said, 'It does exactly what it's designed to.' I expected him to say detect explosives, ivory, gold. He never said that. He said, 'It makes money.'"

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Kerry Urges Iraqis to Stop Iranian Aid to Syria

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) -- Secretary of State John Kerry made his first visit to Iraq on Sunday as America's top envoy in an effort to convince leaders there that they must stop Iran from using Iraqi airspace to transport military assistance to Syria.

Washington has been specific with Baghdad that such allowances should cease. Yet despite assurances from Iraq, the transfer of Iranian arms and fighters continues with Baghdad apparently looking the other way.

Kerry's message to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is that the over flights must end, or at least, Iranian cargo needs to be examined before it is allowed to continue to Syria.

The U.S. government isn't buying the excuse that Iranian planes are only carrying "humanitarian" aid to Damascus. Tehran remains one of President Bashar al-Assad's few allies in the region.

Kerry's unannounced trip was also intended as an appeal to the Shiite government to stop marginalizing the Sunni majority.

The Shiites now wield most of the power in Iraq with both Sunnis and Kurds accusing al-Maliki of cutting them out of important decisions to determine Iraq's progress forward.

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Deadly Car Bomb Blast in Southern Iraq

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) -- Ten years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq to depose then-dictator Saddam Hussein, violence still plagues the country.

A car bomb explosion in the southern port city of Basra Sunday killed at least 10 people and wounded another 16 people, according to the head of the Basra provincial council security committee.

Basra is a Shiite-dominated city and the center of the region's vast oil production, which fuels the Iraqi economy.

During the war, which began on March 20, 2003 and ended in December 2011, Basra was occupied by British forces.  It was also among the first cities to see a foreign military presence end as the war began to wind down.

Since then, Basra, like much of the southern part of the country, has escaped most of the post-war violence that has been concentrated in central and northern Iraq.

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US Says Iraq Looking the Other Way as Iran Ships Weapons to Syria

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The U.S. is losing patience with Baghdad for allegedly permitting Iran to use its airspace for flights to Syria.

An unidentified American official complained that Iranians are supplying weapons to government forces in Syria as President Bashar al-Assad tries to hold onto power in a conflict that is now entering its third year.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the Obama administration last October that Iranian planes would be regularly searched but the official claimed that there have only been two searches since then that the U.S. knows of.

However, according to al-Maliki's government, there isn't much it can do to prevent the flyovers.  Meanwhile, two Iraqi lawmakers contend that the prime minister knows about the weapons transfer from Iran to Syria and chooses to do nothing about it.

The Shiite government in Iraq is fearful that if Sunni Muslims take over Syria, it will pose a threat to their regime, the same concern Iran has.

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Iranian Refugees in Iraq Killed by Mortar Attack

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) -- The Iraqi government is being pressed by U.S. and United Nations officials to conduct an investigation into Saturday's attack on a refugee camp on the outskirts of Baghdad that killed at least six Iranians and wounded dozens of other people.

At least 40 rockets and mortars were fired at Camp Liberty, where 3,000 members of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), are staying.

They had initially resided at Camp Ashraf, a former paramilitary camp of the 1980s near the Iranian border, but were relocated to Camp Liberty at Baghdad's insistence.

No one yet has claimed responsibility for the assault on Camp Liberty, a one-time base for American soldiers.

In Washington, the State Department condemned the "vicious and senseless terrorist attack" and demanded Iraq provide more protection for the Iranian refugees.

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Dozens Killed, Wounded in Attack on Police Compound in Northern Iraq

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) - At least 30 people were killed and dozens more wounded on Sunday when suicide bombers and gunmen launched a major attack in the semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq.

The assault on a police headquarters occurred in the ethnically-diverse city of Kirkuk.

According to witnesses, the militants used a car bomb and a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest at the compound's entrance so that other insurgents could get inside.

Due to the confusion at the scene, it wasn't immediately known how many police and militants were killed.  However, numerous victims were rushed to hospitals by ambulances and police cars.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack although suspicion fell on Sunni insurgents, who've been blamed for other assaults in Kirkuk.

Kurds want to incorporate the city into the region while meeting resistance from Arab and Turkmen residents, who prefer Kirkuk remain under Baghdad's control.

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Bombing in Northern Iraq Kills 35, Wounds 100

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) -- A bombing targeting a mosque in northern Iraq late Wednesday brought back painful memories of when sectarian tensions were at their worst in the country during the nine-year war.

Authorities in the town of Tuz Khurmato said a suicide bomber set off explosives during a funeral near a Shiite mosque, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 100 others.

Several Iraqi officials who attended the funeral service were among the casualties.

Tuz Khurmato is an ethically-diverse town so suspicion for the attack fell on Sunni insurgents allied with al Qaeda militants still operating in Iraq.

United Nations special envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, said in a statement, "Such attacks aim to heighten tensions in this particularly sensitive region and I call on all people of Iraq to resist vicious attempts to undermine their [drive] for peace and stability."

Since the U.S. withdrawal of military forces more than a year ago, the federal government in Baghdad has worked toward establishing national unity.

However, Sunnis and Kurds have accused Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of undermining this goal by marginalizing them.

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Nearly Two Dozen Shiites Killed by Car Bomb in Southern Iraq

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BAGHDAD) -- Iraq is still not immune from sectarian violence as evidenced by a deadly assault on Shiite pilgrims Thursday who were returning home from commemorating Arbaeen, the end of a 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, who died in a seventh century battle.

Police in the southern Iraqi town of Musayyib say the pilgrims were waiting at a bus depot when a car bomb detonated, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more.

While there were no claims of responsibility for the attack, suspicion fell on Sunni insurgents who remain allied with al Qaeda groups still operating in Iraq.

The bombing came after several days of other assaults on Shiites throughout Iraq that claimed the lives of at least 23 people.

Even ordinary Sunnis are becoming increasingly frustrated with the regime of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been accused of marginalizing Sunnis and Kurds.  In the western province of Anbar, Sunnis have held a week-long protests to show their displeasure with the government.

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Iraqi President to Be Treated for Stroke in Germany

Hadi Mizban-Pool/Getty Images(TEHRAN, Iran) -- Described in grave but stable condition, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will receive treatment in Germany for a stroke he suffered earlier this week.

The 79-year-old, who is from Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, was believed well enough to make the trip.  Talabani has previously received treatment abroad for other medical conditions, although some believe that his stroke may be more debilitating than the government is letting on.

Khudayr al-Khuzai, a Shiite who is one of Iraq's two vice presidents, will assume Talabani's responsibilities in his absence.

Although the role of president in Iraq is largely ceremonial, given that most of the power is concentrated in Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki's office, Talabani is nonetheless considered an influential figure because of his keen negotiating skills to smooth out differences between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

His affliction comes at a particularly perilous time in Iraq's still-fledgling democracy -- a year removed from the complete U.S. military withdrawal from the country.  Among other problems, the Shiite-dominated central government is in a dispute with Kurds about land and oil that both sides are laying claim to.

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Iran Alleges US Deploying Thousands of Troops to Iraq

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(TEHRAN, Iran) -- Iran's Press TV is claiming that the U.S. has secretly deployed 3,000 troops in Iraq, suggesting that it might have something to do with the ongoing conflict in Syria.

According to Press TV, American forces have been arriving in Iraq from Kuwait in multiple stages and are stationed at bases in Salahuddin and al-Anbar provinces.

Before this deployment, the U.S. only had 157 soldiers inside Iraq to protect the U.S. Embassy there as well as small units of Marines at other diplomatic missions, Press TV says.

The Iranian news organization says that the Pentagon plans is to send another 17,000 American troops to Iraq by the same route the earlier force took.

There has been no comment from Washington about the claims made in the Press TV report.

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