Posted on 02/01/2005 9:11:11 AM PST by concrete is my business
War brings chaos in its wake in which the most extraordinary items can go missing. No one ever found out what happened to the brand new tanks and equipment for an entire US armored division, which went missing when supposed to be shipped to Italy in 1943. Now an even more serious loss has occurred in the fog of conflict. Almost $9 billion of Iraqi oil revenues handled by the US-led Coalition Authority in Baghdad have gone apparently missing. Iraqis will rightly want to know what has happened to this immense sum slated for the rebuilding and reconstruction of their country.
A story broken yesterday by the BBC reveals that US government auditors have uncovered an astonishing series of incidents in which vast amounts of cash were bundled around the country with minimal security and supervision. On one hardly credible occasion, it is alleged that no less than $1.4 billion in cash, weighing some 14 tons, was transported in three helicopters to a bank in Iraq but that no deposit receipt was obtained. In another case, the key to a safe holding millions of dollars in cash was kept in an open back pack in the office. Even if these astonishingly lax procedures did not result in the theft of significant sums of money, the US auditors have come up with clear evidence that contractors involved in rebuilding projects submitted false invoices for fictitious work and that some coalition officials were demanding bribes of up to $300,000 in cash to award contracts.
These appalling examples of dishonesty and carelessness bordering on the criminal impugn the reputation of the many coalition and Iraqi officials. Unfortunately the figures are just so vast and the sloppiness so breath-taking that they cannot simply be written off as just one of those things. This however seems to be the attitude of former coalition head Paul Bremer who has claimed lamely that the auditors failed to understand the conditions in which his authority was operating. Mr. Bremer and his top officials are likely to face some very tough questions. In the end however the way in which the chaos was exploited by cheats and thieves comes down again to the absolute paucity of post-conflict planning by the US. It would seem that no systems were organized in advance of the invasion, even though it was known that once the Saddam regime was ousted, onerous organizational responsibilities would need to be shouldered by the occupation authorities.
If Washington maintains that they had in fact made plans, they must explain why those plans clearly worked so badly.
The Bush administration was quick to be highly critical of the UN-run oil for food program, from which, after it was established in 1996 the Saddam regime creamed off some $21 billion while UN officials and corrupt businessmen pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and phony invoices. Now the US stands itself accused of much the same dishonesty and maladministration. The proper course of action will be to pursue the latest allegations with vigor and speed.
This cannot be a scandal that will be painted out by long delay and weasel words. The money that has apparently gone missing belongs to the people of Iraq and at some point, when the full facts have been discovered, it must be repaid to them.
Is this true?
Disinformation spin sezs "US actually put this money into Special Operations Units beyond the public purview".
You can always tell when an Arab is lying. His lips move.
So the BBC story is false?
Ping
Kind of reminds me of this "Oil For Food" scandal I once heard about in the news.
American taxpayers will rightly want to know when the Iraqi people plan on paying back the 200 billion dollars Americans have already invested to free them from a madman who put them in plastic shredders for fun, and what they plan to do in the future to guarantee that America will still be spoken kindly of ten minutes after we vacate their sand-flea invested country.
Arab News... such a reliable, well trusted source. Hmm....
It's the BBC. Who can tell?
An unatributed editorial.
I don't know, that's why I asked...who can tell if anything, from any source, is true nowadays?
"The money that has apparently gone missing belongs to the people of Iraq..."
Actually, it seems more like it is the American taxpayers money that was given as a gift to the people of Iraq. The taxpayers will want to know who stole their money.
I thought it was money the US put in. I heard Bremer on Brit last night and, while I understood his answer, it wasn't totally satisfying to me. It was something to the effect of if generals and others are saying they need money for various things (including Iraqi civilians)they don't have time to go through a bunch of accounting processes, they just need to get the cash to them. That may well be true and understandable, but geez, couldn't they have just kept a simple Excel spreadsheet w who it went to, what for, and the amount?
For a region that is getting one hell of a lot of benefits (freedom being one of them) from this war, some of the Arab world is certainly ungrateful!
Spin, spin, spin
They are deflecting the UN scandal. Don't believe it.
Welcome to FR by the way. Hummm.
It is true that large sums of cash were moved inside Iraq to outside Iraq--by Sadaam himself. I'm sure his lackeys also moved as much as they could too.
Considering the arab propensity to lie through their teeth, especially about America, I would certainly doubt the truth of the implications of this report.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.