Bremer quizzed over cash for Iraq

BBC ^ | Wednesday, 7 February 2007, 12:25 GMT | BBC Staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Bremer quizzed over cash for Iraq

Four years after the invasion, Iraq remains poor and chaotic

The former head of the US-led civilian administration in Iraq has defended his decision to send billions of dollars in cash to Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.

Paul Bremer told a Congressional committee investigating allegations of waste and fraud that he had done his best to kick-start Iraq's economy.

The funds came from Iraqi oil revenue and previously frozen assets.

Much of the money went missing and critics say there was no system to track how it was used.

"Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone? But that is exactly what our government did," Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said during Tuesday's hearing.

As often in Iraq the ideal collided with the harsh realities on the ground Paul Bremer

He added that there was no way of knowing whether the cash - totalling $9bn and flown in pallets from the US - would end up in enemy hands.

Mr Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) before sovereignty was transferred to Iraq in June 2004, responded that he was trying to make the best of a bad situation.

He acknowledged that, ideally, modern financial systems for control of the Iraq funds should have been set up.

"But as often in Iraq the ideal collided with the harsh realities on the ground," he said.

He said the CPA chose not to delay paying salaries and pensions, as this would have been "demoralising and unfair" to millions of Iraqi families.

During the hearing, Mr Bremer said it was "difficult to give a full picture of the desperate situation in Iraq in May 2003".

The country, he told the panel, "was in chaos, socially, politically and economically".

The Democrats, who took control both houses of the US Congress last month, are overwhelmingly critical of the Bush administration's decision to go to war.

Congress is considering moves to block the president's plan to send 21,500 extra troops to Iraq.

[SolidWood]

Four years after the invasion, Iraq remains poor and chaotic

Just what does this caption want to tell us!? Was Iraq before the invasion less poor and chaotic? Oh I see... it's the BBC.

[Steve_Seattle]

If there's a bigger a**hole in DC than Waxman, I'd like to know who it is.

[WBL 1952]

Obrian on CNN said this as a big story involving the Pentagon sending billions of YOUR tax money in cash to Iraq without any accounting.

Obrian, and most of the looney left, keep forgetting to read that this was the IRAQI's MONEY, oil and frozen assets under Saddam, and if they lost it I would guess that is their problem.

[rellimpank]

---we can count on stuff like this dominating the MSM for the next year or so--the plan being that after election '08 there won't be so much as an elected Republican dogcatcher left in the USA---

[pierrem15]

They never mention that Iraq never had a functioning banking system: no checks, no direct deposit.

If you want to employ someone, you pay cash.

Is it wasteful and open to corruption? Sure.

But there was never any other way to hire anyone in Iraq.

The 'debate' (i.e., torrent of left-wing screeching) over Iraq is so far removed from the realit of Iraq that it sounds more and more like Alice in Wonderland.

Fantasy politics for adolescents who never grew up.

But Death waits patiently even for fools.

[Steve_Seattle]

If we HADN'T tried to send money to keep the economy going, to rebuild, they'd criticize THAT too. For these jackasses, it's all politics, all the time. They don't give a rip about what happens to the Iraqi people.

[Non-Sequitur]

On the other hand he does have a point. Just what kind of idiot DOES send 360 tons of cash to a war zone?

[Eagle Eye]

The Iraqis we're taking Visa, MC, AMEX, or checks...maybe we should have paid them with the little cardboard pogs that the troops get instead of coin change at the PX?

[Non-Sequitur]

The Iraqis we're taking Visa, MC, AMEX, or checks...maybe we should have paid them with the little cardboard pogs that the troops get instead of coin change at the PX?

Since when did the Iraqis start taking hundred dollar bills? Wouldn't local currency have been better and we prop it up through wire transfers and the like? Long and short of it is that Bremer doesn't know where it went. Neither does anyone else. One would think that as chaotic as the situation was some safeguard might have been appropriate.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I think cash is often used in war zones, to pay people off. I think there were millions taken to Afghanistan.


I suppose Gold would be used that way as well.

My question about the story is, is the 4 billion "lost", or are we pretty sure it was used to pay salaries, but we just didn't keep records.

[Eagle Eye]

They didn't have their own currency until June 2004.

[Non-Sequitur]

They didn't have their own currency until June 2004.

What did they use before the U.S. overthrew Saddam? Wampum?

[CPT Clay]

Boxer or Wexler would be my choice

[art_rocks]

Are they talking about the billons in social spending here?

[WhiteGuy]

The former head of the US-led civilian administration in Iraq has defended his decision to send billions of dollars in cash to Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.

Paul Bremer told a Congressional committee investigating allegations of waste and fraud, "Hey, it's not MY money, ha ha ha, stupid taxpayers, you're just jealous because I got to loot the treasury with no repercussions, and you didn't.""HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Woooooooooooo Hoooooooooooo!"

[Eagle Eye]

Those Dinars were rendered worthless when we toppled the government.

I don't think the Dinar had a favorable exchange rate against wampum.

[Non-Sequitur]

Those Dinars were rendered worthless when we toppled the government.

They were rendered worthless because we said they were. What if we said they were OK because we backed the new government?

[expatpat]

There's a bigger nostril named Waxman... oh, my mistake.

[Eagle Eye]

March 2003 there was no organic government in Iraq. No laws, no agencies, no nothing.

Anarchy. Seriously, anarchy. (I saw it firsthand)

No one, not the Iraqis nor their neighboring countries would work with the old Dinars.

(What if you had the option of being paid in Soviet Rubles?)

Tell me how a non-existant government can back a currency, ESPECIALLY if that currency carries the image of the deposed leader?

Old currency had Saddam all over it. New currency needed a government to back it. In the mean time the only acceptable currency was the dollar.

Considering that you really don't seem to have any info, knowledge or insight into this situation, I don't understand why you are so argumentative?