Billions set aside for post-Saddam Iraq turns up in Lebanese bunker

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/billions-set-aside-for-post-saddam-iraq-turns-up-in-lebanese-bunker/



Stuart Bowen, who investigated corruption in Iraq, says US and Iraqi governments ignored appeals to recover money

Billions set aside for post-Saddam Iraq turns up in Lebanese bunker
Rory Carroll, The Guardian
12 Oct 2014

More than $1bn earmarked for the reconstruction of Iraq was stolen and spirited to a bunker in Lebanon as the American and Iraqi governments ignored appeals to recover the money, it has been claimed.

Stuart Bowen, a former special inspector general who investigated corruption and waste in Iraq, said the stash accounted for a significant chunk of the huge sums which vanished during the chaotic months following the 2003 US-led invasion.

Bowen’s team discovered that $1.2bn to $1.6bn was moved to a bunker in rural Lebanon for safe keeping – and then pleaded in vain for Baghdad and Washington to act, according to James Risen, a journalist who interviewed Bowen for a book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War , to be published this week.

~snip~

The disclosure of the bunker shines a light on one of the occupation’s murkier puzzles: the fate of pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills which the Bush administration loaded on to Air Force C-17 transport planes in order to prop up the occupation of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. About $12bn to $14bn was sent in the airlift and another $5bn via electronic transfer.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. That's pretty surprising.

Perhaps there's corruption of some sort in Iraq.

[brer cat]

2. You made me spew my coffee, Manny.

LOL