Audit: U.S.-Led Occupation Squandered Aid

[cal04]

(In some cases, cash simply disappeared)

Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines. Thousands spent on a swimming pool that was never used. An elevator repaired so poorly that it crashed, killing people. A U.S. government audit found American-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq through undocumented spending and outright fraud.

In some cases, auditors recommend criminal charges be filed against the perpetrators. In others, it asks the U.S. ambassador to Iraq to recoup the money. Dryly written audit reports describe the Coalition Provisional Authority's offices in the south-central city of Hillah being awash in bricks of $100 bills taken from a central vault without documentation. It describes one agent who kept almost $700,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker and mentions a U.S. soldier who gambled away as much as $60,000 in reconstruction funds in the Philippines.

"Tens of millions of dollars in cash had gone in and out of the South-Central Region vault without any tracking of who deposited or withdrew the money, and why it was taken out," says a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is in the midst of a series of audits for the
Pentagonand State Department.

Much of the first audit reports deal with contracting in south-central Iraq, one of the country's least-hostile regions. Audits have yet to be released for the occupation authority's spending in the rest of Iraq. The audits offer a window into the chaotic U.S.-led occupation of Iraq of 2003-04, when inexperienced American officials — including workers from President Bush's election campaign — organized a cash-intensive "hearts and minds" mission to rebuild Iraq's devastated economy. But the corruption and incompetence documented in the reports reveal that much of the effort, however well-intentioned, was wasted.

more
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060129/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_squandered_aid

[lovuian]

1. This is stealing tens of millions of dollars from hardworking

Americans and Bush & company has used Iraq to steal it

No wonder the auditors can't find it...they were never suppose too

Some people have got very very rich of the Iraq war...

[shraby]

2. No wonder Bremer has been on t.v. lately dissing

the administration..trying to take the spotlight off himself.
This administration is crooked from top to bottom..as well as half the congress.

[phusion]

3. K&R n/t

[evworldeditor]

4. Larry Bienhart on C-Span Book TV ...

alleges that there is some $18 BILLION in unaccounted for money missing in Iraq.

His C-Span address this weekend can be listened to here in MP3 ....

http://www.evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?page=blogentry&authorid=12&blogid=174&archive=0

[libodem]

5. that must be why the press never reports all the 'good' things we

are doing over there. I personally am waiting for some pictures to document all the beautiful new little neighborhoods with cute single family homes and a neighborhood Albertsons and a McDonalds. I tried to pull up pictures of Iraq cities and towns and couldn't get any pictures. Must be top secret classified intel. Maybe I should go to the research forum and research there? I just want to see all the happy families.

[DainBramaged]

6. Gee what a wonderful report to release JUST before the SOTU

I am so pleased.:toast:


Let's see pictures of the tree-lined perfect neighborhoods the BFEE keeps telling us about, and how they are working so hard to rebuild both Afghanistan and Iraq to spread Democracy.

Then I'll show you how much money has been spread around to grease the wheels of the RNC and King Douche Bag's cronies.

[Terran1212]

7. Abramoff got them too?!

[Democrats_win]

8. More proof bu$h's plan is FUBAR.

[UrbScotty]

9. But you forget that Bush is a pro-life Christian!

:eyes:

[Daphne08]

10. Sen. Dorgan held a hearing last February (2005) on fraud in Iraq

...February 14, 2005, to be exact. The Republicans weren't interested and I don't think it got much media coverage. (C-Span did cover it because that's where I watched the hearing.)


PDF- http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/hearings/hearing19/transcript.pdf.

Cached - http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Qq2o8Ky4-K8J:democrats.senate.gov/dpc/hearings/hearing19/transcript.pdf+Sen+Dorgan+hearing+on+fraud+in+Iraq+money&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2


Just a couple of articles about it:

"IRAQ: Millions of Dollars Paid in Cold, Hard Cash to Some Defense Contractors"
http://www.corpwatch.org/print_article.php?id=11856


"Blind Oversight and Custer Battles"
http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/02/custer_battles.html

[meow2u3]

11. STP to America: YOU JUST FOUND OUT?!

I wonder where all that money went to....lemme guess....Halliburton...PNAC's secret bank accounts :wtf:

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. How much of it went through Halliburton?

[DainBramaged]

13. Story DISAPPEARED from MSNBC, was there this afternoon.

[DainBramaged]

14. JUST found it, top rated, but it took a few minutes

GE butt plugs don't want this front and center. Makes King George look bad.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10789266/

[leesa]

15. No. They STOLE it. The Bush regime stole our money.

[Amonester]

16. PLEASE, CALL, WRITE, COMPLAIN (this WAS your money) +

(if you've got kids: it WAS their money, plus compound interests for years and years to come, and their kids' money, plus compound interests too).

So CALL, WRITE, COMPLAIN en masse (like in "NEVER STOP"), otherwise the criminals WILL NOT STOP ROBBING all taxpayers for years and years to come, just like they've done for TOO LONG NOW, without any fear of being ever taken accountable for their endless (they think) criminal looting.

Apologies for the caps (EMPHASIS'S).

Kick & Recommend.

[oasis]

17. Dirty swine scum. They should have the book thrown at them.(eom)

[chicofaraby]

18. Who cares about impeachment?

I want indictments. Someone needs to go to jail over this embezzling of tax dollars.

[DainBramaged]

19. The culture of Corrupt Conservatives rears it ugly head again