2 murders and missing cash in Iraq

[Barrett808]

2 murders and missing cash in Iraq
By James Glanz The New York Times

The killing of Fern Holland, a young human rights worker from Oklahoma, remains as unsolved and mysterious as it was when her body was found riddled with bullets on a desolate stretch of road near one of Iraq's southern holy cities in March 2004.

Now, federal investigators in the United States are grappling with a second mystery: what happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash issued by U.S. government authorities to Holland and Robert Zangas, a press officer who died in the same incident, in the days before their deaths?

Financial records from the American- run compound in Hilla, the south-central Iraqi city where Holland and Zangas were based, have disclosed that much or all of that money - issued for things like programs to train Iraqis in the workings of democratic governance and the building of women's rights centers that Holland was establishing in Iraq - was either missing or improperly accounted for immediately after their deaths.

Investigators are trying to determine whether that money was stolen as part of the web of bribery, kickbacks, theft and conspiracy that they have laid out in a series of indictments and court papers describing corruption by U.S. officials in Hilla in 2003 and 2004, according to officials involved in the inquiry. That corruption case, centered on reconstruction efforts, has led to four arrests, and more are expected.

(more)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/08/news/holland.php

[pinniped]

1. The corruption leads back to the top.

.

[struggle4progress]

2. Uh, isn't it 100,000 murders and $8 billion missing?

[KoKo]

3. Strange story. Also the part about those being investigated..

Why would one of them be buying rocket launchers and grenades in the US with some of the stolen money. Who were they going to give them to? :shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

4. This is so strange. You have to wonder why we haven't heard more.

Fern Holland, and Robert Zangas

http://fernholland.newsok.com/cgi-bin/open_article?ID=1195984&pic=none&TP=getfernemails
http://graphics.stltoday.com/online/iraq/bobzangas.html

[xchrom]

5. wow! this is tangled.

more stolen money.

there are newly rich folk out there -- rich at the expense of taxpayyers and an illegal war.

[ShortnFiery]

6. Corporate Rule and War Profiteering Thrives thanks to * Administration n/t

[xchrom]

7. short, sweet and to the point.