New Fraud Cases Point to Lapses in Iraq Projects

[lanlady]

Source: New York Times

March 13, 2010
New Fraud Cases Point to Lapses in Iraq Projects
By JAMES GLANZ
Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions — involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery — made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program.

Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewelry, or to pay off enormous casino debts.

Some suspects also tried to conceal foreign bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, the investigators said, while in other cases, cash was simply found stacked in home safes.

There have already been dozens of indictments and convictions for corruption since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the new cases seem to confirm what investigators have long speculated: that the chaos, weak oversight and wide use of cash payments in the reconstruction program in Iraq allowed many more Americans who took bribes or stole money to get off scot-free.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/world/middleeast/14reconstruct.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[No Elephants]

1. "Lapses?" "Lapses?" "Lapses?"

I guess one man's lapse is another's felony.

[Botany]

2. Fun fact who helped to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq?

Liz Cheney



From Wiki
The appointment followed publicized policy divisions between the Vice President's office and the State Department on Middle East policy. In that position,
she was given control of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, designed to "foster increased democracy and economic progress in a troubled region." The
program spent $29 million in 2002, increased to $129 million in the following year. Cheney's task was to channel money to pre-screened groups, some of
which were not identified publicly for fear of retaliations from extant governments they sought to undermine. For the budget year 2004, the project sought
$145 million.

[JDPriestly]

3. Political payback? Bribes? Just asking.

Oh, the the Cheneys are above that kind of stuff, aren't they? After all, Cheney was the Vice President of the United States. He couldn't have sunk so low, could he?

[Amonester]

4. NOthINg will ever happen to him because the cheneys R

above ALL laws

This sad reality has been proven over, and over, and over again.

All these crooks have to say is: "So?"