U.S. wasted billions in rebuilding Iraq

[UpInArms]

Source: MSNBC

KHAN BANI SAAD, Iraq — A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets

As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects.

<snip>

Even completed projects for the most part fell far short of original goals, according to an Associated Press review of hundreds of audits and investigations and visits to several sites. And the verdict is still out on whether the program reached its goal of generating Iraqi good will toward the United States instead of the insurgents.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38903955/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

---

and they call this "news"?

[tridim]

1. Someone got the money.

And that was the whole point.

[DJ13]

2. Yep

After the bad workmanship in building facilities for our own troops I would doubt that those empty structures are usable anyway.

Made for great profits though.

[MetaTrope]

82. Profits which vanished to a PO Box in the Bahamas

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710

[valerief]

3. Bingo!!!! +666 trillion!!!! Ditto for Afghanistan. nt

[Andy823]

4. Yep,

Thanks to George W. Bush and his greedy administration, billions went to their buddies and big donors. This is what we got from having republicans in charge of congress and Bush in the WH. We need to remind all americans of this because if they vote the republicans back in, it will happen again, sooner or later!

[IndianaGreen]

5. This is an ongoing problem, and it is happening in Afghanistan as well.

Iraq was a bipartisan war, as is the current escalation in Afghanistan!


President George W. Bush along with bipartisan leaders from the House and
Senate announced the Joint Resolution to authorize the use of the United States
Armed Forces against Iraq. "The statement of support from the Congress will show
to friend and enemy alike the resolve of the United States," President Bush said
during the announcement in the Rose Garden, Wednesday, October 2, 2002.
White House photo by Paul Morse.

[Raster]

18. This is the post to recommend a thousand times! The illegal and immoral invasion and

occupation of Iraq was AND IS a bipartisan effort. Both parties aided and abetted the Military/Industrial Complex in yet another campaign to fatten their wallets at the expense of the American taxpayer and the Iraqi citizen. Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11. There were NO WMD. The invasion of Iraq was planned long before cheney* and bush* stole the White House.

[populistdriven]

7. dems supported it

[jpak]

26. No they did not - they criticized it - nice try though

Bush and GOP cronies got these contracts - yup

:thumbsdown:

[IndianaGreen]

29. Explain the Obama Administration renewing Blackwater/Xe's contracts

and enlighten us as to how there is no collusion involved between the Obama Administration and the merchants of death.

[jpak]

39. Xe builds power and sewage treatment plants? Don't think so

Fail

[IndianaGreen]

41. but Halliburton does, and their contracts were also renewed

In fact, all the corporations making money out of Bush/Cheney's wars, are still making money out of Obama's wars (all 75 of them).

[jpak]

55. Yeah - Obama inherited a lot of shit from Bush/Cheney especially Rummy's FdUped "Contract Military"

Obama withdrew all combat brigades in Iraq this month.

The remaining troops will be out of Iraq next year.

I makes no sense financially or operationally to void all those contracts - which supply the troops with food, water, and fuel - and go through a bidding process that will last longer than the US occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan.

But that's OK - we all know Obama = Bush.

not

[IndianaGreen]

58. Those were no-bid contracts

a transfer of taxpayers money into the pockets of corporations such as the Halliburton subsidiary that built showers in which soldiers were electrocuted.

[alp227]

36. Also don't forget the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998

Passed by a supermajority in the House, unanimously in the Senate, and signed by Democratic president Bill Clinton.

Clinton stated:

We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.

And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.

and

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.

I wonder if Americans remember 1998 more for Monica Lewinsky than for the Iraq Liberation Act.

[jpak]

40. Wow - quite a leap from that to Bush-era Iraq construction scams

but we all know that Obama = Bush/GOP

not

[alp227]

49. For the record, some yea/nay highlights

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1998/roll482.xml

Democratic Yeas:
- Anna Eshoo (CA-14)
- Barney Frank (MA-4)
- Joseph Patrick Kennedy II (MA-8) -retired in 1999
- Patrick J. Kennedy (RI-1) -retiring this year
- Ed Markey (MA-7)
- David Obey (WI-7)
- Charles Rangel (NY-15) -now under ethics investigation
- Pete Stark (CA-13)
- and pretty much a majority of Dems in the House at the time

Democratic Nays:
- John Conyers (MI-15)
- Barbara Lee (CA-9)
- John Lewis (GA-5)
- Cynthia McKinney (GA-4) -left the House in 2003; returned for 2005-2007 session; ran for President as a Green in 2008
- Nancy Pelosi (CA-8) -now Speaker of the House
- Maxine Waters (CA-35) -now under ethics investigation
- and the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party; these all should be familiar names

Republican Nays:
- Roscoe Bartlett (MD-6) -has consisently gotten high conservative ratings by the American Conservative Union and National Journal
- Helen Chenoweth (ID-1) -known as a hardline conservative, she retired in 2001.
- Terry Everett (AL-2) -86% lifetime by ACU
- John Hostettler (IN-8) -Part of the "conservative class of 1994" and retired in 2007 and lost 2010 Republican primary for Evan Bayh's former Senate seat
- Ray LaHood (IL-18) -now Obama's Secretary of Transportation and has gotten a 69.85% from ACU
- Ron Paul (TX-14) -the most libertarian representative who's always opposed the Iraq War and advocates trimming defense; 82.4 from ACU
- Richard Pombo (CA-11) -lost the 2006 House election to Jerry McNerney (D). Running for the House in CA-19 even though he doesn't even live there! 97% from the ACU.
- James T. Walsh (NY-25) -retired in 2009; 65.71% from ACU lifetime (treading into Rockefeller territory??)

Interestingly, both the far-left and far-right members of Congress have voted no on the ILA.

[IndianaGreen]

48. DLC's neoliberals are the soulmates of neocons

Don't forget that our Democratic Congress passed similar resolutions in regards to Iran.

[daleanime]

66. Oh, they criticized it....

they just didn't try to stop it.:banghead:

[obxhead]

77. I respectfully recommend you go back and look at the vote count

on the Joint Resolution to authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces against Iraq. It had lots of Dem support.

In fact here's a wiki link that does have the the vote count about half way down on the left side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

[aquart]

17. And then we made sure not to tax their ill-gotten gains.

Unpatriotic war profiteer parasites bleeding the American treasury.

[xxqqqzme]

22. Exactly - that money

wasn't wasted. It was always intended to go where it did, into the pockets of cronies, misfits and trust funders, Who do they think kept the stock market propped up; what about all those millions flowing into re-election coffers. You can be certain saurove kept track of it all. It's now funding his wingnut candidate selection group.

[Bitwit1234]

24. HALLIBURTON AND its subsidies got the money which

was the only trickle down action we know worked...it trickled down into Cheney's pocket. You know those 43,000 shares he kept in Halliburton stock. Who said he could be discriminary and not vote for pay offs to Halliburton. WHY do you think he gave them all thos no bids contracts. Trickle trickle and floodying down to Cheney that's why. Bush wanted to be sure all his corporation buddies filled their pockets with taxpayer money. Else why would he over look 9 billion dollars in CASH that disappeared. He wanted it to, so he and his buddies could get their cut.

[zbdent]

54. a three word phrase comes to mind ...

it starts with the word "No", and ends with the word "Sherlock!"

[No Elephants]

71. Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater--friends of Dummya and Darth

[BrklynLiberal]

80. They got billions and billions...

Iraq was like a private money tree for friends and cronies of pres shit-for-brains

[shanti]

78. +1!

that's it in a nutshell and the reason we were in iraq. follow the money, ALWAYS.

[sakabatou]

6. No, really?

[lib2DaBone]

8. $436 Million a day.. 24/7/365... this is what it costs to maintain the wars..

.. yet we can't afford teachers.. we are throwing home owners into the street.. our roads and bridges are crumbling... and they are coming to steal our Social Security money so they can give it to Wall Street.

Hillary just hired 7,000 more Blackwater guards at $50 Million per year to protect the Embassy in Iraq.

And so it goes.. MSNBC doesn't notice.. Faux News cheers it on and advocated war and the American people..? They are busy praying to Glenn Beck... I mean God.. in Washington.

[zbdent]

56. I watched the "History Channel" talk about the Mississippi river, and how

the ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS is responsible for maintaining the waterways, with a BILLION dollars a year just spent on the Mississippi river, making sure it was cleared for commercial water traffic.

And how much was spent by the Republican-controlled House and Senate (since 1/3/1995) on re-enforcing the levees in New Orleans???

[Plucketeer]

9. Our school district is trimming corners closer and closer

Laying off workers and not replacing retiring teachers. Remaining teachers have had pay cuts levied against them. So I'm SO proud that we could pour blood and treasure into the thirsty, ingrate sands of Iraq and Afghanistan.

[The Wizard]

21. Government employees

don't usually bribe legislators like defense contractors bribe.

[JohnnyLib2]

10. Rec. Getting the word out is important, hindsight or not.

Failure to learn from history......

[Botany]

11. No bid cost plus contracts I wonder who thought up this way of doing things?

U.S. Embassy Iraq (aka White Elephant)


Billions if not trillions were skimmed off the top in organized crimes.

[JDPriestly]

31. The whole story is told in a book entitled The Halliburton Agenda

http://www.amazon.com/Halliburton-Agenda-Politics-Oil-Money/dp/0471638609

[MissDeeds]

37. I can't stand that photo

of Five Deferment Dick licking blood off his fingers with a evil glint in his eyes. He's the devil personified.

[LiberalLovinLug]

81. Here is the way that picture looks to me

What kind of mind can reap such violence, murder, and terrorism, both what he approved and the blowback that he set up for years to come, and still sleep at night without any guilt out of the millions he made from it all?

He is the most vile and despicable of creatures.


Researching google images for "bloody hands" to doctor the above image, I ran across this favorite moment of mine. Had to repost it. God bless this woman for her courage and determination to confront a war criminal with such a powerful statement.

[KG]

12. these wars were requested by the MIC. the repooks and dems were happy to comply.

[sam sarrha]

13. so much was money was hidden it is said it will end up costing over 2 Trillion dollar$ including the

cost of taking care of all the soldiers which they are doing an abysmal job of.

[SOS]

14. + $1.5 billion that vanished into the night...

In one notorious incident in April 2004, $1.5 billion in cash that had just been delivered by three Blackhawk helicopters was handed over to a courier in Erbil, in the Kurdish region, never to be seen again. Afterwards, no one was able to recall the courier’s name or provide a good description of him.

Paul Bremer had a slush fund in cash of more than $600 million in his office for which there was no paperwork. One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag. Three-quarters of a million dollars was stolen from an office safe, and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it “before the Iraqis take over.” Nearly $5 billion was shipped from New York in the last month of the CPA."

The waste and theft is one hell of alot more than $5 billion.

[nightrain]

15. enormous sinkhole for our hard-earned money. And Afghanistan is worse...

[DavidDvorkin]

16. Why, you know, it would have been cheaper not to destroy it in the first place!

[MrScorpio]

19. The money wasn't wasted, it was stolen

The war was a fraud perpetrated on a massive scale.

Contractors reaped the stolen loot and the taxpayers were left with the bill.


Let's all thank Bush and Cheney on the success of their racket.

[Submariner]

20. You can bet there are some beautiful McMansions and yachts

in Texas and Palm Beach owned by Halliburton,Bechtel, etc. Bush robbed the treasury for his red state buddies.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

74. ...or Dubai.

[OnyxCollie]

23. No bid contracts, understaffed/underqualified auditors,

Paul Bremer stealing billions in cash, and Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank, making sure the Iraq Development Fund trough is well stocked while denying support to other countries to combat "corruption".

[yellowwood]

25. Rebuilding?

What about all the billions wasted destroying Iraq?

[Botany]

27. That was shock & awe!

Why do you hate America?

[JHB]

28. Just because it isn't new doesn't mean it's not news

Without plenty of reminders of how badly things were done in Iraq, it gives the republicans a free pass to declare it a "sucess", and therefore (re)justify Bush and everything that was done under him.

[NOLALady]

30. Enough said.

"Christensen acknowledged that mistakes have been made. But he said steps have been taken to fix them, and the success of the program will depend ultimately on the Iraqis — who have complained that they were not consulted on projects to start with."

[Bluebear]

32. It's OK, we will just cut Social Security to pay for it.

Right, politicians?

[Odin2005]

33. "Waste" implies unintentional screw up, not, it was a give-away to the M-I Complex.

[Yeahyeah]

34. Hey.Maybe war is a racket.Nah.

[itsrobert]

35. All these projects were propaganda to say all the good we are doing over there.

How many of you have read letters from junior enlisted and junior officers saying that only the bad news is covered and not the new schools, hospital, roads, etc being built? Special ops started putting out a newspaper in Iraq pushing out all the projects that the US were doing. News stories done by special ops were picked up by AP and printed word for word. etc, etc.

[GoCubsGo]

38. Meanwhile, this country falls apart at the seams.

Wish we would have used that money to rebuild our own country.

[Vehl]

42. And now states are cutting essential services and education funding for want of a few billions

talk about having warped priorities!

[chill_wind]

68. Check it out. What less than $5 billion would buy the people

of Virginia as just one example. (4.6 billion, actually-- for proposed total Iraq and Afghanistan war spending by Virginians in FY2011):

893,911 People Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR

64,961 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR

608,620 Military Veterans Receiving VA Medical Care for One Year

467,782 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR

832,062 Students receiving Pell Grants of $5550 OR

1,614,101 Children Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR

609,256 Head Start Slots for Children for One Year OR

820,180 Households with Renewable Electricity - Solar Photovoltaic for One Year OR

2,187,148 Households with Renewable Electricity-Wind Power for One Year OR

75,441 Police or Sheriff's Patrol Officers for One Year OR

82,685 Firefighters for One Year

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs?location_type=1&state=51&program=707&tradeoff_item_item=999&submit_tradeoffs=Get+Trade+Off

Completely nauseating.

[Vehl]

69. exactly!

think of what could have happened if the money spent on IRaq war was spent on the nation?
The republicans are damn hypocrites

[ctwayne]

43. Where are the Indictments?

It is quite obvious that the military contractors under Bush and the Republicans wasted or robbed billions of taxpayers dollars. It is equally obvious that the Obama administration has done little to prosecute these crooks or to try and recover the money.

[pjt7]

44. Nation Building 101

Wreck 'em & rebuild 'em.

That is America.

[FarLeftFist]

45. "Conservatives" LOVE spending money. They put the 'moron' in oxymoron.

[L0oniX]

46. But we have to cut SS right now to save the economy.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

47. as you said;

this is news to whom?
:shrug:

[harun]

50. It was a scheme to loot the American tax payer and pay off War contractors.

Mission Accomplished indeed.

[quakerboy]

51. Wasted? this implies that it has come to a halt

which I sincerely doubt

[geckosfeet]

52. That subject line should be - 'US pays billions of taxpayer dollars to

corrupt contractors, corrupt military suppliers, murderous mercenaries and other personal relations to the republic party'.

[Vinca]

53. This story pretty much makes you want to puke.

The need in this country is so great and there shouldn't be a dime wasted. It's as if the giant pile of taxpayer dollars sent to Iraq was an attempt to atone for the crime of invading a country for no apparent reason. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the criminals should have been tried and should now be rotting in prison. That unfinished one in the middle of the desert would be a good spot for them.

[GreenTea]

57. Corporate wars for profits! It's why corporations never want wars to end.

Over 200 corporations were and ARE still reaping in billions of OUR tax dollars.

And why the the rich, the republicans and their corporations are always encouraging more wars for profit and imperialism (stealing other countries resources, installing American right-wing corporate backed leaders and exploiting cheap labor market).

Huge gigantic military budgets, again, corporations making billions in contracts form our tax dollars and crippling our social economic infrastructures with their deficits.....this is all republican deficit raising and it's only the rich and corporations raking in the trillions of dollars at the expense of the workers, middle-class and small business!

[muntrv]

59. Halliburton doesn't think so.

[Fire1]

60. OOPS! There it is!!! n/t

[Fearless]

61. Wasted... Is wasting... Same difference?? n/t

[sofa king]

62. You can't get rich on the government dime by actually DOING anything.

And getting a few hundred undeserving Americans filthy rich was the entire point of the operation.

Mission accomplished.

[Dj13Francis]

63. Immediately

upon reading this headline I was like, "Duh."... Is this news? Untold billions have been stolen. How bout' we hold those responsible accountable!

[jwirr]

64. It was called a stimulus plan for Halliburton and the other corporations

doing this kind of work. That of course is why we have these continual wars - so we can pass out the tax money to the military/industrial complex.

[slay]

65. We didn't waste it. All of Bush's corporate buddies got it - just like it was planned

this "war" was always a money making scheme. this "war" has cost us more than we'll probably ever know. :(

bunch of greedy asshole republicans got rich off of it though so everything is good right? :puke:

[daleo]

67. U.S. wasted trillions wrecking Iraq. n/t

[DailyGrind51]

70. It's sitting in Dubai at Halliburton headquarters!

[Soylent Brice]

72. bookmarked.

K&R

[rasputin1952]

73. Nothing surprising here....

Losing billions in cash, overpaid contractors giving substandard products and service, (which cost servicemembers lives). War profiteers, pushed forward by the bush administration that wore blinders for nearly a decade.

It has become the norm, and I'd fall over dead if anyone is held accountable.

[valerief]

75. They don't exactly waste billions. They steal billions. nt

[Bragi]

76. Understandable, I have a similar problem

Whenever I put my cash for the month onto skids and ship it abroad, I always end up losing some.

[BrklynLiberal]

79. Not to mention the immense pallets of CA$H that were sent there, and disappeared into limbo

We will probably NEVER know how much of our tax money was lost/wasted/stolen/misused/siphoned in Iraq
...

[pinniped]

83. It's not a waste if you were one of the many recipients of the 'free' money.

Just tell me where to meet the helo for my pallet full of American cash.

That amount is likely an underestimate....

You mean there's a chance it's not?

[newspeak]

84. so all of those who "rah, rah, rah" America-"go our team"

When are they going to get it, that Little Boots and his ilk, are not on your team. After syphoning our money into their great corporate con game--when are they going to get that while we have lost our decent jobs and our infrastructure goes to shite--that these cons could care less about americans or this country? They have more allegiance to the great global corporate market than to our country?

Blackwater-XE, Halliburton move headquarters to the ME while they're still getting our money-enough said!

[lovuian]

85. Iraq War destroyed this country

the American Empire is over

[Sulis]

86. US Defense Secretary arrives in Iraq. The war is not over?

US Defense Secretary arrives in Iraq. The war is not over?

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE68000X.htm

Hm, suddenly enough, I say! Believe me, our big bananas never visit Iraq for nothing moreover don’t make such statements contradictory to the presidents’ words. As fact, Gates has put us up to the fact that this war in Iraq is not over yet indeed and won’t be in the nearest future. Being the former military servant myself, I can say with certainty that here the US Defence Secretary’s visit to Iraq as well as all the words he said there mean much more that the Obama’s official address on the end of the Combat Mission in Iraq, which practically dies on the White House’s website. There’s nothing to rejoice at, I say! The war is not over. And I really doubt that before long I’ll indeed see my brother in the doorways here, in spite of the fact that the army he is serving in was to leave Iraq among the first.