Money for Nothing (CPA corruption in Iraq)

[keta11]

SNIP
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The American-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority could well prove to be the most corrupt administration in history, almost certainly surpassing the widespread fraud of the much-maligned UN Oil for Food Program. At least $20 billion that belonged to the Iraqi people has been wasted, together with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Exactly how many billions of additional dollars were squandered, stolen, given away, or simply lost will never be known because the deliberate decision by the CPA not to meter oil exports means that no one will ever know how much revenue was generated during 2003 and 2004.

Some of the corruption grew out of the misguided neoconservative agenda for Iraq, which meant that a serious reconstruction effort came second to doling out the spoils to the war’s most fervent supporters. The CPA brought in scores of bright, young true believers who were nearly universally unqualified. Many were recruited through the Heritage Foundation website, where they had posted their résumés. They were paid six-figure salaries out of Iraqi funds, and most served in 90-day rotations before returning home with their war stories. One such volunteer was Simone Ledeen, daughter of leading neoconservative Michael Ledeen. Unable to communicate in Arabic and with no relevant experience or appropriate educational training, she nevertheless became a senior advisor for northern Iraq at the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad. Another was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s older brother Michael who, though utterly unqualified, was named director of private-sector development for all of Iraq.

The 15-month proconsulship of the CPA disbursed nearly $20 billion, two-thirds of it in cash, most of which came from the Development Fund for Iraq that had replaced the UN Oil for Food Program and from frozen and seized Iraqi assets. Most of the money was flown into Iraq on C-130s in huge plastic shrink-wrapped pallets holding 40 “cashpaks,” each cashpak having $1.6 million in $100 bills. Twelve billion dollars moved that way between May 2003 and June 2004, drawn from accounts administered by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The $100 bills weighed an estimated 363 tons.

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http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_24/print/coverprint.html

[fasttense]

1. They are just looting the treasury

"Paul Bremer, meanwhile, had a slush fund in cash of more than $600 million in his office."

Just think how hard you work for your pay. People line up for hours on the off chance of winning a lottery of a couple million and Bremer had $600,000,000 to do whatever he wanted to do. I barely make $30,000 a year and he keeps a $600,000,000 slush fund. I've had slush funds in the military and you can use them for just about anything. That is our tax dollars being thrown away.

What could you have done with $600,000,000?

[keta11]

2. Makes you wonder if he brought any of that

money home on that helicopter as he scurried out of there for as you know eh.. personal use!!!

[htuttle]

3. They moved 12 Billion dollars in cash to Iraq in 13 months

Twelve billion dollars in cash.

Let that roll off your tongue, and then realize that we have been witness to the single largest heist in the history of mankind.

Seriously -- this puts ALL of them to shame. Capone, Gotti, the Great Train Robbery, the Brinks heist -- all amateurs in comparison to the Bush Crime Family.

[pushycat]

5. Where do you get your info? Who authorized the move and

who received it? Did they keep records of where it went or was that not required?

If this is true, what did Congress do about it?

thanks in advance

[Amonester]

6. "It's very clear that... (R) quote! (Duh!)

Enron&Co fraud is microscopic compared to this (on the "Bloodshed" scale...)

Report Finds “Appalling Level of Fraud and Greed”
By William Fisher
Inter Press Service
June 29, 2005

~snip~
The DFI is the successor to the United Nations' oil-for-food programme. The multi-billion-dollar fund, which is composed of Iraqi oil revenue and other Iraqi assets, was run by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority until last year. That fund is separate from the 18 billion dollars that Congress earmarked in late 2003 for rebuilding Iraq. Previous reports by the inspector-general have faulted the CPA for failing to implement adequate controls over 8.8 billion dollars in DFI money.

The hearing before the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Government Reform was the first to focus on the DFI. Pressure to convene it has been led by the panel's Democrats, led by California's Henry Waxman, but the magnitude of the apparently mismanaged funds appeared to produce bipartisan shock. Both Republicans and Democrats appeared taken aback by the volume of cash sent to Iraq: nearly 12 billion dollars over the course of the U.S. occupation from March 2003 to June 2004. Rep. Christopher Shays, the Connecticut Republican chairman of the committee, criticised Pentagon witnesses for their handling of the money. ”It's very clear that à we didn't have systems in place to account” for the funds, he said.
~more~

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/dfi/2005/0629appalling.htm

The PNAC gangsters loot at free will... Who will stop (arrest) them?

[cassiepriam]

4. I thought the repugs had already emptied the US Treasury?

So now they are borrowing money from China to steal??