KRUGMAN: Accounting and Accountability

[dw]

By Paul Krugman in today's New York Times

...snip

When KPMG auditors hired by an international advisory board finally got to work, they found that no effort had been made to keep an accurate record of oil sales, and that accounting for the $20 billion Development Fund for Iraq consisted of "spreadsheets and pivot tables maintained by a single accountant."

The auditors also faced a lack of cooperation. They were denied access to Iraqi ministries, which were reputed to be the locus of epic corruption on the part of Iraqis with connections to the occupiers. They were also denied access to reports concerning what they delicately describe as "sole-source contracts."

Translation: they were stonewalled when they tried to find out what Halliburton did with $1.4 billion.

By obstructing international auditors, by the way, the U.S. wasn't just fueling suspicion about the misappropriation of Iraqi oil money - it was also breaking its word. After Saddam's fall, the U.N. gave the U.S. the right to disburse Iraqi oil-for-food revenues, but only on the condition that this be accompanied by international auditing and oversight.

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[izzie]

1. Well yar and it will be years trying to find this money.

And as with the saving and loan the tax payers will pay for it.

[punpirate]

2. And is there any question why...

... the Bushies have to stay in power, at any cost? Not only does the gravy train stop with someone else in the White House, but they might be asked some very unpleasant questions.

[Mike Niendorff]

3. No, "the U.S." wasn't breaking its word:

> the U.S. wasn't just fueling suspicion about the misappropriation of
> Iraqi oil money - it was also breaking its word.

With all due respect to Mr. Krugman (an excellent columnist, by any standard), it's time we stopped assigning collective responsibility to the nation for the actions of this rogue regime. "The U.S." isn't doing any of this. We didn't elect Mr. Bush and his cronies. He is not operating in *any* representative capacity, nor *can* he.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are the ones doing these things, by means of a military they have no legitimate right to command. We, the people of the United States of America, are not even part of the equation, except to the degree that Mr. Bush is charging the bills for his behavior to our children and our grandchildren.

Sorry, end of rant. Just annoys me when I hear this kind of "Bush is the nation" language from people (like Krugman) who clearly should know better.


MDN

[allemand]

4. You must be joking

Krugman "assigning collective responsibility to the nation"?? In an article entitled "Accounting and Accountability" which begins with:

"Accountability is important. The nation will be ill served if officials who didn't do all they could to prevent a terrorist attack, or led the nation into an unnecessary war, manage to shift the blame to someone else."

and ends with the question:

"Will anyone be held accountable?"

The context makes it absolutely clear that by "U.S." Krugman means the U.S. government. Or what do you think "U.N." in the same sentence is supposed to mean: the entire humanity...?

Next time, please make sure you read the whole column first.

[Mike Niendorff]

8. No, I'm not joking. Read what I wrote.

My point was a narrow linguistic one, but one that I feel is important nonetheless.

It's like when I hear people talking about how "we" invaded Iraq, or how "we" refused to sign onto the Kyoto accord. The words we use matter. They convey meaning, both obvious and subtle. When speaking of actions by the Bush regime, we need to take care not to ascribe them to the nation as a whole. Not even accidentally. Not even by linguistic slop.

Language that contains these sorts of subtle, almost unconscious concessions to our enemies is one of the worst habits of progressive writers, imho, and my point was simply to draw attention to it. That (rather limited) point was really all I was trying to get at.


MDN

[shockingelk]

5. facinating oil tidbit from 9/11 commission report

Krugman: When a foreign power takes control of an oil-rich nation's resources, it inevitably faces suspicion about it

9/11 Commission Report, p. 335:
At the September 17 <2001> NSC meeting, there was some further discussion of "phase two" of the war on terrorism. President Bush ordered the Defense Department to be ready to deal with Iraq if Baghdad acted against U.S. interests, with plans to include possibly occupying Iraqi oil fields.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2047735

edit: added Krugman excerpt

[tom_paine]

7. Can you imagine what is in the Cheney Energy Report?

I have no doubt smoking guns out the ass. Prewar, pre-9/11 dividing up Iraqi oli fields, to say the least.

In a Free Country, we would have seen this.

But Imperial Amerika is not free. It is a Totalityarian "Managed Democracy" pretending for the benfit of it's Imperial Subjects (like Roman before it) that THEY (we) are free when in fact they (we) are not.

And when the Busheviks have finished securing their Unchecked Power, we will all understand what we are and where we live.

[struggle4progress]

6. This is why Safire&co are so noisily trying to bash ...

... the UN and Kofi about an "oil-for-food" scandal: they need a diversion from the CPA's corruption.