Iraq - A massive web of corruption.

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/12139891.htm

Officials: Iraq defense agency squandered millions

By Hannah Allam

Knight Ridder News Service
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A massive web of corruption.

That's how coalition military officials describe Iraqi Defense Ministry supply contracts for faulty and outdated military equipment that squandered more than $300 million. The wasteful spending occurred under American-appointed supervisors for a year or longer, officials said.

Investigators are looking at purchases dating to the June 28, 2004, transfer of sovereignty from American administrator L. Paul Bremer III to the caretaker government of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Many Iraqi managers hired under Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority kept their jobs after the handover of the ministry, but after that the U.S. military no longer had the final say in awarding contracts.

However, Americans still ran the show behind the scenes, said several Iraqi bureaucrats involved with the ministry at the time. It's implausible to them that U.S. officials, who held daily briefings with Iraqi defense chiefs, didn't catch wind of the alleged wrongdoing.

"It seems hard to understand to an outsider that this stuff could go on under our noses and Americans wouldn't know anything about it. But, clearly, we didn't know everything," said a U.S. military official familiar with the events. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss an open investigation.

<</SNIP>>

[acmavm]

1. Bull, they not only knew, they were in on it.

.

[Talismom]

3. That's right! Sucking the country dry, day by day! n/t

[ClintonTyree]

2. I wonder which Arms Dealers..........

in the U.S. were the beneficiaries of this "mix-up". :eyes: I'm SURE it's just an innocent mistake! Yeah, and the Easter Bunny is going to pop out of my ass any minute now.

[bullimiami]

4. bushs' iraq. corrupt by design.