MORE Iraqi Lies: Huge Reconstruction Costs Concealed From Congress

[kpete]

More Iraq War Lies: Auditors Reveal Huge Reconstruction Cost Overruns Concealed from Congress

In a classic “take out the trash” maneuver, a federal audit released late Friday reveals, as Jamie Glanz of the New York Times reports,http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/middleeast/30reconstruct.html?hp&ex=1154232000&en=8b11e105dbfa0141&ei=5094&partner=homepage

“The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress.

...............

Indeed, to say these findings were released at all is an overstatement, as they were buried in an audit of the Basra hospital project touted by Laura Bush and Condi Rice. The audit—which was conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress and the Pentagon—found that the cost of hospital project, which was contracted out to San Francisco-based multinational Bechtel for $50 million, could, as the Times reports, “rise as high as $169.5 million, even after accounting for at least $30 million pledged for medical equipment by a charitable organization.” The United States Agency for International Development, or AID, intentionally hid these cost overruns (as well as those for other projects) from Congress, by reclassifying them as overhead, or “indirect costs.” An AID contracting officer cited in the audit notes that the agency “did not report these costs so it could stay within the $50 million authorization.”

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/index.html

[Totallybushed]

1. Has there ever been a more

corrupt, incompetent, and/or misguided administration in the history of mankind??

[sandnsea]

2. Pentagon IG left in 2004

"WASHINGTON - The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating and reporting fraud and waste in Defense Department spending in Iraq quietly pulled out of the war zone a year ago - leaving what experts say are gaps in the oversight of how more than $140 billion is being spent...

"..The auditors were withdrawn in the fall of 2004 because other agencies were watching spending, too. But experts say those other agencies don't have the expertise, access and broad mandate that the inspector general has - and don't make their reports public.

That means that the bulk of money being spent in Iraq doesn't get public scrutiny, leaving the door open for possible waste, fraud and abuse, experts say..."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12927316.htm

[whistle]

3. More Halliburton looting on behalf of Dick Cheney....

[indepat]

4. Just the tip of a multi-hundred billion dollar iceberg: follow the money

[pinto]

5. This is a distant third, after the costs of the war in American and Iraqi

lives, but the rape of the American taxpayer - pulled off by the very civil servants entrusted with "oversight" and their subcontractors -is beyond the pale. And they did it "in full sight" oftentimes. That's what infuriates me.

[Swamp Rat]

6. They are not rebuilding anything that is not useful for the U.S. military

It is all a lie. They don't give a fuck about the Iraqi people - widespread use of depleted uranium alone proves that point.

Dick Cheney and his buddies are "using" our tax dollars so they can steal all the oil in the ME, while depopulating the region.

If they are not stopped soon, we will all live to regret what has happened in our name.