"Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?"

[Syrinx]

In short, some $8.8 billion of the $12 billion proved impossible to find. "Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?" asked Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee. "But that's exactly what our government did."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle/print

[Greeby]

1. Someone who wanted to steal it?

:think:

[The Vinyl Ripper]

2. Ding, ding, ding...

First out of the gate and we have a winner...

[Junkdrawer]

8. Or funnel it into Black Ops....

Buying off Iraqi pols...mercenaries...that sort of thing...

[pretzel4gore]

3. evidence of guilt? like the bible says

keep em in jail until they wexplain for every last CENT!
them=busheviks, rightwingers, born agin, ex cops/cia/kgb/kkk etc, men with greasy chins aka mr pig

[AllyCat]

4. I'm reading Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse and he talks about this

Contractors and um, gov't employees were allowed to take however much cash they wanted, as long as they returned with receipts. One guy took about $25M (yes, that's an M) and returned with like $3M in receipts. Another took about that much and returned with NO receipts. It was a freeforall, condoned and encouraged by Paul Bremer. That's where the $8.8B went and Congress won't do a damn thing about it. And they way Bremer set it all up with his 100 signing statements, neither can the Iraqis or anyone else. It just vanished, as did the agency that did it all. As Palast calls it, it was the "perfect getaway vehicle", since the whole organization is basically no longer in existence.

I'm sure it's still happening, but our Do Nothing Congress will let it go again. There goes the taxpayers money, right out the freakin' window. $8.8B would have paid for a lot of schoolin' here in Murka, but we don't want smart people here, do we?

[The Vinyl Ripper]

5. Smart people are harder to fool..

So no, we don't want no smart people here..

[JohnnyRingo]

6. Almost everything Buxh does sends cash out of our country

From globalization to war, every policy seems designed to do no more than export our dollars onto the world market.

I believe that while we run the printing presses 24 hours a day to keep up with Buxh's extreme deficit spending, we're faced with two choices. Send the newly minted cash out of the country, or let it pile up here.

Keeping all that surplus money here creates runaway inlation while shipping it to foreign countries devalues our dollar in the world market.

The Canadian dollar is now almost on equal terms with the Franklin. The Pound Sterling is about double the value, and the Euro is not far behind.

This gives an idea just how much we're spending without the means to back it up with real value. Thank goodness the Chinese manipulate their own currency value or we couldn't afford to buy poison toothpaste.

And they told us all those new bills in our pockets were to stem counterfitting.

[Old and In the Way]

7. It got recycled into the 2004 elections

This administration was careful to hire young, naive Republicans with solid credentials. Kids who wouldn't ask questions about where the $ was going. I have no doubts that the vast bulk of this money never touched the hands of Iraqi's....this occurred in the Spring of 2004. Stealing an election requiires lots of money to change hands and I suspect, in lieu of people contributing to Republican re-elections, a lot of this money was laundered/recycled through the fundraising gala's that were hosted by RNC business fronts.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

11. I agree and have always felt this to be true, and that this was the reason for the college Repubs

being hired to run the stock market, treasury etc.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Excellent catch of a phrase! nt

[lonestarnot]

10. Zactly what that bushitler did.

[Kansas Wyatt]

12. Who ever said, BushCo. & Republicans, Inc. had 1 collective "right mind?"