Where is the "librul media" about this?

[SHRED]

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Where is the Republican 'outrage'??

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A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff
Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq reconstruction billions

By Patrick Cockburn in Sulaimaniyah, Northern Iraq
Monday, 16 February 2009

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

"I believe the real looting of Iraq after the invasion was by US officials and contractors, and not by people from the slums of Baghdad," said one US businessman active in Iraq since 2003.

In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in "pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money. He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering.

Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown. One of the few visible signs of government work on Baghdad's infrastructure is a tireless attention to planting palm trees and flowers in the centre strip between main roads. Those are then dug up and replanted a few months later.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/a-fraud-bigger-than-madoff-1622987.html

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[grannie4peace]

1. that would be a good thing to hold up in their face when they f*ck with obama!

[Ilsa]

2. A friend's coworker got called back to active duty to serve in Iraq

in a professional capacity. He discovered some stuff like this going on (military officers living waaay beyond their means) and tried to take it to his senior command officer. He got told to ignore it. From then on, until he left Iraq, Blackwater thugs were following him around, even in the fucking Green Zone.

[elizfeelinggreat]

3. "American authorities have started to investigate "

It's like music to my ears every time I hear those words now. :D

[gratuitous]

4. Don't look at that missing $125 billion!

There was, no kidding, a letter this morning in the daily fishwrap bitching about a $30 million expense in the stimulus bill. From the usual Republican/selfish enclave of the overprivileged, so no surprise there. But you'll look for a hell of a long time before you see similar - or any - treatment of the waste of 4,000 times that amount in Iraq.

[blogslut]

5. It was always about profiteering

The "deciders" went over there because they planned to turn the entire country in to a money machine for themselves. Unemployment for the Iraqi citizens is well over 60%. That's because all the reconstruction money is going to private, foreign entities.

Untold numbers of dead Iraqis because of greed and lies.

Karma cannot come quickly enough for these monsters.